You made it! You just read 50 chapters (plus the prologue).

I've never written a book this long before.

Okay... I kind of lied to you. Larkwing didn't actually die (only almost). I'm not crazy. Why should I kill off the main character randomly and for no reason? I bet most of you knew that she would come back in some way, right?

However, there was a reason for Lark's "fake death". It was the only way for me to reveal she's a chimera AND to explain why she just didn't turn into a complete, mindless Shadowless like it was shown with Palestar. At first I wanted her to have such an immense willpower that she can just resist the shadowlessness. But I guess not even Lark has enough mental strength to do this, and I didn't want her to be overpowered.

A chimera happens when two embryos fuse together in the womb, resulting in one kitten with two different sets of DNA. (I have no evidence to support this hypothesis, but I suspect some people think "chimera" means "cat with split-coloured face" and not "fused embryos". It makes me outright mad when people see a tortie or a calico with a split-coloured face and immediately scream, "THAT'S A VERY RARE CHIMERA CAT 😱" but you can only know this if you do genetic testing) In this world, it also means that there are two souls in a cat, albeit one of them is very "underdeveloped".

It was just pure luck that the shadowlessness (I need a better word for it) infected the soul fragment of Lark's sibling she fused with instead of her own soul. And she was probably wearing plot armour as well.

That being said, I hope you don't see her as a Moonpaw copy. A tri-coloured she-cat with heterochromia AND chimerism? When I thought of the idea, I was really worried that people might think I have no own ideas and steal a canon character's design. But Lark has been a tri-coloured cat since 2020. Her eye colours are a newer trait, though, but they're from, I guess 2023, when I started to publish the first book.

I'm really grateful for all the votes and comments, and I hope more people will find this series soon. (But HOW do you even get people to read all your books without seeming pushy?)

I decided that I will leave out the questions this time because I want to make a Q&A and I hope enough people participate 😊. Here are the rules. Please read them all before asking!

1) Comment your questions HERE ➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️
You may only ask 3 questions at max. They don't have to be only about this book, but the whole series so far. They can be about ANYTHING, but I will not spoiler you for the next books.

2) I will reply to your comment with a 💗 if I'm going to answer your question. I will tag you as soon as I have the answers ready.

3) Please make sure that you do not ask the same question more than once.

I'll create a new chapter for the questions so that this one doesn't get too long.

Thank you for reading and see you in Withering Petals!

AmberAutumnFlowers 🧡🍁🌼

Bonus:

The most recent portrait of Larkwing. She got a new characteristic, so I figured that it would be helpful for you to know how she looks now.

The outline here was traced from a photo (link to it in the comments).

Yes, I do know that tracing is bad and that I should not do it. You don't have to tell me that. I do sometimes try to draw on my own with help of guides, but I still need some time and practise before I dare to publish them.

Larkwing is so cute, I want to cuddle her 🫶

Another bonus:

I just have to show you this. I found this in one of my ancient writing pads. All the pages in it are dated to the second half of 2020, which is how I figured out that the story, or at least the idea for a WaCa series, has existed since 2020.

And I had the brilliant idea to make a short comic. Obviously, this didn't work because of my non-existent cat drawing skills.

Look at this "masterpiece" 🥲

It depicts the first few paragraphs of the first chapter in Shadows of Truth when Lark, Amber, Dash and Leaf go to Willowpaw and annoy him.

Back then I really thought this was a good idea 👽. They look like the cats in medieval drawings. Not to mention that I forgot to give Larkkit her ginger spots in the last panel.

On the following page, you will find the bonus chapter... —>