The Smith

Hey folks! So today, I thought we would talk about the Smith. Now, for those of you who have spotted her in The Celts, she appears in Edinburgh, and it’s a bit of an Easter egg, I must admit, as she’s not looking for Lani, so a bit of a spoiler. And I should add again that most of these character profiles are going to have some spoilers, so always remember, if you haven’t read all the books, especially in the Phoenix Saga, then be aware some things might be revealed that you don’t want to know just yet.
So, the Smith technically first showed up in The Crossbow Chronicles, in Companions in the Vanguard. Now, I wrote a shorter version of The Vanguard a long time ago, and for those of you who may have noticed, I have extended a number of the books to fit more into the YA genre, as my publisher said some of them, although they could get away with being novellas, were a little bit short. Apparently “short and brilliant” still counts as “short.”
So in The Vanguard books, she first appears, and there’s a scene a bit like in the first book with Lani and the Prince, where the Smith takes Calvin into the room of swords. A mirror there, and of course there’s a bit of an age gap and a difference between the two characters, which I enjoyed playing with.
I created the Smith, to be honest, mostly because I couldn’t imagine any woman being able to handle Perak, the Spring Man of Prague. And I just felt he deserved to have love, a partner, and someone who actually appreciated him instead of just surviving him. I did think about possibly using other Vanguard agents, but when I came up with the idea of how Calvin would get his sword, his blade, I didn’t want to go down the same route as Veles & Lani and so on. I wanted something a bit different.
Also, and here comes a spoiler alert, a big one, one of the reasons Symphony was taken out of the equation is because she’s quite a powerful weapon for Calvin to wield and use, and I wanted to remove that safety net. As a Chosen, I wanted to introduce his God-given weapon, which is of course supposed to be Solstice Edge. And I needed a character to make that happen.
And of course, a lot of you know I like to have this mantra of heart, humour, and struggle. Going through Companions the second time, working through my drafts, I wanted to inject a bit more humour and more heart into the stories. I feel like I’ve got the fight scenes and action down, people get hit, things explode, everyone’s happy, but I wanted to progress the characters a bit more. And I thought, perfect, a different type of personality, and one who would probably appreciate and admire the Spring Man instead of questioning all his life choices.
So yeah, when he goes into the final battle and smacks his head, I thought thats the time she can come along and nurse him back to health. Very convenient, very heroic, and absolutely not planned at all.
And then, as I said at the beginning, she’s also part of the Phoenix Saga, where she makes, well, a bit of a mistake. A fairly large one. You could maybe say she’s a time-travelling, space-travelling, weapons master Smith, which is already a lot to put on a business card. I hope to progress her and the Spring Man’s story as things go on.
So yeah, there you go, that’s the Smith for you. And I hope you have a great day. Bye bye!