Afterword
WE’VE ARRIVED at the final volume at last. I truly can’t believe we were able to put out eight volumes! It’s all thanks to my publishers and to everyone who has read these stories. Thank you so much. As I mentioned in the fifth volume’s afterword, sometimes when I write, I’m frustrated with my lacking power of expression. All of the kind letters of support you’ve sent really helped me in those moments. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you once again.
Merellis’s saga became a prequel of sorts for Accomplishments of the Duke’s Daughter. When I was writing Iris’s story, I always made it clear that Merellis’s character was both the perfect duchess and a very strong woman. Now you can see that her strength not only meant strength in combat but also strength of will.
Thomas Edison famously said, “Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” It means that if you don’t have inspiration, it doesn’t matter how hard you work. But it also means that if you don’t work hard, inspiration means nothing.
Merellis was a very industrious person. She inherited her strength from her father and her beauty from her mother. Even so, she wasn’t satisfied with what she had. She didn’t go down the path everyone told her to; instead, she listened to her heart and, with a strong will, chose her own path. If something stood in her way, she cut through it. To Iris, her mother seemed larger than life.
By the way, in the main story of Accomplishments of the Duke’s Daughter, when Merellis and Iris met in the tower, she told her daughter that she once wanted to become a soldier, but after that, I never touched on her past. That was when I thought it would be nice to reveal her strength and have her be a woman of many talents.
It made sense not to expand on her backstory there since it was Iris’s tale, but as a writer, I was so thrilled and grateful to have the opportunity to write about Merellis. It was very important for me to show how past events tied into the future, so there were some dark moments. However, those gave even more meaning to Iris’s path. Conversely, since Merellis had such bitter experiences yet still blazed her own way, she believed that children should choose their own futures despite what their parents say, and if they did, they would learn everything they needed. As a mother, she wanted to indulge her children, especially since they had been born into a time of peace. That was how both Iris and Berne were how they came to be in the first volume.
I really am full of gratitude that I was able to complete so many volumes of Accomplishments of the Duke’s Daughter. I wrote what I wanted to, and I had the great fortune of having you all read it. Nothing else could make me happier. Thank you so much!
—REIA