Behind the character: Alaire Sencler

The last Behind the Character post I wrote was about Esmour, which surprisingly received a lot of views.  I told you I'd have something special to share again, and I decided it was time to talk about the man we know and love.  Perhaps he needs no introduction, but he certainly deserves to have his story told.  I realize I've talked about Alaire several -perhaps more than several?- times in the past, but I'm going to focus on some aspects I haven't mentioned before.

Alaire is the man who has lived for many years without a family.  He lost the people most important to him, and we can see in Cursed With Power how this has changed him over the years.  Despite that, Alaire is the hero of the story in more ways than might be noticeable on paper.

You've most likely heard me tell the story of how Alaire "saved" Cursed With Power.  In the book Celestria views him as her "guardian angel," but for many reasons he was also a guardian angel to me during the time I was writing the book.  Again, I'm not going to focus on this too much, but I will stress again that Alaire was not originally in the book during the first draft.  Thankfully he became a main character before publication, and for that I am very pleased.

Perhaps one of my favorites scenes to write that included him was about the burning church.  If you haven't read the book I won't ruin anything for you, but the prologue is the first time readers are introduced to Alaire.  Him and Celestria are trapped in a burning church together, and as they're making their way out he shouts, "Go ahead, I'm right behind you."  The prologue was written and rewritten more times than I can count or remember for that matter, but as it is today is something I think that fully illustrates Celestria and Alaire's relationship.  That single line alone where he is reassuring Celestria that he'll be right behind her is exactly the way I've always envisioned him to be.  And wasn't he always right behind her in some way or another?

Recently with the upcoming sequel I've been working with a lot of new characters and trying to get a feel for Leal.  I'd have to say out of all of the Dark magicians I've dealt with so far, Alaire is the one who openly talks about not only the darkness in his magic but also the darkness he feels has consumed him in the past.

For obvious reasons I can't reveal what is to become of Alaire, but rest assured that I have a long history of notes on the Sencler family and history and no matter what there is much more to be told.  However, I can say that Alaire is present in the first part of the book since it takes place a year before the men meet Celestria.  We'll finally be able to see what work Alaire did for Esmour and also the kind of man he was before he met Celestria.  (He mentions several times that before he met her he was a different kind of person, and he wasn't exactly proud of his past.)

 

The sequel is almost finished and spring is right around the corner.  What do you think: Will you still love Alaire once you know his story?

Lindsey R. Sablowski