Those of you who's played or run tabletop RPGs will be familiar with the problems imposed a scattered party.
This isn't about the issues which rise from splitting up after the worst of it kicks in. We have multiple characters involved in this story. When it comes to current events, involved in this fight. And they're scattered all over the palace. As such, I had to use this chapter to establish where a lot of them are (minus Cerea & Emery, because we got that in the previous section) and what their mindset is. And that? Was over 6700 words, when the base behind the necessity was 'And the rook goes here.'
I'm genuinely not sure whether I just paused to properly establish both atmosphere and starting positions, or just used an entire chapter on something which wasn't strictly necessary.
And when the next chapter begins? We'll just about be at mosaic novel, because they're all gonna be moving. Time for the POV pass-off. Gather your partners, here we go, time for the third-person rodeo...
...maybe I'd better sleep on that.
All I did was think about it and I'm already exhausted.