Having just read the interview in the link above, I stand by my comments below.

1. If this is going to be a 3 books series, the pacing isn't going to work. He still has to get kicked out of school. Kill the king, resolve the plot at the Inn, that's just the main plotlines. At his current pace, there is not way this will be done in one book. In a three book series, I would have expected this to end with his explusion from school, leaving the last book to deal with life after the university and whatever resolution needs to happen with modern day Kvote. If the trial was removed to shorten the book, I expect he will have to use this approach in book 3 often.

2. While I get the Denna thing is central to his life (I understand that he's still a teenager), I have three teenage daughters, and I have very little tolerance for teenage angst and drama, and I personally started skimming those sections. It is a stagnant relationship at this point and the most boring to read about in the book.