Honor's Gauntlet (1.1)

(Thanks for stopping by! This is the first part of the first chapter to my new novel, Honor's Gauntlet. This'll all be rewritten one day, so I'm not too interested in specific comments on commas and the like, just the "generally general" stuff, to quote Snoink. The characters, the dialogue, if you're interested or not and why, etc. Many thanks for reading!)

1

Through the wall, the High Prince of Varneok, currently besieged with two problems, could hear the party ending. The musicians were playing in a lackluster fashion, for one thing, and the click of dancing feet was diminishing to nothing, for a second. Third, the chatter from those resting had all but disappeared. Most importantly, he could no longer hear the bubbling laugh of the lady of the estate.

That last observation consoled him to an ungracious degree. Lady Devaya was his first problem and the first problem had begat the second. As she was hosting the party in honor of his return, and he was in fact the highest member of the nobility she had been bold enough to invite to this welcome-home party in his name, declining the opportunity to ask her to dance would have been terribly humiliating for her.

Humiliating her in itself did not bother Prince Zygrei much. In his opinion, she could do with some humbling. But humiliating her would have been unbecoming of him, an emperor’s son, and would have further drawn attention to his acceptance of her overreaching invitation in the first place, something some might consider a grievous breach of etiquette. Drawing attention to his acceptance of the invitation would then lead to speculation that he had only come because of Lady Mikka, who was, for reasons unfathomable to him, a friend of Lady Devaya’s—or that he had only come as an escort for his sister. Both of which would be even worse slights, as they implied he had no interest in the party being for him.

And since both reasons and their implications were true, Zygrei had taken refuge in one of the parlor rooms adjacent to the ballroom, where other young men in precarious situations had taken to playing cards. He had joined the game.

The large pile of gold coin in the middle of the table was his second problem.

“Your turn,” Zygrei told the player at his right.

The man, a reigning prince of one of the northern principalities, did not look up from his three remaining cards. The vast majority of the coins in the pile were his. At one point, he had sent a servant to fetch a coffer so he could continue to play.

By now, the effects of the first glasses of stitch were wearing off, and the low prince simply drew a card, a safe move, and discarded a different card to the man to his right, whom Zygrei knew even less well. He too had quite a sum at stake, and he too simply picked up the one card and discarded another.

The low prince and the lordling were significant mainly for their imminent loss of a smallish fortune. The fourth player, though, who sat at Zygrei’s left—he was significant for being competition.

Instead of picking up the card the lord had left him, Rejkiv Oslaviz, Marquis of Eastmarch among other titles, Zygrei’s closest friend and fellow self-proclaimed court troublemaker, took another sip of stitch and then laid a card down on the table. He pushed it forward into the light of the chandelier above with one finger.

Nicely done, Zygrei thought grudgingly as he looked at the card. It was low—very low—and so long as Zygrei kept it low, the other two men at the table would have little choice but to throw in a card as well, which would further reduce their hands.

He topped Rejkiv’s challenge with a card barely worth anything more, and indeed, the low prince did play. The lordling played right after him, surprisingly raising the stake to a medium degree of worth. That was a daring move, but then again, it was perhaps all the lordling had to choose from considering the seven cards left in his hand.

Rejkiv had roughly a half deck. Instead of capping the stack and claiming all the cards for his own collection, he raised with another slightly higher card. And he met Zygrei’s gaze over the rim of his glass of stitch. A quick flick of his eyes, to where Zygrei’s little sister was now dozing on the couch, told him the marquis wanted this game to end.

Zygrei couldn’t have agreed more. He was tired, and with Lady Devaya most likely gone from the room next door, and his sister long since finished with the event, he was ready to return home. Only, he wanted to return home with his reputation intact and two coffers full of coin.

After taking a drink from his own glass, Zygrei raised the stake slightly, confident that the low prince and the lord were bereft of any cards of high enough worth to claim the pile. The low prince raised and the lord barely managed to keep himself in.

Rejkiv trumped and claimed the cards and added them to his hand. Zygrei played a triplet as the challenge.

With only one card left, the low prince from the north took a final sip and stood. “Your Royal Majesty, Your Excellency, Your Grace, I take my leave. I thank you for the company,” he said with a bow. After slipping his card, unturned, at the stack’s bottom, he strode out of the room with his attendants hurrying behind him.

The lordling put in one triplet set, but with only two cards left, he would soon follow the northerner.

Rejkiv raised, Zygrei raised, and the lord left the room.

“You and I again, my friend,” said the marquis when the door clicked shut. He put aside his stitch glass, which was as much a prop to him as a fan was for a woman, and then from his hand he brought out a trump triplet and claimed the stack, slipping the cards into his collection in one smooth motion.

Zygrei leaned back in his chair and studied the man for a moment. The marquis was sitting much the same way, relaxed back in his chair, but the prince knew the game was just beginning. His troubles with saving his reputation were just beginning too.

He laid out a high skipping seven-card run, which Rejkiv topped and which he then trumped and claimed.

“Nicely done, friend,” Rejkiv said as he laid out his next challenge, a simple pair.

Zygrei played the lowest topping pair he had and kept his face impassive. He held the highest pair of all in his hand. The question was if Rejkiv would suspect that small fact. He had had the one card the entirety of the game and never played it; for all the Marquis knew, it was in with the untouched discards still hovering in the table’s corners.

“I suppose you got your dance with the Lady Mikka?” Rejkiv asked, playing another low pair.

“Three, actually.” Zygrei topped with the next lowest and then returned his friend’s studying gaze. “And then she had to leave.”

Rejkiv smirked. “And then you had to hide.”

Zygrei kept back a scowl and decided to save the reigning pair for later. Instead, he tossed in a gold coin to signal that he couldn’t—or, wouldn’t—continue the stack.

Rejkiv claimed the set, and Zygrei claimed the right to place the next challenge, an emperor’s plate with a card of each suit. Rejkiv countered and Zygrei countered and Rejkiv conceded with his own coin.

After a brief moment of deciding, Zygrei played another high emperor’s plate.

Rejkiv looked at the challenge for a moment and then took a long drink of stitch. He looked at the challenge again and then looked at him. “If you weren’t my future liege, I’d call you a filthy bastard for that.”

He tossed in another coin.

Zygrei put his cards back in his hand. “And if you weren’t the only half-decent card player in the realm,” he replied as he laid another six-card emperor’s plate down, “I’d return an earlier question and ask if my sister was bored enough to humor you with a dance.”

Rejkiv flipped in another coin. “It’s not as if you need the money.”

“You don’t need it either.”

“We’ll play well into the morning.”

“You admit defeat?”

“Nothing of the sort.”

Zygrei put down a low triplet. He glanced over at his sister, and noted that the noise from the ballroom next door had all but ceased to exist. When he looked back at the table, a new triplet was on top of his challenge, card ink bright in the glow from the chandelier overhead.

“We could split the coins,” Zygrei said, placing his own cards.

“Ah, we could.” Rejkiv raised the stack. “But the High Prince of the Empire never draws.”

“Naturally not. The Prince would win.” He fished around in his hand and found a suitable play.

“Hardly seems fair to the Prince’s most loyal friend and confidant.”

“The loyal friend and confidant who convinced him to attend a party below his station so that his sister might attend as well and is thus responsible for the current situation?”

“The loyal friend who reminded the Prince that a certain lady would be in attendance.”

“And is thus still responsible for the current situation.”

Rejkiv played his turn and then set his cards aside. “What do you propose?”

“One of us could lose intentionally.” Zygrei put down his next triplet.

“On purpose?”

“That is what ‘intentionally’ means.”

“I won’t have it.” Rejkiv picked up his cards and began to sift through them. “I’ll wait until you fall asleep, take the pile, and skip out.”

“If you’re going to do it that way, you should have drugged my stitch.”

“What’s to say I haven’t?”

“For all you know, I’ve been planning the same.”

“Over a game?” The marquis shook his head and picked up his glass again. “I’d be dead by now if you were that sly,” he said as he simultaneously laid down an impressive triplet and took a swig.

“Perhaps I’m being patient.”

Rejkiv spluttered over his stitch. “Patient, you call it?” He wiped his face and beard dry with his napkin. “Lady Mikka, I imagine, would call it—”

Zygrei trumped the triplet set and claimed the stack.

Rejkiv eyed the spot where the pile had once been and then looked up at him. “My dearest brother in spirit, you surprise me once more.”

The marquis toasted the air with his nearly empty glass before placing a challenge more worthy of both their reputations.

Continued here...

Woo! Yay!

Its started off slow, so it was a bit tiresome, but then the dialogue started and it sped up quite nicely. I love their banter, and I kind of hope that you expand that a bit. I think your explanation of his hiding away was actually better there. I also want to know more of the relationship with Zygrei and Rejkiv. They seem to be friends of sorts, so I kind of want to see more familiarity between them.

Stitch is a bit confusing, but it seemed less confusing when you didn't try to explain it at all and just had the dialogue, since the dialogue is the main thing we focus on. So, yep!

I want to more about Lady Mikka! I imagine her to be quite a vixen, lol. I don't trust her one bit, especially seeing who she associates with. I don't know what he sees in her. I want to meet her soon!

I kind of want to see more about the sister or the brother. Why isn't the brother watching them play stitch, if he is there? Or is he escorting his sister? But then, why would he be there, or would he refuse to dance with Lady Devaya? Wouldn't this be kind of rude? Or would Lady Devaya avoid him because he was glaring daggers at her?

Yep, yep! Post more.

Goodday, mister Ribbit. (Since he's the one who asked for the review, I figure I should address this to him.)

As per request, I'm not going to do any nit-picky stuff with commas and word choices and things like that--but I do want to point out a general technical trend--sometimes your sentences get very long. I know it's part of the style, and I actually think it works pretty well, but just watch out for it because in some places it got confusing/cumbersome to read, and you don't want that. ^_^ I also see you struggling sometimes to make it clear who you're talking about, with so many characters, and there was some awkwardnesses where for the sake of flow, it felt like you should have had a personal pronoun of some kind and had a name instead to try and clarify things. If I were doing nit-picks, I'd point those out and make some suggestions as to how to fix them, but since I'm not I'll just tell you to watch out for them in the future.

Anyhow, overall I'm very intrigued by this. You've done a fantastic job of world-building so far--not world-building in the sense of talking about the way the world works and what it looks like and which animals eat which other animals and all that stuff (not that that's not important, of course!), but the kind of world-building that really makes me feel like I have been to your world. You've given me an excellent picture of society and what it feels like to be part of it, which isn't easy to do. I'm also duly impressed by the way you managed to keep my attention so well without actually making anything happen.

There was just the right level of mystery about everything to make me keep reading just for clues--clues as to how the card game works, clues as to who these people really are and what their actual motives are under all the etiquette. A lot of people vie for the "jump right in" method of novel-writing (plot-wise) and I think this is a prime example that giving some intro-time can work too. I really do want to know more, and the cliff-hanger doesn't help. ;]

I'm a description junkie, so this might just be my addiction speaking, but I'd really like to have a better image of what things look like so I could imagine the scene a little better. You don't have to go over the top with it (I know there's definitely something to be said for leaving things up to readers) but I think at least a little hint here or there would go a long way in setting the scene.

One thing I'd like to know about is the cards. They play a huge role in this chapter/section, since most of the time is spent watching people play. I want to know: are they cards like I know them, with hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades, numbers, aces, and royalties? Or do they have some other system in your world? Also, I'm a little confused about something else: I thought at first that stitch was the name of the card game (it sounds like the name for a card game!) but after reading some more, I'm pretty sure it's the drink that's called stitch. But then I read Snoink's review and saw that she seems to think it's the game. :/ I'm a confused turtle.

I have to admit that I'm having a hard time getting a grasp of all the characters and dramas you talk about. >.< I think it's because your characters have such non-English names and there are so darn many of them right off the bat! I think this is what you were going for (partially anyway) but I feel a little bit like I've been hit over the head. Strangely, it makes me want to read more.

Other than that, I really don't think there's all that much more to say about this. It's a good start. You've got a very distinctive style and it's refreshing to read. I'm interested to see where you go with this. I never know how much to say when I'm reviewing novel chapters, because they're not really finished pieces, and I have to sort of guess what direction you'll go in and give you advise that will help you on that route, which makes my head spin a bit* but I hope this helps somewhat. :]

a

*someone's been reviewing too many "chapter 1"s lately, I think. O.o

Hey there! I don't know exactly how much you consider generally general, so sorry if I point out things you would rather were not.

Through the wall, the High Prince of Varneok, currently besieged with two problems, could hear the party ending.

First lines need to, above all, capture attention, and when they have a lot of commas or are a little wordy or difficult to process right away, that's hard. I don't think this is really living up to its full potential. I'd suggest either changing it altogether, rewriting the first few paragraphs to make it more hooking, or at least for this first line there is a potential easy fix, depending on how much exactly you want to convey. I realize that you're using "currently besieged with two problems" to create interest, but right now it's not working. First lines are generally simply put because they create a bigger impact; for that reason, I'd suggest taking the "problem" part out. You've already gained enough interest in saying that he's hearing the party through the wall.

The musicians were playing in a lackluster fashion, for one thing, and the click of dancing feet was diminishing to nothing, for a second. Third, the chatter from those resting had all but disappeared. Most importantly, he could no longer hear the bubbling laugh of the lady of the estate.

This, also, is awkwardly worded. It's a bit choppy, and should be much smoother. Though this isn't the best example, changing it to something like "The musicians were playing in a lackluster fashion, and the click of dancing feet was diminishing to nothing. The chatter from those resting had all but disappeared, and most importantly, he could no longer hear the bubbling laugh of the lady of the estate."

Lady Devaya was his first problem and the first problem had begat the second.

I don't know if this is just me or not, but I don't feel that this really connects with the two problems you mention at the beginning. Rather, I forgot about that and now I'm left wondering what exactly the second problem is (or rather, I sort of forget about that too, I suppose).

and he was in fact the highest member of the nobility she had been bold enough to invite to this welcome-home party in his name,

I don't get this. Why would she be throwing a party for his return if it were considered bold to even invite him? Is it like having a party to celebrate a celebrity's birthday, or something of the sort? Other than my being confused in this, I also feel like adding this part in bogs down the sentence and makes the main part of the sentence in and of itself hard to understand, since we're processing both things at the same time.

declining the opportunity to ask her to dance would have been terribly humiliating for her.

By this do you mean she goes up to him and says something along the lines of "Would you care to ask me to dance, your highness?" (bad example)? Because it sort of threw me for a loop, and I had to pause to make sense of it.

And since both reasons and their implications were true, Zygrei had taken refuge in one of the parlor rooms adjacent to the ballroom, where other young men in precarious situations had taken to playing cards. He had joined the game.

And this, Mister Ribbit, is where the story threw a 180 and went from being something just short of tedious to read (because I was confused about a few things, and thus not really following, only making an effort to understand it) to genuinely captivating, something I read easily and with little confusion. I really like where you took this beyond this point.

The large pile of gold coin in the middle of the table was his second problem.

At this point, I only have vague recollections of the two problems. And even so, I don't quite understand how this is a problem, really. I mean, it's a card game. He can afford to lose. Sure, he doesn't want to, and it's important to him to beat his friend, but it doesn't seem overly serious.

Okay, so overall this is really good. I love it. As I said, the beginning needs quite a bit of work, but once you get into the cards, we forget that nothing's really even happening. The characters and dialogue is unique and interesting, the actions and thoughts are well-said and easy to follow, and it became simple want that kept me reading, which even in published books can be a feat. So good job.

I'm not going to just sing your praises forever, though, so I suppose I'll say goodbye. Lovely chapter. PM me when the next is out?

loveness, ultraviolet <3

P.S. If this gets wordy or hard to understand, sorry. I'm really tired and trying desperately to make this coherent. If you don't understand what I mean by anything, I'd love for you to post on my wall or PM me so I can explain anything. Or you can contact me for any other reason, novel related or otherwise.

P.P.S. Okay, so this got pretty line-by-lineish. But I think that the things I pointed out all back up the same generalities, like the confusion in the beginning. So I hope you'll forgive me.

Crap, I always forget to *like* things after I review them...

...

*likes*

Rach!

So sorry it took me so long!

Well, just read it and it reminded me how much I've missed Knots. *sigh*. Not what I'm here for, eh? Oh well lol

I think the beginning was quite wordy, which normally isn't a problem when I read your work: I understand everything. If it wasn't for the fact that it's been mentioned by other reviewers, I'd think it was just me being slow. But, the beginning had me reading over and over again, wondering if I'd missed something.

Then, at the card game, everything flowed smoothly. It was easy to imagine. In fact, I used to love those old historical romances and I could just picture the two friends here in medieval times, two notorious rakes winking at the whimpering damzelles around them. *sigh* I think I need some more of that action.

What I'm trying to say is I loved this because it brought back fond memories. I loved the intrigue and the dialogue and I really hope you keep writing this.

Your fan always,

Tanya

Hidere.

I know you well enough to know that you don't like nit-picks, so I won't bother doing any. I NO U. Sorry, I'm in a funny mood because I've just spent two hours making a plan for an essay I have next week, so my brain's rather frazzled and I think I may be partially insane. Plus, my mind is revolving around To Kill a Mockingbird right now... Anyway, I better shut up and get on with it!

Okay, so I thought this was pretty cool and definitely very well written, especially the technicality of it... not that I'd expect any less from you. You're always so technically right, it's scary. You've certainly set up and interesting opening chapter here, and I'm intrigued into reading more. I was very fond of your dialogue here too, oh great one. The banter and all that jazz was entertaining to read. Your distinctive writing style comes out in this, and considering I love your style and I haven't been able to read any of it for, like, a 2728628742 trillion years, it makes me even happier. So yeah, good job, Rach and Ribbit!

The first thing that stood out to me in this when it comes to critiques was actually the fact that you had a lot of names being bounced around. This may be partly due to the ADHD I swear I have, but I found myself getting a bit confused and losing concentration because I had to keep reading back or reminding myself of who was who and such, you know? They weren't very common names either, so that probably made me struggle even more. Nonetheless, I did love the name,s by the way.I have a feeling Azila may have mentioned this though actually... maybe it isn't just me. It's one of those problems that can be hard to resolve, but... well, it's you. I'm sure you'll be able to come up with something.

In general, I got a little confused about some things, but that's just typical me. I can get confused about the simplest stories... Nonetheless, I think some parts of this are a bit confusing. The game of cards itself, for example. I did find myself rereading some parts to understand the whole thing some more. You may have done this on purpose, but for me personally, it did bother me a little and I would have liked things to have been at least a weeny bit clearer. This might just be my biased opinion though because I'm not overly keen on things that I have to think much about...

For me, the beginning was somewhat slow. I feel like such a wannabe by repeating things, but yeah, I did notice that. As the piece went on, things brightened up, but I'm sure you of all people know how important the first few paragraphs of a novel are. If I picked this up from a shop and read the first few paragraphs, I'm not sure if I would buy it. I tend to be less harsh on books and at least read the first chapter before judging, but others can be very critical. If the beginning isn't quite what they want, they can easily dump the book itself. I'm not saying your beginning was terrible or anything, of course not, but the pace and the entertainment of the second half was so nice, I think it made the beginning fall a little. Does any of that make sense?

I think that's about it for critiques really. I've actually just now read over your other reviews... I've basically repeated what's already been said, haven't I? *is an idiot* I had very briefly skimmed over them before I started the review, but I only now read them properly. You have permission to eat me.

Overall, this is definitely an interesting first chapter. I want to know what happens next and with some tweaking here and there, I think this could be a really awesome piece of writing. Great job!

Keep writing,

xoxo Skins

Why, hello there! Wanted to read the second part, so I figured I'd read the first part first. *nod nod*

Through the wall, the High Prince of Varneok, currently besieged with two problems, could hear the party ending. The musicians were playing in a lackluster fashion, for one thing, and the click of dancing feet was diminishing to nothing, for a second. Third, the chatter from those resting had all but disappeared. Most importantly, he could no longer hear the bubbling laugh of the lady of the estate.

I'll go more general in a second, I swear, but really, this paragraph confused me so much. I was all like "uhbawha?" It just sort of rambled on about nothing in particular, letting us know that the party is ending. Okay. And because you mentioned "two problems" in the first sentence, I was looking for two problems. Then you had "one", "second" and I'm all like "how are these problems?" And then there was "third" and I was like "wha? I thought there would be two problems!" and then I realized that those weren't the problems after all. The numbers confused me, especially because we haven't gotten to see the problems at all and then it switches subjects. Follow through on your first sentence there!

All righty, pretty much echoing what a lot of other folks said: the beginning was slow. They start playing cards and all we're following is the cards and I'm all like "I don't know any of these people, why do I care? *snore*".

And then the dialogue started. Holy crap, but the dialogue started. The prose itself of the story was that interesting rambling that I don't really know how to describe, but I know it when I see it. (It was great, though I would urge caution. While it can be used for great humorous effect, and indeed, set the mood for the piece very nicely, too much of its circular circularness gets really distracting and can be quite hard to read.) But the dialogue! *enraptured*

I will admit that I wasn't able to identify the characters right off the bat at first. I think it had to do with the naming and the fact that all I was really getting from them was dialogue and action and their names were so unfamiliar that they sort of skittered off my brain. I'm far more likely to remember them as "that guy" and "that other guy" and so if their names were to pop up again, I'd probably not know who they were until they spoke or did some sort of identifying action.

Part of it was that their names were really similar in that they had a lot of the same letters. I know that a lot of words have the same letters, but because these were unfamiliar, the similarities were what really popped up. And because I'm not hearing them spoken (in which case I'm sure they'd seem more different) but instead seeing them on the page (where my eyes want to jumble them all together when reading quickly), they were quite confusing.

The card game was... blah. I mean, there are obviously rules behind it and perhaps I am supposed to be following the action of the game as much as I am the dialogue, but I found the dialogue sooooo much more compelling. While some of the concreteness of their playing was appreciated as I was able to follow the ebbs and flows of the game as it tied in with their conversation about the game itself, the rest of it was rather dry. Nothing really stood out and grabbed me about the game. I just wanted to get to see more of the characters talking and find out just what was going on in that situation.

So yeah, overall impression: beginning was really, really slow until the dialogue kicked in. From then, I was hooked. But it took a long time to get to that hook and that's not so good. Also, I was confused as to who the characters were, at least in terms of identifying them. I got character types from the dialogue and stuff, but as to putting the actions to faces, I was completely lost.

But I liked it. I really did. I'm on to the next bit!

~GryphonFledgling

I read it.

Everything seemed to work smoothly, pace-wise and development-wise. However, the setting is very fishy to the reader. Everything is a mystery, because you didn't take the time to explain key pieces of information such as what this place looked like and other essentials that normally help to orient the reader.

Overall, though, it was absolutely amazing how you drew the reader in, then showed an intriguing scene of tension, apprehension, and ambition that would threaten to eventually escalate.

Specifically, I loved how you used the card game and the dialogue to represent a coming conflict. Unless I'm absolutely wrong, it seems to me that this is a significant foreshadowing of their intentions, and maybe even their destinies. If I'm wrong, then at least there was impressive symbolism here!

So, keep writing this, and try enlightening the reader as to what this is all about. Where is it going? What's this world in which they live? How are the characters going to change?

This is good!

This'll be short, mostly because other people have already said what I was going to say. But just to sum it up: the first three paragraphs are awkward and need some serious rewording.

And then your story became entrancing. I'm not sure what it was - the dialog, the card game? - that made me want to keep reading. But wow. We can infer just enough so that it isn't confusing, but there's so much we don't know that keeps us captivated. That goes for just about everything here - the aforementioned dialog and card game, the characters, the setting, and the plot.

There are so many places to take this, and I really hope you choose a great path. This story certainly has potential.

Very nice. My thoughts going through:

For a second I thought the list thing in the first paragraph of things that were going wrong were the two problems besieging him. Except... There are four. XD So maybe make it more clear that the ending party dillemas aren't his major problems.

That said, I enjoyed the way that you introduced his major problems. The section about him accepting the invite and stuff was a little stiff in places, and maybe a little hard to follow (I think I got lost for a second, but I quickly found my way back. ), but you can always smooth that out in a later draft, and I think it'll be fine then.

How old is his little sister? I'm picturing her as a child/preteen, maybe, excited about the chance to go to an honest-to-goodness party, but I haven't yet ruled out the possibility that she's older... *shrug*

You've already labeled the huge pile of coins as his problem, but from the sounds of things he's pretty confident that he'll be able to win. Or maybe he won't, but his friend will (and is that really such a big deal, since it's his friend?) When you first said that the pile of coins was his problem, I was picturing him surrounded by big, well-dressed thugs with knives ready below the table, but that doesn't seem to be the case here...

Interesting dynamic between these two friends. I'm sensing a little tension below the dialogue, perhaps implying that they're not as close as I would've supposed? If it's supposed to be there, good job. If they're supposed to truly be the best of friends, having a blast win or lose, etc. etc. then maybe make the exchange a little more easygoing... Unless of course they're easy-going best of friends except for cards, which is when they're deathly serious.

And after reading on a little more, I may have changed my mind. I love these exchanges, and their joking manner. ^^ Never mind, I think you're good to go with this.

I also have had my suspicions of a Rejkiv/little sister pairing reinforced, in which case I'm assuming little sister isn't so little after all? Maybe give us a little more of an idea of how old she is from the beginning onward.

Oh. o.O It's over. Very abrupt. I guess I see why, as it was getting a tad long, but it seems like an odd place to divide it up, without the card game even ending. I was getting the impression that it would end soon (or else run the risk of getting too long). I mean, the table talk is good conversation to give us a good sense of the characters and the different plot strands floating around at the beginning of the story, but it's still just a card game, and if you know very little about this particular card game, it might get a little tiring after a while.

This is a good start though, and I'm liking the sense of the characters so far. The narrative is good, the dialogue is good... I believe I have an interest in reading more, although this card game is taking a bit longer than I would've expected at the beginning.

Other than that, just the things I mentioned earlier. Nice job, and keep writing.

The title is good, for one.

The chapter itself is also good. This is well-written. Though the beginning is a little slow and neutral, you finish it off with a "touche!" kind of touch.

The conversation is very natural and flowing of that time period, and is well done.

The card-playing is a tad too much. This makes the character emperor son seem like a great, big gambler and interested in nothing else except little, frivolous things. The guy seems really shallow.

This is great that you mention manners and propriety.

I know gambling is what rich people tend to do, but a lot of cards might not lure people into reading more of your novel, no matter how good the writing style, or dialogue.

But why does the main character's sister want to go to this party, anyways? And his best friend's sister? Why are both people there, and why does the best friend want the main character to go to this party, other than for the sister's sake? Is there an ulterior motive?

This is excellent, on the whole. This is VERY good, and promises twists and turns in politics!

Stella here, going backwards!

I. NITPICKS (sorry)

But humiliating her would have been unbecoming of him, an emperor’s son, and would have further drawn attention to his acceptance of her overreaching invitation in the first place, something some might consider a grievous breach of etiquette.

This is what apparently is becoming known as a Stella-sentence in some remote parts of Papa New Guinea. That is, long and really confusing.

“Hardly seems fair to the Prince’s most loyal friend and confidant.”

You've said it here. So why feel the need to actually tell us earlier. Show and tell, you know the drill.

II. OVERALL

Want to know a secret? I'm useless at cards. Seriously. I can only play Cheat and Spit. And nothing to do with cards interests me. Also, I'm not sure that any of the game-play is serving much purpose. The banter is great, and it flows well, but I feel like it's too far in starting. Beforehand I have to trawl through lots of card playing- of a card game I don't even know. I haven't read the other reviews (sorry!) so I don't know what sentiments other people have towards these. But I can't help but feel like half the card playing is a little redundant.

Also- I realised I've read three parts of this- granted not in the right order- and I still don't know the princess' name! This seems somewhat of a flaw... maybe in the middle part?

On voice, I'm noticing there's a serious difference between this and Nyoska's part. I prefer this much more, honestly, but apart from my personal tastes, I'm just worried about continuity. Since it's third person, I feel like the voice should be a little bit more homogenous. A little difference is fine- you're skipping from your typical young arrogant prince to a little girl. So I can understand some difference. Just... be careful not to make it too pronounced? I'm sure you're aware of it, and I suppose it's a matter of opinion, but I reckon that too much difference just breaks things up too much.

Hope I helped, drop me a note if you need anything!

-Stella x