Hello! Recently you signed up to our Secret Santa event and sadly Santa forgot to visit your house, but never fear! I am your replacement Secret Santa and will be reviewing two of your works 
Specifics
1.
I really like this introduction until that bolded part. Try not to generalise! You've caught our attention with this description and now we expect further details, not an offhand 'and other stuff' comment. Describe these other astounding sites [which should probably be sights if you mean things to see, rather than sites of interest/ building sites].Alistaria. It was the perfect place to live, work, and play. There were mountains, forests, deserts, beaches, and other astounding sites.
2.
This sentence is too fragmented. I like what you're trying to do, but you've got a paradox here as you're saying in this story you will find and then it feels like sanity is included in that, even though the opposite was intended. I'd suggest:In this story, you will find death, monsters, and if you stop reading now, sanity.
In this story, you will find death and monsters and only if you stop reading now will you preserve your sanity.
It doesn't sound as cool and dramatic, but it doesn't pull the reader out of the story either and make them question what they just read. It's very important to avoid that: as soon as your reader is disengaged, they're wondering if they should put your book down.
3.
He scrambled to get the wine, but knocked one of the vases off its pedestal. He froze with fear.
4.
I don't like this section for several reasons. The first is the use of full caps, but putting that aside, this is both an obvious reaction and a boring one. This is the kind of reaction people have in children's shows. Why not surprise your reader? Why not give us a more interesting character - one who acts like a spoiled child on the inside but then has a frightening outward persona, a queen's persona. It would be far more interesting if she told him it was fine that the vase had broken, but then punished him for not bringing the wine quickly enough - but let him bring it to her first. I want to see a ruler who is crafty and who has been taught to be a queen."You IDIOT!!! Do you have any idea how valuable that vase was?! Do you realize what I do to servants who are absolute morons?! Well, you're about to find out!!" She screamed, absolutely enraged.
5. You've got more spelling mistakes! Be sure to run this through a spell checker at some point as I'll be here all day if I have to pick them all out
6. I'm finding it difficult to engage with your character - I neither love her or love to hate her. Your readers need to see more of her motives behind this killing for it to feel more real and frightening and they need to be given more of a hook because currently we know nothing of the plot or the other characters so it's all hinging on your queen and to be honest, that's a lot to stake on an unlike-able character.
7. Okay so Cyan is obviously a more likeable character which makes me think you should start with him and then show us the queen and then back to Cyan. I think that would work better.
8. I feel like you're moving too quickly. The torch goes out but we don't get a sense of despair in the face of the darkness before he's taken from the cell again. Most prisoners spend at least a few days in cells to weaken them before interrogation and as the start of their punishment. You need to do a little research and make this realistic.
9. I think the Island needs more introduction. It's a trope which gets used a lot in dystopian fiction and you need to put your own spin on it and make it individual so that your readers will be interested, rather than thinking they've read this plot before. There are no new plots so it's not a bad one, but you need to make it unique. There's a great series called Broken Sky where prisoners get sent to an underground cavern and I'll never forget that world building or how afraid I was of that place and how much I wanted to replicate it in my own novels.
Overall
There's an easy writing style behind this and the character of Cyan intrigues me, but you need to go more slowly and use some scenic description. At the moment, this has no atmosphere and it's very flat. We don't get to feel like it's a story we're immersed in, instead we're standing on the sidelines and wondering if we should step away. You need to give your reader something to engage with, whether that's a sympathy for a likeable character or a fear for their death. Even the mention of The Island is too casual and carries no real danger.
I hope this gives you some ideas!
Just keep writing!
Heather xx
Points: 6235
Reviews: 2631
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