Hi!
Ridza pulled his armor over his head and made sure it was secure before looking at himself in the mirror.
Nice first line. The mention of armour is a hint about setting and gives an idea about the situation we're opening with.
Sun yellow eyes stared back at him then wandered to examine his appearance. Messy, blaze red hair, but how messy it was wouldn't matter in the duel. Sun-kissed skin, and a toned physique.
I like how you drop in the mention of the duel, but the rest of this feels a little clumsy. It's hard to drop in character description subtly, but this feels like a distraction. You've introduced armour, and then that there's an oncoming duel, so at this point the focus should be on that, not what colour the protagonist's eyes are. You lose some tension by shifting the focus from situation to hair.
In just a few moments, he was going to go out into the arena to meet his brother, let the audience listen to and watch the clashing of steel against steel, and take the crown which was rightfully his. Really, it originally wasn't, but he was so confident in his strength that he considered said crown his.
I feel you could make this much more closer in Ridza's head by taking out some of the filtering. Like instead of "Really, it originally wasn't, but he was so confident in his strength that he considered said crown his" you could either let the first sentence sit as it is, and let the phrase "rightfully his" show us he's confident, or add something like "Maybe some of the nobles would dispute his claim, but he was strong enough to win this duel. The crown was basically already his." By taking out phrases like "he considered" you can present his thoughts as part of the narrative, and it makes them a more integral part of the story.
He remembered when he argued with their parents about the arrangement all those years ago. How could his brother, who was as meek as a butterfly, be able to take the throne!? He wouldn't be able to protect his kingdom when the time came! But of course, their argument was age, then eventually they relented with, "Alright. When you are eighteen... Fine, when your brother is eighteen, you two will have to partake in a duel against each other. Whoever wins shall rightfully take the throne, while the other shall be cast away from the castle for ten years to let his anger boil away, though if it still exists by the time the tenth year has come, then whichever one who loses is allowed to come back and demand a rematch. Does that sound suitable to your liking?" Of course, it did! It was the earliest possible time that they would agree to, as it was likely they would die before then, so there would be a need for someone to become the king by that time.
This is a lot of exposition. You could condense this down a lot because at this point we don't need to know the exact details of the duel. That kind of detail can come later. You're still in the prologue here, so everything needs to hook in the reader - at this point the priority should be creating tension - Ridza is about to fight a duel and the stakes are high. We don't need to know all of the details of the stakes as I think this paragraph is a little slow and stops the story from moving forward while you explain what's happening. Basically you could condense this into a line like: "His meek butterfly of a brother wouldn't be able to stand against him. This duel would be over in moments, and he would win the crown that should have been his all along."
"Ah ah ah, king." A gulp could be heard from behind the door before the servant continued.
Put the dialogue and action on two different lines, otherwise it looks like the dialogue is the servant's.
Was he really going to do this? Was he really going to try and fight his brother just to be king first?
"Of course I am."
This feels too self-aware, like you the author are telling us about the character rather than Ridza having this distance from himself and his motivations. I would try making this ruthlessness a part of the narrative, maybe have Ridza think about how hard he's trained, or how he's studied his brother's technique, how he has an advantage against his opponent because he knows him so well, how this duel will be easier than others he's fought because of that.
With that, he stepped away from the gold-framed mirror to the bed, picked up the wooden shield by the handle, went to the door, and left his room, possibly leaving it for the last time, but also possibly making it the last time he leaves it to make contact with his brother for the next ten years.
This feels a bit obvious and it doesn't fit with the tense. I would delete it and just have the action of leaving the room be dramatic in its simplicity.
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So, honestly, I think you could have made Ridza more arrogant. I like the situation you've created, it's a cool story conflict, and I would definitely read on to see what happens next. I think you could make this stronger by getting deeper into Ridza's narrative voice, and that will both show more of his arrogance and make the writing more compelling. Think more about idioms and phrases he might use, bits he might focus on more than another character, what his priorities are - things that will bleed through the writing and make the narrative voice more unique and colourful.
Keep writing!
-twit
Points: 1979
Reviews: 1176
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