Warning: This work has been rated 16+.
Chapter 2
A Fraction of Hope
“Sire, we don’t stand a chance!”
“We have defeated Diron before, we shall do it again!”
“With all due respect Sire, we’ve never fought them without-”
“Do not mention those creatures to me!”
Orion looked at Isolt across the war table. His sister looked as sick as he felt; her face pale, her leg bouncing under the table. This argument had gone on for an hour now. Only the King seemed to have any faith that Iyuna could survive an attack from Diron, while all of his knights and advisors were convinced otherwise. Orion wasn’t sure which side he fell on.
“They will not reach this city!” Said Ferris, slamming his fist onto the table. Isolt and Orion both flinched.
“Sire, it would be best to evacuate the border towns.” Began Sir Caen, the Head of the Royal Guard, “Even if the army don’t reach Casterthane, those towns will be in severe danger.”
Ferris sighed and looked over at the twins. “Leave. Both of you.” He said, dismissively. The two siblings looked at each other briefly, before standing, bowing to the King and quickly walking out. Flora met them on the other side of the door. As the doors slammed shut, she ran at them both and hugged them tightly.
“Are you two alright?” She asked, pulling away and clasping Orion’s hand tightly, “You both look pale.” Orion groaned and ran his free hand over his face, while Isolt sunk down to the ground, back against the wall, arms wrapped around her knees.
“Diron have Shifters.” She whispered.
“How did any of them survive the Trials?” Asked Flora, quietly, more to herself than anyone else.
“I don’t know.” Said Orion, flatly, “But it doesn’t matter. They’ll come, and we’ll destroy them. For good this time”
“Orion!” Exclaimed Isolt.
The boy looked between his sister and his girlfriend, before storming off towards the castle exit. Isolt rose with an exasperated sigh and grabbed Flora’s arm as she made to follow him. “I’ll go.” She muttered, before taking off after her brother.
Isolt managed to catch up to Orion as he made his way out of the castle. Falling in step beside him, the two walked towards the city centre, a curt and tense silence between them. The sun was high and people walked past them, some bowing, some whispering to each other as the twin royals made their way onwards.
Casterthane was the pride of Iyuna, the Golden City. It spanned both sides of the river Lokith. The buildings on the North bank or “Castle Bank” as it was known, were a combination of yellow-tinged Helmstone, from the cities of the East coast and white marble. Markets lined the streets, each stall selling various wonders and treasures; from the Quolet tea of the Southern Kingdoms, to golden statuettes of the Ancient Gods of Yaka, to the bright red fruit of the Western Golus tree. It was the heart of the kingdom, alive and bustling.
In the center of the city was Kings’ Bridge. Built by the first king of Iyuna, Holtzen of House Luparis, the stone and Raenwood structure connected the two halves of Casterthane. It was here that Orion finally stopped: looking out over the edge of the bridge down to the raging Lokith below. Isolt came up and stood beside him, arms resting on the side of the bridge.
“I know what you’re going to say.” Said Orion, almost tiredly.
“Do you?” Replied Isolt,with an exasperated sigh, “Because this is not the first time we’ve had this conversation and I’m starting to think you ignore me every time we do.” Orion ran his hand through his hair.
“I don’t ignore you.” He stated, “I just don’t understand you. Those...monsters…”
“One monster,” Interrupted Isolt, “One crazy, vengeful monster…”
“Whose brother had killed a soldier. A monster who had led an army that killed hundreds of Diron’s soldiers, who killed our family!” The last part was harsher than he’d intended it to sound, but he was too riled up to care, “Tobin was proof of the danger those things posed. They needed to…” He trailed off, dejectedly, and lifted his head. “Now, they’re back. And we have no way to defeat Diron without them.” The two fell silent again, neither really knowing what to say.
“I’d say the answer was obvious, my liege.” Orion and Isolt jumped at the sudden interruption of an elderly voice. They turned slowly, coming face to face with a small, hunched figure, wrapped in shawls. “If you are to fight Shifters, you need a Shifter.”
“Miss,” Began Isolt, carefully, “I’m not sure how much of that you heard…” The woman chuckled.
“Dear Princess, I already know of what’s coming.”
“How?” Said Orion, incredulously, “We only found out a few hours ago.”
“What I know and how I know it is the least of your concerns, my liege. What you need is a solution to the problem of Diron and that solution, is a Shifter.”
“The Shifters are dead.”
“Most of them are, yes.”
A look of disbelief passed between the twins as the woman looked around her, then gestured for them to follow her. After a second’s hesitation, Isolt moved.
“What are you-?”
“I want to hear her out.” Without looking back, Isolt took off after the woman, with Orion following, reluctantly, behind her.
South bank, was very different to Castle bank. In place of great stone buildings, small houses of Ashwood lined the streets. Cobbled pavements were replaced with modest dirt paths and the busy markets were replaced by small shops and scattered market stalls. Isolt loved South bank. It was calmer, quieter and infinitely more beautiful. The further South you walked, the more woodland you encountered, it was truly peaceful.
The elderly woman led them through the main streets, out towards the edge of the city. Orion’s hand rested on Oathkeeper as they walked down an overgrown path to a small, somewhat decrepit cottage. The walls had begun to crumble in on themselves, the roof was full of holes and the windows were shattered. It didn’t look habitable.
“Do you live here?” Asked Isolt, quietly.
“No.” Came the response, followed by a sorrow filled sigh, “But good people did. Once.” She kept walking, and the twins pulled back slightly. Something about the cottage felt...off. Like it was watching them. Orion shook his head, before Isolt grabbed his hand and all but dragged him towards it. The door was made of a black wood that Orion didn’t recognise, but it was splintered and cracked in a way he identified as sword marks. His grip on his sister’s hand tightened as the woman pushed open the door.
The cottage was filled with shrines. Small, stone arches, each about the size of an urn, lined the walls. The fronts were open, showing smooth bases and each one contained a wooden carving; some 2D, some 3D, some as amulets attached to leather strips, some as tiny statues staring at them. All animals. Looking up, Isolt saw more amulets, hanging down from the beams that once held up a roof. Bears, eagles, lions but also butterflies, hummingbirds and fish. There was no way to count them all, but Isolt guessed there were well over a hundred. She felt Orion tense beside her. The woman turned to look at them, a sad smile on her face.
“Ask.” She said, softly.
“Why would you bring us here?” Asked Orion, his voice tight, almost angry. She shook her head.
“I needed you to understand.” Replied the woman, “But, that isn’t the question you truly want the answer to, young Prince.” She looked at Isolt, and the girl swallowed hard.
“These are Shifter amulets.” Said Isolt. The woman nodded and Isolt pushed down the sick feeling in her gut and forced herself to ask, in a slightly hesitant voice “How many?”
“102 hang from the rafters. 47 amulets in the shrines and 24 statuettes.” The woman replied, “Every Shifter killed in the first six months of the Trials.”
“Why the distinction?” Asked Orion, as Isolt slowly lowered herself into a chair. He sounded...anxious to her. Or maybe she was projecting. The woman sighed.
“The hanging are adults. The shrined are children, amulets for over 5s, statuettes for under.” She sounded defeated, tired in the way one can, only after they experience true horror. Isolt fought the urge to vomit. She looked to her brother for some form of comfort, but he looked as bad as she felt. To anyone else, he would appear stoic in that moment, but she knew him. She could see the way his skin had paled, how his eyes had fixed on one of the small, wooden statues (a mockingjay.) She could see the way his mouth worked as he tried to think of what to say and how his posture had slumped slightly in defeat.
“This is the reality of Ferris’ rage.” The woman moved to a chair opposite Isolt and sat down, “The Shifters were peaceful for centuries. They kept to themselves mostly, but their hearts were pure. It was said that they never turned down a person in need of help, no matter the cost. When they began openly interacting with the common folk, the King, your great-grandfather, asked that some of them join his court.” She paused, then sighed, “When Ferris became King, he saw to it that a group of Shifters would be trained, specifically, to wipe out armies with their abilities. That kind of power...and he wonders why Tobin went mad…”
A tense silence fell over the three. Then:
“You said we needed a Shifter.” Isolt’s voice was far more shaky than she had intended, but she was still somewhat proud that she’d said anything at all. The woman smiled.
“When the Trials began, many Shifters ran. Some escaped into neighbouring kingdoms, some went to sea, none of whom will be of any use to you.” She stood and walked over to a cabinet, looking through it as she spoke, “Rumours have circulated for years that there is a “guardian angel” living in Orwidin Forest.”
“Orwidin burned.” Said Orion, harshly.
“The outskirts burned.” The woman was equally harsh and Orion looked a little taken aback, “You think fire and rage can destory centuries worth of magic?”
She turned back to them, a large roll of parchment in her hand. “Orwidin is very much thriving. And if the rumours are true, it contains the last fraction of hope for Iyuna.”
So this really didn't turn out how I wanted, which is why I would really appreciate any pointers. I hope you liked it :)
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138,126 Literary Works • 672,075 Reviews
Hi, HollyM64. Pan dropping in for a quick review. I'm afraid I've not read the first chapter or the prologue of this story, but hopefully I can still give you some useful feedback. I'm just going to comment on the chapter as I read it and tell you what I like and what needs work.
Exposition takes skill to do well, and judging by this paragraph, it's a skill you seem to have. You bring the reader up to speed in a way that's clear and to-the-point, not laborious or bloated. I love the variety of sentence structure, as well; it makes the whole thing pleasant to read.
Okay, you're falling into some dialogue no-nos. Two things to remember when you're punctuating speech: number one, that it should not be closed with a full stop if followed by a reporting clause such as 'he said' or 'she said'; number two, that the first letter of the reporting clause should never be capitalised. Here's how these two bits of dialogue should look:
“They will not reach this city!” said Ferris.
“Sire, it would be best to evacuate the border towns,” began Sir Caen
As you can see from the first example, even when dialogue closes with an exclamation mark (or question mark), the reporting clause should not have a capital letter. There are no circumstances in which the first letter of a reporting clauses should be capitalised, unless of course the first word of it is a proper noun (e.g. 'Clair said').
There is only one circumstance in which you can close dialogue with a full stop, and that is when it has no reporting clause. For instance, in a sentence like this:
"We don't want to be seen." Luke's voice was low.
Here, because there is no variant of 'he said' or 'Luke said', it is correct to close the dialogue with a full stop.
It's can be a tricky set of rules to wrap your head round, so I'd encourage you to read this guide for a more full explanation. It's a bit annoying to get to grips with, but once you've learnt the patterns it will soon become automatic, and it will make your writing seem a lot more professional.
Can you use the other senses a bit more here? What kinds of things can you hear in the market? What does it smell like? Tapping into other senses will make the scene more vivid.
Try not to put commas in where you don't need them. You can delete all of the ones in red.
How can a wooden carving be 2D? Anything that exists in physical space and can be picked up cannot be 2D. It's just very flat. Even paper is 3D.
A mockingjay isn't actually a real bird. They only exist in The Hunger Games, as a hybrid breed of the (real) mockingbird and the (fictional) jabberjay. Oddly enough, you're not the only person on YWS I've had to point this out to, so credit to Suzanne Collins for creating such a convincing fantasy creature.
Overall Thoughts
I like this! Obviously I've dropped into the story a bit later than is ideal, but I still feel like I've got a decent grasp of the plot, enough that I can sink into the scenes and enjoy them. You seem to have a great sense of how the world works, and while the idea of shapeshifters and regal wars are pretty common in fantasy novels, I like that you're looking into the prejudice against these creatures and touching on the history of them. I feel like the politics of the story are pretty sturdy. I like the hook at the end, as well - it's a good cliffhanger to finish the chapter on.
Your characters seem pretty good too. I don't know them well enough to make any certain judgements, but Orion and Isolt seem to balance each other out, and even though I've come in late I get a good sense of how their personalities differ. Orion seems a lot harsher, less understanding, more black-and-white. Isolt seems to have more sympathy. She seems to grasp that morality isn't just a binary thing.
My main pointers for this chapter come down to touching up minor things like dialogue punctuation, as well as broadening your description to explore senses other than sight. The plot itself seems interesting, and the overall pacing of the chapter was nice. This might not have turned out how you wanted, but it still seems solid to me!
Keep writing!
~Pan
Hey there! This has been sitting in the Green Room far too long without any reviews, so I'm here to help rescue it. I also went ahead and read your first chapter.
General thoughts and Things I Liked
In what way did this not turn out the way you liked? Honestly, I thought this chapter was a lot better than your first chapter. It had a clear chain of events, you were able to develop the characters by showing their reactions to the current danger, and the mysterious woman definitely gave the chapter suspense and tension. You're moving into the main plot quickly and that's pretty much always good to see in a story.
At first, I didn't trust the woman, but now I think she's more trustworthy, or at least that she's telling the truth about Orwidin. Whether or not she's willing to help them like she says, I'm not sure.
Immersion
You tend to describe the setting in one paragraph as the setting changes, and then just spend the rest of the time relaying character actions and dialogue. It'll be more immersive and easier for the reader to feel like they're really there if you give the introductory description, and then reinforce it with sensory details that the characters notice as they walk through or interact with the setting. Things like a character running her hand along a cool stone wall, or a market stall selling perfectly ripe strawberries catching her eye as they walk.
The Learning Curve:
When it comes to fantasy novels, there's a concept called the "Learning Curve," which is basically how difficult it is for the reader to figure out how your fantasy world works.
Because you don't take enough time to show us what's unique and different about this world, because so much of it is left to the reader to fill in the blanks by guessing what things like the "Trials" and "Shifters" are, as a reader I wind up filling in those blanks by assuming the most standard, most cliche fantasy tropes there are, just because that's what I'm most used to. So I'm assuming that your setting is a standard medieval fantasy with the usual king and nobles and peasants and warring kingdoms. I'm assuming that the "Shifters" are shapeshifters or something similar, and that for whatever reason recently the king decided to try to wipe them all out. I'm further assuming that was an awful and horrible thing for him to do because wiping groups of people out usually is and we haven't been told why he did it.
...And so I'm bored. I'm left with all these assumptions that I know are assumptions, but so far they haven't been contradicted. For all I know, this story is going to fulfill exactly all of those cliches and not do much more. I don't have an understanding of the characters' history and how it informs their reaction to this. While your dialogue feels natural, and your characters are clearly different from each other, I still don't have any idea of their wants and needs and how those relate to other characters' wants and needs. I mean, obviously they don't want their kingdom to be taken over by Diron, but to the reader that's a distant concern right now, and because the protagonists always win again, I automatically assume that somehow they will win. What is it that each character was worrying about before they got this news? What kept them up that night, just thinking? I don't know, and so I'm not invested in your story. There's nothing that's "grabbed" me so far.
This doesn't mean your world or story is cliche or uninteresting. I'm willing to bet it's incredibly interesting, if only I knew what was in store. It just means you haven't learned yet how to [pinpoint what makes your story awesome and interesting and how to bring that out from page one, which you have to do because you have such limited time to grab the reader's interest. And to be honest, this is a really hard thing to do.
So. What drives you to tell this story? What's special about it? What moment or aspect of the world makes you go "that's awesome"? Take that and run with it. Show it to us on page one if you can, especially if it's a character thing. Don't fall back on using titles for things without explaining what they are - that doesn't do a lot to pique interest.
Overall:
Although this didn't quite pull me in, I really think it has the potential to. You have a lot of standard fantasy tropes, but you also have a lot of room to embellish them or twist them around however you want. Similarly, your characters clearly have a lot of interesting and important history, but if you give them room to care about things other than the overarching plot, as well as showing the web of relationships (not just brother-sister, how close they are, who doesn't like who, etc), it'll really help the reader form an initial connection with the characters.
And I think I'll leave it here. Again, don't give up. Beginnings are, imo, the hardest part of any story, but you can figure it out. Good luck, and keep writing!