Provenance: Chapter 1

*presses play button*

Holy hecking heck. This is great. I'm not even sure how to go about reviewing it, since I typically do grammar-heavy reviews and the grammar in this is pretty good. Heck. I'll try, though, and I'll also try to get some... story comments in? Though I'm not so good with those.

Alright!

Reor watched as the sky became lit with soft pinks and purples while the sun lagged lazily behind the sky-tipped mountains that enclosed the city - its peaks always visible on the horizon, holding back the sun.

You've got a lot of long sentences. My friend just gave me a review about long sentences the other day, so don't worry, I've got the same problem, lel. The thing with long sentences, at least for me, is that it's difficult to avoid using the same words repeatedly in them from time to time. Some things that don't have other, practical words. Personally I don't like reusing the same word (aside from articles; the, and, a/an, etc, because duh, you gotta use those).

For example, in the sentence quoted above, you used “sun” twice. And, like I said about words that don't have practical synonyms, “sun” is kind of one of them. You wouldn't describe it as “the big life star in the sky”. Another example is “blood” - I saw something somewhere, someone describing blood as “metallic-tasting life force” or something terrible like that.
So there are words you can't avoid using repeatedly. Blah blah. Oops, tangent.

But, yeah, so cutting your sentences down into smaller ones makes this receptivity of words more... acceptable, I guess? Like, breaking this down into “Reor watched as the sky became lit with soft pinks and purples while the sun lagged lazily behind the sky-tipped mountains enclosing the city. The peaks, always visible on the horizon, holding back the sun.”
Couple other notes with this sentence; I shortened “that enclosed the city” to just “enclosing” because it helps make your sentence shorter, and reading flow smoother. And, I noticed that you say “its peaks”? As in the mountain range, I assume? But you never mentioned a range directly – just said “mountains”, so it would be “the peaks” or “their peaks”.

I'm not sure if adding that they're always visible is necessary, either, as I'd expect mountains to stay put (unless you mean, like, the weather is usually clear? lel), but that's up to you.

The light of day would break the spell, would close the open portal at the bottom of the well.

This is kind of rhyme-y, sing-songy. I dunno if that's what you were going for? It feels kind of odd in the prose, but if you were going for rhyme-y/sing-songy then it's fine as it is. Oh! But you do say “close the open portal” and that's kind of redundant. If the portal is going to close, then I assume it's open. There's no need to state so.

It twitched weakly in response and the shock of the motion nearly caused him to drop it,

Why is the corpse twitching? This was my main issue with the story.
((I thought that they were vampires, or something similar, at first, and I wrote a paragraph about it, but then I read the next bit and saw the previous quote (light of day, break the spell, close the portal, bottom of the well) and so I took the corpse twitching to be some weird vampire thing, but now that I'm sure they're not vampires. The twitching bugs me again))
Unless corpses typically twitch at contact with water and I didn't know, or it's a fresh corpse and... maybe reacts that way? I dunno. I took forensic science in high school but don't remember how corpses work >:[

Still, even as he gave the last of his strength to his legs, even as bright white lights began to flash against the blackness of his eyelids, windows began to light, one by one, as the citizens of Castil began to wake.

This sentence also tugged at my attention. It's written rather confusingly. “Still, even as he--” that's odd, it feels repetitive. But then ignore the first comma break (and the next because it says even as well) and taking the sentence to be, like, “Still, windows began to light, one by one,” – is that what you were going for?
If so, then I'd recommend breaking this into multiple sentences and starting it off with “He gave the last of his strength to his legs, as bright white lights began to flash against the blackness of his eyelids.” or something like that. I'm not sure how to make that work transitioning into “Still, windows began to light” because I took the lights on his eyelids to be the lights from the windows? Which is also repetitive.

Ahh, I don't really know how to help with this, sorry. But I'd suggest giving a rewrite of it a whirl yourself. I'm sure you can figure out a smoother way to word it.

Morning’s first ray of light hit his cheek, burning his flesh and making him wince.

Ohh, this also made me think “VAMPIRE”. So unless he is a vampire, or is allergic to the sun, or the sun is particularly strong but for some reason only burns carbon lifeforms (or – just flesh peeps), then it wouldn't be burning his flesh. If he is a vampire or allergic to the sun (I say this as a joke, not literally allergic to the sun, but like, if he's a creature that burns in the sun) – then you should clarify this somewhere before the burning cheek.

The corpse twitched again, violently, and a strangled sob burst past his lips.

Again with the twitching corpse, but this time-- because of the sun? Or just out of nowhere? I'm still confused as to why the corpse is behaving so lively, lel.

Stomach acid flooded into Reor’s mouth.

Typically people just say “bile” instead of “stomach acid”. You don't have to write like people typically do, but stomach acid, to me at least, gives the image of it burning his tongue? Like, eating away at it? Whereas bile is more a gross taste (also burning but not eroding the flesh, y'know?) I dunno if that helps any

He felt as if every nerve in his body was firing spastically - every muscle convulsed and groaned.

Here I feel like you could switch the two sides of the dash, so it'd be more like “Every muscle in his body convulsed and groaned – he felt as if every nerve was firing spastically.”
But this is just a suggestion, and not a necessary change. They could also be worked into their own individual sentences, if you so wished!

Each pound of his foot against the pavement sent echoes of pain wavering through his body; willpower alone set his legs to pumping.

I think that this should be two sentences, however. Drop the semicolon, replace it with a period, and capitalize that W. It gives you another short sentence and helps with the flow.

I.. will..
But fate decided he would not. Sharp pains spiked up his leg as his foot caught and twisted in a hole in the ground. The corpse went flying out of his hands as his chin slammed into cobblestone.
And then came the sun.

I really like this. This is great. I can't really explain why I like it, I just think it's really good. My only suggestion would be to de-pluralize “pains” and add “A” before “sharp. so. “A sharp pain spiked up his leg”. I prefer this over “Sharp pain spiked up his leg”, and the pluralized pain feels off because it's only one kind of pain in his leg? Pretty sure it is, at least, lel



And that's all! This was written very well, you're great with imagery, though you need to work on sprinkling some shorter sentences in here and there. The pacing was done nicely, and the ending was great.
I do feel that you could do away with the first line? “He thought he’d never see home again.”
It feels disconnected from the rest of this chapter. It's like a precursor thought of his, and then we go to the scene, and this thought belongs somewhere towards the end of the scene? If that makes sense? Personally, I think the chapter would be fine without it, but you can leave it if you want, of course!


Anyway, as I said at the beginning, I don't have a ton to offer in story commentary, so I'll wrap this review up now.
Great job, though! I hope you'll keep posting works here!

- Hatt