A/N: This is Part one of Chapter 2-the next parts are going to come soon.
I recoiled from shock and stared at him. My mouth looked like a door with open hinges. He pulled my hand into some trees and I glared at him
“Start talking!” I almost barked,impatient to know what danger lies ahead. It was like there were ants crawling up on me,and I was trying not to give into the fear.
“Listen, I know of a way that we can save our kingdom from the danger of destruction of darkness,that can devour the soul. There are traitors everyone, and the King is rumoured to be turning against you. Dishonoring the King’s request and not playing for the royal ceremony made things worse.Your father’s last dying words that he barely croaked out of his throat were: "Go to the Elder Island and find the Wise One, he will tell you how to get the box from the cave.” Here,Claude paused and let the words sink into my brain “We must go and carry out your Father’s last words.We must Halia.Are you coming with me?”
I hesitated and looked away. I knew that he had been there on the last moments with my father, and what else could I do but fulfill those wishes? Could I trust Claude to not break my heart again? I touched the place of my heart, but it’s almost like I could only feel half of it. My Father and Claude had taken the other half away from me.
As if on an act of loyalty and honor to my Father, I slowly,but surely nodded my head. He smiled and told me
“We leave immediately after the sunset is gone, in about one hour.Don’t tell anyone,don’t bring anyone, and take only what is yours, and bare necessities, so nothing is noticed missing. And,oh you can bring Capo if you want,just make sure that he will have this beak shut.” He lifted his hand in an attempt of a half-wave and strolled away,casually.
When I stepped back to the place of my father’s grave,one of the guards rushed up to me,looking suspicious. He knew that something was up, and now I had to try to do everything to assure him that everything was fine.
“Oh,an acquaintance of mine was saying his condolences over a my father’s death. Very polite, and gave me no trouble at all.No need to worry.” I finished with a wave of my hand. Claude used to say that I was a practiced liar,saying them nice and smooth. Of course,everyone bought it and noone knew what was going inside my head. The only one that did was practically Capo. Without him I would be alone,utterly alone. I sneaked up to my palace castle, and closed my eyes with deep concentration.
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A flicker of brightness sprung out of my palm and permeated the room with light. I was created magic,fueling it through my anger,and channeling it into fire on my hand. Burning flames didn’t hurt my hand at all because I was immune. Immune to pain.
My eyes got teary at the impact of the sting from the heat. It was hard for me to breathe in because of the smoky blanket that was filling the room. At least I was giving my anger an outlet, an option to get it all out of my system. I still couldn’t believe that Claude was here. I will never let him get any closer to me. I threw the fireball and it glided across the room to pick up one accessory and returned them promptly to my palm.Gravity carried it to it’s owner and smacked it down.It was a slice of a moon pendant that Claude have given me. And now it was going to burn and I was going to let it go. I let the fire lick it and consume it, and then it turned to ashes. Ashes, that’s all the prospect of Claude and I together were. Just ashes.
I let it go.
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140,619 Literary Works • 673,554 Reviews
Hi Pretzel
As you faithfully review for me, I will be reviewing for you as well. I am hoping to be able to get to this this week, as it usually takes me much longer. But here I am!
It seems like this relationship between Halia and Claude is going to end up being an interesting one. I like the idea of her having a rough past with him so it is going to be difficult for her to trust him all over again, even if she does have to try for her fathers sake. I look forward to seeing what obstacles or troubles they might face along their quest. Sounds like we really are starting to get into the adventurous side of things! You have also introduced magic here, which is always an interesting addition to a fantasy novel. I wonder how you are going to use it in your story, because each does use it differently.
In comparison to the first chapter where you paint Claude to be the bad guy, he really does have a sudden change of heart. What I would like to see here a bit more is a bit of a transition into who he becomes here. I either want to see him gradually soften up to Halia over a bit more time (it doesn't all have to happen in one night!) or you could have her be a bit more shocked to find out that after all they are actually on the same side. I didn't get a register on her behalf at all! I think it would be surprising to have the boy who break your heart be your closest ally after all. I also want her to also realise just how big of a risk it was for Claude to break his cover and let her know that they were together in opposition to the King. He put his trust in her because if she ever breathes a word of this to anyone he could be dead and killed for treason. So I want her to take some time to recognise that trust he gave.
Another thing is that I felt it was strange that Claude was there for the king's last words and Halia wasn't. That does happen often in real life so I am not going to be picky there. But I felt like when Halia hears that this boy who broke his daughter's heart was by her fathers side when she couldn't be, I would expect her to be feeling something. Sure, she might feel sadness or anger, but I feel like for her character the emotion that would be ruling out the most here would have to be jealousy. I want to see her feeling jealous that someone else got to spend that precious time with her father that wasn't her, and I want to know how she is going to deal with that jealousy. Is she going to lash out and become violent? Burst into tears? Start a fight? Show us! This is also a good thing to do now at the beginning of the story because it shows us a bit more of her personality before we embark on this trip with her.
I didn't really buy into this guards rubbish job. I mean, it isn't too hard to follow a young woman who is being dragged away. It wasn't like anyone was holding him back or so. So why didn't he follow his leader being dragged away? And then he oh so conveniently appears after everything has been discussed and settled? That sounds too easy. Maybe have him get into a fight with one of Claude's guards as they hastily finish the conversation together during the brawl, or maybe even have the guards knocked out before their conversation even starts. Make it a bit more realistic here.
Her anger after the chapter break seems a bit sudden. As does the sudden introduction to immunity as well. Is it her power that makes her immune or simply the adrenaline running through her bloodstream at the moment. Also, we have no idea what is striking up this anger in her. Yes, she is trying to move on from the boy she loved before, but the idea is that you don't need to burn up a house to do so! I have no idea why she would do it as well because she wants to leave the house and go unnoticed. This way she is going to be noticed leaving for sure, and simply seems to blow their cover somewhat. I don't seem much of a point in including it there.
Again, there are some weird spaces in here, after the commas. It's also important to remember that no one is actually two words.
Nitpick time!
This sentence doesn't have a full stop at the end of it.
This sentence is in the present tense because of 'lies' but it should really be in the past tense to keep up with the rest of the story. So make sure you switch that one around
I would make it 'danger of destruction of darkness' simply because I think that it stresses the alliteration you have going on here a bit more and runs smoothly when said aloud.
I think you mean 'everywhere' instead of everyone.
No need for the 'a' in this sentence.
Practically seems like the wrong word to use in this situation. I feel like basically would make a much better replacement.
If you want to say 'was' then it should be I was creating magic. With the ing at the end. But otherwise it can be 'I created' and get rid of the was. It's all up to you, the creator
That's all I have to say right now and I am very tired so I am off to bed. As always, keep me updated for whenever you write more of this. Always a happy reviewer of yours ^^
Deanie x
Hi there!
I was already in the reviewing mood and I really wanted to see what happened next, so I'm here! Let's do this.
I understand what you're trying to say here: he pulled her off into the trees. However, it sounds like he just took her hand off into the trees. If you said something like, "He grabbed my hand and pulled me off deeper into the trees" that would work. Just to give you an example of what's missing.
Where are her bodyguards? If she has such a high title that she needs them, I feel like they'd always be around. Yet we haven't seen them and she hasn't thought about them since she walked out on the concert thing. I can't remember if she dismissed them or not
and I'm too lazy to go back and check xDbut I feel like they should at least be mentioned, whether they're there or not. This message that Claude brought doesn't really sound like something that's common knowledge, nor is it something he wants people knowing about.I love novels like this where we get thrown into the action right away. I'm a big fan of doing that myself so to see it in other novels is rather cool. It's like a shock value. Like, "Oh my gosh, no, this can't be happening! Wait, what does this even mean??" It's a good thing though; it makes you want to keep reading so you can find out more about this world and what's happening to it.
For the future, when writing dialogue inside of dialogue, the dialogue should be surrounded by a single quotation mark and then the double quotation marks should go around the whole thing. Also, there should be a comma before the dialogue instead of the colon. Sam rules apply inside dialogue as they would outside of dialogue. So it would look like this: "...throat were, 'Go to the Elder Island and find the Wise One, he will tell you how to get the box from the cave.'"
So, Claude was there when Halia's father died? Wouldn't Halia have been there? And her father gave Claude a secret message? Hm... very interesting. This is getting rather exciting already!
Just a quick nitpick. Father should only be capitalized if it's used as a proper noun. Here it doesn't have to be because it's used as just a noun.
Again, I really like the ending of this chapter. Well, this part of the chapter at least
Oooooh, she can do magic? Awesome! Now there's a whole other aspect to the story. Here I thought this was just going to be a novel set in a kingdom and end up having a grand adventure. Throwing in magic gives it so many possibilities. Now there's more to think of than just the traitors and all that nonsense going on.
One thing that I think is missing a bit in this chapter is the transitions. Like, Claude tells Halia about the danger and she agrees to help him, and then all of the sudden she's back at the palace. What was the trip back there like? What does the palace look like? And why is it that she lives in a palace? I don't think you've explained exactly who she is yet. Although, if I'm wrong and you have and I've just forgotten, ignore me. I feel like you could give us a bit more information and imagery. That would really work well to boost your world building.
Overall, another good chapter (part of a chapter) here. I have to say that your writing is quite consistent. It seems that you've found your style and you're doing a good job sticking to it. There's nothing that seems out of place based on what you've been writing and I applaud you on that. If you just add in a bit more descriptions and imagery, you can make this great.
I'm really looking forward to reading more!
Keep writing!
**Noelle**