Lark awoke in her bed, fully dressed with her hair neatly twirled and placed to one side. The blanket over her was perfectly smooth, and the herb bag she’d taken last night hung up by the door, right next to her embroidered bag and nightgown. She was dizzy, hungry; her head spun, and her stomach gurgled.
“What happened?” she said, breathless. She could see the barest touch of yellow sticking out of the covers at the foot of her bed and wondered how she’d gotten back.
Or had she even left?
It was all very confusing, Lark admitted, but she’d have to settle the matter later. She had work to do, maids to boss around, and breakfasts to deliver.
Throwing off the sheets, Lark leapt out of bed. Her motion sent Cadence into a whirl of tittering and wing-flapping, and the little dragon’s snout crinkled into what looked remarkably like a scowl.
“Oh hush, Cadence,” Lark said, examining her uniform. It was crumpled terribly, and her skirt had long, obvious folds that weren’t supposed to be there. Her shoes were placed under the bed frame, but Lark refrained from putting them on just yet; they made all kinds of noise on these floors.
As Cadence settled back down to sleep more, Lark bustled about her room. Her pins had completely disappeared, which proved that last night’s escapade had been very real, and the air, compliments of the stolen herbs, smelled crisp, wintry, and like the tea Lark’s mother loved so much. Barely satisfied by her finger-combed hair and wrinkled uniform, she finally put on her shoes, opened the door, and went out.
As she shut the door behind her, Lark half expected someone to appear from nowhere to ambush her and tell some bizarre story about how they found her collapsed downstairs, yet no one appeared Heels clicking and floorboards croaking, Lark made her way down the dormitory hall. She mouthed the names of each occupant as she passed their door, hoping she could even remember properly, since each room was an exact replica of the last.
Upon reaching the lobby, Lark splayed the fingers on her right hand and stared at them blankly. Five doors. There were five doors out of the countless many which she couldn’t remember. She supposed that was probably an impressive feat of memorization, but comparative assessment wasn’t going to help.
Relax. You’ll get it soon enough. Glancing at the colorful light on the walls for distraction, Lark headed for the kitchens.
No longer in the nervous mess she’d been in yesterday, Lark took more time to admire the castle. It was beautiful really, with its huge, grey stone walls and kaleidoscope of tapestries. Painted portraits with their confident, textured strokes hung on the wall, and Lark cracked a smile as she walked by them.
“There’s Ritter,” she said quietly, her eyes sliding over a particularly majestic picture. Supposedly, it was of the current king’s great-grandfather, but because of his handsome face and full armor, the housekeeping staff had taken to calling him by some word for knight.
She passed the Florist, whose picture was a almost collage of every kind of flower imaginable. The Wolf still stared angrily out his frame, judging his descendants as they walked by. And before she even knew it, Lark had reached the kitchens.
The kitchen used for the apprentices’ meals was different from the lower staff kitchens. It was slightly larger, more spacious. Heat flowed out of high, wide slits in the walls, and the savory, part-grease, part-spice smell tickled and teased at Lark’s nose. It was nothing like the stifling heat and putrid burning of the lower kitchens.
Glancing around at the well-stained, plaster walls, Lark stepped towards the nearest kitchen boy. His cheeks were red with warmth, and his eyes watered from the steam.
“Excuse me,” Lark said. The boy whipped his head about to face her. “Where do I pick up the breakfasts?”
Squinting, the boy looked at her. His mouth curled and his eyebrows rose in that condescending are-you-stupid way. “Are you a new apprentice, or the new head?” he asked.
“The head. Can’t you tell by the uniform?”
“Never saw a girl alchemist before, so no,” said the boy. He peered into the pot he was stirring and muttered something before looking back at Lark. “Well, the food is kept in the hot boxes, over there.” He pointed to the left, where the oven and its blazing fire stood in their own brick, indoor hut. Surrounding it were drawers upon drawers, all stacked up nearby.
Lark opened one up, and the smell of warm cinnamon crashed into her. She looked at the boy again. “Thank you.”
“No problem.”
Just to be sure there weren’t any differences between trays, Lark opened all of the hot boxes before tentatively reaching out a hand to touch one of the trays. Each time, she was blasted with the same apple tart air. Whatever was in the apprentices’ breakfasts smelled heavenly.
Carefully, Lark balanced one tray on each hand. She kept her body as level as possible, her steps creaking loudly and her shoes swishing along the floor. However long it had taken her to reach the kitchens, it would probably take twice that to return.
Eyes forward and a business-like frown plastered on her face, Lark headed back through the halls. Her attention was on her gait, the floor in front of her. She didn’t notice the distortion of an invisibility spell swirling over bricks in front of her.
Lark began turning one of the corners when the spell dissolved. A tall young man materialized from the bricks, fixing the buttons on his sleeve. His face was stern, with a well-defined jaw that currently, was clenched in annoyance.
“I thought you might pass through here,” he said.
Lark stopped, her heart suddenly beating too hard, too fast. She could sense liquid sloshing in the mugs on her trays. Her arms trembled.
“Dorian,” she said. Trying to appear indifferent, she glanced at him. Almost immediately, Lark had to look away. He could kill her with that stare; it was cold and hateful, and for some reason, it made guilt bleed into her conscience.
Dorian took a step closer. He was tall, too tall. Too dark, too scary, too strong. “Where’s Cadence?” he asked.
“My room. Why?”
“Curiosity,” Dorian said. He closed his eyes and sniffed the air, straightening his waistcoat at the same time. “Do you mind if I accompany you for a bit?”
It took too much work for Lark to prevent a snarl, but she managed. “I doubt I could stop you.”
“You stopped me last night.”
Lark pricked an eyebrow. Interesting. “Did I really?”
“That sleeping cloud of yours. I would tell the discipline heads to pick a different herb for their bags, but I’m too new to make the suggestion, and it’s advantageous for you at least.”
“So they sent a brand-new apprentice to lead my basement tour, hmm? Did you escort me back up too?” Lark began walking again, determined that if she couldn’t halt a faint scowl, at least Dorian wouldn’t see it.
He simply caught up with her. “Unfortunately, I’m not strong enough to carry your dead weight. Waverly did it for me. Which raises the question: why were you unconscious? We found you much too far from the lavender cloud for that spell to be the cause, so…” He drifted off, and Lark could feel his gaze pressure her for an answer.
“I was merely surprised by a revelation,” Lark said, tossing her chin. She knew Dorian hated lies, but it wasn’t a complete lie, not if she remembered correctly.
“A revelation? I suppose that’s all I’ll get out of you today, isn’t it?” Dorian stopped, his face pained, even without his dragon around. Lark spotted something reflected in his eyes. Maybe it was just a shadow behind him, but she swore his pain was real. She could feel Cantor’s warm, rosemary breath waft through the air, hear a four-part chord echo in the distance.
How? How can he express himself so clearly without…
Dorian looked away, his eyes trained on the Florist, who sat daintily in a cascade of vases and flowers. An exhale, then a caught breath. “You may want to bring Cadence around with you,” Dorian said at last. “I get the feeling my report on this conversation will not be satisfactory.”
Silently, confused, Lark watched as Dorian walked ahead. His stride was long and even, so different from how she remembered.
Three resounding, thundering bell tolls shuddered through the ground, and Lark remembered that she had breakfasts to deliver. She scurried after Dorian, her arms faltering every time she heard the clatter of tableware.
Despite her quick steps, Lark didn’t run into Dorian again. She didn’t mind; talking with him was an interrogation, a criminal interview. Relieved, she strolled into the Academic Wing lobby and headed straight for the dorm hall.
A happy, fluttery tune had just pranced into Lark’s mind when the first door on the left swung open. Wind flew across Lark’s face, throwing her loose hair back, forcing the liquid out of her eyes. When it died down, she had to blink until her eyelashes were wet and her eyeballs no longer itched.
“Holy snap-dragons!” said a voice. It was a loud voice, brassy, take-charge, Waverly’s voice. Funny how Lark had learned her tone so easily.
“Are you all right? You’re crying!” Something raspy and hoarse whispered along with her. The dragon, Misty. Up close, Waverly’s sea-serpent was something from a nightmare. Its webbing and crests were translucent; veins ran in arbitrary zigzags across the space. When Misty’s black eyes, full of concern, popped up in front of Lark’s face, the maid had to take a step back and hold her breath to avoid showing her surprise.
It’s only Waverly. Stop panicking.
“I’m fine,” Lark said. Her ears pricked for any noise from the trays. “The wind blew me dry.”
Waverly looked puzzled. She blinked, blue irises bright with questions. “So you were crying?” she asked.
“Oh, no. When the door opened, it blew air on me and I got-”
“You were crying! I knew it.” Waverly put one hand on her hip, the one that Misty had wrapped around, and shook a playful finger at the dragon. “I shouldn’t have let Dorian handle this. He hasn’t got any tact.” She turned to Lark again, serious. “If Dorian’s ever mean to you, you just let me know. I can slug him for you.”
Feigning a smile, Lark coughed. “Yes, well, thank you. Now, I need to get through and deliver these.”
“Breakfast? One of them’s for Iris right? I’ll give it to her. We were just working on some stuff together in here.” Waverly gestured through the open door, and Lark looked in. A doe-eyed girl with dirty blonde hair waved back, smiling wide. To her left sat a dragon in shiny periwinkle hues.
Before Lark could respond, her left tray was lifted off her hand. Her muscles unclenched, stretching with the freedom of release. And then, another wave of air flushed past her, and the door shut, fast and silent.
“How…” Lark’s voice faded. She wasn’t sure how to describe it.
Points:
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Canary word: Present
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125,008 Literary Works • 672,836 Reviews
Salutations.
How have I not reviewed this yet? Would please tag me whenever you have released a new chapter? I often lose track of the novels I follow if I am not reminded... Nevertheless, I have written my final exam for the year today, so I am free to review as I please.
I saw that your previous chapters' reviews were rather short. In future, if I have a work I need to review but it is from a novel I follow, I shall not be reviewing it on Review Day, since my Review day reviews rarely exceed 2000 characters, whereas my normal ones practically always exceed that amount. Also, I have recently developed a new way of reviewing, and it involves colour! I hope you don't mind if I use it here as well, but I suppose the best way to find out is to use it first and then await your response.
My legend:
Red - correction
Orange - suggestion
Green - addition
Blue - removal
No doubt this paragraph is as confusing to the reader as it is to Lark herself. The last time I checked (and that was five minutes ago) Lark fainted at the end of Chapter Two, Part One. Clearly, there are signs that she had indeed experienced a near-death situation - the herb bag she had used, for starters - but how in the name of all that is good and kind did she get to her room after fainting? Here we thought the sea serpent was a threat, and you certainly did not try to make it seem friendly, yet she appears to be unharmed. *rubs temples and wipes eyes*
I can perfectly imagine/visualise Cadence's protests, but I am afraid there is no such word as protestful. Perhaps you could exchange it for protesting? You could also leave it out completely.
I love how you employ all of the senses when describing your main character's immediate environment. It helps the reader to place themselves in the scene, so it makes their reading experience all the more enjoyabe.
Earlier you had mentioned that Lark did not want to put on her shoes yet. Since you ahve not mentioned her shoes again, should we asume she is walking barefoot?
You create the anticipation of somebody will appear, and you state that lark expects someone to, but you don't take the idea any further. We can deduce that nobody ambushes her, but it would nevertheless be nice if you added an anticlimax so we aren't still waiting for this hidden entity to pounce.
This sentence is ambiguous, as your main clause and the second subordinate clause don't seem to be related, or they are, but in a confusing manner. Are the doors complete replicas, or is something else? Furthermore, why are there five doors? Thus far we only know of the two apprentices, so who resides in the other rooms?
I could read your literature the whole day long and not grow tired of it - your descriptions are ingenious and beautiful. I want more!
I love how you ditch common words for less common, but more descriptive ones, like how Lark cracks a smile. How, unlike you, so many authors do not use these opportunities to prove their skill is beyond me.
Your German influences, I see.
My senses are tingling simply after reading this. If only more people described using the sense of smell... at least one does.
But Lark isn't the alchemist's apprentice, Waverly is. Lark is the head of the maids.
I don't think it's necessary to say "that clenched in annoyance" since the "well-defined" describes how his jaw usually is, while the "clenched in annoyance" obviously only refers to how it currently is.
There is no mention of his creepy, dark, eight-headed dragon being around, so what gives him the right to ask?
Is this a confession that he is the one who had tried to kill her? Obviously, he could not have killed the former head of the maids (sorry, I cannot remember the offical title), but we know he has something against Lark, so that wouldn't stop him from trying to kill her. And besides, we know he is a mage (or one's apprentice, but it comes down to the same thing). He probably just happened to pass by, but that in itself is suspicious - add that to his already-confirmed untrustworthiness, and you ahve one very fish character - even without fins!
This isn't making any sense! Now he, an apprentice who has barely been at the place for a day, is already reporting on his conversations with Lark? Who put Mr Arrogance in charge? You know, this is the second character from one of your novels who is constantly tempting me to visualise smacking them. You must really like creating hateable characters.
Please, please, pleeeeeaaaaase let Waverly slug Dorian!
My overall impression of your story thus far is this: the characters are well-developed, each with their own personalities, your setting is brilliantly described and you capitalise one very presented opportunity to add a description, but your plot... at the moment, it is rather obscure and confusing. I can say with complete honesty I have no idea what will happen next, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but some clarity would nevertheless be appreciated.
This is my first Review Day review, but rest assured, it will not be my last - I already have the next two chapters open in separate tabs. Onwards!
As always, many excellent points. I will fix them right away!
Hello. Haven't read previous parts; just going off what I see here.
This was alright. And by "alright" I mean there's nothing particularly wrong with it, but there's not much particularly right with it, either. This was lovely and straightforward, but it was also extremely confusing and vague. I'll try to ramble on about what I thought in the hopes it can be some semblance of helpful.
I like how you have dragons, and I like they're more pets than anything large and gargantuan. You're hinting at quite a few things in terms of world and just how this works. I can understand this is an academy with a boarding school, with magical people, and there's a certain level of science to it because you're discussing herbs. You've not really given us too much information, so you've avoided massive infodumps, which is good.
The only thing I can think of, for why I'm not particularly in love with this, is you've gone too far in the other direction— this was very thin on the actual setting information, and I'm wondering if you're relying on an extensive description of the room in a previous part to have this description make sense. There's nothing particularly wrong with doing this, but it's not my style and it makes this setting very hard to picture. We don't get any details about what she's using or looking at; instead we just get these vague, abstract concepts that are nearly impossible to picture.
It gets worse when you go into the kitchens. This is a new setting, from the looks of it, and while you have some very lovely descriptions of the kitchens proper, you don't really describe what the character is using. I didn't realize what the trays looked like until things started going wrong, and it feels strange to not actually know what she's taking. I thought the food would be in a drawer per meal, and you hadn't mentioned her carrying a tray, and she never actually realizes what she's carrying... so I'm left with a blank. Are the meals individually portioned in something that obscures what they are? How many meals does she have to carry? Are the trays server trays with multiple meals, or is it one tray per meal? How many trips will she make? Where does the liquid come from?
While you do honestly have some lovely descriptions and I'm enjoying the lack of infodumping, you're not telling us anything about what the character is actually using. You peel back the layers of information too slowly, to the point I found out she's delivering something liquid six paragraphs after you first mention what she's inspecting.
Don't be afraid to describe things solidly when characters are using them. Having a little block of description that tells us exactly in no uncertain terms what she's carrying, how, the quantity, and the contents of it (not just "seemed to be" things— actual "here is what it was" descriptions) would not be out of place. It would actually help your descriptions get far better, because we get a sense of what the protagonist knows as soon as the protagonist knows it. Have her take in what she's actually using, and reveal it to us in full.
The amount of background information you give, however, is perfect. You don't need to go into long infodumps about the paintings, and I am very glad you don't. However, you use the exact same type of description— slowly revealed and parcelled out over long distances— for what the character is actively using and taking in as new items. That is where your problem is. For things the character is actively using and taking in, you want to give us more blocks of information that let us take in exactly what the character is using, at the same time she takes it in.
Don't be afraid to tell us "She's carried seven warm turnovers on equally warm plates, a matching number of milk-filled mugs, and forks for everyone on two large trays" (or what have you— I have literally no idea what she's carrying, the quantity, the containers, the type of cutlery, and the types of trays). That lets us know, exactly, what she's using, and gives us so much worldbuilding detail because it tells us what the average breakfast meal and drink is, along with how it's served, what she is expected to carry, and how she carries it. That's all good detail that you can give to us in larger chunks. In fact, giving it to us in larger chunks means we won't be surprised when an unspecified liquid starts sloshing when she stops.
Overall, your background information is lovely. However, the processes that describe what the character is doing and using are very thin, and leaves me unable to picture what is going on with the world. More description of what she's actually interacting with, in larger blocks, would improve this tremendously.
Let me know if you have any questions or comments.
~Rosey
Hmmm... that's not something I've thought about before. Thanks a lot!
No problem!
Like I said, this was alright. It was hard for me to find things wrong. It was just very dream like, and I kept looking for actual solid things I could sink my teeth into and... I couldn't find them. The lack of specifics (you say "liquid" instead of what the liquid actually is) really robs us of a good picture for the world itself.
However, I actually did like this! The setting and plot look fairly original, and I like you've already brought in a major event and the repercussions three parts in. Good pace and plot. It's just really hard to picture setting.
Shadowolf here
Very nice read, i have to say its an interesting twist on this category, while reading I only found this for you.
"It was much too far from the lavender cloud for that spell to be the cause, so" I would have to suggest a look over this to reword it better.
Other than that I honestly could find anything else to suggest for you. Lovely amount of detail and descriptive words. I enjoyed this and urge you to continue writing.
Thanks! I'll take a look at that.