Hey, manilla!
Finally getting around to this. Excited to see how it plays out from the ending of the last chapter!
So, grammar stuff first, as usual.
The iron tang of blood catches you off-guard, and the soft clanking of shackles against shackles is the only sound lingering in the hall.
“Off guard” shouldn't be hyphenated. Also, do shackles make a different sound from other metal objects? You might consider changing the “shackles against shackles” bit, but I feel that's too nit-picky, so no need to mind it much. I just point it out because it feels a little weird, but it's fine as it is.
A pale, bony hand in chains grips a bar, unchanged, red-stained bandages on her knuckles. Raggedy raven black hair falls in disheveled strands, barely over the girl’s shoulders.
“Unchanged” is a bit odd to use here, especially considering the MC doesn't have much of a way to tell that they're unchanged (they may look unchanged, but who's to say they aren't just recycling old bandages?) I think simply calling the bandages old (or using a synonym for some spicier vocab) would sound better.
Raggedy raven black hair falls in disheveled strands, barely over the girl’s shoulders. Her height gives away she is only a few years older than Empress Maria, but her expression reminds you of something more.
Is her hair too short to reach her shoulders, or is it just below them? The wording there is confusing. Also, height isn't indicative of one's age, so determining that she's slightly older than the Empress based on her height isn't entirely logical or realistic? Then again, the Empress is a child, so I see how this could make some sense? But people of all ages come in all sizes, so I'd suggest fixing this.
And “her expression reminds you of something more”-- This is weird, saying that it “reminds” you, unless the next few sentences clarify some reason that you'd recognize this person. Paired with the previous mention of her height/age, it feels out of place to say “reminds”. Perhaps you meant something along the lines of--
I can't come up with an example, dang, but I'm thinking you might have meant for it to play out like “She looks young, based on her height, but her expression indicates much more/she's older” or something like that? I can't think of the right word to replace “reminds” with in this case, at the moment, but yeah--
If I interpreted that wrong, then I apologize, and you can disregard the previous paragraph-- whoops, lel
Scars and bloody, open gashes line almost every inch of her body, and the blood makes you feel faint. One large string of hair sits in the middle of her face, a white streak through the middle.
If she's covered almost entirely in gashes and scars, then I'm not sure there would be much room left to describe her as pale? But this feels nit-picky, too.
The hair thing confuses me because I think of “one string of hair” as a single, individual hair, but that wouldn't be thick enough to see or have a streak of white through it. Maybe some clarification here? Or a rewording?
But what surprises you are her eyes.
The one on your right is gray, and the one on your left is purple.
And then this-- I think it would be more natural to describe the eyes as they're attached to her (her left eye is gray, her right eye is purple), as opposed to doing it the way you did above. It may flow better and it makes the character feel closer to the scene, whereas the current description makes her feel like an outside force, or an object?
I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I hope it does.
Pure terror washes over you, and your face pales into a shade of alabaster.
Nice use of 'alabaster', I like it.
She may act like one-No, don't think that.
This formatting was a bit confusing-- I was reading “one-No” as a word before I realized what you meant. Maybe put a space between the dash and “No”, or even drop “No, don't think that” to a new line? Not sure which would work best, but those are some ideas if you decide to touch this up.
She pulls out a manilla parchment with the royal blue seal and raises it high above her head. Your signature sits on the bottom of hers.
Also, “Your signature sits on the bottom of hers” gives me that image of the two signatures overlapping slightly? You might want to go with “beneath hers” or something similar.
It's pretty silly clarification, but it makes the reading, and the reader's comprehension, flow more smoothly.
You then meet the gaze of the girl in the cage, whose eyes begin to laugh at you with a certain insanity you cannot describe.
Ohh, she's in a caage. That explains the bar her hand held earlier. It wasn't quite clear that she was in a cage; I thought she was just shackled, so the bar mention confused me. Maybe you could clear that up earlier? When she's first brought in?
"Yes, Your Majesty." The words fall out of you like a dying breath, your last wish, and they're certainly your last hopes.
I'm not sure if you add the “last wish” and “last hopes” parts as a sort of description of how she speaks these words, or if they're really a last wish/last hope. The latter doesn't really make sense to me, though, because she's agreeing with the Empress, whereas her wish/hope would probably be to escape, in this moment at least.
I'm not sure if I looked into that too much or whaaat, but yeah--
It takes you all your willpower not to race out to collect them.
The “you” here is a bit redundant. “It takes all your willpower” is clear enough, so you could omit the “you” if you'd like.
And that's grammar done!
Few notes on the general content of this part-- The flow was nice, and we got some imagery back (given the relative lack of it in the previous chapter). We still haven't reached the amazing descriptive levels of the first part, but that was more setting the scene, while here we're still in the ballroom and more plot stuff is happening, so I guess I'll stop talking about imagery for the rest of this story, lel.
Our character's tussle between trusting the Empress (whether out of general fear or actually wanting to believe she's good) is handled nicely, although playing into it a bit more might be good as well.
The introduction of the witch was written well, despite the confusion on her cage (though that could have just been me missing something), and I'm interested to see how she bends our character's thoughts on the Empress.
Overall, this was a decent chapter, and while it didn't progress the plot a ton, it did lay the foundation for, I hope, our character eventually turning against the Empress? It felt to be a more character-based chapter, basically.
Anyway, I hope this review was helpful, and I plan to get to part 4 within the next couple of days!
Keep up the great work!
- Hatt
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