She told herself she wouldn't say anything except what was completely necessary to be respectful. She had planned to throw stones at Lekan's window to see how he reacted and to get him to herself all day. She thought she could teach him how to trail someone with relative ease or maybe how to lie believably, both if he caught on fast enough. Of course, she thought to herself, Lekan was sure to have lied before, but she knew he hadn't lied as much as a spy would need to.
She walked up the steps, slowly, still in her own head. Obi hadn't given Lekan enough credit. He was a smart kid, caught onto things quickly. Yes, he was naive and a tad stupid when talking to people, but that didn't mean that much. He was young too, and young people had the right to be stupid... as long as they outgrew it.
Glancing up, she sighed at the sight of the guard. He was the same one as always. She wondered when he slept or if he did sleep. She caught him looking at her and smirked. "And a good morning to you, my dear guardsman."
His eyes flicked back up, so he was staring straight ahead again.
She sighed and leaned against the door, knowing the light flowy dress she wore, though modest, fell provocatively enough to make his pulse speed up. He'd be able to see exactly what she looked like, what he would get if he had the money for her.
He stood still for a while longer before sputtering and stepping out of the way. "No need for that, Qui'in. The queen has already told me of your expected arrival." His lips curved slightly into a smile as he opened the door.
Raising an eyebrow, Qui leaned in close enough for him to see her teeth behind the veil. They were stained navy and dotted with small golden stars, but it was incredibly sheer, just barely doing the job of blurring her features enough to not be recognizable. "Darling," she breathed, tilting her head, so she was looking up at him through her eyelashes, "Are you playing with me?"
He blinked several times. "I... Er... Um..."
Patting his cheek, she moved on. "It's alright. It takes a special kind of man to play with me. You'll get better with practice." She was still smiling when she saw Obi. Frowning, she wondered if he was at the Rofulo's mercy or, even worse, voluntarily helping him. She tried to tell herself she had no problem with the current rulers despite the fact that the rash of questionable rulings recently that had started with the nobles. She had been able to look away when they started arresting the middle class and even fellow prostitutes. It was wrong, but they were making a political statement, and that was understandable for rulers. They were trying to keep order. She shook her head. Now she was trying to make excuses for them which wasn't acceptable. All Qui wanted to do was accept the leadership and not ruffle too many feathers. A country was a neat ball of yarn. If one person started picking at it, the yarn was soon a tangled mess. Qui'in would knew what tangled messes of countries were like, and she had no wish to go back to such a world. It's why she had come here in the first place though the dry desert air often cracked her skin unless she put lotions on every night, and she yearned to stand in a rain far more often than rain actually came.
Her eyes slid away off of Obi as soon as they fall on him. Whatever was going on, she needed no suspicious eyes watching her, and if it was obvious she and Obi were familiar, people would wonder. She'd gotten some quick information on him by asking a few innocent questions. The man was practically perfect on all accounts. A decorated war hero, a talented strategist, respected advisor, a practically sinless bachelor.
She doubted the last part of his reputation. Men were greedy. They never said no unless they had to, and she was sure he was no exception unless he was secretly religious or... She laughed to herself. Obi didn't seem like the type to enjoy men in that way, but she wasn't one to judge.
She made her way back to Kamaria's rooms and, unsurprisingly, had to wait. She planned out Lekan's lesson in the dim room. Thankfully, the servants hadn't lit any candles or fire to light- and heat- the room, so it was still deliciously cool. Veils had been a tradition quickly lost in this place because of temperature. The one she wore covered the part of her chest her dress left uncovered. She knew, if she got out of her as soon as she wanted to, sweat would soon bead there and, if she wasn't careful, stain the silk. She had practice though and wasn’t that concerned.
She jumped when Kamaria sailed into the drawing room, announcing as she did, “Qui, dear, I need a favor.”
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,018 Literary Works • 672,857 Reviews
Heya sugar, pretzelsing here for a review,I haven't done this in a long time but I really want to gush about this book. It is so great great great and well-written. You are a beautiful,talented writer,megsug.<3
Let's begin,shall we?
If you look in the first paragraph of this chapter, you could see that you repetitively used the word "she" in the beginning of every sentence. I think that you could another pronoun or maybe just substitute her name "Qui'in" for some of these.
Here when you insert the phrase "still in her own head" the still comes out as like that there is a possibility that soon she won't be in her head
Why does Qui'in think that it didn't mean that much, when from your story-line this meant a great deal to Obi. I mean Obi knew that Lekan was stupid and naive and he raved about, and wanted Qui to change it.
We obviously know that Lekan is young, so you don't have to mention that here,because it's stating the obvious for us readers/reviewers.I love the second part of the line: "as long as they outgrew it". It touched my funny bone and I felt amused
Why would Qui a presumably smart person assume/consider that this guard doesn't sleep. You and I know that everyone sleeps,(even if just very little;)). This doesn't really fit Qui's sharp mind.I would strike-through it(just like I have in the above example ^^)
Now onto the general: Qui'in and the guardsman,huh? I wonder how that will play out xD(if you include any mention of that in the next chapters). I recall though, in the first couple of chapters, wasn't that the guard who was being difficult and not allowing Qui to pass? Or was that another guard?Because if that was the same guard that was mean about it then whoops(that's no way to impress a lady
That quick of a transition,from smile to frown? I don't understand why she would be thaaat disturbed that Obi was in the King's palace(I mean didn't they used to be friends?
Practice with what?Taking good care of the veil? Not sweating
What an awesome cliffhanger! I loved it and it makes me feel like I want to go right into the next chapter and start reading it as soon as possible
Qui is such an interesting character to write I am sure
As a side note, I have noticed that each chapter is getting shorter and shorter.(although I do acknowledge that there is a second part of this xd) but anyways why is that? Maybe the deadline is getting a little bit tight?
Anyways,that's it from me.I hope that this review helps you in some way to make this chapter better and better.
KEEP ON WRITING!
Hi there!
Well, I don't have much to say about this chapter. It was written very well, like your other chapters, and really focuses on Qui, seeing as it's written in her POV. It's nice to see things from her perspective to be honest. She's such an interesting character. It's nice seeing her from other people's perspectives, but getting her to tell the story gives us an opportunity to see why she does what she does. We also get a quick look at what she's planning on doing with Lekan to help train him.
The first paragraph here has the word 'she' an awful lot. Lava pointed this out as well, but I'm going to put in my two cents as well. One thing that isn't quite plain in the beginning is who this 'she' is. We are able to figure it out of course, but it would be nice to know exactly who this 'she' is. Use Qui's name every so often. Really, you only need to mention it once in the first couple of paragraphs because you use her name farther down as well. Just make sure it's in there in the beginning to clear up any confusion.
Now, I am a bit confused here. Qui is going in to see the queen and that's where she sees Obi. So this is when Obi comes in to talk to the king, yes? Why isn't that line in here where Qui bursts in and says "It takes an act of the gods to get in this place."? Or was that at a different point? I'm a bit confused there.
One last thing before I go. You seem to call Qui'in by two names: Qui and Qui'in. This really isn't that big of a deal, but I figured I'd point out that it would be nice to stick with just one of those names. I know that Qui is a nickname so maybe just keep that name in the dialogue and use Qui'in everywhere else? I'm only mentioning it because her name isn't really consistent throughout. I never know whether to refer to her as Qui or Qui'in.
Alrighty then, I'm going to head over to the next part of this chapter now.
Keep writing!
**Noelle**
Hey hey Megs!
Main Points
XD For a moment I thought you were talking about her teeth
I love the little banter you have between Qui and the guard, it gives us a sense of routine seeing as they seem to do this quite often.
I can understand them arresting prostitutes but why the middle class? What does she mean by making a political statement? Don't forget to elaborate on these ideas and statements. I think your trying to give us a reason to hate the government, which is great! Just don't forget to gie us a follow through later on.
I did like the little war within Qui as she thought about these things, not wanting to think against them but at the same time disapproving of their methods.
It's nice to come back to Qui's point of view, but in all honesty I love all of them
On the subject of relaying information, don't be afraid to bring down the pacing of one of your chapters in order to fit in a mini info dump (as in mini XD ). Every novel needs filler chapters to help the readers connect the dots, so they're actually quite an important part of any novel. Soon we have to start to know more about the country that Lekan's “mission” is in and why exactly it's considered so dangerous. So don't be afraid to throw in some informative “pondering” by one of the characters or something
Anyway, great stuff! Keep it up and happy writing!
Silverlock
Hi megs!
I decided to crawl around the green room - and while I haven't read the other chapters, here are some thoughts that floated in my head:
The first paragraph seemed to use a lot of she. It kind of became a bit of a monotnous tone while reading. My head also says this monotony seems fine with the rest of the chapter, but also, the start to a chapter seems like paving the tone for this part.
"Her eyes slid away off of Obi as soon as they fall on him."
This line confused me. I think it's awkwardly phrased, and I think you meant Qui's eyes quickly diverted.
I like the para about greedy men. Gives a bit of character to Qui.
Quite interesting. I hope I have time to read through this.
Cheers,
L
Hey there Megsug!
It's always good to see another chapter of yours posted. Also, I can see you've included the challenge in there too, which you did pretty smoothly. Didn't seem out of place at all ^.^ I think you did a good job as usual, of showing us all of Qui's thoughts, observations and how she reacts to what she sees. We also get a nice little snippet of her past, and get to know a bit more about veils because now we know everyone used to wear them. Also, nice cliffhanger there ^.^ I am curious to know what favor the queen could want of Qui!
I'm not really a big fan of starting a new chapter with the person in question being referred to being addressed as 'she'. I think it would be better if you put her name at the beginning of the chapter at least. Also, in this chapter you do use 'she' an awful lot. I might've mentioned this before but I will repeat just for effect, it would be better to use her name a bit more often. It mixes things up a bit, and it gets a little bit repetitive always seeing 'she'. Seeing as this in third person as well, it should be easy enough to do.
You never told us what made Qui change her mind? Was she summoned by the queen or did she just happen to be going there already? Or did she not feel like meeting Lekan today? Let us know the reason for her changing her mind!
I feel like this sentence would work better with the word 'who' in there after the comma.
Comma needed after the 'them'.
Again, comma needed after the word 'place'.
This would work better with the word 'from' instead of 'off'. Just flows smoother.
I know Qui says she doesn't believe Obi can be as his reputation says because of the fact that he is a man, and men always have their own kind of wants and so on. But, Qui has met him and she is one who makes close observations. I want to know what her opinion is of him, with the information she has managed to wean from just watching his movements. Could she tell he was someone who gathers information by watching other people as well? It would be a bit more interesting than her just basing her idea of him off his gender alone, even though that too was a nice touch.
I really have nothing else to say. As always, a brilliant chapter. I look forwards to whatever you are going to post next. Keep me updated ^^
Deanie x