Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for language and mature content.
Obi found himself trying to chew on his lip as he tried to ignore Qui’in’s outraged gaze that seemed to burn through her veil. He was tired and just wanted to go home. He thought of Conya who would want to know why he missed dinner, and he wondered, not for the first time, if he really loved her or if he just loved the way she needed him.
He’d always found he was fonder of people who needed him, and when they became independent again, he always felt trapped between a bad idea and promises. His chest constricted, and now Princess Ihyna in the picture.
Taking a deep breath, he looked straight forward as he said as evenly as he could, “I needed to not be somewhere, so I made a scene while not being somewhere.” Turning his head so she could feel the full force of his easy smile, he shrugged. “There are always people in the temple. Everyone watches you, and me being with you will cause a lovely scandal that will ensure that everyone knows I’m not where some may assume I am.” He shrugged. “You claiming rape will only enforce the fact that I was here, and if you think that Kamaria thinks you’re important enough to alienate the majority of nobility, you’re a stupid whore.”
She didn’t say anything or even react. Her chin went up, and she murmured, “If you think Kamaria or Rofulo make sane decisions that we can predict, you do not know them.”
They walked in silence, both stiff and obviously angry. “I hate you,” he said suddenly. “I hate what you stand for. The politics and the espionage.” He was chewing on his lip now. Why had he started that? He had stopped when he was young, after he realized it was making his lips chapped which hadn’t been making himself any more attractive which used to be important. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to make his mind just stop. “I also hate that you’re smart. That’s very annoying,” he snapped. “And that I need you for Lekan. I would barely know who you are if it wasn’t for this mess.” He felt his nostrils flare and pressed his lips in a tight line.
They were out of the crowds now, and only a few people rushing home shared the sidewalk with them.
“If it makes you feel any better, I hate you too.” She tilted her head just enough so that he knew she was being sly. “I will not list every reason for you.” Clearing her throat delicately, she murmured, “Sometimes letting a man imagine does a better job than spelling it out.”
He found himself laughing despite himself. “It’s no surprise that you’re successful at what you do. We’ll part ways after this turn. People will think we’re heading toward your hotel.” He’d just focus on actions, moving forward, step by step, until he was back home, safe. His mind started reaching towards what-ifs and started holding his breath. Either he would distract himself or pass out. Either would be better than this worried nervousness. He was starting to regret getting Qui’in on his arm. Yeah, it was a good attention grabber, but she was curious now. The less people who knew something was strange in his life the better, and he’d made a mistake.
“Are people going to believe the great Obi has stooped down to play with the lowlifes?” She was fishing. He knew she knew he was nervous, and that made her curious. She was reaching out, her voice heavy with what could have been seduction if he wasn’t paying her already to teach Lekan and she wasn’t just trying to do figure out what was going on.
He rubbed his face with his free hand. “Doesn’t matter. They’ll want to believe it, so they will. What will the people who question it say?” He smiled, the expression wooden, an instinct of what he was supposed to do in certain situations. “That I just walked you home?”
They turned the corner, and he slid his arm away from hers. “I’ll pay you enough for our goals to be linked again. Don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. Don’t take any clients tonight. Men will be coming tomorrow to ask you about me.” His eyes tried to pierce through her veil. “I don’t want to trust you, but I don’t have a choice.”
“I need you to name a price before I take your trust.” She took a step toward him, and he damned her veil.
Was she laughing at him?
On the still air, he could practically taste whatever scent she had on. It reminded him of warm nights and spicy food and rain in the far east. “Ten thousand.”
She was silent as she leaned closer.
Forcing himself to breath and pretend his heart didn’t jerk, he allowed himself a frustrated sigh. “What? Is that not enough? Name a price.”
She laughed, just by his ear. “That’s fine, sweetheart. I’m glad we could come to an agreement.”
He watched as she walked away, clenching and relaxing his hand before turning on his heel.
He needed to get home.
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125,008 Literary Works • 672,821 Reviews
Hi there! Noelle here for a Review Day review!
This seems a bit out of the blue to me. It could just be an idea you didn't really have in the beginning when you started writing, but wanted to throw in there. That happens a lot in first drafts, especially when you're only spending a week on a chapter. So I'm not going to harp on you for just putting it out there like that. I am going to say though, that if you want to keep it like this, you'll have to add in some clues in the early chapters that maybe he doesn't actually love her, that there's something he's done that's showed that. From what I've seen of him around Conya, he's seemed completely in love. There really hasn't been a time when he hadn't seemed happy while with her. Some small clues here and there could foreshadow this sudden thought.
It's always interesting to watch Qui and Obi interact. I know I've talked about them a million times before, but they're just the perfect pair and I enjoy talking about them. Qui is one of the only people, if not the only one, who can get under Obi's skin. He's so focused on how other people see him that anything Qui does to jeopardize that bothers him. And that's exactly what she was doing here, using his disadvantage to her advantage.
I am a bit curious though, did Obi tell her to stop training Lekan? Or did anything happen where she decided to stop? We haven't seen them together in a while and by what Obi said here about paying her to finish makes it sound like she hadn't been doing it. I'm just wondering if I missed something or if this conversation is something completely different.
Overall you've got another great chapter here. Obi and Qui have finally hashed it out after they really haven't talked with each other in a while. I feel like you're swinging back to the Lekan part of the plot and I'm looking forward to that. We haven't seen him in a while and I wonder what he's up to.
Keep writing!
**Noelle**
Hi Megsug!
Back for another chapter! I really liked this one in all honesty. We get to see even more of Obi's character. I love how he is fond of the dependent kind of people, and then here he is having to depend on Qui. In his mind it's shaming and he doesn't like having to rely solely on someone else's trust. On top of that, he did need to make a scene to make sure he wasn't accused of the kidnapping about to happen, but then he rethinks his ideas. I feel like everything that has been happening to him lately is weighing him done and at some point he might even crack. It's interesting, and I love seeing more of him. You're doing an awesome job with these chapters, so make sure you keep it up. The only thing that was really wrong with this chapter was in the writing style. I'm not sure if you wrote this chapter hurriedly or something, but it's not your best when it comes to the language. So expect this to be a lot of nitpicks!
I don't really see how these two parts of a sentence relate to each other. This makes it seem like they should be separated and the second part should be made into a separate and full sentence. Maybe you meant the second part to be his thought, but it was half finished, so I didn't really understand what you meant. How does his chest constricting have to do with the princess?
I agree with the previous reviewers a little on this one. You do have quite a lot of unnecessary little words in the sentence. For example, this long one which doesn't flow too well could easily be rewritten as this: Taking a deep breath, he looked straight forward and evenly said, ... etc. Much shorter and easier! When it comes to flow in a chapter, reading aloud really helps. When you end up stumbling over a sentence or out of breath then you know you've got too many little words in there that you don't need. I don't think it would be a good idea to read through all chapters aloud, but just ones where you doubt how smooth it is running.
The ironic thing about this is that in one sentence you mention that she doesn't react or speak, but the very next thing she does is move and then speak. Maybe you should say that she doesn't react or say anything in response to his harsh words, but instead murmured on about something else. I think this might've been what you wanted those words to mean anyway, but you just needed a bit more in there to imply it better.
This sentence is far too long to the point where it doesn't make sentence. I would split it by putting a full stop after the word 'chapped' and splitting it into two sentences. On top of that, in the second part you have 'which' twice, which is kind of repetitive. So how about making that second sentence something like 'It hadn't been making himself any more attractive which seemed to be important [at the time?]. Also, this left me curious. Why had that been important? Just for the role he used to play in life or, as typical for every young person, it was for the girls?
I saw the word 'just' twice in this sentence. Referring to what I said earlier, you should try to eradicate this word as much as possible. It's in most cases unnecessary and not adding anything to the story.
This makes it sound like his mind is what made him hold his breath. You need a 'he' before the word 'started' just to clarify the meaning here.
I think you mean breathe here.
Now that we have all the nitpicks out of the way I will mention the only thing I was in want of during this chapter. That would have to be the surroundings. In my mind they are walking along in their little bubble. I can see the setting, but it's deserted. Where are all the people? The sounds? The smells? Don't tell me Obi is ignoring all of that. And I want to see the glances people are stealing them already, want to overhear some of the whispers which can make Obi pleased because it is making people think his alibi secure already. So yes, make sure you include background noise and the general people in this too. They are pretty important in Obi's case, at least.
As always, trying to catch up and looking forward to the next chapter! Keep writing this awesome stuff, and just watch out for the fine details next time
Deanie x
Hello.
Haven't read previous parts. Just Going off what I see here.
Your syntax is extremely wordy. I found myself reading your first few paragraphs two or three times in order to have some idea what they mean; they're filled to the brim with tiny little filler words that simply distract from what you actually want to say.
Be certain, and be direct. Whenever you start filtering your words through sensing verbs— felt, tried, sensed, appeared— you distance yourself from what is actually going on. This leaves the prose fuzzy and difficult to relate to. I want to know what is actually happening, not what feels like is happening.
Past that, this was unfortunately very selective in details. You have a fantastic opportunity to display anger by setting, to show the night and the quiet and all these little details that just make a setting alive. You also lack a lot of details about how she moves, her body language. She might not have any facial expression, but the tilt to her head, the way her shoulders move, the way she leans, all of these details can be ways to characterize her.
There's just a general filler feeling with this. I'm potentially noticing this because I'm currently trapped in those issues right now with my own novel, but overall I didn't really feel the stakes and I didn't really get a sense of who this character was. Part of that obviously comes from not having read previous parts of this, but characterization and tension should happen throughout everything. You don't really end up answering why he feels that way, why he doesn't trust her, why he gets the impression he does. It ends up very protagonist-centric and I want to find out about the character he's interacting with, why it's a mistake, and how he feels about having to work with her. Sure, you tell us he hates her, but I'm not given enough in this particular interaction to know why he hates her.
Fill this in, tense this up, and don't stop characterizing for a minute. Then you'll have a much stronger chapter.
Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.
~Rosey
Hey there,
I'm Rachael, better known as the Rache Drache. I'm a bit of an atypical reviewer in that I despise the line-by-line style of reviewing, so I will alas not be doing that for you this fine evening. That's far too organized. I'm going to ramble at you instead and you can take from it what you will.
I just dropped in to this chapter, so I haven't the foggiest what's going on. That's beneficial in many ways since I can focus on non-plot things.
Two storytelling issues I noticed:
You use a lot of pronouns--so many that I got lost trying to keep track of who was who. Or, rather, you used too many pronouns in ratio to character names. I know that it can seem really weird to use a character's name too many times, and so in fear of redundancy, one relies on pronouns to prevent repeats. But character names are more invisible than you might expect. Use them frequently to help the reader know who's speaking, who's doing what, etc etc.
The second thing I picked up on was your dialogue. I liked your dialogue itself. I'm a bit of a dialogue junkie--I analyze conversations for fun on a daily basis--so feel free to beam with pride! In my opinion, good dialogue is the heart and soul of characterization. It's why Shakespeare's plays have lasted so long.
Anyway, back on track: my issue with your dialogue is that you interrupted it frequently with bits of prose...inside one paragraph. It became hard to follow. Example:
Maybe it's because I'm getting old, but keeping track of where quotation marks begin and end got warisome. I had to go back and re-read to make sure I was separating dialogue and everything correctly.
Which is bad because it kicked me out of the story.
You can easily (and safely) make sections like that several paragraphs. In my experience, it's fine to go Dialogue (D) Prose (P) Dialogue (D), or P D P, or P D, or D P. But not P D P D or D P D P D--gets too much and gets waaaaaaay too cray-cray. Just make sure each Dialogue and Prose bits go together, like nuggets or milk and cookies.
And without knowing what's going on plot-wise, I don't know if I can comment on anything else really... nah, nope. I'd just sound silly.
So, fewer pronouns and more paragraphs. 'tis the moral of the story.
Rache