Funnily enough, Ardea is my favourite character! I didn't like her at first to be sure, however the way she is struggling and surviving in situations she's not been in before is quite endearing her to me. She has a whole other person inside her, I feel, a person who was trapped behind her royal mask, and that's coming out now. She's discovering others feelings and taking them into account, best shown when she changed the subject when Sirtalis mentioned about his ex and all were about to open a pity fest.

After Ardea I like Simus because he is soo annoying to Ardea! I don't really see the two as a pair though; plus neither show they are interested. I'm inching towards the older bro, Sirtalis ;P

hi! i'm liliana and i love your story. marcianus is so sexyyy. he looks delicious!loooooooool naja too. they are the perfect couple

xoxo

I LOVE MARCIANUS

LOVE.

i'm addicted to your writing, i hope you know that. ;) this is like the third story i've started reading. anyway, i love this one too. i can see why you've split it up but personally i would have carried on reading if you went up to 70 chapters cos its just that good. so now that your ego has been sufficiently inflated, i'm gonna march on over to part 2. ;)

great story :D

this is really good :)

I like the caring side of Cal's personality that you showed here because it contrasts so briliantly with Ardea's selfish impulses. I did think this chapter could have held a little bit more of Ardea's own personal opinions in order to cement her characterization because she still isn't really a concrete character this far into the plot.

P.S. Check out the Review Marathon, linked in my profile.

I like how you described Ardea as beautiful from Jabali's persepective because it gave her another side and showed how self-depreciating she is. I did think that you could have left off with all of your descriptions, because quite a few of them weren't all that necessary and in fact detracted from the flow of the chapter.

I really like the plot twists you've got working for you. They're quite unique and make for an 'on your toes' sort of reading experience. I did have a problem with Ardea fainting, just because it isn't very realistic. I mean, how many people do you know who pass out when they get shocking news? It's a romanticized cliche that many stories could do without.

I especially didn’t like the way you described ‘tossing’ and ‘throwing’ a saddle on the horse. It isn’t at all accurate, and speaks of unprofessional behaviour. I found the turn of events you showed in this movie to be interesting, but perhaps it would have been better to give it to readers slowly rather than dumping it all on them at once. It made the narrative tedious rather than engaging, and because of the quickness in delivering the information, the plot twists felt a little too neatly done rather than a brilliant plot twist.

I find it interesting how so far, each of Jabali’s chapters ends with in calamity. It makes for a very repetitious read, and certainly doesn’t keep a reader on his or her toes. You might want to switch things around every once in a while and avoid falling into a pattern. Another problem I have with this is the inconsistency regarding character emotions. Jabali always claims to be stubborn and strong, yet she spends a great deal of time moping and crying, or that is how it appears to readers.

In general, I do not like Ardea’s character. She is silly and selfish and vain and used only to getting her own way. None of those things make for an endearing character. And while it’s good that you’ve given her faults, I feel that you’ve taken things to the opposite level and forgotten any qualities. However, Simus is certainly very interesting. He is much more realistic than any of your other characters, and I look forward to reading more about him in future chapters.

I liked the tense atmosphere and turn of events because it helped to inch the reader along the plot. However, you had way too much unnecessary information here that really hindered the reading process. There was no need to describe practically every moment of the escape or to go into detail on the family of birds she met, since they didn’t play a large role. In fact, I’d say that about half of this chapter was unnecessary.

One thing I don’t like about this is how all four of your main characters are in positions of power and prestige. While I’m sure it suits your purposes, it doesn’t make for a particularly realistic story. It would have been better to focus on a commoner or slave. Someone not in the limelight. I do like your character, Marcianus, because he is the only character you’ve introduced this far who has a definite fault. Everyone else seems to be perfect, which does not make for an interesting reading experience.

Don’t be afraid to use plain old ‘said’ more often than anything else. If your dialogue is strong, it doesn’t need all the fancy modifiers and synonyms you’ve got. It’s really just a distraction. I liked the bit of mythology you incorporated here because it helped readers to understand the nature of the soul carrier and of this people in general.