[Not that the city itself wasn't quite a sight as it was.] - - - I know what you're trying to say here, but, I think that, as written, it feels weird.

In your opening paragraph, the sentences have an odd tendency to "interrupt" the beginning phrase with another phrase. It sounds kind of awkward. Also, the last sentence of that paragraph could be cleaned up and chopped into two or more separate sentences.

FYI, you capitalize "King" in the second paragraph, but leave it lower-case in the first paragraph.

This isn't your best work, I'm afraid. xo I can "hear" your voice in the opening descriptions and narrations—sometimes, quite strongly. The little digressions/"interjections" ("sure" , "they knew it", "not exactly surprising", etc.), combined with the rather tell-y/info-dump-y opening paragraphs of this chapter makes it feel less like a story and more like a lecture.

[Ilesa was clueless.

But back to the palace.] - - - To quote your review of "Shanghaied!": "My brain just got whiplash". If you're trying to establish a comedic/not-so-serious air to this story, I'd suggest holding back on the info-dumping/world-building. I've always found that the inherently "THUS SPAKE" quality of info-dumpings like this tend to make them a vehicle for seriousness, rather than levity—except, of course, in cases where the information ITSELF was ridiculous (i.e. Terry Pratchett's "Discworld").

You talk way too much about walls in this opening. XD

[from books without any context not gleaned from other books.] - - - Wait... what? Xo

[ but that didn't mean it meant anything to her. ] - - - once again, messy.

Okay... so. I can't finish this chapter. DX It's really awkward, and it drags. It's too serious-sounding for me to laugh at it, and, since it's obviously intended to have a certain humorous dimension—or something—I can't take it seriously, either. It's kind of like "The Spoken Words" 's ugly step-sister, honestly. The strength of the characters in that story—and the fact that they grip you rather quickly, too—gets the reader hooked immediately. Here, though, I feel like I'm being given stale bread and fizz-less soda. Xo

Maybe making it a first-person narrative might allow you to more effectively construct the "voice" that you're trying to give this narrative. Having this "style" of narrative firmly tied down inside the personality of an interesting character would make it more entertaining and engaging, IMO.

CV

The story is looking quite good! It's surprisingly nice to see something as relatively minor as the bookish character not being really learned and tolerant. I'm glad you went with a more sheltered/prejudiced protagonist in Ilesa, as so many of these stories seem to brush over that aspect and ignore it after a chapter or two. I enjoy those approaches fine as well, but I could definitely use some variation, and Ilesa makes a good balance between archaic/privileged views while not being unlikable so far. Very good output to date as well, which is always nice! I typically prefer meatier chapters, so it's nice to see a story with sizeable updates.

As an aside, Fictionpress really could use an overhaul that actually lets you look for things in a reasonable way. isn't that bad since the categories are so specific and you can sort by names, and other sites for fiction/ff usually have good (or at least some) tagging systems, but Fictionpress doesn't even let you sort its primitive searches by date - I've seen so many good fics die here due to lack of response/readers simply because navigating it to find stories you're interested in is a nightmare. Hopefully it won't happen here!

Nice story so far, shows a lot of promise. I'm excited in seeing how you approach their relationship - and especially what you do with the story once they're situated in Nisea. I've read a few 'princess married off to other princess' stories, and while they tend to start off fairly similarly, so many are abandoned or fall apart once the initial premise has played out, so I'm interested in seeing what you can come up with.

:D Woooooooooo awesome. bring on the next one. :)

Yes! More dialogue and less blocky paragraphs. I can't wait for the next chapter.

interesting chapter. hope to see the next one up soon. :)

update update update. me like me want more :)

I love that you've written a lot for the first chapter. But please up your paragraphs? They are very blocky.

Other than that, update soon please?