Really wonderful job you're doing, as always. I was so glad to see an update in my inbox. So, keep up this superamazingness! I can't wait to read more :)

~Carm~

I'm really, truly amazed at how this story is only getting better and better. With every new chapter, I'm even more impressed with your talents as a writer.

Keep up this superly duperly great work!

~Carm~

PS

I'm so very very sorry for not reviewing sooner! It may take me awhile to read and review, but just know that I still am, 'kay? :)

Well this was a good first novelette for your trilliogy, although I still think there are places where you could expand. It makes it really hard that your second charictor is a slave because one of the biggest attractions to a story is diolouge and because Krisha is an aman you dont allow for free diolouge between krisha and Reyel. I also dont really feel much conection between the two charictors, they feel almost two dementional to me. but your plot was good and original. One other thing is that you gave inconsistancies with krish's charictors status. Twice you say that she has no way of accepting an appology or when Reyel thanks her, but then you have her do it in the heallers hut in that one village. just watch out for things like that. Also I was surprised that Valshakar didnt offer to grant a wish of Reyel for saving his life like what happened in the storytellers story because you deliberatly put the storytelleres story in there. But I guess my biggest complaint is your charictors, I feel like you could benifit from writing charictor skecthches and really fugiuring out there distinckt personalities familly history and such other facts would help you out with this.

Your descripiton to detail is wonderfull and so is your writing. My one and only complaint is that I find when you start out with your main charictor going on a quest, jumping right into the plotline and action of the story, it gives the reader very little time to become invested in what happens to the main charictor. Also because of how quickly you jump into the action (Reyel leaving on a quest) you leave very little time for the reader to get to know Reyels background, the way he was raised, the society he grew up in, all the charictor building events in a persons life that shape the way they are. And one last thing to mention which is something I feel is often forgoten on this website is that names are very very powerfull things. A rose is not just a rose and no other name would smell as sweet, romeo and juliets tragic end came about because of there names and if there names had been aderson and specter there would have been no story. (sorry about the tangent) But think about it if you give your charictors names that people can remember than people will remember them, and if you give your charictors names with meaning you already, you add another layer to your story. Hope I've givien you a lot to think about, although you are already quite invested in this story so it would be hard to go back and change a lot, but you also said this is the first in a trilogy so maybe you could implement some of my sudgestions, if you liked any of them, in the next book.

Ivi

Harr.

Now let's take a small look at what we have.

-Again, like the healing amulet that she managed to get earlier on- you'll have to take careful note of the fact that Madera has the ability to summon these "spirit eyes" (the lovely prefix's popping up again) as remote cameras of a sort, and consider it well if and when a plot point depends on her not knowing something that said "spirit eyes" could have easily spotted. If anything, such a feature's a great thing to have- why she isn't doing it regularly, or at least as much as her power permits is another question. Reconissance is a *very* important part of most military operations and while this might not exactly be one, I'm sure Madera is intelligent enough to know the value of reliable information.

-Hm. This is a low-tech society; people are going to be highly reliant on the land and Madera is even more so. Why is there "bark", "berries" and "roots", then?

Think about it; this is related to the second part of the Idiot Plots I put up on SE. Part of the problem why I detested Richard Rahl early on was that he was supposed to be a woodsman. All well and fine. However, there were generic "trees", "birds", "animals" and "tracks". That didn't add up. He was supposed to be a woodsman, to have lived anomgst these things as part of his job for almost all

of his life. He should have been able to identify at a glance what species this plant was from the other, birds by their song, and so forth. It's akin to an Young Dunderheaded Hero(TM) from a village far inland which is served by a river or spring knowing what the sea is despite never having seen or heard of it.

I know I wouldn't eat roots or berries that I couldn't even NAME, nor would I get random "bark" and trust it to hold up to the tensions involved in archery. how is the arrow flying straight without fletching, anyways? And since Madera only has one, one, ONE arrowhead, shouldn't she be practicing more, doing as much as she can to make sure she gets the shot in? I presume she knows something about the upkeep and care of a bow, too.

Bleh.

-Evidently, Delekra is highly concerned with whatever's going on in Spirit Lake (yay for prefixes!). Big question now:

Why isn't going to do it herself?

No. Really. She's starting to look a little like Galbladdertorix over here to me. The effects of her presence might as well not have been felt; everything has been done by Madera. She doesn't influence Madera's decisions (or at least, I can't see where it does. Every single suggestion or adomishment, Madera would have done on her own anyways) She's entrusted an important mission to someone who has cause to resent her, where I'm sure there should have been better candidates, or failing that, she gets of her ass and goes to do it herself, if whatever's in Spirit Lake is that horrible.

Compare this to say, T'lin. Yes, she remains invisible until 2/3 to 3/4 of NB, but her actions and presence are felt. People are worked to death, executed, "supressed", "magical thinking" eliminated with brute force, and other actions through The Curator and a lesser extent Sa'turath. Reactions to her actions are present. She might not be seen on-stage like Delekara is, but she influences what actually happens quite heavily.

Part of the beauty of antagnonists is that by their very natures they are proactive; have her do something more than chide others. I'm not sure if you alreayd have this planned, but if you haven't you might want to think about it.

Hey mate. Sorry, I mean femate (I'm pretty sure that's the female equivelent of mate).

I'll cut straight to the chase. I'm only around halfway through this story of yours so far and, to be completely honest with you, I'm both intrigued and entertained. I would say something along the lines of "I can't wait to find out what happens next" but that would be stupid, seeing as I don't have to wait; I've still got five-odd chapters left to go. But after I've returned from my night out and finish the last chapter you've written, you better believe I'll be wanting more.

A small, little, tiny non-life threatening thing I've noticed is that events so far has been travelling at a fair rate of knots. A little too quickly in some cases. Just curious, how long have you planned this story to be? If it's not much more than 50 to 60 thousand words than I can understand this but if you're making this a trilogy, sometimes it wouldn't hurt to stop and smell the roses. That is, of course, if you're not writing something shorter than your average epic novel, in which case the quick series of events method is understandable.

With that minor complaint out of the way let me finish of by saying well done. There are a few other things there that niggled me a bit (of course that Lccorp 2 guy has probably labelled each one on a post-it and stuck them to your forehead by now) but since the pros dramatically outweigh the cons I'm not going to say anything. This is a great piece of work. Please continue.

I had read this yesterday when I had had a smidgen of time, but never managed to leave a review. But here I am :)

I can't get over how well this story is put together. It reads so smoothly, and it's so intriguing. This chapter was just as fantastic as the rest of them.

I'll try my best not to take a million kajillion years next time ;)

~Carm~

Wow u really got me hooked with this story... Madera's and Shadow's characters are especially interesting... but somehow I kind of lost in what's going on in the story... Quickly continue please XD

The scene with Madera and the shadow was really interesting. I do like those two. It makes me wonder how much of a hold Delreka actualky has on her, because she and the shadow seem to be good people despite what they are. That is what I like about this story.

The thing about the arrows makes sense as well. Although I am not sure about this romance in Krisha, you are taking it nice and slow, and it does make it rather a sweet romance.

I'm so glad I actually found the time to read this.

Amazing job! I love how everything is developing more and more, making this a real story story. Not sure if that makes sense, but you know what I mean :)

Loved it, and I can't wait for more!

~Carm~

This promises to be a great adventure. Keep up the good work.

Harr.

-"A squirrel screamed as something flew overhead."

"Scream" is not really a sound most people associate with squirrels or even small rodents.

-"...it was intended as emergency wealth but also carried an attendant healing and alert Spirit."

Fine. I don't remember any other instance before this chapter when Madera was potentially threatened, but this sort of thing shouldn't be forgotten about, especially (so it seems) when it's intended to be a one-time thing. If you won't remember, I'll help you remember. If Madera is summarily ambushed and caught off-guard without further warning from her neckpiece, I'll make sure to bonk you on the head for it.

-This is what I meant. She can make Stormlings dance to her tune; what's so difficult about "All right, Stormlings, get all your snow together, press it into one big ball and dump it on this spot" or "you see that funny wooden thing that opens and shuts over there? Dump all the snow you can on it, so it can't open and shut anymore. Try and make sure it takes days to melt, or even better, when it does melt try and get a crapload of mud over the door."

-"The creature came over the snow, its feathered paws barely sinking into the crust,"

"It flexed a paw, which I could have sworn was webbed."

So either it's feathered, or it's webbed, or it's both feathered AND webbed? Something doesn't make sense here; webbed appendages are for pushing animals through water and having featheres on the same appendage would create unecessary drag on appendages that'll be constantly moving in water. Swans and ducks don't have feathers on their webbed feet, do they?

-Oh look. A traveller's shelter, complete for a place to stable horses. Um. Yes. There's no mention that Reyel's been following a road, or has been following a road for any part of the story- so far, he seems to have been following Krisha's guidance through the wilds.

Now, who would place a traveller's shelter in the middle of nowhere? Think about it. If you wanted to build a traveller's shelter, complete with stabling (and I wonder why. These people certainly seem to have enough on their plate without building random shelters half a day's ride from home. Pretty altruistic folks round Reyel's parts), you'd build it someplace where you'd be sure people would use it, like by a roadside, at a crossroads, near a well-travelled trail or next to a waterhole in a particularly dry area. Not in the middle of nowhere, where it pops up just when needed.

Mighty convenient.

And has it been snowing continously while Reyel's been inside the shelter? Shouldn't the whole place be snowed-in by now? In a few hours at most, the snow's becone thick enough to cover all the new grass; a few days of that...how did Reyel even manage to budge open the door, let alone pull up grass from under the snow for the horses? and how is he going to pull up enough grass for two horses (animals that graze will eat a lot of fodder, due to general low energy content of foilage) without staying out long enough to get frostbite, from what I saw when they were riding to the shelter?

There's no mention of ventilation for the shelter, either. Aren't they going to suffocate?

Personally, I wonder about the horses, too. No feed for them? They'll get ill from grazing all the time without anything to supplement their diet.

Uh. enough for now.

Harr.

-Sometimes, I do wonder. Part of the problem stems from the fact that you've never actually put down the exact limits on what spirits can and cannot do, and again, part of the problem stems from the fact that as the main protagonist with no one likely to take over her, Reyel's not going the way of Ned Stark anytime soon.

Again, this does create problems and makes the antagonists look stupid, with the result of turning all tension into cheap jello. From what we've seen of Madra and her friends, whatever their motives are, they certainly don't seem to have any intention of holding back in any way. They're prepared to kill, have the service of numerous spirits at their disposal and have Swanky Magical Abilities And Knowledge (TM) that seem to surpass both protagonists'. They can summon mounts, open gates to other dimensions, bargain with supernatural entities and summon blizzards, but yet can't make a half-hearted attempt at killing two people.

This reminds me of games where the Dark Lord sends his weakest minions after the protagonist first, then progressively sends harder and harder minions as the weaker ones get squished.

That's stupid.

They say they want to kill Reyel if it comes to that, talk about them as "fugitives", spend so much time and effort in going after them and get injured in the process, yet there's still not half the suspense there should be, because they don't seem to be acting as they're saying. Wow. We have nasty poisons. Which can be cured using "herbs" from the village Healer. Uh-huh. "Herbs" which cure anything, even mystical poisons from the Spirit Realm. Uh-huh. Couldn't even be bothered to use a fast-acting toxin- the way most neurotoxins are, they can cause death within minutes by attacking the nervous system and making your heart and lungs go haywire. Hurrah for magical healing "herbs" that can be found anywhere and cure anything. I'd thought Madra would have chosen a different poison, one with antidotes that weren't that common.

They can keep a blizzard howling for days on end and know our friends are in the general area, yet can't be bothered to send spirits out to look for them, as they did with the Shadow. Once their exact location is pinpointed, hello, house-sized hailstone. Hello, flattened protagonists.

It makes them look incompetent. Cheesy. Empty. The suspense has turned to jello. And there are few things I hate more than stupid, incompetent antagonists. They're not as bad as the ones which do Needlessly and Overly Complex Plans, the ones who Miss With Fireballs But Can't Simply Ignite The Protagonists' Hair, but you get my point.

On a side note, aren't there spirits in the world about them, much like our dear Deus Ex River Spirit you say was attracted by their arrowheads? Wouldn't they get pissed at the upsetting of the natural order and all that? Maybe a tree or earth or whatever spirit says "Hm. This blizzard's been blowing through my place for a bit too long, shouldn't I check it out?" and causes all sorts of buggery.

Anyways.

-Wait. She was taken when she was very young. That means she ought to have learnt the customs and traditions of the local populace with regards to slavery already and instinctively responded to them. While yes, customs can and should vary from place to place, there won't be TOO much of a variation, given geographical proximity and the other common bits and pieces (especially those regarding spirits, and value placed on things associated with them). She shouldn't have to be told that she wasn't allowed to tocuh Reyel, it should have been something she'd learnt long ago.

-She manages to have a walk in the woods without too much trouble, yet later on (and don't tell me she'd exhausted herself from dressing-down the Healer. She'd a night's sleep. Compared to when she came in a much worse condition and was fine enough to walk around after a single snooze...) she starts feeling faint again. Conveneintly forgetting wounds when they turn inconvinient?

-Whole scene with Healer Vs. Aman needs more emotion in it. I think you tell a little too much in here where things should be shown- I'm not really feeling Reyel's anger and indignation here. I mean, something like this:

"Molesting Krisha was disgusting, but...if he had beat it to death with his bare hands, rather like I was thinking of doing to him, it didn’t seem half as bad as what he had done. Using a staff, still applying to the aman restrictions after he had so obviously broken them, made me ready to tear his eyes out. Or worse.

“Get out of here,” I said. The man seemed to creep out, practically crawling. I savored his cowed expression, but didn’t waste time watching him leave."

It sounds a little flat. Not as if she was really pissed off to the point of wanting to tear his eyes out. Grr.

Well. That's it.

Harr.

I like the bit about Krisha's history. That is terrible that his father might be the one to sell him into slavery. Just curious, what about his mother? Is she dead as well. Of course, it sounded like she was not real fond of him either. I feel sorry for the aman. He has just had all the hard luck.

Hey,

I've been busy for a while, that's why I haven't really reviewed.

-I'm a bit perplexed why Reyel got so mad all of a sudden. i mean I could see him being a little irritated by the long ride but "one good day" isn't that long. And to inspire him too such hatred and dislike instantly...?

-I would have expected the shadow to easily keep pace with Reyel and Krisha considering its a shadow and probably has something akin to supernatural powers.

-I feel you could have incorporated Reyel's feelings and emotions as he was being chased better. I felt it would have been an ideal way to show how your main character deals under pressure.

Besides the stuff, another good chapter. The world-building of your fantasy setting is artfully done and very interesting. I'll keep on reading though probably not consistently.