I mentioned something about this earlier Groth Calls Soth Maore, just Soth and then is immediatly corrected about it but in the same breath Alban uses to correct Groth he calls him Soth as well, I dont know if your doing it to cut corrners because you dont like typing the full name but if you make a point to have him be called Soth Maore you need to make sure he is always called Soth Maore unless it is Groth who is then corrected by someone

Harr.

-I suppose I can understand the lure of a military-esque organization to forcibly retired soldiers; that was a large draw of the SA and SS when they were being formed a little while after WW1. I'm not exactly sure about the history of your clans just prior to the Saber ranks' formation, but there had to be some pretty long wars for this sort of thing to happen (the build up of armies in Europe started long before WW1).

-Good. There is far too little sense of play amongst fantasy characters; I've tried to put in as much "domestic time" into NB as possible, but still haven't gotten around to play proper.

-"“Bor was a blood mage,” Alban joked."

"“Soth Maore,” he corrected me."

"“Why, damn it!” Kindran cursed."

The tags are becoming a little...redundant, my dear friend. It's almost as bad as ""sorry," Brom apologized." Do try to find some other way of showing emotion in your characters (and I don't really consider the tags proper showing anyways); it's getting quite stale and obvious.

-"I could feel her shivering beneath my fingertips as they traced ethereal patterns on his porcelain skin." Ahem. Here it's...jarring.

Hm. Apart from the borderline infodump at the end, fine. I'll give it a pass.

It's been a long time since the last update so I had to re-read it to recall the story. The use of words was superb and the conversation lines were very animated. It never failed to amaze me. Keep it up!

And oh, I spotted one error - "Actually, I think I’ll wait if doesn’t inconvenience you" (I guess you have to change 'if it doesn't inconvenience you' to 'if it isn't inconvenient for your part')

~Hiro

I liked this chapter, but is Groth really questioning Alban out loud? That surprises me especially with his last thought. I also want to know more of whats going on inside phoenix, did they have a periiod of drought or something where the crops failed? Can they freely come and go from inside the city, if so why did Alban fly over the walls. If not how are they getting messages from the hawks, if they can get information in and out like messages why dont they know more of current events?

Think about it like this, if they know the saber ranks are going to fight them, how do they not know of the vandal. If there is a way to get information in and out of the city then there has to be another way for people to get in and out of the city, if there is another way for people to get in and out of the city than why did Alban fly over the wall? and if there is another way in and out of the city then there has to be a way for them to escape during the siege.

Well, this is basically a review for the latest two chapters lol! XD Anyway, for the first, it seems like there's quite an issue for Alban concerning the war, huh? I won't be surprised if this turns out to be a political wrangle especially when Soth arrives. As for the cut scene in the second one, when I saw it, I was like "Dude, you should have done that earlier!" lol! :D Anyway, just a question here: when will you try to portray the past of Alban, Kindran and maybe Soth Maore? I do have this impression that at least for the former two, their past can be pivotal in the story especially in the scenario of the actual war. Soth Maore... well, I guess that's optional unless you want him to be major player in this story to a certain extent... apart from that. nothing much to say... sorry for this belated review btw...

Harr.

I have a few thoughts, but I'll ses the next few chapters and see if you address them before I make a move. Not shooting off too early on this.

there were a few inconcestiancies with this chapter, Alban isnt supposed to be able to speak snood, of cource he does, but he isnt supposed to be able to, so when they are discussing the building how is he able to ask gilbert nassau how big the building is without a translator? I do really like the bit at the end with Alban. Good charictor buildingd stuff. HOw long do normal people live? how old is your main charictor?

There were a few things that bothered me in this chapter. Firstly, in earlier chapters you make a big point of making sure that people called soth maore by his full name. You seem to be lapsing in that. Also, in the last sentance how is Grothanin betraying Alban? Is it just by sitting with Sebas and the Liutenant? And the last thing is really only minor and I didnt think about it until just now, "flee bitten gray" is an actuall color of a horse, and it wasnt until the start of this chapter that I realized that you might not have known that. So I wasnt sure if you were actually describing the horse as having litterally been bitten by flees (which isnt all that normal, horses arent generally subject to flees) or if you were simply refering to the color of the horse, if the former than you might want to change the color of the horse because there is no such thing as a flee bitten bay (brown horse with with dark brown legs main and tail) unless the horse is litterally covered in flee bites. sorry I teach horse back riding lessons, you probably didnt want to know any of that stuff. but it can be usefull

-I took a bite of the succulent fruit. It was relatively fresh-

If it's succulent, then it probably would be fresh, wouldn't it? It's really just a case of slightly too much description. I reckon you should cut out the 'fresh' bit.

-The simple glance he gave me was enough to make me want to run, if I could only do it subtly enough to escape his notice.-

A bit odd. He seems to view this man with contempt, this suggests fear. Maybe revise the tone of the description of the guy?

-At the same time, I was somewhat disappointed-

I'd cut this paragraph. Too much description and its getting in the way of the action at this point.

-His wings were blood-red in color. The symbol of the Saber Ranks had been drawn on the back of each wing with copious amounts of black paint. Still, the faint smell of lilies permeated the air around him. Conservatively dressed, he had neither the flamboyant style of the peacock man, whose identity I was not yet sure of, nor the over simplicity of Mjolnir. His stature said something about him. I couldn’t place it, but I didn’t want to lose this man’s respect.-

I'm not the kind of man to make such a complaint, but I feel like there's too much description in this chapter overall, and not enough happening. I don't know, it just doesn't connect with me on any level.

On the other hand, there's nothing much to complain about either. It's okay.

have you ever read anything by raymond e feist, particuarly the serpant war saga? Cause I think you would like it, there are alot of paralalles between this story and that one

Another reason to give your main charictor a friend. A likeable charictor would really do this peice some good, cause lets face it no one likes a whiner. Vleugel is likable but he isnt really there a lot and he is not someone whom your main charictor is equal with.

With all that making them work as a team from the previous chapter Im surprised that he did not make a friend. I wanted him to even if it was just an aquantiance to give the story a different voice, a different perspective. I wanted them to do rediculous tasks, like in one book I read a long time ago these men were forcably placed in a mercinary band and as part of there training they had to build a stone pyramid then when they finished the sargent came over and told them to move it. stuff like that that would build team manship. But if it is going to build team man ship it is almost imposible that he would not of at least talked to someone. show that to your reader. humanize his experence

For being in the first person this feels a bit stiff. I really want the main charictor to have an accent from whatever clan he belongs to. I like your portrayal of Vleugel, little things like "Vleugels would occasionally tell me to swallow when he felt I was eating at too fast" really help give depth to a charictor. I would like to see more of that from your main charictor rather than just complaining about racisim.

Harr.

-Again, the Crow-Raven expansionist regime is a great gamble on the part of Crow-Raven itself; they can't be expected to leave anything to chance. Why a potential problem like Alban being a Pheonix hasn't been pushed into point during the decision on whether to employ the Saber Ranks or not, I don't know. The bigwigs in Crow-Raven could at least be expected to do some basic research on how the Saber Ranks operated before taking the decision to hire them; after all they're going to play at least SOME role in the upcoming offensive and one weak spot in a line can be all it takes for an opponent to concentrate their mass in the spot and break it.

It just doesn't add up for supposedly conniving people who've already taken multiple territories to not even take into account basic considerations like these.

-Hm. Again, the problem with extremely monolithic cultures- is Alban the only Phoenix to ever want to leave the citadel? That's about as silly as the tropes that all Elves are hippies and sing to trees all day, or all dwarves are digging little creatures with manias over gold and gems, and dragons do nothing but eat and sleep all day and hoard things like magpies.

Yes, I can understand that there can be certain stereotypes of a groups of people and that there has to be some grain of truth to it in order for the stereotype to have come about in the first place, but overly monolithic cultures do tend to annoy me. My Gold Flight's Aspect might be tied to Ethicality, but you don't see all of them as the local flavour of Lawful Good Paladins- there are those who decide the rules don't apply to X group for Y reason, who bend them according to their justifications, and so forth.

From your map, though, you have a walled-in citadel on mountainous ground, with a perimeter twice the length of a capital city's. Since there's no equation linking area with length of peremeter, I'll take it to be a square: a city with a peremeter twice the length of Diurn would be around four times the size. Somehow, I doubt that'd be enough land to support a whole clan of people to be reckoned with.

Nothing else to complain about.

Heya there! It's me again after such a long time lol! XD Anyway, good chapter as always. The whole palace issue is definitely a good insight of the background scenario... anyway, the last part of the chapter seems to hint on a plot twist in the future, huh? Wonder what will happen next...