Okay, so first off, yay! My first critique!
Deckacards, I like your writing style a lot, especially your sense of giving detail without it being Jordanesque, its simple and effective, so I really enjoyed reading this chapter. But it didn't quite hook me on your story. Personally, I think that the first chapter should have more of a hook, it should catch your attention and make you think, 'Wow, that was cool, I want to keep on going', and to be honest, while I got some of that, there wasn't enough action or mystery or suspense in the first section.(though I might feel this way because I missed your prologue)
Don't get me wrong, I like the premise and think its an interesting chapter, and while I do want to read more of your stuff, I'm not on tenterhooks, waiting for the next chapter. Sorry if I'm sounding a bit harsh, because the writing itself is quite well done, and overall it's very good.
One bone I have to pick is when Ana asked her uncle “Warfare, Uncle? What do you mean?”. I got the impression that Ana was quite a bright girl for being seven years old, and being a princess, most likely growing up around a court, there is probably a lot of news, and if there is a war going on, I would suspect that she would at least known that some sort of fighting or disagreement was happening. ( sorry if I'm assuming stuff when I don't know your world yet)
Beyond that, I enjoyed her dialogue with her uncle and those scenes of her trying to hit Bael, although the whole scene is veerrryyy long for a dream, six and a half pages with almost 3000 words, it just feels like a bit much once I found out it was a dream ( although I like that way of giving background into Ana's character)
Okay, sorry that I'm writing so much, but I love giving feedback.
The last page and a half, in the present, didn't quite work for me. I think I understand what you wanted it to be, one of those scenes that I said earlier, to make you turn the page to the next chapter, and I think you have a good scene, just not a great one. I like having it there though, and it does leave me wondering what's going to happen, there are just a few things about it that I noticed.
For one, during the whole scene, I get the feeling that you're trying to create suspense and urgency, but I didn't actually feel those vibes, only that it was supposed to.
I think to fix that you could try making her feel more panicked and urgent, because although you wrote stuff like, "She took a panicked breath , Her heart began to race She fought the panic that welled up within her, and Hurry! Please, hurry…" it felt like you were trying to directly tell us, she's scared, therefore her heart is beating faster, getting panicked, but I thing more indirect ways would help. Also, maybe if you shortened some of here thoughts, because I found that she was thinking too rationally for someone who discovered they were buried alive, and with less oxygen her brain wouldn't be working very well, so I would expect shorter, less coherent thoughts. (but this is just my opinion)
Also, I didn't care enough about Analan(cool name by the way) to be scared when she was buried alive, I didn't know her character at all, I guess I wanted to get a little bit more attatched before finding out she's in terrible danger, but while I wanted to find out what was happening, I realized that once I did, it wouldn't really mean that much to me because I barely knew any characters in the book, or the setting, so finding out the person digging her out wouldn't give me that feeling of wonder that I would get otherwise. (sorry if I'm not being very clear here)
Okay, sorry again for being kind've brutal,(and long) but you kind've asked for it... and I could just as easily written something this long about the positives, so I don't dislike it, I'm just trying to be critical. About the buried alive thing though, I did love the imagery of the last two paragraphs, and overall, a fairly good first chapter. Hopefully you have the patience to read through this all, and hopefully I managed to help a bit. Looking forward to your future stuff!