Instead of doing the logical thing and continuing NaNoWriMo, I'm critiquing this morning! Aren't you happy?
I'm going to do line level things first (well, paragraph things). There were only two of them, but they really confused me when I read them.
He let his eyes wander and stare blankly at the tapestry. Over a thousand years of battles, battles against monsters, demons, gods, and men swam before his eyes. Asharia had guided him and he had conquered. Even the Danubian priesthood which now so ardently supported Asharia more than any other faction of the Empire was on that wall, just a stepping stone on the path to building the holy empire, to glorifying Asharia, to glorifying himself.
We switched to him looking at the tapestry (which, to me, signals that we get a description of it) to talking about Lyro again. It threw me off.
Darion nodded stiffly and took a wooden step forward. He reached the crib and bent over to reach inside. The dagger slipped between his ribs and entered his heart before he could do more than gasp.
This seemed confusing to me, since in the last paragraph I got the impression that Darion was going to kill one of the children, and so when I first read it, it seemed like Darion was using the dagger on the son. Rather strange, because I thought Lyro was more likely to keep the son. Of course, it's clear when I read the next paragraph, but this one still seems off. Wouldn't Lyro, being the viewpoint character, know he's stabbing his high priest? Only saying "the dagger" is rather vague, and confusing.
All right, with that out of the way (I promise, it directly relates to my critique!), overall stuff. I'm glad I hadn't read any of your other submissions, so I got a clean slate. Unlike Andrew, I did
not see the ending coming. I'd say you succeeded. I have to wonder, however, about this immortal king. Is he a god? Seems to me Asharia is real, as She gave Lyro immortality, even though perhaps he didn't want it. If Asharia is real, it would probably be an extremely bad idea to defy her. She can give immortality, I'm sure She could take it away. And if She can grant immortality, She can probably do a whole bunch of terrible things.
Yet, we have Lyro defying her anyways. The way he speaks about Asharia after killing Darion gives me the impression that Lyro, y'know, has a
choice on whether to worship her or not, whereas I thought I understood from earlier that Asharia was
the Goddess, capital letter (though if this is not the case, as it may be, that may be why you didn't capitalize "She" when referring to her). So do we have a monotheistic religion or a polytheistic one? Does Asharia exist? Seems to me that if you had a monotheistic religion which has undeniable proof of Her existence (and, you know, can grant immortality to her followers if she chooses), I'd definitely want to convert to that religion!
Of course, this is fantasy, and gods sometimes have this annoying habit of not being real gods, but posers of gods, which Asharia might be (hence giving a reason for there to be rebels in the Empire). Rebels could have other socioeconomic reasons for rebelling, but with Darion's talk about factions in the Empire, I assumed it was a more religious thing.
Either way, things are going to get worse, and that is
always fun to watch. I might read on, were I to pick this off the shelf.
Why maybe? Setting or world-wise, nothing grabbed my interest. There's an Empire, there's some god, and there's a God King. Not exactly the most original starts (oh, and there's twins; a boy and a girl! Please don't make them Luke and Leia...). However, having the immortal god-king rebel against the greater god because he doesn't want to kill his children? That is awesome. It gives me an emotional tie to what is happening, and you succeeded in this regard.
I hated that conversation with Valenth near the beginning. It threw me out of the emotional tension of the scene. True, I'm sure Lyro can wait an hour to decide, but he's probably already been thinking about this for a while. I sort of doubt that Asharia would be, "Hey Lyro, how's it going. I know your wife just died during childbirth. I'm a goddess, so I haven't told you that she'd have twins, but yeah... I'm going to need you to kill one of them. Actually, I'll need you to kill one
right now. Not tomorrow, but literally like two seconds from now!"
If this were the case, then I could totally forgive him wanting to hear an update on the Empire. Because if there is tension with the war-front and all of a sudden he needs to kill his kid, that ramps up his mind to "Holy s***" levels of stress.
The way it currently is doesn't make sense. You don't win wars overnight; surely Lyro would know the rebellion is on the verge of defeat. He wouldn't say, "I need a report!" We're given no background on to why he would want such a report, so it feels like war exposition. Makes me want to roll my eyes, y'know?
(Conversely, I was glad when Lyro didn't start expositing about the history of the world and Asharia when he looked at the tapestry. I sighed in relief at that point; we don't need the complete mythology on the second page. Though I suppose I have the same blocking issue I had with the war exposition: doesn't Lyro know what's on the tapestry? It's his house. He seems to have a reverence for it, despite the fact that he's seen it dozens of times)
If Valenth was to say, "Hey Lyro, big news, we just won!" "Um, Valenth, I'm kinda in the middle of something..." That would make a lot more sense. Once I read to the end of the submission, I realized why we needed to see Valenth, or else the ending wouldn't work.
So really, I suppose what I'm looking for in the scene is more context for the characters, because in this scene, the character and Lyro's struggle is the only thing that really matters. The struggle was great, just exploit it to the extreme! I liked it a lot.
EDIT: Oh, I forgot to say, I loved the first line. Sets up the emotional aspect immensely well. Just give me more of it!
