What I get from this chapter, as well as the first, is that you want to do a lot of things and create a big and interesting world (magic, politics, the works). I’m going to say this again, I think you’re trying to hard to make us see it all at once. In your comment to Renoard you already said you’ve been focussing more on the world than the characters; it’s better if you turn that around. When people read books they rarely do it because of the world, but because of the characters.
Now, you’ve got plenty of characters, but at this point there are a bit too much. I have to admit, I cringed when I saw your synopsis for this chapter. Not only do we get the three viewpoints from the first chapter, but now we’re getting two more. I have to wonder how important those viewpoints are – not every character, not even some of the important ones, need a viewpoint.
Viewpoints:Felix: Not much going on here, but nothing really bad either.
Adam: Adam’s viewpoint here seems again superfluous. The first part is another information dump on how the magic system works. So he can’t use his magic effectively by day, that’s good (limitations on magic are always good), but you’re better off showing this to the reader instead of telling them.
The second part is Adam and his friend talking about what he did, why he was close to winning and why he lost. This is another instance of you focussing on the wrong part of the story. Instead of telling us about the fight, why not show it?
Sareneth: I had to reread this section a bit, because Sareneth’s and Felix’s viewpoints are blending into each other here. You start with hers and then we get his thoughts. Try to stick with one viewpoint per section at least, even if you don’t do it per chapter
As for this scene, Felix and Sareneth are discussing what they’ve done and what they should be doing. There’s also another info-dump on the political system. So far it’s all tell and no show and I think that’s a real problem, because I’m having trouble keeping my interest.
Eshra: So far the biggest viewpoint this chapter, with a big fight. I’ll address the fight later below, because that’s where I was having trouble.
Kyrah: A new viewpoint, the fifth, in two chapters. I really think you’re going overboard with the viewpoint characters, especially this one. Kyrah might turn out to be an interesting character, but with all these other POVs running around already and with perhaps more on the way, some characters are going to get the short stick in terms of character development.
I’m going to reiterate my advice from chapter one, you really have to cut down on the viewpoints and the info-dumping. The many viewpoints are really diluting the story telling.
Magic: Your magic system doesn’t remind me so much of Allomancy as it does of Bending, from Avatar: The Last Airbender. I don’t know if you’ve seen Avatar or whether it influenced you or not, but there are similarities that will be picked up by people who did.
Fire is stronger by day, water by night, the moving of arms and such. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to start with, because Avatar was great, but I got this impression back in the first chapter with Adam’s little scene, so you might want to rethink some of those things to make it yours.
Fighting: It’s all very blow-by-blow, where we get every sign, every reaction and counter, followed by the next sign and so forth. Now for me that means that soon my eyes begin to wander and I’ll start skimming instead of reading. If I skim in chapter two it becomes far more likely I’ll put the book away. Blow-by-blows may seem cool and you can do all sorts of choreography upclose, but it turns the speed of the events way down and makes it, to me, boring.
The aftermath of the battle didn’t do much else for me either; the posturing and dialogue seem forced, and Adam gets a Quest to seek out the Old Ones from the Wise
Father Mother Figure.
Writing: The writing itself is not bad, but there are a lot of typos and grammatical errors (nothing a good line edit won’t fix) that take a little away from the chapter. It also helps, since I’m reading this on a computer, if you split up your paragraphs more. The Signing battle for instance consists of a few really big blocks of words and when I try to go through that my eyes start to wander.
Conclusion: I think you need to reconsider what you’re doing a bit – with all these viewpoints and no clear direction it feels the story is going all over the place. You’re going through a lot of things, the political upheaval and Eshra’s flight in only two chapters, but despite that the pacing feels very slow.
Also, to really have characters arcs I think you need at least 30,000 words to make the characters change and make that change feel natural. So how big do you want to make this book? That’s something to keep in mind.
A thought: should I post one of my more recent chapters next, one that I feel is one of my better ones, or should I continue chronologically?
If you think those chapters are better you could show them to us, but if you do we won’t be able to say much about pacing and certain character developments. It’ll also make the story harder to follow. LTU submitted his story, The Name of God, in such a fashion, and that made it harder to read. I think you’re better of submitting chronologically.