[Permission has been granted by firedance_icesong for me to publish this critique]

Genre: Fantasy
Chapters: 3-5

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I. ELOCUTION

a. Major Grammar Corrections

Chapter 3

- Your first paragraph had a lot of unnecessary descriptive words. I'd suggest cutting the adverbs and adjectives in half, mostly to help keep the paragraph from getting cluttered. This applies for the majority of the chapter.

Chapter 4

- "...reflected what she felt. Rejected and solitary." -- "...reflected what she felt. Rejected and solitary." - In the second sentence you list two different and contrasting types of words. "Rejected" is a state of being in the past tense, while "solitary" is a noun. They need to match. If you change them both to state of being, it would be "Rejected and isolated." (Solitary doesn't work well here.) if you changed them both to nouns, it would be "Rejection and isolation." (Solitary still doesn't work well.)

- "...a light has been lit in her void life." - This needs to be in past tense, like "had been lit".

- "Then suddenly as if nature had it..." - I would put a comma after "suddenly" for added emphasis.

- "...said Chavva slight sarcasm lacing in her voice." - There should be a comma after "Chavva", and I would suggest removing the "in".

- "Besides, she did not want to loose her appetite..." - "lose", not "loose".

- "...from her turquoise blue, which..." - You missed "eyes" after "blue".

- "Boil this water and give her." - It should be "give it to her."

Chapter 5

- "...the cress-cross pattern..." - I believe you meant "criss-cross"

- "Come in the horses have a shelter." - This sentence, for lack of punctuation, is a bit confusing. There needs to be a comma or period somewhere to indicate the emphasis. Try reading the sentence out loud exactly as it's written, and you'll that the flow is incorrect.

b. Major Style Corrections

Chapter 3

- "...he started saying the tale in his alluring husky voice." - I felt like this one had too many descriptions. First of all, "telling" is more appropriate than "saying" here. Second, I would eliminate "alluring" altogether. Third, "husky" means "raspy", so assuming he doesn't have a cold all the time, I would suggest changing that. If you do, however, think he sounds husky in this specific moment, consider changing "his" to "an", implying that it's a special case of a husky voice as opposed to a consistent vocal trait.

- "Not once or twice the millennia from then are we here, but more than twice times six millennia before did she live" - I believe this is one of many places where you use elegant and unusual sentence structure to convey the differences in culture. However, I had to re-read the sentence multiple times to get any semblance of understanding what was meant by it, and I think it is a bit too much. I'd suggest making your sentence style a bit simpler for the sake of understandability.

- "...as the reflection of the flames danced in his green orbs." - I only note this because, on Wattpad especially, using "orbs" in place of "eyes" is an EXTREMELY overused descriptor, and I feel rather peeved whenever I see it. I'd highly recommend changing it to simply "eyes", no descriptors or adjectives.

Chapter 4

- "Her brain just registered the first mouth." - This sentence really confused me, but after a bit of analyzing, I think you meant to say something like "mouthful" or "bite". I would suggest using one of those words instead, just for clarity's sake.

- "........I shall come right away." - Having more than three parts to an ellipsis makes it seem unprofessional. Just reduce it to three, it has the same effect and looks cleaner.

- "...as a wave of her personal nightmare ended the scars of her life when her mother died in front of her." - This sentence structure is generally too confusing for me to understand what you meant by it... maybe the problem has to do with the placement and usage of the word "ended". I'd suggest revising it somehow to make it clearer.

Chapter 5

- "The boar must have gone crazy he could tell." - I would suggest putting "he could tell" in the front of the sentence, with a "that" after it, because it makes a bit more sense that way.

- "But today or rather tonight, it did." - For emphasis, I would put a comma after "today".

- "...but Aeron remembered it vividly as though it were yesterday." - I would suggest rewording this slightly for enhanced clarity, maybe like: "...but Aeron remembered it as vividly as if it were yesterday."

c. Favorite Parts

Chapter 3

- "It still stunned him how he managed to put up with this creature who had the heart of a child."

- "Any hint of immaturity on Aeron's face seemed to have eloped with the wind."

- "...from her father she got a present. It was her mother's head dripping with blood." - I was completely unprepared for that and it made me sit up straight to think it over. Good job with the shock factor! The whole next paragraph about Azaziah's revenge was also equally so, a bit dark but in an intriguing and realistic way.

Chapter 4

- "Shrugging off the snow, which clung to her like a second skin..."

- "The room was filled with dispersing smoke that she thought she stepped into..." - There needs to be a "so" to act like a "therefore" and connect the two parts. Either put that after "was" or after "smoke".

Chapter 5

- "He felt that his foot was splendidly trapped in." - For some reason, I really like that use of "splendidly".

- "He seemed not more than six and ten years." - I like that way of describing age. It's unusual and interesting XD

II. PLOT

1) Primary Points

- Trystan tells Aeron the story of Azaziah, the ancient queen of Acracia who embodies the personification of winter(?)

- Amara sneaks back into her house
- Amara frustrates Chavva by tracking snow inside
- Amara cleans up and eats
- Chavva helps Caralea by giving her medicine for her sick sister (tension between Amara and Caralea established)

- (Flashback) Aeron is almost killed by a boar, but is saved by Trystan.
- Trystan and Aeron prepare to

2) Logos: Consistency, Logicality, Understandability, and Realism

- (Chapter 3) I'm going to be blunt and say that I had a LOT of trouble understanding what was going on in this chapter. I don't know if I missed too much in the previous chapters and that's why, but I feel like what was there was in itself confusing. I read the whole thing a second time and got a LOT more out of it, but I shouldn't have to read it a second time to understand it. I might suggest creating a short outline of the plot points of Trystan's story, then making sure those points are abundantly clear as you write it. It all felt a bit buried in abnormal sentence structure, unnecessary qualifiers and descriptors, and shifting emphases.

- (Chapter 3) The way you used storytelling for world building was a nearly seamless presentation of exposition, which I applaud you for. I might suggest making it a bit more clear exactly WHY he is telling the story though, so it doesn't seem like mere coincidence he tells the one with the most backstory (or maybe you did this in a previous chapter I didn't read).

- (Chapter 4) I also had to reread this one, but I did understand it a lot quicker. I don't know if it's the pacing or the wording or what, but something just makes it difficult for me to understand without reading it through at least twice.

- (Chapter 5) This chapter I only had to read once! I felt that it was much more clear than either of the previous. It's structure was much more pleasing, it's language less confusing, and it's plot had enough clarity I only needed to read once. Great job!

3) Pathos: Emotion, Creativity, and Enjoyability

- (Chapter 3) I really enjoyed how at the beginning, you said the Noble refused to leave despite her husband because she was sure the populace would turn to darkness. I felt that was a really NOBLE thing for her to do (ha ha, excuse my terrible pun). But really, it does indicate a sort of altruism that is quite admirable.

- (Chapter 3) I also was thoroughly intrigued by the concept of balance as opposed to purity in truth and light. I feel it more accurately reflects on the dual nature of humanity, and I applaud you for that as opposed to the cliched "light vs. darkness" trope.

- (Chapter 4) This chapter was a bit too slow for me. I don't tend to mind slow, if the slow is put to good purpose, but it felt too much like a filler. I'd suggest putting some more prominent character development in to heighten the interest.

- (Chapter 5) I enjoyed very much seeing how Trystan and Aeron came to meet. That was a good bit of backstory.

- (Chapter 5) The ending was exciting! I really like cliffhangers, and this one actually piqued my interest in the next chapter. I suggest always having something in the chapter compelling the reader to read the next one.

4) Commentary

Chapter 3

Overall, this was a thoroughly enjoyable chapter. While at first difficult to decipher and parse out, I greatly enjoyed the concept and content once I had. I would mostly suggest making sure the story is clearer and fixing some overly complex sentence structures.

Chapter 4

I personally had more trouble being pulled into this chapter. It didn't feel very plot prevalent, but I suppose since you had me start at Chapter 3, there are things that I have missed out on. However, overall, your style was a lot more understandable in this chapter than it was in the previous one. I believe I've really got what happened down correctly for this one.

III. RUNDOWN

- Primary Strengths (Overall)

- Word Choice / Vocabulary: Your style is a rich, eloquent mouthful, although often in a very satisfying way. Words like "Acracia", I found reading it a genuine pleasure, as your word choice did much to enhance the mental image you were trying to portray. I would be careful, though, to not let it and it's complexity get away from you: sometimes it became a bit of a more confusing mouthful than a pleasant one.

- Scenery / Setting: You have no shortage of description skills, and I applaud you for that. I am personally a fan of styles that emphasize setting, so kudos to you! Just be wary of where you place your description and how much you get into it, as it could become a drag if you go all out with it. Use discretion!

- Primary Weaknesses (Overall)

- Dialogue: Some of the dialogue felt a bit stilted in some places, and the places where it wasn't, I felt the character development you were trying to communicate was a bit lacking. I'd suggest working on defining each character's unique personality a bit more, showing some of their quirks and uniqueness through dialogue and narration. Make the reader REMEMBER them.

- Sentence Structure: The most prominent block to my enjoyment of reading this would be the consistently errant sentence structure. Commas missing made the intended flow a bit blurry, and contributed a lot to my having to reread chapters.

- Will I continue reading?

I don't think I will, but after a good editor/proof-reader, I think that I might be fully willing to give it a go.

- Do I think this is publishable?

Not currently.

- Would I recommend this to a friend?

With that editor or proofreader, I very well might.

- Other

Keep working on this! You've got a really good premise, and I think with some revising, this has great potential!