Become an Agent 2015 Post #16

Title: The Red and the Scarlet
Genre: YA Historical Fantasy
Word Count: 84,000

Query:

Eighteen-year-old mercenary Fyr has desperate aspirations. One: To keep her sickly brother Asaan alive after they escape racial massacre with only each other. Two: To get revenge on the one man she remembers taking part in the killings. And three: to fulfill an alleged prophecy she's stumbled upon.

The pseudo-historical script promises a supernatural race called "The Blue People" will conquer her native land. As a devoted sister and scarred survivor of near genocide, Fyr isn't about to let that happen, even if it means facing her own arrest.

When Fyr and Asaan are arrested, by the same controversial politician she's vowed to kill, her plans are brought to a screeching halt. But instead of prosecuting the siblings, he invites them into his world. Trapped in the nobility's glittering society, Fyr's criminal dreams and her ideas about "Blue People" quickly become synonymous with scandal. She must fight self-doubt, racism, and a growing affection for her former enemy if she's to keep Asaan alive and safe, and escape before the Blue People attack.

THE RED AND THE SCARLET is a novel about siblings, culture clash, natural and political disasters, and pseudo-history. It is set on a fictional Slavic and Asian continent in the Napoleonic Era, and has sequel potential.

First 250:

When Fyr was struck, and Vladyslav scarred, the world was shivering.

A cloudy blanket lay across nations. Chill dragged into bones. The breath of a hundred furnaces rose to the heavens.

Nevertheless, a handful of caroling bourgeoisie gathered outside the Vlalonnan King’s palace, hoping to warm souls and fill their purses, ignoring winter’s slaps on their cheeks and voices. Relentless wind snatched and swept their ancient song towards the Grassland Reserves, where the Yihhe, the “savages” lived.

The same clouds were on their horizon, but different joy in their hearts. One that gloried in the disfigured heads of Vlalonnan pilgrims staked around the camp.

Yihhe children ran out shrieking to catch snow in outstretched fingers and dark lashes. One girl stood on the edge of her people’s territory, daring to poke toes past the invisible boundary, near the heads. She glanced at them, balancing her infant brother on her hip. From them had come the book in her hand. St. Thandos’s History of Sayy.

She had read it over and over. Even now, she murmured passages. Her words lifted to the heavens, mingling with the carolers’ call, braiding them together with the pure snow into something none knew would enter their lives in a matter of time.

Time after a time.

But then the moment ended, and the riders appeared on the horizon, warped shadows coming in the name of the dead.

They broke upon the village faster than it could panic, guns blazing, shattering still air, clogging it with black smoke and dying screams. In the midst of cold and chaos, the girl ran in a belt buckle forest, clutching her wailing brother.

She had to keep him alive.

Query:
I am seeking representation for my 84,000 word YA historical fantasy, THE RED AND THE SCARLET, which is Les Miserables meets Mulan with a bounty-hunting Jo March as a heroine.

In 1811, 18-year-old Fyr fights racism, looming disaster, and for bloody revenge on Vladyslav, a charismatic politician.

As children, Fyr and her brother Asaan escaped racial massacre enacted by their divided motherland. But devastation may return: every five hundred years, supernatural foreigners, known as “the Blue People,” arrive on the coast for war.

Thanks to their own discord, Fyr’s countrymen forgot the deadly cycle. Fyr, determined not to relive her past, puts aside her personal quest to slaughter one of the massacre’s young participants, and sets out with sickly Asaan to alert her squabbling country.

But Vladyslav, the man Fyr wants to kill, arrests the siblings, halting their plans. But instead of prosecuting, he invites them into his world for his own dark political purposes.

Trapped in the nobility’s glittering society, Fyr, with her criminal dreams, controversially conservative host, and her whistleblowing on corruption and “Blue People,” is soon slandered as scandalous. As her reputation plummets, so does the worth of her word. She must fight self-doubt, discrimination, and a dangerous new affection for Vladyslav if she is to keep Asaan alive and safe, and escape before the Blue People attack.

First 250:
When Fyr was struck, and Vladyslav scarred, the world was shivering.

Clouds blanketed the nations. Chill dragged into bones. Under spinning snow rode Vladyslav’s regiment to slaughter "savages.”

In their village, the “savages” were oblivious. Fyr, eight, watched shrieking children run to catch flakes in outstretched fingers and dark lashes among the heads of decapitated travelers, raised on pikes as a warning to future trespassers. She poked her toes past the edge of her people’s territory, glancing at the heads in defiance, and balancing her infant brother on her hip.

While the other children held the bodiless things in fearful reverence, Fyr was grateful to them. From the heads had come the book in her brother-free hand.

Together they gazed in fascination at the falling snow, and Fyr whispered the poem that opened her book.

But the moment ended. The riders appeared on the horizon, warped shadows coming in the name of heads and vengeance.

They broke upon the settlement faster than it could panic, their blazing guns clogging the still air with black smoke and dying screams. In the midst of the cold and chaos, the little girl ran in a forest of belt buckles, clutching her wailing brother and the battered book.

She had to keep him alive.

Suddenly, she collided headlong into a wall of gray uniform and staggered to the earth. Fyr stared up at the young soldier’s blue eyes, full of dismay, at the blood blackening his coat, the musket in his fingers.

Vladyslav.