QK Round 2: Not Odette vs. Damned

Entry Nickname: Not Odette
Title: Princess of Swans
Word count: 84,000
Genre: YA Fantasy

Query:

As the heir to her war-torn country's throne, teenage princess Feyana Belmaron should be the most powerful woman in Amgovar. Instead, she is a prisoner. After a traitor killed her mother and disfigured her, Feyana’s father confined her to an isolated castle to keep her safe. Ten years later, Feyana gives up hope that her father will ever let her go—and with a face like hers, no storybook prince is likely to come to her rescue.

But perhaps she can come to his.

When a gravely injured volkarei witch foretells Feyana’s marriage to a handsome enemy prince–a marriage that would not only end the war, but unite the feuding countries for good–the scarred princess seizes the chance to put her castle walls behind her. Eager to finally serve her people, Feyana disguises herself, scales the wall, and sets out to find the prince.

But the outside world is far more dangerous than she imagined, full of pirates, soldiers, and thieves angered by her father’s policies and eager to revenge themselves on his sheltered heir. Her only allies, a volkarei-cursed monster and a lowborn, gay thief, are both convicted criminals...and one has already betrayed her. When her prince, too, turns out to be far more alarming than charming, Feyana must face a bitter choice: turn back and abandon her country to an unwinnable war, or keep on and give up her hard-won freedom.

Forever.

First 250 words:

Tavor Castle is beautiful, for a prison. The white stone castle is small but well-kept, and its fields and woods cover almost a square mile. Even the looming, twenty-foot walls enclosing the grounds have an odd charm to them. To protect you, Father says, but I know better. It’s to hide me. The only ugly thing in Tavor Castle is its princess.

I jam my foot into Lulari’s stirrup and glare up at the walls, wishing my hate could melt them. Only a little longer, until the war ends, and I’ll be free. Father promised that much, at least.

I turn away and cluck Lulari to a walk. The warm breeze ruffles my fascinator and fills my nose with the scent of horse. I smile. Outside, there may still be walls, but at least there’s no ceiling. I brush back a lock of hair—and an ashen, black-cloaked woman appears in my path.

Lulari rears.

I clutch at her mane but grasp nothing. The ground races up to slap me, and pain jars through my shoulder and back. Breathing hard, I stir my arms and legs, then probe my ribs for tenderness. Nothing broken, praise Dal. A stablehand races toward me, calling my name. I sit up and groan.

“I’m fine,” I say. “Is she all right?”

“She?”

The mysterious woman lies crumpled beneath her cloak, her face unnaturally gray. I crawl toward her, my shoulder throbbing, but the stablehand pulls me back sharply.

The black mass I took for a cloak is a vast, dark wing.

Versus

Entry Nickname: DAMNED
Title: AND WE ARE ALL DAMNED
Word count: 70K
Genre: YA Dark Fantasy

Query:
On an isolated island, beneath a lush canopy of resurrection ferns and prickly palmettos, a Victorian colony festers. Monetary wealth carries little weight. Lineage is currency and nothing is of greater import than blood.

Orphans Haeden and Veanne are fifteen-years-old when their adoptive father, the sole doctor, mysteriously dies, leaving them without knowledge of their parentage and defenseless against rumor of a spreading illness threatening to divide the decaying hierarchy.

The unexpected return of the doctor’s biological son, vanished from the island for over a decade, presents a double-edged sword equally sharp as the one buckled at his waist. Even as he offers protection, and romances Veanne, he harbors devastating secrets.

Combating plague, pirates, and moral corruption, Haeden and Veanne must unearth both the truth behind the sickness and their birth in order to survive the systematic destruction of the only home they have ever known.

First 250 Words:
Inside the black oak coffin, Raymond Able lay carefully arranged with arms neatly folded across his cold body. Gold-rimmed spectacles lay tucked inside the left pocket of the doctor’s vest, the chain of his pocket watch dangled from the right.

Veanne imagined she could still hear it ticking.

The evening sun beat through the gaps of the forest canopy. Despite the heat, Veanne leaned closer to her brother’s familiar presence. Head bowed, her gaze caught a patch of uneven dye on the toe of her left slipper. She sighed. Ankle length skirts and asymmetrical shoes; she looked like a peasant child playing dress up and not a grieving fifteen-year-old girl.

Straggling mourners filled in around the open grave, dug so Raymond would forever rest with his head facing west. Their steps were in measure with the tolling bell rung from town, one strike for each year of the doctor’s life.

“At this time individuals may come forth, if they so wish, and share pleasant reminiscences,” said the high parson, Alister Wraeb, standing next to the mound of unearthed peat and sand.

Veanne felt her brother stir to speak, but she put a hand to his vest.

“Oh, stop shooshing me,” Haeden hissed, twisting away. “Raymond raised us.”

“We were his wards, Hae, not his children,” whispered Veanne. The tips of her ears turned red beneath her bonnet. She felt sick. She needed water, something to soothe the tension in her stomach. “Not blood.”