chapter 1: Helmlock

Helmlock stood bracing her desk. How could this be happening? She had just returned from Ariben! Why would they crown her queen? Her head hurt from all the thought. Ledel stood with his back to her trying to hide his offending amusement but stopped short in the sight of Neveah for she surly would slap him. Helmlock sighed this was the royal family all that was missing was grandfather Denver of course he wouldn't attend to her today of all days when she needed his guidance most.

    "If you must bore holes through something" Neveah said " may I suggest prince Ledel?"

  Helmlock laughed at the scowl that appeared on Ledel's face.

   "Sister be fair" Ledel pleaded.

   "Well, your the one who refused to be king" Neveah replied 

    " you also refused Neveah" Ledel reminded her

    Helmlock stared at her desk lost in thought. Both of them the oldest, had refused the crown leaving helmlock no choice but to be crowned queen. She would have gladly refused it if it had meant there was an imidet blood relitive, who could be crowned instead. She shook her head in dismay. Grandfather was getting to old to be king so he needed an heir. It would make sense that her father, Denver's son, would be crowned king, but an accident happened a few years back that left the three of them parent less. There was half siblings that could be crowned, but alas they wanted to stay lords and ladies instead of having castle titles. 

 Helmlock looked at both Neveah and Ledel.

  "I am going for a walk" helmlock announced

   "let us join you crown princess" Neveah said

  "Oh yes, please crown princess let us join you in this merry weather" Ledel said mockingly

  " No, I need to clear my head, thank you both for asking though" helmlock replied as she scurried out of the room

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 In the court yard I sat on the fountain letting the water hit my skin.

 "Helmlock, shouldn't you be signing invitations to your coronation?" Denver asked

 I turned swiftly to see he wasn't alone, he has two strangers with him. Both were in bloody shorts and tee shirts.

 "Hello" I smiled putting on my best act. Then turning to my grandfather I addressed him. "Your Majesty, how pleasant of you to seek me out." I dipped into a curtsy. 

 "ah young Helmlock don't curtsy to an old fool like me" he smiled warmly.

 "May I ask grandfather who your traveling companions are? I put on an innocent mask

 "This is Aketen" he gestured to to the boy.

I surveyed the boy he looked about 8 or 9, but tall for his age about six foot to be exact. He had dark hair that he had swept off to the side. His eyes are the lightest blue I had ever seen. I dazed out staring at his eyes, his small slender face trapped me in that moment.

 "Its a pleasure to meet you miss....?" He stated with a raised eyebrow

 "Helmlock" I said breathlessly.

 "And this is Elita" Grandfather said breaking my trance.

  Elita was blonde with brown eyes and was about a foot shorter then Aketen. Her muscles stood chiseled with tension on her arms, her brown eyes alert for any sign of danger. 

 "Crown princess" She muttered bowing but her eyes never left my face.

 "Grandfather, what have you done!?" I exclaimed for his arm was a bloody, tethered mess. 

 "I went to Sacara, well Turbin to be exact, I was going to meet with the shamble that is left of their disorganized government. When I saw these two being drug through the streets by menola's. I had to do something. I had to rescue them, so I brought them here. Child, you see I didn't have a choice." Grandfather said sighing. 

 "I suppose....." I trailed off in thought.

 "What is to be of the royal blood line?" I asked hastily.

 "Helmlock there's no sign of them yet, but I am sure they are alive" Grandfather replied quite annoyed. 

 "My love" Telgo bustled in with our servant Adein.  "We have invitations to sign" Adein stumbled, cut caught all the papers before they scattered all over the court yard.

 I glanced at Aketen and Elita they stood there frozen in place, pale, like they saw a ghost.

 "Telgo" Aketen said hoarsely.

Telgo smiled and came and took my arm.

 "Hello Aketen and Elita" He smiled.

 "Telgo you know them?" I asked shakily. 

He smiles and said" What has become of Shane, please tell me he isn't dead"

I caught him as he slumped forward. Personally I worry for his brothers safety. I sat quietly as Elita stepped forward.

 "He is alive, and with Olivia"

Telgo stood quickly and looked at me. "Helmlock I take it you guys have met, so I don't have to introduce you to each other, but.." Telgo turned to Elita and Aketen " this is my fiance Helmlock. Welcome to Nadar and welcome to our capital Odon." He said bowing slightly.

 " So your going to be the king here and leave Shane to clean up Sacana and put it back together with Pergam and Lavin! Why would you do that to him?" Aketen yelled tears forming in his eyes.

Telgo sighed "I didn't want to leave my brother, he means the world to me, But cowering behind me instead of fixing his kingdom. That I can't have Aketen you need to understand that here, all of Nadar, this is where my parents arranged for me to rule they decreed Shane had the broken country because he is stronger. 

Teglo then took my arm and started to lead me away.

 "WHY DID YOU FAKE YOUR DEATH?" Aketen screamed after us.

Telgo turned back sharply and replied in cutting off his words after each one " you need time to absorb this all its to much for your brain." He then turned to me "Helmlock we have a coronation to plan for." 

 With that he swept me off away from Aketen who was on the ground crying. I glanced back and saw Adein following closely behind. 

 "Go and give Elita and Aketen our finest rooms. They are going to be our honored guests." I instructed Adein. With that he took off to complete his mission. 

Telgo sat down on a bench and pulled me into his lap.

 "Whats bothering you, Telgo?" I whispered.

 "My brother can't find out I am alive, he needs to find his own path as I did mine." he replied with his face buried in my neck.

We sat there in the quiet just holding each other. Eventually Telgo scooped me up and whisked me to our bed chamber, so we both could rest and could just have a break from life, being ourselves and not some dress up dolls.

Reviews

[TheRaven]

Lots of grammatical mistakes, a few typos, but the problem here is you have far too many characters here introduced in such a time span. And the severe problem is I don't really care for any one of them. They haven't shown me any true character traits. Ledel and Neveah turned down the crown. That's interesting, but we didn't linger on it. Helmlock will be crowned but doesn't seem to want it, that's also interesting. Telgo faking his death in order to live there, also interesting. These are cool plot and story threads, but we're missing quite a bit of characterization. We're all over the place. First chapter should be spent a lot on our protagonist, who she is, what she wants, what she likes and what she does. Your dialogue had its moments but also fell off. We learned more interesting things through dialogue than we did the descriptions which barely gave us anything. You can't wait to describe our characters later, you need to focus on at least the protagonist right away. The first chapter is where people decide to keep reading or not, and I would not continue reading based on this. For an example, imagine starting off the chapter with the coronation announcement; and the shocker is the two elder children REJECT the crown; leaving the reluctant Helmlock to rule a nation. That would be intriguing. Keep writing, that's the only way you'll get better. And read. Read a lot. A TON! Read, A TON! There's so many helpful things to take from your favorite books.

[August Tomlinson]

I'm not trying to be rude when I say this, but your writing reminds me of when I used to write short stories for my mom when I was eleven. I had tons of characters come in within the first page, and I didn't have very good punctuation.
The beginning of the chapter, when Helmlock is thinking to herself, it should be in italics, so that it is read as her thoughts and not just continuation of the story.
I noticed you had a few capitalization errors, and some punctuation errors, they can be easily fixed.
The multiple characters being announced threw me off a bit, and I think you should slowly add them in throughout the first and second chapter instead of the first page. Also, unless this book is a continuation of another one, I would consider making the names easier to remember and pronounce.

[barleygirl]

I hate to start off on a note of exasperation, but I'm totally lost in reading this. You've introduced or mentioned 12 people in this very short piece of writing! This feels like stepping into a big party, knowing nobody. It's especially hard to grasp all these characters becuz they have unusual names (for some of us) & that's why it's not easy to remember who is who.

I suggest you take your time introducing each character & including some memorable traits or relationships, so we can get to know & remember each one, a little at a time. This is really only done for Aketen and Elita.

Most of your 12 mentioned characters are not explained or described. If you're not at a point where you want to give us some description & background on a character, then maybe you can wait & mention the periphery characters later. Give us a chance to get to know your main characters & what their interests & motives are, concerning the specific situation at hand.

I like the way you unfold this story by showing us glimpses of a few of the characters, as we watch them interact thru dialogue . . . this is much better storytelling than hitting us with a big bunch of boring descriptions & explanations, at first. But you need to manage this large host of characters more thoughtfully, instead of throwing everyone at us, right off.

The other thing is that there are a fair number of spelling mistakes, but I won't list anything becuz I don't even know if you're receptive to such corrections. Many times a writer does not care to polish the writing when a story is first being put together.

[outspoken1234]

Thank you for your comment they way I started the story was a tactic to automatically grab the readers attention. I know it isn't any writing form yet but it makes the reader wonder what is exactly going on and who everyone is and why they are all in the first chapter. Aketen and Elita are in two books but they are one of the four main character's. The names are meant to be unusual and to be unique. I hope you will continue reading and learn more about them and the impending situation they all four face. This story switches between 4 points of views and how each one reacts to it. I feel as if as you read you will start to understand the characters slowly and as the y learn about themselves.

[barleygirl]

Reading this is not my idea of enjoyment. I simply don't have the time to reread everything 2 or 3 times trying to figure it out. If you're so intent on doing it this way, then I don't think my feedback could be of any further use to you.