#YayYA Entry #14

Name: Laura E. Weymouth

Twitter Handle: @lauraeweymouth

Genre: Fantasy

Title: Casters and Crowns

35 Word Pitch: Finnikin of the Rock with gunpowder and monsters: For two years Pip Martin has survived in the troubled city of Inverlyn by keeping his head down. When he is reluctantly drawn into the King's Guard, he must fight for the city's survival as well as his own. 

First 500:

The first time I set out to find Thelonius Small, I nearly walked off Inverlyn's city wall instead. I was in the Cooper's Quarter, about as far as you could get from my tenement on Fuller's Row. Normally I stayed close to home, but I wanted to see the mage folk were calling Inverlyn's Last Resort. Rumor had it Thelonius liked to stop for a bite of dinner at a pub in the Quarter. It was a place mages favored, called the Gilded Pig, and though I'd never been, I had a dim idea of where it was. 

In retrospect, wandering about the city alone of a summer evening was monumentally stupid. I was usually more careful than that, but I'd been two years in Inverlyn and grown comfortable there, thinking myself safe behind the walls and the strong magic that warded them. I should have known better. 

I took my time in the Quarter, poking around unfamiliar streets and stopping to buy a hot cross bun. It was quiet at that end of the city. There were the usual sounds of hansoms and penny pullers out on the main thoroughfares, and of course the clang of traffic bells, but I was used to Fuller's Row where the sound of wooden hammers beating out wool weighs heavy on your ears. I'd come to think of the fulling mills as Inverlyn's heartbeat, and it was strange to wander through a neighborhood where they weren't audible. My ears were pricked by the underlying quiet, and when a sudden ripple of sweet music drifted around a corner I stopped to listen. 

That was my first mistake. 

After a moment I carried on, but something about the scrap of song nagged at me. It was unlike anything I'd heard on a street corner or drifting out of a pub. Even the palace minstrels parading through the streets on holy days had never played a piece with such allure. Taking a bite of my hot cross bun, I turned back the way I'd come. It was still early. With any luck I'd have time to track the errant music to its source and still catch Thelonius at the Gilded Pig.

Turning back, of course, was my second mistake. I followed the song through the maze of Inverlyn's streets, occasionally reorienting myself after taking a wrong turn or coming up against a dead end. The singing rose high and pure above the buildings and city noise, cold and clear as the year's first snowfall.

Clambering up and over a tumbledown wall, I dropped to the ground near the end of a blind alley. There in the shadows was a tall, pale woman dressed all in white and singing a song that would break your heart. I stood motionless before her and listened as the song got into my blood and bones, piercing me through with an indefinable longing. It was the rushing of water, the ice in winter, the emptiness behind the stars.

REVISION:

Name: Laura E. Weymouth

Twitter Handle: @lauraeweymouth

Genre: Fantasy

Title: Casters and Crowns

35 Word Pitch: When Dark beasts overwhelm his homeland, Pip Martin is drafted into the army. There he is forced to choose between desertion from a fight he never wanted, and devotion to the friends he never planned to make.

First 500 Words: 

The night I met Inverlyn's most famous mage, I nearly threw myself off the city wall. 

I was in the Cooper's Quarter running a message for the few extra coins it would earn me. The sun hung low over the hills around the city and cast honey-colored light over the buildings and streets. Normally I stayed close to home so late in the day, but that afternoon I was foolish. I let myself feel safe behind Inverlyn's walls and the strong magic that warded them. 

I should have known better. Even the wards were not enough to keep the Dark wholly at bay. I ought to have been home, where I knew the alleys and roadways like the palm of my hand, but instead I was in unfamiliar territory chasing a last handful of pennies.

The Quarter was quieter than what I was used to. There were the usual sounds of hansoms and penny pullers out on the main thoroughfares, and of course the clang of traffic bells, but I bunked on Fuller's Row where the sound of wooden hammers beating out wool weighs heavy on your ears. I'd come to think of the fulling mills as Inverlyn's heartbeat, and it was strange to wander through a neighborhood where they weren't audible. My ears were pricked by their absence, and when a sudden ripple of sweet singing drifted around a corner, I stopped to listen. 

That was my first mistake. 

After a moment I carried on, but something about the scrap of song nagged at me. It was unlike anything I'd heard on a street corner or drifting out of a pub. It called to me, beckoning with an irresistible allure. It drove the errand I'd come to the Quarter for quite out of my mind and muddied my thoughts, until I could think of almost nothing else but finding the source of that singing. I turned back to follow the song.

Turning back was my second mistake. I tracked the sound of singing through the maze of Inverlyn's streets, occasionally reorienting myself after taking a wrong turn or coming up against a dead end. The beckoning voice rose high and pure above the buildings and city noise, cold and clear as the year's first snowfall. 

Clambering up and over a tumbledown wall, I dropped to the ground near the end of a blind alley. There in the shadows was a tall, pale woman dressed all in white and singing a song that seeped into my blood and bones, piercing me through with an indefinable longing. It was the rushing of water, the ice in winter, the emptiness behind the stars.