BrutalRice

Rating: B+, pretty damn good.

We start our journey in a very gruesome dungeon. It is terrifying and horrible, gross and inhumane, and we see Princess Eva act mercilessly and sacrifice a whole group of criminals to a strange and malicious creature. We then are moved to the politics and characters of a different country, and on the topic of the ruler's bequeathing.

In your story, I think your strongest points are your character, imagery, and world building. Character, in my opinion, is the most important one, so good job. Your imagery and world building really just go hand in hand, which works well and effectively. There's a lot of it, but it isn't too over the top, so good job on that, too.

Now let's get right into it.

As a disclaimer, I saw in your bio that you aren't a native English speaker, so all of the grammatical errors (which were seldom!) I ignored in this review.

I think making that first section with Princess Eva a prologue or second/third chapter would be very beneficial. If you could do one of these, I would have changed it to an A-, and the reasons down below explains it all.

Now these would be some pretty decently sized edits, but they would pay off. The very first scene, imagery, and tone should be representatives for all scenes, imagery, and tones you have for the rest of the story. This is how writers secure their audience and don't betray them. An example is, if I were writing a strict, calm romance, I wouldn't begin the story with a fight scene. While this may work as a good hook in some regards if you use it correctly, in reality it betrays your audience and readers because it doesn't represent what the story is all about correctly. This is why I think you should have that first part as a prologue, or even a second or third chapter (which may even be better), because right after you go into the characters and politics of a completely separate country. If, for the rest of the story, we are in the politics side of it, we shouldn't be shown gore and blood and terrifying scenes right off the bat.

And, furthermore, it cuts the flow literally right in half. We go from gruesome and grizzly imagery to a political landscape of an important family, and it doesn't really work out well.

I think making that section a second or third chapter would do it more justice than merely a prologue, now that I look back on it, and all because of that argument that I gave above with the representation of your story.

That's really all I have to say. I hope this review was eye-opening for you, and that you keep writing, because you really are good at it!

Ciao