"Remember What Name You Wear" by Take_me_to_GuSu

Overall:

Overall, I really liked the story you had here. While I did notice a few minor issues with the pacing, the story itself was interesting and engaging. I'm not terribly familiar with the tropes of this genre, so I can't speak to how accurate things were, but you did a good job of conveying what was going on for an outsider like me!

Specifics:

    · Be conscious of the details you use. 

Example: "Mikhail's heartbeat drummed in his ears as he entered the commander's headquarters. Panting for air, he marched to a dignified young man, Prince of the Slavic Empire, Roman, sitting at a table with the borderlands' territory map on it. The prince placed both his elbows on the table and leaned forwards, beckoning for Mikhail to speak up. 

'Your Highness, Highlanders are attacking a village nearby.'"

 It's not that anything is technically wrong here, but the focus of what the details are trying to convey is off; every description is relating to blocking the movement or the physical description, but none tell us anything about these characters or offer insight into what is going on inside their heads. Don't just say dignified; show us dignified. Let the details of how Roman behaves and moves color the reader's perspective of him, the same with Mikhail. 

This is something that continued throughout the story, not just in the example here. Characters do things, yes, but there's not much to characterize them as people, so it feels sort of like army pieces being moved around rather than characters with their own fears and motivations. They filled roles in the story, rather than being a real person with a role in the story. 

One of the issues that contribute to this is how a lot of Mikhail's character is told through the prose itself, rather than letting the audience see his reaction. Examples include: "Mikhail wanted to shout and cry at the same time," "Mikhail was so unsettled and crushed by the truth about Roman that he did not notice either cold or discomfort", "he felt awful guilt for even touching the magic casket."

While sometimes coming straight out and telling readers these sorts of information is needed at times, in most cases, it's best to let the characters' actions speak for themselves. How does the guilt sit with him and how is he carrying it? How can you show him not noticing the cold instead of telling us he doesn't? 

    · Passivity in the prose

Related to the above examples, one of the issues is the passive voice in the descriptions. Some specific examples of this are, "He was wandering...", "Mikhail was taken aback by...", "Minutes were passing in silence...". 

Now, when I talk about passive voice here, I'm not really talking about the "passive voice" that is defined by a subject being acted upon by a verb, such as in the sentence, "A movie is going to be watched by us tonight." Instead, I'm referring to how events happen passively to the characters; Mikhail is reacting passively to the cold irony and is taken aback by it, he was wandering around the festive crowd without really reacting to it.

An easy way to improve this is to remove the being verbs (am, is, was, were, etc), but I think you could also benefit by expanding these moments to get us more under these character's skins, similar to the critique above. How can you impart the same information without having to come out and say it? 

Compare: "He was wandering among the festive crowd for a while until he ended up near the Warsburg residence of the prince Roman. There, he spotted an approaching carriage with a golden coat of arms, symbolizing the absolute power of the Slavic Empire. Only royal family members had the privilege to ride in one of these luxury carriages."

To: "As he wandered amongst the festival, he came up to the Warsburg residence of the prince. An approaching carriage came into view between the crowd, the Slavic Empire's golden coat of arm emblazoned on the side. 

Understanding shot through him at the sight. Only the luxury carriages of the royal family bore the coat of arms. Then who's memory am I in? Mikhail thought."

The information is the same in both these examples, but the phrasing shows what is happening, rather than informing. 

Improvements:

The biggest issues I noticed were the specifics I mentioned above, since the prose itself kept me at a distance due to the way descriptions were phrased. To improve with this, I recommend:

1.) Playing around with descriptions like this to find different ways of expressing the same idea to cut down on the passive voice.

2.) Including characterization to give the characters life and personality, both as how it relates to the story and hints as to what their internal life is like. You don't want to just have descriptions of what each is doing at any given time; you also want to have information about their motivation and personality.

3.) Make sure the details you introduce are paid off. If you give the reader a detail in a description, it needs to pay off later. That does not mean it has to pay off in a big way like the nightlock berries in the Hunger Games, but you do want every description to add to the story, rather than just being descriptions.

Closing Thoughts:

This was a very nit-picky critique, but as I said, I did enjoy the story parts of it so I didn't have too many comments there. Keep working at it, keep writing, and keep this information in mind when you go back to edit.