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My thoughts are in blue, words to delete are in red, suggested rephrasing is in orange.
Even in a world of vampires, wolfborn, saurian—humans remain the true monsters. Great hook, well done.
The Knightmares were once hundreds strong: vigilantes mutated by vampiric blood, forged to hunt the corrupt. Now five remain, hunted by the Paladins, a holy order built on human supremacy. In Tymeria, survival means knowing when not to care. Again this is really good, until that last line might need to be extrapolated on a little bit. Not care about what?
Knightmare Jevan, eighteen, lives by a code: Don’t care. Get paid. Heroics are how Knightmares become martyrs. Then a contract to rescue a nobleman's sister becomes a bloodbath — Paladins torn apart by jaws and claws, the nobleman revealing himself a wolfborn. The surviving Paladins flee with the sister. No gold. Just carnage. A touch confusing b/c the way this reads it sounds like the Paladins didn't get any gold, but what you mean is that the Knightmares didn't get paid Jevan knows the smart move is to vanish, until he faces the nobleman, not a beast, just a man on his knees begging for his sister’s life. The way this is written it sounds like the wolfborn is asking the Knightmares not to kill the sister, but actually he's just asking them to continue the original goal of rescuing the sister, correct? Jevan agrees to rescue her, telling the Knightmares it’s just for gold, fighting the growing weight in his chest. Why is there a weight in his chest? What is the feeling? Guilt?
Paladin Eriken, eighteen, witnessed Knightmares and a wolfborn butcher his comrades. His rage hardens into renewed devotion to his oath. Obedience is justice; doubt is heresy. But when men he idolizes pardon a confessed rapist and torture an elf woman before a cheering crowd, that righteousness curdles into disillusionment. Defying the Order is apostasy, punishable by death, but silence makes him complicit in such horrors. Very good
As Jevan’s contract puts him directly in Eriken’s path, Knightmare and Paladin blades clash in a struggle that could brand Eriken an apostate and doom the last Knightmares to martyrdom. Survival demands a betrayal of creed and comrades neither is prepared to commit.
KNIGHTMARE is an 86,000-word adult dark fantasy novel for readers of The Poppy War and The First Law, exploring moral awakenings in a prejudiced empire through a character-driven, multi-POV narrative.
As an autistic writer, I’m drawn to questions of morality, alienation, and rigid systems of belief. Really good. Everything you have here is quite strong, with the exception of the spots where I think clarity is needed.