1st 5 Pages June Workshop - Tran Rev 2

Name: Teresa Tran
Title: Fortox
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Pitch:
The world of Realiswefn, a world where some people are gifted with the ability to rouse elements, is divided into six nations:

Aethers: life, creation, and light

Violets: air, wind, and dust

Cyans: water, storms, and seafoam

Emeralds: earth, fissures, and riches

Scarlets: fire, auras, and heat

Fortoxes: death, destruction, and darkness

It has been eighteen years since people have last seen the Fortoxes, a race of mysterious warriors and spies that live behind a hidden Veil, preventing anyone from entering or leaving, save for their Compeer, Imara. But one year, when natural phenomena, controlled by a mysterious benefactor, begin to wreak havoc on the citizens that live on the Emerald, the leaders that rule Realiswefn try to reel out the Compeer of the Fortoxes to help them figure out a solution. With a surprise attack on a neutral nation and the kidnapping of two royal members, an unlikely group of rogues and rousers, each with their own harbor of secrets, must come together to embark on a heist to rescue the two royal members back before the natural phenomena threaten to consume them all.

Imara believed there were three types of dawn.

The first dawn came when twilight just began, the perpetual blanket of darkness touched again by a hazy cascade of purples and blues. The catalyst to Imara’s race against time, as if the day was already running and she was panting, panting, panting to catch up, all the while trying not to trip on her own two feet.

The second shade of dawn was a shy pale light peeking through the folds of the Cyan sea and a sky full of stars, a sudden flare of energy and brightness that shined over the entire world of Realiswefn as if saying, I am coming. Prepare for me.

And last, though she told no one, the third shade of dawn and Imara’s favorite was the one that bathed the world in orange light, with soft strokes of yellow, gold and red, where it blended with the jungles that wrapped its vines across the realm. It somehow always made Imara feel restless and alive like she had better spit out words before they got caught in her throat or accomplish something grand and spectacular. Fleeting moments became something more –an ocean of possibilities.

However, the dawn that greeted Imara that morning twisted everything she had come to believe. The sky was clouded in diluted gray fog, cleverly hiding the sun. In its place were messy streaks and flashes of green and onyx. Rays normally cast by the bright sun had turned into sinister shadows that came out to play—grasping greedily towards where the sun should have been with its fingers. A rebellion with itself.

“There is something wrong with the sky, Compeer,” said a woman next to Imara. Imara and the woman were standing at the highest point of a citadel carved from one of the many tall mountains that surrounded their people’s lands. Where windows should have been, the arches that gave the fortress its structure framed out to open space.

Leaning on one side of a black stone arch, Imara felt a cold breeze whip at her skin, causing her to shiver slightly. Yet, she did not draw her cloak tighter around her. Instead, she let the wind rustle her dark locs, billow the midnight fabric behind her, and clear her head. The woman standing next to her, sheltered in leather flaps and a similar cloak, was waiting for Imara to acknowledge her.

“Spit it out, General,” Imara said.

“We received a few letters from one of our neighbors. This was the latest.” Imara’s second-in-command handed over a piece of parchment laddered with whiplash marks as if it had traveled through a very bad storm. Imara read through it. Then she read it again. She looked up from above the top of the letter, widening her eyes slightly.

“Is she being serious?” Imara asked.

“She might or might not be, but they do call her Kosher Kepi for a reason.” her general replied.

When Imara did not shift her expression, her general straightened. “We have two options, Compeer. One: We can ignore the plea. Or two: we can send one letter back, made of shadows and reeking of death—”

“That seems a bit dramatic,” Imara interrupted, moving her gaze to look back at the letter. She began to pace atop the citadel, her mind processing the words.

“Those bastard leaders have been trying to glimpse a Fortox for the past eighteen years, Compeer! These letters could be no different.” Her general gestured to the letter in Imara’s hand. “Another desperate attempt to reel you out from the depths of the shadows and to come out into the light. It would not be wise to help them.”

“You mean it would not be wise to risk our people,” Imara said.

“There will always be risk. If the reputation that precedes the Fortoxes has any say in how people treat us. But if is indeed a trick, bait made especially for you…we will not be wholly unprepared in the manner of defense. You have assured that, have you not?”

Imara looked down and flexed her hand, a ring gleaming on one of her long fingers, the black band a shade darker than her skin. Etched into the band was a symbol of two hands covered in shadows outstretched from a gray mountain. Her reminder. Her promise.

When Imara looked back up, her general was looking at her with hard, analyzing eyes; tracking Imara’s every single movement. The way she had looked at her ring.

“And the third option?” her general inquired. Imara raised her eyebrow in silent question, for she had not been the one to come up with options one or two. Her general looked back with an equal appraising expression. “I am no fool, Imara. You have already made up your mind, despite the consequences.”

Imara turned away, knowing that if she had her way, she would shed her cloak and leave for the nearest town where responsibility did not exist and adventure awaited. “The third option would be to go. These letters are different. Something is wrong, something not even our spies know about. If the letters do not lie, then it is my duty as Compeer of the Fortoxes to do whatever I can to help. I leave now.” Her general hesitated, and then nodded in resignation.

“Will you need me?” her general asked.

“I’ll always need you.”

“You know what I mean.” A hushed rise of emotion in her general’s voice was clear.

“I will call for you when necessary. I think it is best for me to go alone. Two Fortoxes on foreign soil so early in the morning cannot be good for the digestion,” Imara said.

One corner of her general’s mouth twitched. “No, perhaps not.”

As the two women stood there in comfortable silence observing the range of mountains that lay in the far distance, cutting through gray fog, Imara’s general did not need to remind her to be careful. Leaving the safety of their fortress to eavesdrop on the workings of Realiswefn was one thing, to reveal that the Fortoxes were active this entire time was quite another.

“The Fortress will hold?” Imara asked.

“The Fortress will hold,” her general repeated quietly. She stepped back to give Imara room.

Looking back one last time at her land, her home, a coil of unease clenched Imara’s stomach. And yet, there it was, beneath the fear, a thrill of anticipation.

I am coming. Prepare for me.

Without another word to her general, Imara rolled her shoulders. Her shadow began to writhe and expand before it wrapped its’ entirety around her body, blending in with her cloak, and Imara vanished, the letter propelling her forward.

‘To the Compeer of the Fortoxes, my most reverent greeting,

Because you know and I know that the Fortoxes have never been one to be forward. Or to bother taking part with the rest of Realiswefn. But let me not mistake your people’s idleness these past eighteen years as an ample version of generosity.

Our world has changed and a great danger approaches; one that will affect your people and all of Realiswefn if we do not stop it. If you have any care for the world you live in, that you are a part of, meet me before sunrise tomorrow, as time has made me a very impatient person.

You know where the wind is harsher and the dust is thinner.

Queen Kepi of the Violets, the people of air.’