Name: Ellie Luken
Title: Last Lights of the
Lost
Genre: YA Fantasy
Pitch:
Sarana was raised by a group
of mercenary women who travel the world hunting monsters. To officially become
one of them, she must kill her first monster, a giant sandworm.
She fails.
A huntress is never supposed
to fail, so they banish her. But they offer one way for her to redeem herself
and return: she must kill a type of monster no one has killed before. When she
meets Ani, a girl from a town in the shadow of a haunted mountain, she finds
her chance. Ani's town has been forced to provide people to free the mountain
tunnels from the monster who lives there, and Ani's sister, Ashwia, is one of
the latest recruits.
Sarana and Ani team up to enter
the mountain--Sarana to kill the monster, Ani to save her sister. But as they
make their way deeper into the tunnels, the monster sinks controlling
claws into their minds, warping reality and making them see things that aren’t
there. They can't trust their senses, but they must figure out how to see
through the mind games it plays before their sanity crumbles and they're
trapped forever among ghosts.
Revision:
I face my family’s row of
weapons. The metal of the blades glints in the sliver of early morning light
that slips through the side of our tent. For the first time, I feel a pinch of
nerves. Today is the most important day in my life. Today is the day every
other moment of my life has been leading up to.
Because today, after I complete
my first hunt and kill a sandworm, I’ll become a huntress.
A shiver threatens, so I draw
my new wool cloak closer around me. My fingers skim the raised threads of
embroidery, symbols of strength, health, and victory. A few of the threads are
crooked. My younger brother isn't precise. Any other time, I would've teased him about the
flaws in his work. But last night, I accepted it as formally as he gave it.
This gift is his show of support, even if he won’t wake to see me off. Right
now, he still snores in a pile of furs, his brown feet just poking out.
Mother is awake, sharpening a
knife. Behind her, nearly double her size, is the scale of a sea serpent. It’s
the strongest monster she’s slain, so it travels with us. Anyone who enters our
tent can know her strength.
Although it’s not officially
part of the test, selecting my weapons is a critical step for success. I can
pick anything I want—but if I pick wrong, I’ll have lost my fight against the
sandworm before it’s even begun.
Sandworms are Beast Class
monsters, large and heavily armored, with poison on their scales. The only way
to kill one is to hit a vulnerable area through the back of its mouth. My gaze
skims over the line of close combat weapons, the spears, the curved arms, the
swords, all different metals for different monsters. If I end up close enough
to the sandworm to use one of these, I’ll probably be dead already. For a
sandworm, I need something to fire from a distance.
I glance at the matchlock
rifle. Maybe. But guns are artless weapons. It’s hard to aim with any kind of
accuracy.
A bow will be most precise, and
if I am capable, faster to reload and fire than the rifle. My throat goes dry,
and I lick my lips. If I’m not strong enough--
I shouldn’t doubt myself. More
importantly, I shouldn’t doubt my training. Doubting my training is doubting
all of my honorary aunts and uncles who worked with me.
I grab a bow and a quiver of
arrows, and I take a matchlock rifle as a backup. It won’t be accurate until
I’m quite close to the sandworm, but if something goes wrong, I might need it.
Last, I grab a slab of dried meat to feed my steed. When I turn to leave,
Mother stands behind me.
She claps a hard hand on my
shoulder. "See you shortly." She doesn't wish me luck because that
would predict my failure.
I don't need luck, because I
have skill.
"Of course," I say.
I step outside and jog towards
the edge of the huntress camp to fetch my steed. Ahead, the desert sand glows red
in the sunrise, like it bleeds. The back of my neck prickles, and the beginning
of the day’s warmth in the air says I don’t have much time before I need to
leave.
"Sarana." A soft,
sweet voice calls from behind me. It belongs to Darius, one of the scouts, and
newest member of the huntress team. He might have information for me, so I slow
and let him catch me.
He flashes me half a smile and
then ducks his head. His pale cheeks shine pink, and his light curls glow.
“I—made you a small token for strength. Sorry it took me so long to
finish."
Usually only loved ones offers
up tokens before a first hunt, and now I find my own face warming.
"Oh." He's new to the team, originally from far north, one of the
rare travelers who begs to join. Maybe he doesn't understand the significance
of the tokens.
"Do you—accept it?"
He holds out a wooden carving, hanging on a piece of string like a very crude
piece of jewelry. The intertwining circles mean strength, but not a lone
person's strength. Strength in unity, in family, in friends. The
huntresses, scouts and trainees are a team. We're not all related by blood, but
we are family.
"Of course." I swipe
it quickly from his hand and turn to keep walking.
"I really hope you
succeed," he says.
I should let it go, but it
feels like a bad omen to leave on those words. He shouldn’t hope I’ll succeed.
He should know I will.
I stop and turn back. "Of
course I will. I’ve been training my whole life for this." I’ve
given everything I have for this. Half of the trainees who
attempt this test die trying to pass it, but I won’t end up like them. My
mother was a huntress, and her mother before her. I was made to follow in
their footsteps.
I've never considered I might
not succeed, because how can I consider that all of me isn’t enough to make me
the one thing I’ve always wanted?
“Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t
mean to insult you.”
I step back. Every word he says
is more and more awkward, and it sounds like he doesn’t believe in me. “It’s
fine. Once I return, you won’t doubt me again.”
Once I return, no one will
doubt me again. They’ll all see how valuable I am.
Behind me, someone clears her
throat. I jump back from Darius and spin toward the noise. My nerves are wound
too tight—I shouldn't have been so startled by that. Steps in the sand are
soundless.
Rasa, my training partner, soon
to be my hunting partner, stands with a hand on her hip, grinning wickedly.
"It’s time to go." In her other hand, she holds the reins to her
steed. To underscore her point, the steed dances in place. Flecks of meat stick
in its sharp teeth, as its lips peels back at the sight of me. It blasts me
with breath like rot. Its thin tail flicks back and forth, the hard knob at the
end swinging.
Rasa swings herself onto its
back. I look up at her, and she raises her eyebrows in response. She's tried
for years to be able to lift only one, but she still can't. The reminder that
she's got her own strange flaws makes me smile.
"It's time we're
huntresses already!" She pumps a fist into the air. Her bravado rings
false, and it hangs between us. She should stop talking. If she weren't
nervous, she'd be quiet.
"’ll be back," I tell
Darius, although he’s slumped like a crumpled rug, and hurry away. Rasa follows
on her steed.
At the edge of the campsite,
the rest of the steeds wait, most dozing. I approach my family's, marked by the
red and white ribbon around his neck, although even without that, I'd recognize
the spots on his back. I think he recognizes me, too. I toss him the meat and
climb onto his back.
Ahead, the rolling red dunes
stretch.
"Let's go kill that
worm." I say.
We ride out.
We don't pretend there's any
path other than success.
There isn't.
Victory or death is all a
huntress knows.
