Aelithar’s Resonance

[urkalel]

Aelithar’s Resonance is a sweeping epic about gods, echoes, and the cost of power.

Centuries ago, a god’s envy shattered the world, birthing a living artifact the Aelisthar’s Resonance that devours all who seek to wield it. When the artifact resurfaces, it corrupts Azaryth, the beloved champion of The Kingdome of Velmyr, turning him from hero to destroyer and plunging the kingdom into ruin.

But the Resonance’s power doesn’t end with one man. Its echo awakens in Nael, a young duelist from a distant, peaceful land one of two twins whose destinies are bound to the artifact’s ancient curse. As armies march and kingdoms fall, Nael must master the light within her before her brother, twisted by the same echo, brings about a new age of darkness.

This is a story about the aftermath of catastrophe, the scars left by grief, and the fragile hope that survives even when gods fall. If you like epic fantasy with mythic stakes, broken heroes, and a focus on healing and legacy, would you give this a try?

 

[Prince of Spires]

Congrats on getting the novel out there. The premisse sounds fun.

would you give this a try?

I'm not sure if you're asking for feedback on the blurb you posted, but I'll give it anyway as someone probably in your target audience. Purely based on the blurb, I wouldn't. It's too vague and generic, and there aren't enough hooks in it.

I don't know what's at stake for Nael, why she cares, why she's special, or what is actually sort of going to happen in the story.

I'm also a bit confused. Is Azaryth Nael's brother? Or someone else entirely? Is it all happening at the same time, or has the first paragraph happened before the second?

 

[urkalel]

Yeah its a small blurb of my story, an Idea of it. I have the actual full Story. Would you like for me to post the prologue and the dream and tell me if that would keep you reading?

 

[urkalel]

Prologue
The Song Before Light
Before light and shadow learned their names,
There was harmony, a stillness so vast it was mistaken for peace.
From that stillness rose a realm of brilliance,
Where rivers of starlight sang to the heavens,
And mountains of gold breathed the first dawn.
There dwelt the gods, radiant and eternal,
Shaping dreams into form, weaving order into chaos.
Their laughter built worlds. Their silence birthed stars.
But among them walked one whose gaze lingered too long
Upon the thrones of his kin.
His name was not yet cursed,
But envy had begun to sing within his heart.
He watched as songs rose not to him but to others,
And in that neglect, found purpose.
No god may unmake another, so spoke the First Law.
But envy breeds invention.
In secret, he whispered not to the heavens, but to the silence.
Night after night, he bent his thoughts into shape,
Seeking to create what the law forbade.
And though he believed himself alone,
The silence was not empty.
Something listened.
Something vast and wordless.
It waited, unseen, until the moment he reached too far.
When he gave his will form with his last breath,
The stillness trembled.
Harmony cracked.
And in that fracture was born a pulse,
A song that would outlive gods and mortals alike.
From his breath came a gem of living dusk,
A stone that sang with his own voice.
It shone with promise and hunger,
And in its heart dwelled his pride.
But the stone turned upon its maker,
And drank his light, his name, his crown.
The god was swallowed by the thing he had made,
And his creation devoured the heavens.
The lands of the gods burned and fell into ruin,
Their rivers of light darkened by his song.
Yet though his body perished, his essence lived.
For Ael’Thariel, cunning even in death,
Had hidden three fragments of himself.
One he sealed within a book of his own hand,
Another he left sleeping in the broken lands of Averasca,
And the last he sent into the unknown,
To seek a vessel worthy of his return.
But when the world awakened, it intervened.
In its grief, it tore the heavens apart
And from the ashes formed another essence,
One born of light.
This fragment rose against the shadow,
Took the gem of Ael’Thariel,
And sealed the shattered lands of Averasca.
There it hid the gem,
That no mortal hand might ever find it again.
Thus ended the age of harmony.
Truth became legend, legend became myth,
And myth became half-remembered song.

Aelithar’s Resonance
By Uziel Rosa

The Dream before the song

When the last echo of the gods’ song faded into silence,
The world exhaled and from its breath, peace was born again.
Ages drifted like falling leaves.
Mountains grew old, seas forgot their storms,
And what once was divine became the whisper of old songs sung beside the fire.
The wind returned to gentler paths,
Sliding soft over river and forest
Until it reached the silver towers of a kingdom resting beneath the stars.
High above those quiet streets, one light still glimmered in the night.
An aged mage sat by his window, wrapped in wool and calm,
Listening to the hush of the world.
The air was cool, the hearth steady, the sky a deep well of silver and blue.
At last, he lay down beside a shallow bowl of starlight.
The flames dwindled.
The wind stilled.
And the dream began.
Page 2
Night held its breath over the silver towers.
In the highest chamber, an aged mage slept beside the dim bowl of starlight,
Its glow pulsing faintly in rhythm with his heart.
A tremor shivered through the stillness soft at first,
Then rising like a drumbeat beneath the earth.
From the dark came light, blinding and red, spilling through cracks in the sky.
The air thickened with ash and thunder.
He saw a battlefield, a horizon devoured by flame.
Banners burned as armored figures clashed in rivers of fire.
A woman screamed through smoke, clutching two children
As shadows swept past her.
Another silhouette a warrior fell to his knees,
His blade breaking apart in his hands,
As though the world itself had betrayed him.
A gem hovered above the chaos black as night
Yet alive with veins of crimson light.
It pulsed like a living heart,
Each beat rippling across the dream until the earth split and swallowed whole cities.
The hum became a roar.
The sky twisted, bleeding color until nothing remained but shadow and storm.
From within that storm, a figure emerged tall, still,
And burning with the same red light as the gem.
The world bent around him.
Rivers ran backward.
The wind died.
Then the figure lifted his head.
Through the storm, the mage saw eyes two burning embers
Staring through the veil of the dream,
Alive with fury, grief, and power beyond words.
He woke with a cry.
His breath came ragged, and the bowl of starlight beside him
Split in two with a sound like breaking glass.
The glow inside dimmed to nothing.
For a long moment, he sat trembling in the silence,
The echo of those eyes still carved into the darkness behind his lids.
He whispered, though no one heard:
“Something has woken.”

 

[Prince of Spires]

Would you like for me to post the prologue and the dream and tell me if that would keep you reading?

I tried the prologue, and it's not for me. I rarely like songs in books. They never feel like songs to me, more like simple poetry. And I usually want to skip them. If it's theprologue, I would either skip it and go to chapter 1 if I really wanted to read the book. More likely, I would simply find another book to read.

As for the content of the prologue, the first bit is a simple creation myth. At this point I don't really care enough about the world to want to know how it was created. I read the creation myth part of the Silmarillion, but I only get through that because I read Lord of the Rings first and know the rest of the book is amazing. I don't think a book should start with it. If a reader really, absolutely needs to know the creation myth (and he very rarely does), then you can tell me later, when I actually care. Have the protagonist run into a priest who gives me a summary of the thing or something like that. Or even just a dream vision halfway through the book.

The second bit has a better subject matter. It feels like a vision, and it ends well. However, the language itself doesn't draw me in. It feels like it tries very hard to be epic and grand while at the same time saying very little. It's only telling me stuff, not actually showing it. To give an example of what I mean, take this section:

He saw a battlefield, a horizon devoured by flame.
Banners burned as armored figures clashed in rivers of fire.
A woman screamed through smoke, clutching two children
As shadows swept past her.
Another silhouette a warrior fell to his knees,
His blade breaking apart in his hands,

What does the battlefield actually look like? Are we fighting on rolling hills? In the desert? WW1 trenches? Something out of StarWars? How big are the armies fighting there? Are we talking knights? Musketeers?

What is on the burning banners? What sort of emblems do they have? Why are they burning?

What does the warrior who fell look like? Is he clad in furs? Heavy armour? Mostly naked like Conan the barbarian? Does he have a steel sword? Or bronze or a lightsaber?

This goes for the whole scene. I'm not drawn into it and living through it with the mage having the vision.

Now this doesn't mean that no one will like it. I'm just one person with an opinion. But I wouldn't keep reading.

 

[urkalel]

All those questions are in chapter one, my idea was to keep the mystery. But thanks for the feedback