NoQS Monster 14 - High Crown Chronicles, YA Hist. Fantasy

Name: Jodi Gallegos
Twitter Handle: @DisgruntledMom
Title: THE HIGH CROWN CHRONICLES
Genre: YA Historical Fantasy
Word Count: 96K



My Main Character's Most Fearsome Obsession is: 

My MC’s most fearsome obsession is that she will fail to fulfill her destiny. Her fear is made worse by the fact that she’s torn between two destinies: to fulfill her duty as an heir to the crown, or to embrace perils of love. In a world where duty and station are the measures of a man, a female heir cannot waver in her loyalty to the crown. My MC must decide which is her true path; that which will lead her to becoming the strong woman she was fated to be.

Query:

As the eldest-born, seventeen-year-old Malory Grayson never doubted that she would one day succeed her father’s throne and become Queen Malory of Devlishire.

That confidence may be her downfall.

Malory has fallen in love with a knight in her father’s army. Her new love is one that can never be realized since she is the future queen and Esmond has no royal blood.

Driven by a deep sense of duty to her royal lineage and the people of her kingdom, Malory knows that she could never abandon her destiny to pursue romance, no matter how strong the desire.

But now, Malory’s father has discovered her illicit love, and uses that knowledge to force Malory to abandon her claim to the throne of Devlishire and participate in a plot to usurp Jamis, the young, new High King of Allondale.  He has had a troop of knights, along with Esmond, sent into Allondale. Should Malory refuse to participate in his plan, he will assure that Esmond is killed.

Furious at being used as a pawn in her family’s machinations, Malory is determined to find a way to oppose their plot, while still assuring Esmond’s safety.

When her father dies, her brother’s desperate aspirations for wealth and power come to light. His plot will culminate in the deaths of Jamis, Malory and also Esmond. With no other choice but to prove herself a skilled warrior as well as queen, Malory will join the battle against her former kingdom, with Esmond and Jamis by her side. She will defend her new kingdom, even though to do so may mean her death and the death of those she loves.

First 250:

The early morning mist danced with smoke from fires and battle. Death and rubble met my eyes at every point. Gray skies hovered low across the crisp winter fields and refused to allow any light to shine on the consequences of greed and deceit that littered the land. The vastness of the devastation made it difficult to believe that this was what victory had earned us.
    
“Malory.” Isobel placed a hand on my arm. The gentle, but insistent, pressure of my new friend’s touch chased away the paralysis that had overcome me.

“Look at them all–,” Pinpoint crystals of ice hung like a veil in the air and stung at my cheeks. Tears warmed a path down my face as I surveyed the bodies on the ground. “—at what they’ve done.”

I forced my eyes to embrace every image. I wouldn’t turn away despite the horror that churned within me and threatened to spill out at any moment. This burden was as much mine to bear, as my family’s and the traitors who’d aligned with them.

Among the stilled bodies—knights, as well as villagers—men writhed on the ground in the final throes of their march toward death. Life spilled from their wounds in gruesome clarity. A chasm ripped open in me as I watched a man try desperately to force his own life back into his abdomen, his eyes begged me to assist him before realization settled over him.

My life would never see the end of this battle.