u/ComelyChatoyant

Hi all, please see my query letter and first 300 words (prologue) below. I appreciate any tips! Tagging for potential NSFW content because I'm not clear on what qualifies as such on this sub.

QUERY LETTER:

To Agent,

What is Ruth’s purpose? King Ibis says she was born and bred to tend orchards and produce children for the isolationist human kingdom, Silvein. But Ruth isn’t so sure. What she does know is that she’d do anything to avoid being forced to procreate.

Expeditionary Commander Laurel, a minotaur, knows his reason; slaughtering humans. Until, that is, a mysterious attack finds him imprisoned in Silvein, starving in solitude somewhere his herd will never reach him. A place where the only spark of kindness he experiences comes from a quiet human runaway named Ruth.

A duo formed in misfortune, Ruth and Laurel spring forward into the fantastical People’s continent of Parit towards the promise of a fresh start. Laurel is doing everything he can just to ensure Ruth’s safety in a society he helped make inhospitable to humans. A society he no longer feels he has a place in. Not to mention the dreaded embodiment of death, Entropy, is calling out to Ruth, and Ruth seems all too eager to answer. The further they travel, the harder their adversaries chase, and Ruth and Laurel must confront everything they’ve been running from if they ever hope to carve out a life after the disaster that brought them together.  

For your consideration, I present ENTROPY’S THRALL, the first novel in an LGBTQ+ character-driven fantasy duology, complete at just under 90,000 words. Readers will find the existential nature of Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi mingling with the persistent, creeping sense of dread found in Naomi Novik’s Uprooted. All of this is wrapped in the warm embrace of found family, à la Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree.

My experience as a writer is primarily non-fiction, having published several foundational knowledge papers while [redacted]. Additionally, I have experience writing scripts and scenarios while leading large role-play projects. Creative writing, for me, is a hobby that I try to balance with my other interests, specifically reading, urban gardening, and looking up facts about seals.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

FIRST 300 WORDS:

A human. I need a human.

The thought drifted into Agate’s mind as if it were his own. It was hard not to let it distract him as he observed King Ibis through the eyes of his next victim. Ibis smiled, caressing this human’s shoulder, their waist, and then nibbling at their neck. Agate could taste the pleasure the human felt. Not from the way they were touched, but because of who chose to touch them. He strained, attempting to jump behind the king’s eyes as he could with almost anyone he wished. But, as always, his attempts were impotent.

At the same time, Entropy circled Agate’s physical and metaphysical body alike, the entity drifting in and out of him with a complete disregard for the natural barriers that defined his personhood.

Entropy did not understand privacy.

Carefully, so as not to break his concentration, Agate replied. “Humans will never reach one of your temples. The Guardians slaughter all who leave their kingdom.”

Before he had even finished speaking, Entropy slammed the last moments of every human who had ever died to the Entente Guardians through Agate’s mind, and the daemon simultaneously experienced each of their deaths as if they were his own. He felt the connective metals in his body tighten, fighting to hold him together from a thousand phantom wounds. Most frustratingly, the human he was spying through experienced all of this as well and promptly began to scream. They collapsed, tearing at their eyes and slamming their head against the floor.

Agate pulled himself from the human and back into his own body. He ran his fingers across the moss beneath him, considering what he’d been shown. Of the six thousand and forty-eight deaths he’d seen, approximately one-third took place in the last ten years. And eighty percent of that third had been killed by, or in the vicinity of, the same Guardian Commander; a massive, ruthless minotaur.

Entropy’s point was clear. The minotaur must die.