u/Kitten_Mittons17

Previous attempt:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PubTips/comments/1sy4byk/qcrit_adult_dark_fantasy_answers_from_the_void/

Thanks to those who helped last time. Hopefully the below is an improvement! Thanks again in advance to anyone who takes the time to respond

Dear [Agent]

I am seeking representation for my novel, ANSWERS FROM THE VOID, a character-driven adult dark fantasy told across two timelines. Complete at 95,000 words ANSWERS FROM THE VOID blends the confessional structure and religious dread of EMPIRE OF THE VAMPIRE by Jay Kristoff with the moral questions of judgement and authority found in THE JUSTICE OF KINGS by Richard Swan.

The gods are not always kind, and Kresemir Lenart has lived a hundred lives that prove it.

For over a century, Kresemir has killed in their name. In return, they grant him eternal life, a taste of their power, and a hunger only sated by the souls of those they mark for death. Each victim he consumes leaves something of themselves within him: memories, faces and sins he can no longer differentiate from his own.

When Kresemir finds a letter from the woman he once loved, it becomes the only proof that he was ever human at all. Plotia put the blade in his hand, taught him to use it, then she vanished. The only face Kresemir can connect to her disappearance is Algar’s, his ancient rival and the man he believes took her from him.

Seeking truth or revenge, whichever he finds first, Kresemir offers protection to Edwyne, a priest marked for death by the same gods Kresemir serves. Edwyne is bait, but he is also useful. His prayer stone can bind sin and memory, giving Kresemir a way to recover the past his victims have buried inside him. 

As Algar’s hunters descend, Kresemir must keep Edwyne alive long enough to piece together his fractured mind. But each memory he feeds the stone drags him deeper into the life he has forgotten: the starving boy who prayed for murder, the lover who chose the blade over peace, and the killer who may have buried the worst thing he ever did. 

If Edwyne dies, Kresemir loses his last chance to learn what happened to Plotia. But to uncover the truth, he must face the possibility that the monster waiting at the end of his memories is not Algar at all, but himself. 

[Bio]

Many thanks for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Jackson P. Williams.

This is my first query for this project, but I took several attempts on my last one. Thank you in advance to anyone who responds.

I am seeking representation for my novel, ANSWERS FROM THE VOID, a character-driven dark fantasy, following a cursed assassin through two timelines as he seeks to unravel centuries of sin, to find the woman he loved, and kill the man who took her. The complete manuscript is 95,000 words.

Kresemir was a bastard boy, born to a resentful and damaged mother. Forced to steal to survive, and to avoid the mines that took his brother, Kresemir searches for a way out. Then he met Plotia. An ageless assassin who introduced him to The Whispering Blades. When his mother stole his savings, Kresemir prayed to them for her death. Plotia answered with her blade.

Left with nothing, Plotia gave him his way out. By sharing her blood. Kresemir became a Whisper. An immortal, blessed with the power of the Triarchy and cursed by a hunger that is only satiated by consuming the souls of those marked for death by the gods. Each soul grants a vision of his victim's life, proof that the god's judgement was just.

But the dead linger, and after decades of serving as butcher for the divine, Kresemir is losing himself. Each soul he consumes erodes his humanity and leaves another life inside him. A tempest of stolen memory that threatens to wash away his own past. His only anchor was Plotia. The one constant. The one person who knew the boy he had been, before blood and hunger made him something else. The one person he loved. 

And now she is gone, leaving only a letter she wrote before she vanished, and a broken memory of the monster who took her. The Black Death. Algar. The guild’s most ruthless killer. Kresemir enters a temple with a warning for the priest inside. Algar is coming. If Kresemir wants to find him, he must first remember why he has hunted him for so long. Using the priest’s prayer stone to bind his core memories, Kresemir pieces together a century of sin in search of the truth he buried. Each memory draws him closer to the sin he fears most. Not the lives he took, but the one he failed to protect.