I'd love to hear your honest first impressions of the opening chapters of my completed epic fantasy novel, The 13th Moon (about 2,200 words).
I'm not looking for line edits at this stage—just your natural reactions as a reader. Any honest feedback, positive or negative, would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks so much for taking the time to read it.
Chapter 1 - Sara
The package sat between them like an omen.
Will gripped the steering wheel with both hands, his attention fixed on the road as countryside blurred past beyond the windows. He was trying to appear calm, but the muscle working in his jaw gave him away.
Sara drew her knees up against the seat and glanced again at the leather-wrapped bundle resting beside the console.
“What was that?” she asked finally.
Will’s eyes stayed forward. “I don’t know.”
“He knew your name.”
“I know.”
“That’s not normal.”
His grip shifted slightly on the wheel. “I’m aware.”
Sara looked back at the package. “You don’t find this even slightly concerning?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then why did you take it?”
Will exhaled softly before answering. “I can't explain it, but when he handed it to me, it felt like he already knew me."
Sara let out a short disbelieving breath. “That’s your reasoning?”
He glanced at her. “You didn’t feel it?”
She opened her mouth to answer, then stopped. Her attention drifted back to the package despite herself. The thing seemed to pull at her focus every time she looked away.
Will rubbed absently at the chain around his neck before unclasping it. The amulet settled into his palm, warm against his skin.
“This thing’s been irritating me all morning,” he muttered. He stared at it, unsettled by the heat lingering in the metal, then slipped it into the inside pocket of his bag.
Sara folded her arms. “This could be anything. Drugs. Money. Something illegal.”
“Or something important.”
“Or something that gets us arrested.”
A faint smile touched his mouth before disappearing again. “The old man told us not to open it,” he said.
“That just makes me want to open it more.”
“I know.”
Her fingers moved toward the leather cord.
“Don’t.” Will caught her wrist gently but firmly. “He said he’d find us.”
“So what? We’re just supposed to spend the rest of our gap year driving around Europe carrying some mystery package while we wait for him to magically reappear?”
Will glanced into the rear-view mirror before answering. “Until we know what this is, I'd rather trust him than ignore him.”
She stared at him for a second before shaking her head. “You’re unbelievable.”
“I’ve been told that.”
Despite herself, she smiled faintly.
It didn’t last.
By the time they reached their hotel, the sky had flattened into dull grey. Sara found herself glancing back through the window as Will parked, unsettled by the strange feeling that she had been here before. Which was impossible. This was her first time travelling overseas.
Will killed the engine and reached for the package. “Go upstairs,” he said, handing it to her. “Start packing.”
“You’re not coming?”
“I’ll check us out.”
Sara hesitated, glancing toward the hotel entrance where tourists drifted in and out beneath the awning. “You sure we shouldn’t stay? He said he’d meet us.”
Will opened the door. “He said he’d find us.”
Before she could answer, he leaned across and kissed the top of her head. Then he was gone.
Sara watched him disappear into the lobby before looking down at the package in her hands. It was warm. She shook it, but it didn’t rattle. Just a dull weight.
The lift ride up seemed strangely long. By the time the doors opened, a faint unease had begun to creep in. The corridor beyond stretched out silent and empty. Sara stepped out quickly, her grip tightening around the package as she headed toward the room. At the door she fumbled the keycard on the first attempt, swore under her breath, then shoved inside and locked it behind her, chain and deadbolt. Only then did she breathe properly.
She placed the package carefully on the bed and stared at it. “Don’t open it.” The old man’s warning returned with uncomfortable clarity. Sara turned away, dragging her suitcase onto the bed and began to pack. Clothes disappeared into bags without folding, her movements quick and distracted.
Something hit the floor behind her.
She froze. The package lay beside the bed.
Slowly, Sara turned toward the door. Still locked. The room felt unnaturally still. She crouched beside it carefully. The leather cord had loosened, the flap sitting partially open.
Sara swallowed. “Don’t open it.” Her hand moved anyway. The leather felt worn smooth beneath her fingers as she pulled the flap back fully. A book rested inside. Old. Heavy. Bound in dark leather. She lifted it carefully onto the bed, brushing her thumb across the cover—and stopped.
A gold symbol gleamed beneath the light. Her breath caught. “No way…”
It was identical to the symbol on Will’s amulet. A hexagon. A circle. Intersecting lines. Sara stared at it for a long moment before trying the cover. Locked. Of course it was.
She turned slowly toward Will’s bag.
“No,” she whispered. Then—“Yes.”
She crossed the room quickly and dropped beside his luggage, digging through it until her fingers closed around cold metal. She pulled the amulet free and stared at it for a second before looking back at the book waiting on the bed.
“This is insane…” But she was already moving.
The amulet settled perfectly into the indentation on the cover. Like it belonged there. Sara twisted it carefully. Click. The sound echoed through the room.
The book pulsed beneath her hand. Sara jerked back. “What the hell—”
The air shifted around her. For a moment she simply stared at the book, her pulse hammering hard against her ribs.
Then slowly, carefully, she reached for the cover again.
And opened it.
Chapter 2 - Will
The lift doors slid shut with a soft thud.
Will leaned back against the rail, exhaling slowly as he tried to shake the unease that had followed him from the street below. The old man, the package—something about it still sat wrong in his chest, refusing to leave him alone no matter how much he told himself it didn’t matter.
“Get a grip,” he muttered, dragging a hand through his hair as the lift hummed into motion.
At first the change was subtle, little more than a faint chill brushing against his skin, easy enough to ignore, but within seconds the cold deepened sharply through the lift until goosebumps rose along his arms and his breath fogged faintly in front of him.
Will frowned. “What the hell?”
The lights flickered violently. The floor shifted beneath him hard enough to throw him against the rail as the steady mechanical hum distorted into something heavier and uneven, like metal dragging through stone. Darkness swallowed the lift entirely. For one disorienting second the world seemed to compress inward around him, reality folding tightly into itself before suddenly releasing again.
The doors chimed. Light flooded in. Will blinked hard as the world snapped back into focus. Except the lift was gone.
He didn’t move at first. Silence pressed in from every direction, complete and unnatural, stripped of machinery, voices, traffic—anything familiar enough to anchor him. When he finally stepped forward, uneven stone met the soles of his boots and cold air carried the faint scent of oil and dust, like a place sealed away for years.
“This isn’t possible.” His voice echoed softly through the corridor. That made it worse.
Paintings lined the walls beside him in heavy gold frames, each depicting the same man in different poses and ages, the same raised scar running down the left side of his face.
Will stared at them uneasily before turning sharply toward where the lift should have been. He grabbed the tapestry hanging behind him and yanked it aside.
Stone wall. No doors. No lift. Nothing. A laugh threatened to escape before dying in his throat.
"Okay... this has to be some kind of trick.”
His gaze dropped suddenly to his clothes. Dark fabric layered heavily across his body, rough and structured beneath his hands. Not jeans and not his jacket. Instead, a tunic and laced trousers. He turned the sleeve over in his hands.
“These are not my clothes.”
His hand moved instinctively to his neck. The amulet rested there against his skin. Will frowned. He could remember taking it off in the car and slipping it into his bag. The memory remained perfectly clear, yet the weight against his chest was solid and unmistakably real beneath his fingers. He simply stood there staring at it, unsettled by how little sense that made.
Then his awareness shifted elsewhere, to the sword strapped across his back. Slowly, Will reached over his shoulder and drew the blade free. Steel slid cleanly from the scabbard in one smooth practiced motion that tightened something low in his chest. Dark metal caught the corridor light with a faint blue-black sheen while subtle markings ran along the fuller, almost invisible unless the light struck them directly. A deep emerald sat worked into the hilt and near the guard, worked into the metal beneath years of use —A.Z.
His grip adjusted naturally around the worn leather binding. Balanced. Certain. Like the sword already belonged in his hand. Will stared at it uneasily. “I don’t know how to use a sword,” he said under his breath.
But even as the words left him, he knew they weren’t entirely true. Something beneath conscious thought had already begun responding to this place. His stance adjusted slightly without instruction, weight settling instinctively into balance as awareness sharpened around him in ways he couldn’t explain.
Then voices echoed faintly below. Will looked toward the windows lining the corridor. The Danube stretched beyond them—but not the Danube he knew. No bridges, no modern skyline, only farmland, forest, and thin trails of smoke disappearing into grey skies. “No…”
The voices rose again, sharper now, arguing somewhere below him. He shouldn’t have understood the language, yet somehow the meaning arrived before the words themselves, clear and immediate inside his mind.
Will backed instinctively into the shadows, his breathing slowing automatically as his grip tightened around the sword. The reaction felt less like panic than training, controlled in a way that unsettled him far more deeply.
At the far end of the corridor, heavy timber doors reinforced with iron stood closed, the only barrier between him and whatever was coming. He moved toward them carefully, every step quiet on the stone floor.
The voices were close now, too close.
Will pressed his ear against the timber doors. Only silence waited on the other side. He reached for the heavy iron bar holding the doors shut and lifted—
The sword slipped from his hand. Steel struck stone with a sharp metallic crack that echoed violently through the corridor. Will swore under his breath. Below him, the voices stopped instantly. Movement came fast. Ascending.
Will snatched the sword back up and shoved through the doors just as shouting erupted beneath him. He slammed them shut behind him and dropped the iron bar back into place with a heavy thud.
Darkness swallowed the room. For several seconds, he stayed completely still, listening to the silence while his pulse hammered hard against his ribs. Nothing followed. Gradually shapes emerged through the dark—shelves, furniture, towering rows disappearing into shadow. A library.
Will moved carefully through the room until he reached the heavy curtains near the far side. He pulled one aside slightly, allowing a thin blade of daylight to spill across the space. Dust drifted through the beam of light. And there, resting on the desk beneath it—
A book. Leather-bound. Ancient. Familiar.
Will stepped toward it before fully realising he’d moved. The gold symbol on the cover caught the light. “No way…” A hexagon. A circle. Intersecting lines. The same symbol as the amulet. He lifted the book carefully.
Then movement shifted near the window. Will turned instantly. A man stepped from the shadows, huge, broad-shouldered, scarred. The same face from the paintings. Recognition struck before logic could stop it—not memory exactly, but something deeper and older that caught him off guard.
The man studied him before a slow smile spread across his face. “You.”
Will shook his head. “No. You’ve got the wrong—”
“Not this time.” The words struck harder than they should have.
Something flashed violently through Will’s mind—Steel. Fire. Rain. Voices. Gone almost instantly. He staggered slightly as the man’s smile deepened.
“I don’t even know who you are.”
The attack came without warning. The man moved with terrifying speed, his blade crashing toward him. Will reacted instinctively. Steel collided hard enough to jar through his arms, but his footing adjusted automatically, balanced and controlled as he absorbed the force and redirected it cleanly aside.
The man stepped back slowly now, studying him differently. “Better,” he said.
Will tightened his grip on the sword, unsettled by how natural it already felt in his hands. “I don’t even know how I’m doing this.”
The man attacked again. This time Will moved before conscious thought could catch up. Everything aligned at once—distance, timing, balance—as his body slipped cleanly inside the arc of the strike with terrifying familiarity.
The opening appeared instinctively before him. He took it. And drove the blade into the man’s chest.
For a moment neither of them moved. The man looked down at the sword buried in him before lifting his gaze back to Will. “Ashur,” he said quietly.
The name struck somewhere deep beneath thought, something ancient answering the name before he could stop it.
The man let out a faint breathless laugh. “Took you long enough.” Then his strength gave way. His body collapsed heavily to the floor.
The library fell quiet once more. Will stared down at the body, breathing unevenly as the reality of what had just happened slowly caught up with him. He stared at the wound, at the precision of the strike, at the certainty behind it. He had known exactly where to strike.
“No…” he whispered, but the denial already felt weak. Beneath the fear and confusion was familiarity. And that frightened him far more than the killing itself.
