Team Krista #6: LUMINARY

Title: LUMINARY

Genre: YA fantasy

Word count: 91,000

Query:

Seventeen-year-old Caya Filar, like everyone else in her city, sees only in grayscale. Colors exist as magical energy, once worked by Luminaries like her father. But colors became something to fear when a prince, terrified of the magic he couldn’t see, slaughtered the Luminaries and stole the king’s throne.

Now little better than an outcast, Caya steers clear of the king's guards. She knows they’re eager for any excuse to brand her a Luminary and execute her, whether she can see color or not. And there’s no chance of leaving the city with guards patrolling the walls, murdering anyone who tries to flee. Keeping her head down, she works in a shop to feed her family--at least until the shopkeeper's son proposes. His respectable name might help her overcome the stigma left by her father's Luminary magic.

If only the stone in her engagement ring had stayed gray.

First page:

Every day as I left for work, Avara tried to make me feel guilty. It was our daily routine. Socialites don’t work in shops--not even former socialites. Never mind that she only ate because I was earning a wage.

I kept my head high and my shoulders back as I made my way to the grand foyer, waiting for her usual sound of disgust. Sure enough, I was only about halfway down the curved staircase when it came. “Stubborn as ever,” she said softly, leaning against the doorframe of the parlor, arms crossed over her stomach.  

“Not stubborn.” After months of the same argument, my voice came out flat and disinterested. “Just not in favor of starving to death.”

“You’re making things worse. You have to see that.”

“Yes, because so many people were clamoring to marry us before I took a job.”

She glared at me. No matter how many times I used the line, she had no response. Yet she still picked the fight, pretending nothing had changed in the six years since King Elun stole the throne.

The uprising happened the night of Avara’s debut ball, ruining her plan to be betrothed by midnight. She’d known Elun’s guards were coming for our father, hunting down anyone who could see the colors of magic. But all she’d cared about was getting a ring on her finger, no matter the cost.

If she hadn’t argued for so long, we probably all would’ve gotten out of the city alive.