>>66801599So this time the flashback scene worked a little more nicely, but it reads a little flat. Like the shift from talking about how her changed biology is negatively impacting her, to how her own gift is uncontrollable and threatening to herself was a little too radical. There was not a lot of build up to what could be interesting magical experimentation, and it just kinda abruptly ends. I suppose it offers a good contrast for how she eventually gains practiced control over it enough to help with a rather creative solution in the next scene.
For the meat of this plotline itself, I feel like it was anticlimactic. The sudden removal of one of its primary antagonistic actors kinda robs the story of that awaited confrontation. I can't help but feel like there might have been another part of two for this, since we go from an initial faceoff, to kinda putting the pieces together almost from nothing. The "solution" is also pretty jarring from what we've seen from the characters so far, and feels like using dynamite to pull a nail from a board. Sorry if this feels harsh, but seeing the second team's plotline come to such a swift ending kinda took the payoff away from it.
Some suggestions around the prose itself, try not to use a phrase like "5 AM" to describe the early morning. The exact position on the sun dial is a little less important in a fantasy driven world than the color and shifting hues of the skyline. Your world wants to be mystical and pretty, even in times where bleakness and uncertainty slowly spread within it. Let yourself make it pretty.
Scene descriptors had a little more effort put into them like you set out for, so nice going there.
I'll be curious what becomes of the dogs at some point, though it's probably not a happy end.
