Reacting to "The Final Princess" Four Years Later

The Final Princess. What an amazing fantasy novel with a compelling plot, a complex magic system, sympathetic backstories, and a courageous female lead who is definitely not a self-insert *cough*. Worthy of being published in bookstores everywhere as soon as I finished it.
Well, at least I thought so four years ago.

I haven't actually read The Final Princess in a long time. It was the first original story I ever wrote, if I remember correctly. (We are discounting the fanfiction because that's a box that should not and will not be opened.) I wrote this story in 2015. There are a few chapters up on this blog from some of my first posts. If you type the title into the search bar, they should come up.
I am writing this post because I want to know how much I've improved, and if there was anything stupidly funny that I wrote thinking it was genius. Obviously I can't react to everything, so I'll pick scenes and summarize the rest.
This post will be my unedited responses to what I read.
Here we go.

The first thing I noticed is that The Final Princess is stored in a folder with all of the other parts of that universe, but in a subfolder titled "No Longer Relevant." Hm.

"I slid from my bed, pulling the comforter around me. I glanced around at my prison of a nursery, in case there were any guards watching. Daddy sometimes did that. No guards. Only my five year old brother, Maein, asleep in his own bed, and our empty shelf. Arabia told me it had once held torture devices. It was true, our room was a converted prison cell. The floor and walls were bare stone. I shivered. I hated the damp, cold air of underground."

Firstly: torture devices??? What the heck was I thinking? And what sort of royal family keeps their kids in the dungeon? I'm a little concerned for small Evy's mental state.
I'm not sure why I decided to name her sister Arabia. That was a thing from a long time before I wrote this story.
I'll be honest, I didn't expect it to be this bad in the first paragraph.
A little fun backstory while I'm on the subject. This story was based on a club that my sister and I had with our friends when we were younger. It had to do with magic and an evil wizard named BlackNight. It was called the HAZ club, made from the initials of the three founders. That's how I came up with the name of the world for the story, Hazernia.

Next, Evy goes upstairs and witnesses her father (apparently) murder her mother. Evy has magic powers, so she eavesdrops on the murder by literally looking through the door. You can never lay the drama on too thick, kids. Her father denies it and blames the people from the other kingdom. They don't get along very well. Then she notices that her brother has gone missing in the three minutes since she last laid eyes on him. He's in the monster-filled tunnel system below the castle that has no obvious purpose and seems like a structural hazard to me.

"Yet again, I almost turned around. Countless monsters waited in the endless labyrinth below my feet. I could hardly survive down there, much less rescue someone. But Maein's magic was weaker than mine. And -I came close to tears as I thought of this- he was the only person I cared about enough to rescue.
“I'm coming,” I whispered, sprinting down the hallway to a door at the very end. It looked like another prison cell. I knew from experience that it was much more. If anything, it was a death cell. Anyone without sufficient weapons or magic to defend themselves would never make it out. I shuddered as I pulled the door open. But then, if Maein died, he wouldn't die alone. That was better than nothing."

You're so heroic, small Evy. But she does have a very sweet relationship with her brother.

"A black insect the size of my fist flitted back and forth in front of him. Its sting was bigger than my thumb. It was a Cave Fly.
I pulled the Magic to me one last time. “Kill the fly,” I whispered. The fly hit the ground. My vision went dark."

Cave Flies sound very dangerous. I wouldn't want to run into one.

"“It was on our shelf,” he replied. “It's a healing potion.” He took the cap off and handed it to me.
I would have to trust that he knew what he was doing. I put the bottle to my lips, letting a drop fall into my mouth. It didn't taste like poison. I tipped the bottle higher and drained it. The liquid chilled my throat as it went down."

....Why do you know what poison tastes like? That has some dark implications.
Evy, your brother is five. He can't even read, much less identify what is and isn't poisonous. I wouldn't trust him.

"So that's why he was down here. He hadn't run away. The tunnels were the place Daddy left the bodies of the people he had assassinated. Maein was too young to realize that Mommy would get a proper burial. Dead guards were sent back to their families, and Mommy was the first death in our family. He wouldn't understand the difference."

Evy. You're seven. Stop acting all wise. Also, why is your father having people assassinated? That is a terrible political move. And you let your five-year-old son know about it? This man needs to be taken off the throne, now.

They get out of the tunnels, talk to Evy's father, and then I skip forward to chapter two. Evy is 15.

"Frequently I had to remind myself that Maein wasn't little anymore. He was twelve, I was fifteen. He would be allowed to enlist in the military in about four months. I had chosen not to go, mainly because of my protectiveness. I would probably be thrown out. Father didn't believe in some of the silliness other families did about not sending girls to war. He said that it was my own choice, whether or not I wanted to go."

DON'T SEND 12 YEAR OLDS TO WAR THANKS. Never mind that you are not actively fighting a war right now, but points for female equality I guess?

"“I'm so sorry,” Father whispered. He raised my sword and brought it down on my wings.
The pain made me collapse instantly. It felt like my wings were being burned off. I screamed. I couldn't even pause to catch my breath.
The door banged open as Maein came running in. “Evy!” he screamed, dropping to the floor beside me.
“Someone was here,” Father lied. “They vanished before I got in here. I don't think there's anything we can do.” He sounded like he was crying."

That is a lot to unpack. He literally just killed his daughter and lied about it. How many kills does this man have under his belt?
My reasoning for this scene was that if anyone found out that Evy was half Zher, which would be obvious by her wings, she would be socially rejected. On the other hand, I find it hard to believe that her father wouldn't know that cutting off her wings would be fatal.

Contrary to how it may seem, this is not the end of the story. Evy comes back to life about three years later for no apparent reason, but this post is getting lengthy, so I'll end it here.
If you want to read more of The Final Princess, leave a comment so I'll be motivated enough to do more. This was pretty fun to write, though.
Have you written any cringeworthy stories? Of course you have. Everyone has.