Proposal: Hearts
Here is another story I've been working on. At the moment it's a series of two 10K short stories, or at least parts are, but I think this has merit as novel.

Does this make sense?

Any comments?

I've been a bit worried about the 'protagonist'. He's not really a protagonist, but an antagonist-turned protagonist. Any thoughts?

BTW - the full title of the short story (currently with a magazine) is Hearts of Ice and Fire. It's actually a really good fit for the book as well, except - yes I know about the George R.R. Martin book with a very similar title.

In the great frigid land of the south, they call it icefire. Across the border, they call it sonorics, the radiation from an age-old contraption buried deep under the City of Glass.
The sorcerer Tandor calls it magic and for years he has gathered an army of imperfects, babies born crippled but with the ability to harness the power, whatever name you apply to it. With this army Tandor will conquer source of the power, the legendary ‘heart of the city’, he will stop imperfect babies being abandoned on the ice floes; he will topple the queen, he will reign, and punish those who caused him misery, and smite their families.

But when he finds the heart of the city, he unleashes an explosion of icefire not even his army can contain. Badly burnt and a refugee in his hated Chevakia, he is forced to accept help from the very people he sought to dominate: the steam-age Chevakians, the exiled court of the City of Glass, and ‘his’ army of teenaged magicians. Only together do they have the remotest chance of defeating the evil power that has already destroyed a civilisation once.