It is year 1791 since the fall of the Basilica del Mare. The Free Isles of the Immersea are faced with threats old and new, chief among them aggression from the empire in the west, Varuulan. Sailing under the banner the mysterious and storied Lachlan Hope, a young captain and her crew finds themselves unlikely allies in a pair of infamous pirates and their ships–with all of them standing at the center of a fight that will save or doom them all.
Set in a world where water covers most of the globe, Maraeternum tells the tale of Alexia Hope, Laucorn Taurles, Bree O’Kerry, Rooks Taurles, Kyrie Stafford, Trakal Taurles, Daci Cook, Liam D’Arcy, and Lachlan Hope–figures that stand against the might of an empire that could destroy the world. They will unravel the lost mysteries of Maraeternum’s past in order to ensure that the world has a future. What follows is the original draft of the opening chapter.
One
He was a blonde blur of motion, moving too fast for her to avoid even if she’d seen him coming. The impact of his body against hers was bone-jarring, sent her tumbling into a split-rail fence. That fence was the only thing that kept her from a ten-foot drop to a rooftop below the path.
Alexia Hope bounced off the rail and back into her attacker, using every ounce of his momentum against him to bear him to the ground. She had been the object of attack before more than once in her short lifetime and self-defense was nothing shy of second nature. His head snapped back, banging against the cobbles of the walkway, wresting a curse from his lips as she straddled him. Beneath her cavalier’s coat was a knife, secreted at the small of her back.
I just need to reach it…
“This is awkward,” the man beneath her said. Even as her fingers closed around the knife, she blinked at him, saw him for the first time.
“What is?” she asked without thinking.
“I’ve never been pinned like this before.”
She stared at him for a long moment, then swallowed. His white-blonde hair hung in greasy tendrils, crusted with salt near the scalp, face smudged with grease and dirt, but his eyes were the blue-green of the Immersea, glinting like jewels in the dying afternoon sun.
He’s no older than I am. She swallowed again. She was barely old enough herself to be trusted on the docks of Stoneport unescorted—and this boy seemed far less seasoned than she was. Is he a local, I wonder, or something else?
A body flew through a window behind her and she ducked flying shards of glass. The boy coughed.
“Would you mind getting off of me so we can out of range of the barfight? I kind of intended to be pretty far away before bodies started coming out of windows.”
“You started that?” she asked as she shoved herself to her feet, releasing her grip on the knife’s hilt. She wouldn’t need it, not yet–not unless she got sucked into the brewing battle inside the nearby bar. Alexia stuck out her hand, intending to haul the boy to his feet.
He shrugged as he grasped her hand and arm. “It didn’t seem like that bad of an idea at the time,” he said as she hauled him upright. He was clearly stronger than he appeared; his grip on her arm told her that much.
“And now?” she asked, curiosity mingling with annoyance. Who was this boy, anyway—other than what appeared to be a high-caliber troublemaker possibly harboring if a death wish constantly at odds with strong survival instincts. He must have had some drive to live, after all, if he’d started a barfight in Stoneport and ducked out before bodies and other projectiles started flying.
“More of a bad idea.” He half-ducked, flinching at the sound of shouting and more breaking glass. “Can we have this discussion somewhere else?”
“Yeah, I think we’d better.” Alexia took him by the arm and dragged him down the walkway to a narrow set of stairs leading toward the water, nearer to the docks. Cut into a series of hills and cliffs on the edge of the island, Stonepointe’s major port was as multi-leveled as it was multi-layered. Alexia had never minded the long climbs and steep roads, but she knew other sailors that had complained bitterly about them—though never anywhere the master of Stonepointe, the famed master thief Liam D’Arcy, could hear them doing it.
“So what the hell were you doing starting a barfight?” she asked as they made it down to the next tier of the city, this one quieter, with fewer taverns and more respectable-looking establishments than the level above.
“Trying to cover the fact that I just filched a few purses,” the boy said, looking only vaguely abashed at the admission. “A guy’s got to eat.”
She stopped walking long enough to turn back to study him. The fact that he hadn’t tried to cut her purse spoke volumes. Either he’s as smart as his eyes say he is, or I’ve got him sufficiently frightened enough that he wouldn’t try it. Banking on the former, she arched a brow delicately. “So you go and rob pirates in a dockside dive? On an island ruled by a master thief?”
“It wasn’t their money to begin with, now was it?”
Her stern façade cracked and she grinned. “Too true. You have a name?”
“Laucorn. I’m sorry I knocked you over like that. I was just trying to get out of there.”
“Don’t worry, I get it.” She extended her hand for him to shake this time. “Chance.”
His grip was firm and calloused. He’s used to hard work, it seems. Those aren’t the hands of someone raised to luxury.
Then again, neither are mine.
“That’s an unusual name,” Laucorn said. “Chance.”
“It’s not the one I was born with, but it’s one my mother gave me,” she said with a faint smile, the one she used to cover the old pain that rose when she thought about her mother, gone now for the better part of a decade. “How long have you been stuck here on Stonepointe?”
“A few weeks,” he admitted. “Crew berths have been slim pickings. They don’t do a lot of whaling up here, do they?”
She shook her head slightly. “That’s mostly out of the smaller Oesterovan ports or out of the southern ports. This is a hive of scum and villainy. Didn’t someone tell you?”
“I almost wish they had,” he said, scrubbing one hand back through his tangled hair.
There was something oddly familiar about him, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. You’ll figure it out eventually. A flutter of nervous excitement in her belly told her that this meeting wasn’t an accident—not entirely. Everything for a reason, right? “So you’re in the market for a new berth, then? You sailed a lot before?”
He fell into step with her as she started walking. “Enough that I know my way around a deck and the rigging. They were using me as a harpooner on the whaler, though.”
“Sounds glorious,” she said with a wry smile. “I don’t think they’ve got any use for a harpooner, but there’s a merchanter down there that might be in the market for another able hand or two.” When her companion’s eyes lit, Alexia knew she’d judged him right. She pointed to a twin-masted vessel below them, safely moored in one of Stoneport’s centermost docks. The honey-colored ship’s white sails were tightly furled, but she still flew the rose and sword flag of Hope’s Mercantile proudly, the navy blue flag snapping in the wind and the silver-white cloth of the sword catching the light, glimmering gold in the sun.
“That flag’s familiar,” Laucorn said. “I’ve seen it before.”
“Hope’s Mercantile,” Alexia said. “Pretty profitable operation out of Santrellis. Lachlan Hope and Alexia D’Arcy’s legacy to the Free Isles, if you believe that swill.”
He snapped his fingers. “The ones that told the Varuulani merchanters to shove it, aren’t they?”
“Something like that,” Alexia said, fighting back a smile. Is that how folks think of it now? Papa would laugh. “I know that they don’t take the Varuulani Navy’s intrusions into free waters lightly.”
“I’d heard that,” he said, then nodded to the ship. “Does she fight for them? Against the Varuulani?”
“They all do,” Alexia said. “If the call comes, anyhow. Targets of opportunity.”
“Sounds almost like pirates.”
She laughed. “Not hardly. It’s not piracy when the Navy’s on the wrong side of the border and trolling for easy targets. It’s security for the Free Isles.” She looked him up and down. “Can you fight?”
“Do you have all of your fingers?” he countered.
Alexia laughed again. “You interested, then?”
“I’ve been too long on this rock already,” he admitted. “If I don’t leave soon, I won’t be able to leave at all.”
“Fair point,” Alexia said. “You should probably talk to the first mate. She makes the personnel decisions.”
He hesitated a moment, then asked, “Do you think you could introduce me?”
After a moment’s hesitation designed to let him stew in his own juices, she grinned. “I suppose I could. Come on.”
They’d gone a dozen steps before she glanced back over her shoulder at him. “You don’t have a problem with elves or half-bloods, do you?”
His nose wrinkled. “No. The stories are too damned much to be believed if you ask me.”
Except for the ones that are true. He’ll learn eventually. She laughed. “Good.”
Without another word, she brought him down to the docks and Bree O’Kerry.
“Pick up the pace, you worthless sacks of meat!” Bree tried to push a little more snarl into her voice. She didn’t need to channel her former lover in most ports, but most ports weren’t teeming with scum and the worst sorts of villains.
Most ports weren’t run by master thieves and haunted by the most famed and feared assassin plying the trade, either.
“I need this cargo loaded by midafternoon. Heave to, maggots!”
“Hoy, Bree!”
She turned toward the sound of her captain’s voice, smothering a frown. “Aren’t you supposed to be on your way to a meeting?”
Chance grinned. “For better or worse. He’ll understand. I got waylaid on the way.” She ushered the small, dirty-faced young man with her to the fore. “This Laucorn and he’s shopping for a berth. I told him we might have a position as cabin boy or general crew. Think you can set him up?”
Her gaze raked over the boy—no, not a boy, a young man. His hair was cropped short, standing up in spikes. The planes and angles of his face were familiar, enough so that her throat tightened momentarily.
Couldn’t be.
“Laucorn, huh?” She nodded, looking at Chance again. “If you can handle the slackers, I’ll get the kid take care of.”
Chance shrugged. “It shouldn’t take long. Probably be done by the time Uncle sends a carriage ‘round.”
“Mm.” Bree looked at Laucorn. “Go on aboard, I’ll catch up in a moment.” She waited until he’d bounded up the gangplank before looking to her captain again. “Since when do you need a cabin boy, Chance?”
“Since about fifteen minutes ago,” she said, then smiled. “I got a feeling, Red.”
Bree snorted. “You and your feelings.”
“We’re not dead yet,” Chance reminded her, then turned to supervise cargo loading. All Bree could do was shake her head and jog up the gangplank to join their newest crewman on the main deck of the Wild Card.
Not yet, no. How much longer we stay alive, though–that’s a thing that remains to be seen, isn’t it? She exhaled a silent sigh as she looked at him again, studied him a little more closely. There was no doubt about it.
But he didn’t have any children—not before.
The way Laucorn watched the men in the rigging and the crew on the deck told her that he’d been on ships before, had worked on them before. He was lean, smaller than the man he reminded her of, his shoulders narrower, his face softer. She didn’t see any visible scars, but that didn’t mean that some didn’t exist.
“You’ve worked on ships before,” she said as she stopped next to him near the center of the main deck, following his gaze toward the rigging, where two of the crew were re-furling the topsail after finishing repairs. They’d run afoul of a Varuulani patrol ship—which was to say the patroller had run afoul of them—and had managed to put a few decent-sized holes in the canvas before the Wild Card brought them to heel. Bree watched them with a critical eye for a moment before glancing toward Laucorn.
The boy blinked, noticing as her gaze settled on him, then nodded. “Whalers, mostly. I signed onto one as soon as I was big enough to hold a harpoon. It beat staying where I was.” He looked toward the harbor and the sea beyond the breakwater, his expression almost wistful. “I remember my mother saying that the sea was in our blood, that eventually it called all of us. I was practically a baby then.” He fidgeted with something tied around his wrist with a strip of leather cord, something hidden by his fingers when Bree glanced down, tracking the motion.
“Where’s home?”
He seemed startled by the question but shrugged it off. “Wherever I end up.”
Cryptic. Bree shook her head. “Do you have any gear you need to pick up?”
“No,” he said. “All I have is what’s on my back and on my belt.” He wasn’t carrying anything more than a small shoulder bag that looked practically empty and a pair of short knives on his belt.
A soft whistle escaped the Wild Card’s first mate. “Well, I suppose that makes it easy. Come on. I’ll get you settled and we’ll find you some clean clothes.”
“Just like that?” he asked, blinking. He jogged a few steps to keep up with her as she started across the deck, headed below to the berths and the ship’s stores.
Bree’s shoulders rose and fell in a slight shrug. “What Chance wants, she gets. She’s the captain.” We’ll see if this is a mistake or not. If it is, at least he’s gotten passage as far as Port Royale and he’ll be able to find a berth on a whaler or another merchanter if that’s what he wants. Better than leaving him here.
He stopped dead in his tracks. “Wait. She’s the captain?”
Bree smiled, though she smothered it before she turned, her expression mild though still slightly amused when she met his wide-eyed gaze. “She didn’t tell you?”
“I—no.”
Games again. Bree shook her head. “Do you have a problem with that?”
“No, it’s just—I—she—she doesn’t seem like she’s much older than I am, that’s all.”
Bree shrugged. “She’s been on the water since before she could walk. Her parents were both mariners themselves. It’s in her blood, just like it’s in yours.”
He was quiet for a long moment before his head bobbed in a slight nod. “I guess that makes sense. Still, her own boat?”
“She sails for her father,” Bree said, then turned and started walking again. “Can’t have a world where a Hope isn’t on the water. The Varuulani get too bold otherwise.”
Her charge didn’t argue the point and Bree didn’t bother to give voice to the words that often followed the phrases she’d just repeated.
Without a Hope, all we have are the Taurles, and a war we can’t afford—not yet.
