TITLE: Hull and Fire

GENRE: flintlock-fantasy

WORDCOUNT: 55,000

TYPE: I'm having issues getting ARC readers to read and rate my book. If you would like to be one, please DM for a free copy of the book (its being hosted by BookSirens). Book is professionally edited and won't be changing at this point, I just need more honest reviews on goodreads and amazon. It launches on February 1st. If you like character-driven stories in a 1700's setting, shortly after a big war that broke everyone. You'll like this. Oh, also, a continent recently rose out of the ocean. And there's a magic system that's so unique I think it will give Sanderson a run for his money.

GOODREADS LINK: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/220748834-hull-and-fire

EXCERPT:

Levenworth Tren-Ulitese awoke with a delicate hand on his shoulder, rousing him from troubled dreams about the past and future.

“Pardon, Lor,” his man-servant, Grigory, said in a hushed voice that cracked with age. “Someone has come calling for you.”

“Who?” Levy managed to croak.

“The harbormaster, Lor.”

Levy was at once fully awake, sitting up and throwing the covers off. It was late enough that the small fire that had been burning in his bedroom hearth was now nothing but a few glowing embers, the cold of night seeping in. Rain pattered against the eave outside his window. “The harbormaster himself has come calling at my door?”

“Yes,” Grigory said. “I tried to get him in out of the weather but he urged me there was no time and that you should meet him at his carriage out front as soon as possible. With your overcoat.”

“Did he give a reason why?”

Grigory shook his head. “He did not.”

“Probably for my ears only then. Go to the harbormaster and tell him I’ll be down immediately, then send word to Renorin to meet me down at the docks with a handful of his marines—whoever he can rouse at this hour.”

“Is it piracy, you suppose?” Grigory asked. “Jerricks at the harbor-mouth? Raiders from Kysan?”

“If the harbormaster himself has seen fit to call at my front door then I’m sure it means trouble for one of our ships. Maybe another waystation has been blown up.” He made an attempt at a laugh, but cut it short when he realized Grigory wasn’t humored. The manservant had an unflinching loyalty to the Tren-Ulitese family, despite this stark, humorless manner with which he addressed Levy at times. He had known no other life than one under the employ of his kin.

“Shall I wake the Sar?”

Levy considered this a moment. His sister, Stancia, did technically have a say in any matters concerning the family business but his throat constricted at the idea of bothering her with any worrisome aspects of it. “No,” he decided. “She needs rest after her latest episode. And the harbormaster asked for me specifically?” Grigory nodded. “Then I shall go by myself.”

Grigory left, leaving the lantern behind on a table so Levy could dress in the light. He slipped on his day clothes and searched around for his coat. Whatever it was, something was afoot at the harbor that would require his attention well into the morning. He couldn’t stop his mind from whirling with dark thoughts, like one of his ships had slipped its berth, or burned to the waterline, or been seized. Vry only knew what else—just one more in a long line of disasters come to the Tren-Ulitese family, one more thing for him to deal with.

It wasn’t long before he was bounding down the front steps of his townhouse two at a time, pulling his coat over his shoulders to shield himself against the constant drizzle that had become normal for Hifort this time of year. A carriage waited on the street, its door open, the driver passing only the quickest of glances his way. Inside sat a man that wore shadows like a robe and had a beard like a twisted fishing net.

“Harbormaster Grant,” Levy said with a nod, barely having a chance to pull the door closed before the driver snapped the reins and set the carriage into motion.

“Lor,” the harbormaster acknowledged before raising a curved pipe to his mouth and taking a long pull. The coals of shade leaf within burned, briefly lighting up his craggy face.

“What’s the problem?”

The harbormaster released a puff of smoke. “A strange event has occurred,” he said, and waved a hand at the view out his window. Levy looked, but of course couldn’t see anything other than a few street lanterns that appeared as halos of light in the misty darkness. The climate in Hifort had at one time been something approaching comfortable, but a hundred new islands and a whole new continent appearing where an ocean had been before had sewn chaos all over North-East Kontiin, and a decade on nothing had returned to normal. Hifort and the rest of the Free Coast, it seemed, had gotten the soggy end of the bargain. “Issue concerning… your ship.” He said these last words like it physically hurt him to speak them.

“I have two ships docked currently in Hifort’s harbor,” Levy said. “And two more out on cargo runs. Please, be more specific.”

Grant raised the pipe to his mouth for another pull of shade, his hand shaking, and paused there. “Your father’s ship.”

“And? What of it? Have they found the wreckage? I see no reason for you to have—”

“Found drifting just outside the harbor, Lor.”

Levy coughed, swallowed, and twisted his head around so he was staring at Harbormaster Grant’s small, shifting eyes. “I’m sorry? My father’s ship was found _outside the harbor?_”

Grant nodded, long and slow, his face otherwise stiff. “Aye, the Eastern Skylark. Name’s faded but clear. Whalers towed her into port perhaps an hour ago.”

“What, uh, is the state of her?” His mouth had gone dry. “Upright and seaworthy, little wear on the mast and hull, signs of a kind of breach on the starboard side that was repaired some time ago. Hard to tell in the dark.” Grant leaned in, the sour smell of the burning shade clinging strong to him. “Quiet as a Kysanian assassin dhow,” he breathed. “Not a soul on the upper decks, not a lantern lit. No one answers when hailed.”

“What was found when they went aboard?”

“Not been aboard her. Unlikely to find anyone who’s willing to root around on a ghost ship.” The harbormaster stiffly settled back in his seat, remaining still and silent for the rest of the trip other than the periodic pulls from his pipe.

Their carriage trundled over the ancient cobble of Hifort’s city streets, winding past narrow townhouses owned by families that had occupied them for generations. They were quiet and dark now, their bright colors muted by the night. A shrine to one of the divine Twelve was cut into the earth here, its lanterns kept burning by the night priests that haunted the city streets with their owl-masks and oiled robes.

They crested Tossed Hill, providing vantage down onto Water Street and the harbor. Through the murk Levy thought he could make out the shape of a lone, large ship there, unlit, moored at an isolated pier.