Five days sailing in a storm that didn't exist six days ago. Chasing an impossible light in a sea of endless sky. Vincent Locklear and Mercy Larkin have been set adrift. Their lives upturned, Vincent stripped of his captaincy, and newly purposeless, the pair now sail through a storm. Their course takes them five days into a storm that is less than six days old, birthed by a flash of light that, for just a moment, drowned out the sun. Mercy Larkin has lived a lifetime in someone else's world. Taken from her people, raised in indentured servitude, and finding her footing in Volante's navy, having the opportunity to change the course of her life is strange and terrifying. But she has chosen to return to the people who forswore her, and reconcile with the reason she chose her surname Larkin. Vincent Locklear has never managed to belong to the people he lives alongside. A child of the Monastery; a coven of secretive custodians of old science, he was cast out years ago to make his own way. Despite being an outsider and forced to keep his childhood a secret, he rose to become a ship captain, only to be cast out again. But what these two will find in the darkness of the storm, will set their lives on a course both demanding and unalterable. To find their way as children of unkindness.

A shattered world, a sea of sky, and a thousand islands linked together only by the ships that sail beneath the endless blue. Where island kingdoms dream of empire, old allegiances fray under new stress, and old secrets are being unearthed. And into this maelstrom of change, the Ravens' Child is born. They are a clan of four now. Vincent Locklear, cast out of Volante's navy, and carrying the fate of the sky in his heart. Mercy Larkin, giving up finding her place in the world in favour of building it. Anita Hoffman, adrift by choice with one ear to the winds for the family she abandoned. And Leslie Madrigan, stripped of his title by family, and his family by pirates and politics. And in their new ship, paid for by a burden that has shattered islands, they will make their own place beneath the endless blue sky. Children of unkindness, the Ravens' child. And the legacy of unkindness is sorrow. Sorrow, and wings. (Cover art by @rentachi)

A sea of sky, a world of broken islands and shattered history, and flying ships ride the winds. Clarissa, a girl with no last name and no claim to anything beneath the endless blue, is sent to accompany a mysterious cargo aboard a ship of scoundrels. Flying beneath the lift bag of the Ravens' Child, accompanying the band of misfits and rogues that crew her, Clarissa begins to learn that the most profound mystery of her voyage is the one she takes with her. My NaNoWriMo 2019 project, an odd skypunk tale and something a little different from anything I've ever come across, like any good worldbuilding tale should be. If you happen to take a chance, let me know what you think.