I've been wanting to write this story for a while. I kept rolling it back until I finally found the beginning. And one of my MC's is now a kid, it got rolled back so far. Lucille Hawthorne is still a fiery gal, but now that she's basically a preteen, she's regarded as more of a brat than anything else. But her best friend, a soldier that she's known since they were almost born together, still regards her as an equal. Despite being her equal in age, Chorus stands nearly twice her height, and was a fully grown adult. She hoped she still had some growth left in her before her body decided to stop aging. (Yeah, aging is a little weird in this world. )
Lucille's problem is that because no one takes her seriously, they never let her around the really juicy gossip. So she's left with her schooling, statecraft, training, and trying to steal her way into her father's laboratories. Then she finds out something interesting.
Her family, spanning several generations due to magically augmented longevity, lives on an archipelago just south of the Hassan Peninsula, making it cooler than the rest of the continent. They command a mighty fleet of both sailors and merchants, some ships operating as both, but is considered to be the most powerful navy in their half of the world. The Haladran royals treats her father Davin as the archduke of their family, as when the Haladrans began talks with them almost a century ago, Davin's father was the only one who cared for the role, and when he was to pass, he named his son Archduke Davin Hawthorne.
All of this was well known to her. She found it odd that no other family member was willing to deal with the Haladran royal state at all, and indeed, mostly brushed them off.
It wasn't until her discover at Darkstone laboratory that she found why their family didn't care. They been racing up the tree of advancement so fast it felt like there was no stopping them. Just last year Davin had managed to built a skybuilding taller that a hundred humans. And that was up from 50 humans two years ago. The source of all this advancement?
The Dark Crystals. It was void energy, packed so tightly it had hardened into an immense matter energy font. Now it all made sense. The farming vehicles powered by these crystals ran forever. So did most of the other machines... That's why magical extraction was such a prized class. When she brought this up to her father, he praised her for looking into it so deeply. Then he commanded that she look no further, until his death.
After some digging, and diving with her Cousin Yiol'de, she realized that her family just kept digging. gathering up more and more of these crystals. Then on one of their dives, they found a chasm. it was filled with water, and on a side of an island that had never been built on.
She knew she was digging deep into her father's affairs, perhaps too deep. But she'd made her choice. There was only one person she dared trust. The power of the crystals, and their source, she was going to find. So at a Hawthorne family gathering, she made herself scarce and fled back area of her yard and started a fire pit, in the same spot she always had. It wasn't long before her friend showed up with two mugs and a pitcher, and handed her a pint.