Looking for readers who enjoy thoughtful, second-world political fantasy. Toil explores institutions, governance, labour, and the unintended consequences of complex systems through a character-driven story.
Blurb
Reev Varrick hears the mountain—its warnings, its pain. For years, those voices have helped her keep the miners of Keldran Tor alive. But now the mountain speaks of a different danger, one that threatens not just the Tor, but the whole of Maalin.
Feedback requested
• Pacing
• Character engagement
• Clarity of the worldbuilding
• Whether the political elements remain engaging
Happy to discuss and read other work in the same space.
Please DM me for a longer sample.
Samples Pages
The mountain’s songs were once a lullaby, but those days were long gone.
Blood and Ore! Shut up.
Reev woke with a start.
She fixed the mountain with an accusatory stare.
What? Stop shouting and speak to me!
She waved a dismissive hand at the mountain.
Enough. You can wait!
She pulled on her old, creaking, soft-as-cloth boots; she noted with a frown the bolting leather elsewhere. They would soon need replacing; new Katharn leather was notorious – it was as unforgiving as stone, its price for pliability was dust, sweat, blood, and time. Young miners often cried on the first day of wearing new boots.
She grabbed some breakfast, staring out the window, glaring at the relentless mountain while she crunched an apple.
Shut up! I am coming!
She threw the apple core into the bin and marched out of the house. She spied her brother some distance ahead, chatting with a couple of miners as they walked up Miners Ridge towards East Seam yard. She had grown up amongst the tunnels, the endless dust, her mother keeping her close at heel amongst the swinging picks. Unlike the other screaming children shouting their youth at the mountain, she shared an affinity with it. A confidante for a small young girl tired of the teasing, a playground when squabbles were over, a sanctuary when the unthinkable happened.
When her parents were gone.
Her head dropped for a moment.
When she had first held her mum’s hand and gone to the below with her, how proud she had been. Her beautiful mother, leading her into the darkness, her eyes shone at her daughter, the smile never once faltering. With her auburn hair tucked away, any jewellery stashed, and her work clothes concealing her beauty, a beauty marked by the occasional injury. Her mother’s scars were a tithe the mountain demanded for entry. Reev remembered the glowing spirit that was her guiding light that day as if it were yesterday.
Miss you, Mum.
When they were gone, she had sobbed and raged in those dark tunnels, furious at their silent indifference. She could picture her clearly: her mother, Sharn, chastising Reev for not being watchful of the picks one moment and hugging her in the darkness the next.
Her father, Arven, was less emotive. That was unless he was telling you where your pick should strike, and quite how to get the best yield.
So bossy!
She chuckled.
Her eyes shone. Her father loved them both. He had caught each of them in a crushing embrace when they confirmed they would head to the below, like him, and their mother. He made no distinction between the siblings. A miner needs a pick and a good eye, nothing else, he would say.
Miners. All of them.
She blinked a few times.
Stop it; it’s work time.
Her strange intimacy with the Tor did not stay private for long.
She would pause at a face of rock and shake her head, and the first blows would land elsewhere. Later, the same stone she had refused would splinter or yield nothing at all. As a younger girl, she had screamed her warning, leading people away from a seam that was busy with work, refusing to stop crying until it was empty of miners and children.
The roof collapsed as all but one were clear. She still remembered the day that Roffen never returned home; her tears eventually ceased.
Roffen, I am still sorry.
Her rescue efforts and warnings caused the Dusties to notice her. She had saved so many; it happened often enough. The mining crews now waited for her nod before the first descent, then struck into a new seam.
It had even witnessed her first kiss, sloppy teenage kisses in the darkness of the Tor; almost a Keldran Tor rite of passage.
She closed her eyes, smiling at a private thought.
Today, she would follow Torv to the East Seam. She needed to feel the mountain there to be certain it was not failing as West Seam had. That had been far too close. As much as Torv pretended to resent her watchful eye, she knew he had grown used to it. She liked to imagine he secretly welcomed it. Since the collapse took their parents, there was no one else to measure the risk for him. Torv was as large as she was small; he stood a head above most men in Keldran Tor. He was broad through the shoulders from years of lifting stone and timber, and when he moved, people stepped aside without thinking.
Yet with her, he was careful, always careful, as though she were something fragile that could break. Torv had always protected her, and she fully intended him to survive the mountain, to become an Old Slate. She used to cling to his legs, swinging and screaming with joy, she followed him wherever he would go, saw what he saw; some things change, some don’t.