The Navigator by Benjamin Goshko

Quill is an outcast, an exiled Hesperian navigator hired to find a "fallen star." Petal and Junk are feral children, drifting across the open ocean, where every day is a struggle for survival.

After Quill's crew betrays her, and Petal's sister is kidnapped by a Hesperian warship, both girls team up on an island-hopping odyssey across the water world of Ea to recover what they've lost.

Hounded by pirates, imprisoned by cannibals, and chased by shadowy Hesperian forces, the girls quickly find themselves embroiled in a long-simmering conflict between the Hesperian Continent and the people of the sea.

While Hesperians and sea people believe the fallen star is the key to winning the war, Quill and Petal quickly discover that the antediluvian artifact is a lockbox. If opened, it will unleash an ancient horror that has the power to turn their watery Eden into a lifeless moonscape.

-- A five hundred page epic adventure -- Science Fiction fused with Fantasy -- 160,000 words