We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from The Tapestry of Destiny, the second installment of the Amina al-Sirafi Adventures by Shannon Chakraborty—publishing with Harper Voyager on Might twelfth.
Amina al-Sirafi thinks she’s struck gold. Tasked with looking down arcane artifacts for the council of immortal peris, she will be able to savor the occasional rollicking journey on the excessive seas together with her cherished legal companions whereas nonetheless returning residence to lift her beloved daughter, Marjana. However when Raksh, the spirit of discord with whom she is reluctantly wed, provokes the council’s wrath, Amina is charged with a seemingly not possible quest: steal a spindle able to rewriting destiny from a mysterious sorceress on an island nobody can escape.
Pressured to depart Marjana—who’s more and more annoyed at being peddled what are clearly lies about her mom’s life and her personal previous—Amina finds her mission virtually instantly thrown into peril. However lethal storms, an erratic poison mistress, and previous enemies are the least of her worries. For the peris’ story is unraveling, hinting at a far deadlier recreation whose guidelines Amina should swiftly puzzle out. A recreation that units her towards an adversary extra crafty and highly effective than she has ever confronted.
A recreation that not everybody on her crew needs her to win.
There are a fantastic many issues one can credit score criminals with, however the one trait that really distinguishes the middling from the profitable is easy: discretion. And it’s discretion that features you admission to Sarilaglag.
You’ll find Sarilaglag on no map, glean not even the slightest point out in a textual content. Its title appears like nonsense and will very effectively be—for its origins are a thriller. Sarilaglag may need been there within the days of the Persian shahs or maybe it was solely dreamed up within the more moderen heyday of the Abbasids, God alone is aware of greatest. Certainly, I’m probably the primary to talk of its existence to an outsider, a betrayal for which a fantastic many bandits would minimize my throat—so maybe preserve this account to your self till I’ve returned to my Creator. However I believe the time of that nice legal metropolis on the ocean is fading, and it appears a outstanding sufficient surprise to be remembered regardless of the anonymity that stored it bustling for therefore lengthy.
As to its location, ah, however the previous vow tugs at my coronary heart. You don’t have any doubt labored out that it’s within the Persian Gulf, however I shall say no extra. There are specific quirks of geography that allow Sarilaglag’s existence, the tides and terrain and deeply inhospitable hinterlands all combining to create a singular gem: a hidden floating city made solely of boats. Some are historic and primitive: huge reed platforms which were constructed over and decayed in order that they’re extra island than vessel. Others the flashiest racing boats from Iraq and the most recent crusing junks from China. Nonetheless, the bulk are houseboats, like these you see in Baghdad, supposed to spend their lives tethered in place, a residence greater than a mode of transport. They’re painted and adorned principally gaily, with proud banners indicating the kind of outlaw they host and boasting their grandest accomplishments. There are lots of of such boats, tethered to stone columns that jut from the seabed like a drowned forest. It’s a maze of dwellings that feels virtually like a metropolis—save that the bottom bobs with out warning and one must take a skiff to get from place to put. This mobility is by design; in the event you’re going to have a central assembly place of brigands, you’re asking for hassle. Order is stored by ruthless settlement and necessity in Sarilaglag, however it’s a messy affair, and feuds, duels, and murders run rampant. However the boats permit bands to maneuver aside in the event that they fall afoul of each other and preserve the pecking order of energy fluid. If a navy or different lawful strangers ever got here sniffing, the city might be damaged aside, everybody crusing away. And if true order is deteriorating, violent calamity beckoning, there may be all the time the overarching risk of arson. My grandfather advised me of such a blaze when he was a youth; these accountable for Sarilaglag deciding its denizens wanted to find out how invaluable such a protected harbor was the onerous method.
Both method, it was a infamous place with no notoriety exterior its denizens, one the place you have been watched and studied, judged and made ally or competitors. I had visited a handful of instances in my prime, taught the route by a smuggler who deemed me worthy once I saved his crew and cargo from a patrol in Bahrain. Pirates occupied a snobbish rank in Sarilaglag, preferring to maintain their treasured ships other than the crowded morass of bobbing previous houseboats “captained” as a rule by males who couldn’t have hoisted a sail if their life trusted it.
On the finish of the day, nonetheless, it was a spot of many, many eyes. At all times watching, all the time ready. For the regulation, for an previous enemy, for alternative. With everybody looking out, it was terribly tough to sneak round. There have been youths who made a residing by spying and promoting secrets and techniques; boys who might swim like a fish, paint themselves to resemble mangroves, stay in a gutter gap for weeks. So, once I poled a skiff down Sarilaglag’s most important watery avenue on the top of day, the solar blazing to light up my famed leopard dagger and the straight sword at my again, my brightly coloured gown of Yemeni ikat and lady’s turban, gazes have been drawn, then snatched, so intent that I might really feel their weight upon my shoulders.
Which was my purpose. Certainly, I started to whistle as I handed the outer houseboats, these belonging to lesser outlaws who feigned medical calamity to elicit sympathetic coin (between the animal bladders, the excited self-branding and binding, and the noxious substances they brew to mimic pus, they’re a bunch of weirdos greatest averted). I pushed my skiff languidly by the pale inexperienced water, as if I had few cares and on a regular basis on this planet. As if time weren’t a fragile, treasured useful resource—the times I’d spent fretting and pacing in Baghdad, understanding every further one made it extra probably my ludicrous plot would possibly bear fruit whereas additionally fearing it introduced additional threat to Dalila. I used to be alone, having rowed out right here within the lifeless of the night time to attend within the mangroves for simply the best second. My Marawati, little greater than a speck on the horizon, could be alongside later however was below the strictest orders to not threat the remainder of the crew and unleash burning arrows of Rumi fireplace ought to anybody method.
Then the primary disbelieving whisper curled round my ear.
“Is that… Amina al-Sirafi?”
It was adopted rapidly by a second, a 3rd, after which carried in hisses and epithets, each admiring and scornful.
“Heard she was swallowed by a sea satan—”
“—married a Socotran pirate.”
“Fucked the caliph and retired on a pile of gold.”
I let the rumors settle round me, feeling previous annoyance on the extra insulting allegations, however with age had come one thing else: pleasure. Useless and sinful, it was nonetheless pleasing to find that though greater than a decade had handed since I final took to the seas as a pirate, I used to be nonetheless remembered. As a terror, as unnatural, as a seducer—sure, however I’d left my mark among the many rowdiest and most crafty criminals and that was not a factor flippantly carried out.
Purchase the Ebook
The Tapestry of Destiny
The Tapestry of Destiny
Purchase this e book from:
At the least, that’s what I attempted to inform myself as I poled into my most daring gamble but.
The whispers continued. I made a present of ignoring them at the same time as I stored a detailed ear for recognizable voices. For a gaze extra vengeful than curious, for a well-recognized cloak, a profile I may need as soon as stalked. I used to be each depending on such hopes and at their mercy. The peri island may need blessed my pace and my senses, however I didn’t like the chances ought to a decided archer set their sights on my uncovered again.
They can not see you sweat. Each a part of my plan—from coping with the Banu Sasan and their unknown goals, to confronting Raksh, to managing the not possible to foresee penalties of my scheme—trusted a stage of confidence, nay cockiness, that was absurd. I took a deep breath, and in want of distraction, turned to understand the sights round me. It may be the wonders of God’s creation—magnificent mountains, the beautiful ruins of historic civilizations—that we’re advised to admire and ponder, however I’d argue absolutely the ingenuity of charlatans should even be remarked upon. For I’ve by no means seen an impulse extra artistic than that of a huckster seeking to half a mark from his cash, and because the wonders of Sarilaglag opened up, I couldn’t assist however marvel.
Canoes filled with elements to fabricate each form of counterfeit good, from rhino horn to ambergris, mother-of-pearl to camphor, flitted among the many canal of the fraudsters, stopping at a protected distance from the false alchemists—whose madcap chemistry and metallurgy experiments have been stored other than something flammable. The road entertainers have been subsequent: contortionists bending into knots and tucking themselves into jars whereas acrobats walked tightropes stretching from opposing ship masts and children practiced folding parchment into trick squares and tying blindfolds so the bearer might secretly see. I steered away from the canal of the beggars, its shadowed, sorrow-filled houseboats smelling of blood and scorched flesh, the determined methods folks maimed themselves and others—together with kids—to elicit sympathy and cash from strangers when feigned maladies didn’t work. Past have been the forgers, probably the most gifted on this planet who might imitate any signature, write in uncommon, nigh forgotten tongues, and who stored parchment and inks from throughout creation. They shared house and elements with the poisoners, Dalila’s brethren, although she had foresworn earlier visits to Sarilaglag at my aspect and dismissed these practitioners as incompetent. Throughout was the avenue of the animals, the place an assortment of apes was being coaxed to put on human clothes and skilled to do the whole lot from pray to “learn,” in hopes of at some point being handed off as ensorcelled princes in want of cash to undo their foul enchantment. On one other boat, bears have been being berated into dancing and snakes being both defanged and/or charmed relying on their temperaments.
But even criminals within the abode of deception—the place they skilled their protégés and took refuge from the regulation—abided by a code, a type of respect if not worry, and Sarilaglag’s was this: the deeper one delved towards the murky shore of mangroves and razor-sharp rocks, the extra deadly the humanities taught. Previous the mewling bears and contract forgers was the alley of the stranglers, marked by barbed garrotes and silken cords hanging from banners, tallies marking profitable kills. The armory boats, these promoting blades, bows, and different assorted weapons, have been subsequent—together with their deadliest masters. The arsonists adopted, those that killed with out purpose and with out care, their lethal conflagrations liable for scores of murdered souls. In giant gondolas cunningly and mockingly made as much as appear as if temples and hermit dens have been the false preachers, those that didn’t worry God and thus fake to be any number of holy males—Sufi mendicants, Christian saints, reincarnations of varied Indian deities—to prey on the religious and rattling their souls.
Past—and I want I used to be making this up—was the island of ladies. Sure, all girls, for apparently even feminine forgers are as lethal and distrusted as those that proudly beautify their vessel with bloodied garrotes. It wasn’t a real island however slightly a large number of floating platforms whose age had anchored them to the seabed, together with a cluster of houseboats, all overgrown with weeds now tall as bushes and mangroves on the western aspect, throwing it into shadow. There had by no means been an unlimited variety of feminine bandits once I visited; as you may think, Sarilaglag attracted violent males, and the code of protected conduct that stored the peace amongst males didn’t all the time prolong to the ladies they typically seemed down upon. Those that did make a life for themselves right here have been thus a ruthless group. I’d been advised the Marawati had a standing provide of a berth, however I’d but to think about it. Even I was afraid of the ladies of Sarilaglag. Maintaining my gaze low, I poled previous a floating backyard of courtesans practising card methods and counterfeiters spreading their instruments within the sunshine. A gondola of hijras gawked in recognition after which began laughing.
“It’s the Sea Leopardess. Aye, Amina al-Sirafi, come sit a spell with us!”
“Nay, she greatest preserve going. That bitch value me my shares in a service provider vessel!”
I poled quicker. Lastly, with one other flip of the skiff, I handed the island of ladies and approached the only real construction not dwelling upon the water: Sarilaglag’s famed meetinghouse.
Right here offers have been struck, gang wars settled, the wedding of crime lords negotiated, and the assassination of princes plotted. The meetinghouse sat excessive upon a sea wall constructed of green-tinged coral on the foot of a watch tower staffed by a gaggle of extraordinarily well-paid Mamluks who risked loss of life if there was even a whiff of bribery. The constructing was not overly giant however was marked slightly dramatically by the severed halves of an previous Rus crusing vessel. Legend had it {that a} crew of the unusual northerners as soon as tried to take over Sarilaglag, dragging their distinctive ships with iron nails and rearing, curled dragon heads throughout the Sinai, down the Pink Sea and into the Persian Gulf, solely to be met with the mixed drive of criminals from Guangzhou to Timbuktu. Their boats have been damaged and their crucified our bodies hung as a warning from the berthing posts. An elder pirate as soon as swore to me that you would nonetheless see a fraction of cranium with its moldy blond locks plastered to the highest of 1, although all I might ever make out have been some long-dead mollusks amongst a fowl’s nest.
The tide had been pulling me towards the japanese financial institution, however as I glancedup on the watchtower, making an attempt to tamp down my worry, it abruptly gentled. A nice breeze tickled my face as a cloud crossed the solar, assuaging the afternoon warmth, and the ache in my knee vanished. A whisper—someway soundless, extra like a caress upon my very coronary heart—curled round my nape.
Ah, I believed. So you might be right here.
Excerpted from The Tapestry of Destiny by Shannon Chakraborty. Copyright © 2026 by Shannon Chakraborty. Reprinted courtesy of Harper Voyager, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Leave a Reply