Chapter 23
Here’s the thing about getting thrown off a battered ship in the middle of a raging storm: there tends to be a lot of debris
floating around. And should one strike such debris, yes, it will likely be hard enough to knock you senseless. But by the
grace of God, you may also get snagged on a piece of bobbing rubbish instead of slipping below the waves. You may drift away
unseen in the sideways rain, impenetrable mist, and roaring waves, past the arrows your enemies shoot into the water after
you.
And you may wake with the worst headache of your life just in time to see the unmistakable fin of a shark slicing in your
direction.
A lifetime at sea had me hauling my body out of the water and onto the broken wooden platform that had caught my cloak before
I could even think straight. Pain scorched through my shoulder, the platform nearly toppling over with my weight. It was little
more than a few roughly lashed planks, barely large enough to sit on and small enough to offer an excellent look at the unfathomable
deep below.
Sick with fear, I watched as the shark swam directly beneath the crossed timbers, so close I could have touched it. My shoulder
and knee pounded again, reminding me that if I was going to be eaten alive, I would do it hurting in a variety of exciting
ways. A red cloud of blood stained the water, more soaking my clothes. Startled, I glanced down to see the leopard-headed
hilt of my khanjar sticking out of my cloak.
Oh, right.
I was stabbed .
But I didn’t feel stabbed, mostly because I was still alive and not actively bleeding to death. I touched the handle with trembling fingers,
terrified to jostle the blade in case the wound was worse than I feared. But the dagger was caught in the fabric of my cloak,
not buried in my body. Falco had cut deep, but it had been an ugly slash across the top of my shoulder rather than a fatal
puncture wound.
However, not being stabbed to death with my own khanjar was of little relief. For a glance revealed no Marawati . No ships of any kind. No land . Nothing but ocean stretching to the horizon in every direction I looked. A few odds and ends bobbed about: broken railings,
a wooden cup, a sandal.
“No,” I whispered, desperately turning here and there, praying I was wrong, praying there was something . A smudge of beach in the distance. The hint of a boat. A bird . “No. Oh, God... no .”
But there was nothing. Nothing but a sailor’s worst nightmare come to life around me. It’s one thing to drown in a sinking
ship or be dashed upon rocks. But to be lost , adrift in the middle of the ocean and doomed to a long grueling death of thirst and starvation while you are baked alive
by the sun?
“Oh, God,” I said again, for who else could I call upon? I choked back a sob. “What do I do?” Shock was setting in and I shivered
madly. “Oh, Marjana. My little love...”
But it wasn’t only Marjana who needed me. Falco had my crew . Majed, Dalila, and Tinbu. Dunya and the men who had joined me only so recently. They were now all under the thumb of a monstrous
Frankish wizard who might feed them to his marid or force them into the same foul servitude he had tried to foist upon me,
Dunya’s deal be damned.
I had failed them. I had failed everyone .
In the distance, the shark turned around for another pass.
Say the shahada and slip into the water, you coward . One last prayer for mercy I didn’t deserve and an end that would be faster than dying of exposure. Hell, it wouldn’t even be a useless end—I’d feed something.
But as the shark neared, a fierce madness stole through me.
I picked up one of the broken railings drifting in the water. “We are not yet dead,” I whispered, repeating Dalila’s words.
“We are not yet— AHH! ” I smashed the broken railing into the shark’s face, striking it as hard and fast as I could. After the second hit, it reeled
back, quickly swimming away from the crazy human.
I was alone... at least for now.
First I looked to my injury. It was a nasty gash and in an ideal world, could have used stitching, but at least the wound
was well washed due to me being in the fucking sea all night. Cutting a strip from my cloak, I bound the injury best I could,
praying the blood would cease leading a trail for any curious maritime predator.
Next I turned my attention to the sky. Directions were easy enough to pick out with the sun’s position. They were also useless.
God only knew where the storm had taken us. I might be in the middle of the Indian Ocean or a few days from the coast. Unless
I saw birds or fishing boats, I would have no clue which way to head. But I needed to go somewhere.
Northwest , I decided. I was likely still closer to the familiar shores of Africa and Arabia. To the east, but weeks away, was India,
and to the south nothing but water. I snagged the cup and the lost sandal and then, positioning myself awkwardly upon the
wooden planks, I set my course.
“God, please have mercy on me once more,” I begged, using the broken railing as an oar. The sun scorched overhead, the white
glare off the ocean blinding. “Get me out of this and I am done with these adventures. I shall repent and never again venture
upon the sea.”
It did not take long for time to blur, thirst and the sweltering heat pushing me toward madness.
To distract myself, I counted to one thousand in all the languages I knew and made dua for everyone I had ever held a passing fondness.
I recited Quran, sang bedtime rhymes from Marjana’s childhood, chanted dhikr to the beat of my paddle, and invented increasingly elaborate fantasies of revenge and murder toward Falco and Raksh (and yes, I am aware some of these methods clashed most ardently in spirit).
When my mouth dried up, I did this all silently in my head.
I set out the cup each night to catch condensation, and on the third day caught and killed a turtle; imploring forgiveness as I drank its blood.
With my cup, I was able to gather a bit of water from two achingly brief rain showers. With the cord of the sandal and a couple
of bites of turtle meat, I caught a few fish. But there was nothing to ease the blisters erupting across my sunburnt skin
and the pounding feeling of nails being driven into my skull. My strength faded, my bouts of confusion increasing. I paddled
less and less as days slipped into dreamless nights.
And then, as though creatures out of a mirage, the birds began to arrive.
Loud squawking gulls and tiny pipers. Elegant long-necked cranes and sharp-taloned raptors. They came in pairs and alone,
in great flocks and bobbing parties that swiftly learned to keep their distance after I killed and ate a bright-beaked booby.
I do not recall if I remember finding strange their bizarre colors. Purple and orange feathers in hues I had never seen, glittering
ruby eyes and fringed heads. I may have chalked up any oddities to my own sunbaked skull. All were headed firmly east and
so with some hesitation I changed direction to follow them.
On the fifth day after sighting the birds, a green-brown smear of land appeared on the hazy horizon.
My remaining wits vanished the moment I spotted it, so desperate I was to get ashore before the sun vanished and I lost sight
of land forever. I paddled myself to exhaustion, my arms going numb and the platform breaking apart. I did not care, I kept
pulling my makeshift oar through the water, my eyes pinned on the sliver of distant beach. I swam, I kicked, the sea closed
more and more frequently over my head...
Please, God, don’t let me die. Not now, not like this . In a cruel goad to myself, I conjured Marjana’s voice, heard my daughter urging me forward. Begging me to come home as the sun splashed into the mighty ocean and its last vestiges of light faded away.
Mama, please. Please! Her earnest, little face and trusting eyes. Her small fingers winding through my hair and the warmth of her breath as she
slept in my arms.
Come home .
Then, finally— finally —there was sand beneath my toes. Sand beneath my knees and hands. Waves crashed around my shoulders, and I burst into dry
sobs of relief as I crawled forward onto a midnight shore and collapsed in a pile of seaweed, my body completely spent.
“God be praised,” I croaked and promptly passed out.
***
I woke under the light of a silver sun.
The tide was lapping at my lips. I sputtered and groaned, every muscle, joint, and bone in my starved, sore body protesting
as I spat a mouthful of blood and salt water. Attempting to peel myself off the wet sand, I succeeded only in throwing up
black bile.
Breathe, Amina .
My head was pounding and the world was spinning in shattered fragments of teal water, amber shores, and indigo forest. The
colors were wrong, overly vibrant and mismatched. I took a couple of deep breaths and then sat up more slowly, the sand that
clung to my fingers dripping like honey.
It was like no beach I’d ever seen. The tide line was marked by stringy bubbles of bloodred waterweeds and needle-sharp blue
sea stars. Ahead was a jungle so dense its interior was black, soft, and dangerously inviting. There were palm trees at the
edge, their cinnamon-colored trunks gleaming as though the bark were jeweled, the razor-edged fronds shaking in the windless
air with the crash of clashing sabers. Birds in unnatural hues dove and careened overhead, emitting grumbly roars.
Where in God’s name am I? But then—a gleam of wetness that banished all other thoughts.
Water .
I lurched to my feet. I was dimly aware of odd blurs in my vision, objects that refused to resolve themselves. Floating in
the bizarrely frothy shallows were the broken remnants of the platform that had carried me. The wooden planks were being roughly
tossed about as though an unseen figure was poking through them. I barely noticed, staggering with single-minded focus toward
the shining beacon of liquid I had spotted.