The Tapestry of Fate (Amina al-Sirafi Adventure #2)

Prologue

In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate.

Blessings upon His honored Prophet Muhammad, his family, and his followers.

Praise be to God, who in His glory created the earth and its diversity of lands and languages, peoples and tongues.

In tales of these long-ago places, of the rise and fall of cities and empires, despots and just rulers, revolutions and anarchy, is there not wisdom to be gleaned?

Lessons and warnings to be gathered and reflected upon so that our own people may be rightly guided?

But of course, history outside of our noble book is notably fallible.

Or rather malleable—by those who tell it, what sources they choose, and the audience for whom it is crafted.

I know this well, for what am I if not a scribe and storyteller, accustomed to plucking strands that will resonate with my audience and weaving them into the tapestry of an account, while other threads are excluded from the loom?

Ah, I can see a few of you shifting about for you did not come for an exegesis on the nature of history .

. . You want more tales of the nakhudha Amina al-Sirafi, her witty crew, and the magical Transgressions they were tasked with retrieving!

But it was Amina herself who taught me to look for hidden voices, for the people whom history forgets; those who are oppressed, those who are crushed by the struggle to survive, those with little means to share their story.

The sailors and serving girls, midwives and slaves, porters and field hands.

Their accounts are no less important; indeed, very often they highlight truths those with power would prefer to be kept hidden.

Amina would offer her own lesson on concealing truths—she did, after all, insist upon telling her own tale and for a reason.

So let us speak of hidden histories, of haunted places and the lost souls who walked their paths.

The lost souls who savored rich lives and met sorrowful ends.

Those who witnessed the collapse of their worlds, never imagining how ours would build over their ruins.

Now—and may God guide and protect us—there is blood in these accounts.

The kind of blood and pain that lingers, that scars.

That festers over the centuries into raw, gaping wounds that refuse to heal, instead infecting all that they touch; misery and suffering that mar succeeding generations.

Accordingly, this is not an easy tale. However, I swore to share it, to write it down as it was experienced though it nearly tore apart a friendship I believed unbreakable.

Know that, then, so you may better understand that bond, I will begin with an earlier adventure, one that occurred before everything fell apart.