A New York Times Bestseller!
"A thrilling, transportative adventure that is everything promised– Chakraborty's storytelling is fantasy at its best." -- R. F. Kuang, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel and The Poppy War
"An exhilarating, propulsive adventure, stitched from the threads of real history, Amina’ s adventures are the reason to read fantasy." -- Ava Reid, internationally bestselling author of Juniper & Thorn
Shannon Chakraborty, the bestselling author of The City of Brass, spins a new trilogy of magic and mayhem on the high seas in this tale of pirates and sorcerers, forbidden artifacts and ancient mysteries, in one woman’ s determined quest to seize a final chance at glory— and write her own legend.
Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’ s most notorious pirates, she’ s survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural.
But when she’ s tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she’ s offered a job no bandit could refuse: retrieve her comrade’ s kidnapped daughter for a kingly sum. The chance to have one last adventure with her crew, do right by an old friend, and win a fortune that will secure her family’ s future forever? It seems like such an obvious choice that it must be God’ s will.
Yet the deeper Amina dives, the more it becomes alarmingly clear there’ s more to this job, and the girl’ s disappearance, than she was led to believe. For there’ s always risk in wanting to become a legend, to seize one last chance at glory, to savor just a bit more power… and the price might be your very soul.
