A new epic fantasy series begins with Spice Road , Maiya Ibrahim ’s YA debutinspired by Arab and Middle Easternmythology — with a vast pane of magic too . In this account , we meet a fierce 16 - class - old whose reputation for monstrosity - hunt is already established , but whose family life is spinning into agitation . io9 hasan excerptto share today !
Here ’s a secret plan verbal description to work in some context of use :
In the out of sight desert urban center of Qalia , there is secret spice magic that awakens the affinities of those who drink the misra tea . Sixteen - twelvemonth - previous Imani has the chemical attraction for iron and is able to exert a sticker like no other warrior . She has garnered the reputation as being the next great Shield for battling djinn , ghouls , and other monsters spreading across the sands .
Image: Random House Children’s Books
Her report has been dominate , however , by her sidekick , who tarnished the family name after it was revealed that he was stealing his nation ’s coveted spice — a telling star sign of magical obsession . Soon after that , he disappeared , believed to have die beyond the Forbidden Wastes . Despite her brother ’s treachery , there is n’t a day that go by when Imani does n’t grieve him .
But when Imani discovers signal that her brother may be awake and spreading the nation ’s conjuration to outsiders , she makes a deal with the Council that she will observe him and fetch him back to Qalia , where he will present punishment . Accompanied by other Shields , let in Taha , a powerful beastseer who can insure the minds of falcon , she sets out on her mission .
Imani will before long find that many secrets lie beyond the Forbidden Wastes — and in her own heart — but will she line up her chum ?
Image: Random House Children’s Books
Here ’s the full cover :
Finally , here ’s the excerpt , learn from Spice Road ’s third and fourth chapters .
An eerie whinny echoes down the enactment , interrupting our dead end . Amira ’s face light up . “ Raad . He ’s close . Hurry , we can continue on groundwork . ” She tether her gymnastic horse to a wizen beginning poking from a fissure in the wall and takes her woven traveling bag with her to the passageway .
“ Stay here while I enquire , ” I say , fetching my Orlando di Lasso from my saddlebag .
“ No . I ’m not some scummy - social station Shield you’re able to emboss around . ”
I hop down and tether Badr . “ Have n’t you grasped how insecure the wilds of the Sahir are yet ? ”
She makes a big show of shrugging . “ We ’ve not been attacked , and you ’re with me . As far as I ’m concerned , I ’m the safest I can ever be . ”
“ I take account the vote of self-confidence . ” Sighing , I go over to her as I coil the lasso around my shoulder . “ You said before that I do n’t babble to you . Well , permit me severalize you something , then . A few month ago , my squad leader received word from a small walled town out by the Jeyta Salt Flats . The town was being plagued by a ghoul that had abduct a local human beings mere hours before we arrived . The serviceman ’s family led us to where the graverobber was lurking in the townspeople ’s burial dry land . The animate being was tall , about seven foot , but hunched over , its grey , leathered pelt undulate with muscle . mistily human , except its wiry blazonry were so farsighted , they could sweep the footing when in full extended . ” I hold up a bridge player . “ It had five fingers with retentive curving talons in place of nails , same on its foot . In its face , two red - yellow eyes glowing in the moonshine , a huge grinning of razor - acute fangs dripping with spit . It had luff ears , and lank fibril of straight black hair falling around them . But for the ragtime around its hips , it was naked , and every time it drew a breath , its ribs strained through its skin . ” I hold on in the passage . “ It killed and devoured the young military man before we could stop it . in good order before my very middle . Do you know what a ghoul can do once it has toss off you ? ”
She presses her physical structure against the bulwark and whispers , “ No , what ? ”
“ Take on your alikeness . One second , the man it had obliterate was bones picked clean on the footing , hair and all . The mist rolled in , drifted away a moment subsequently . The body snatcher was nowhere to be seen , but the vernal man was upright again . Living and external respiration as you and I. But it was no man . It did not act as a man , could not mouth as one , only ululation . I killed it with one setback , for if you strike a ghoul twice , it rises again with reincarnate metier . But that young world ? He died twice , and his mother did not forgive me for it . You think the Sahir is safe because you have not been hurt yet , but I assure you , many others have , and there is no end in sight to this war . It is a poison seeping across the land that we are hardly beat back . ”
Amira gaze down the passageway . “ I ’m no-count you had to endure that , Imani , that you even have to crusade in this war , but I . . . ” She draws a mystifying breath . “ I will face what I must to save our brother ’s buck . ”
I take her paw again . “ Please , reconsider , for your own safety . ”
“ I ’m old enough to make my own decisions , ” she says through an obstinate pout .
Yes , foolish decisions , I cogitate , but I resignedly maltreat past her into the narrow passing . The hungry sand sucks at our shoe , each of our steps sounding like a pant . In moments , the nickering of our horses evanesce ; the air settles , stuffy and tomb - moribund . The world still save for the suspiration of wind over the peaks , and the pebble undulate off bound and reverberate down steep drop . It feels as if we are completely alone , the last existence alive in the Sahir . But we are n’t .
Around the next fold , we are confronted by an archway chip at from the Harlan Fisk Stone , once block up by a rusted bronze gate now hang open . Beyond it , a court with a Isidor Feinstein Stone pond . Raad stands beside it , watching us .
“ Yes , ” Amira breathes , rushing ahead . “ See ? I screw we ’d receive him . ”
I trail her back . It is not only the sight of Raad that give me pause , nor the peculiar sense that he has deliberately chair us to this place , but the place itself : an ancient dwelling cut from the rocks , once grand , long wear down by time ’s unrelenting manus . The opposite wall of the courtyard is a spectacular façade of voluted pillars carved around an open arch . Elsewhere in the courtyard ’s wall , asymmetric windows peer out , and fret staircase with turbinate baluster meet caved - in door , though some stay on open , beckoning to the mountain ’s tightlipped depths . Harlan F. Stone benches and urns bearing stagnant vines stud the cracked cobblestones around the courtyard ’s border . The only new matter is an opposite - conical courier tower next to the pond , about half my height , construct from Sir Henry Wood and brass . When in role , the fragrant smoke of burning spices would waft from it in a sky - tickle pillar , catch the attention of courier falcon who are trained to recognize the distinguishable scents from far away .
“ That ’s out of place , ” I say .
Amira scrunches her face . “ Why would someone invite letter out here ? ”
I do n’t need to know . And though I am raring to guarantee Raad , our Baba , Qalia ’s most high horselord , instruct me never to approach a runaway Equus caballus hurriedly , lest I spook it . I take a careful step through the gateway , then hesitate at the howl of the wind .
“ Hold on , ” I whisper .
We wait , hear to the wind instrument rushing through the channel and crevices of the mountains toward us , originate louder , clattering furiously as it stirs loose rocks . Suddenly it bursts across the gateway with the momentum of a thrust spear , dragging a fop of sand in its wake that obscures the court from sight . I step back , protecting my eyes with my hired man as something emerges from the gust .
No , not one thing . Several . Immensely magniloquent , shaped like people . But in place of form is throat - stinging roll of tobacco , shuddering and simmer , the wispy edge of their silhouette licking the airwave in rotted tongue . face with vacuous eye socket , the scratch of serpent nostrils , and no mouths .
Amira grabs my manus . “ Are they . . . ? ”
“ Yes . Djinn . ”
4
The magniloquent djinni glide forward on a bed sheet of black smoke . I listen rushing pee ; I feel a gelidity cold than any desert Nox .
“ Leave , ” he hisses over the yawp wind .
“ Get by , ” I tell Amira . She excavate her nails into my decoration and keep on stare up at the djinn . It is impossible to recognize how many there are . They keep flickering , doubling , and then scattering , before re - forming . The only unvarying is the one in the middle , float toward us . I prize Amira ’s fingers off and shove her .
“ Go , now . ”
She wink several time and scrambles behind a nearby out- cropping of rock .
“ You do not belong here , ” say the djinni .
I drag the dagger strapped to my thigh , through which I am able to channel my wizard affinity . With its polished hilt and watered steel blade , it is a precious house heirloom , a talent from Auntie when I get together the Shields and was initiated into the rules of order of Sorcerers . It is also the utter weapon against djinn , who reverence steel most . At the same time I draw it , I call upon the thaumaturgy of the misra . Having had a full teatime this morning , I sense it rush read- ily through my vein . The obelisk glows white - gentle and lengthen to a longsword . I point it at the djinn .
“ Leave or suffer ruin by my hands . ”
Their malign laughter skates across the back of my neck , summoning shake . “ We shall see about that , ” says the leader .
He squeeze a diffuse limb of smoke ; the arm hardens to a shaft with a point so sharp , it need only whisper across my neck to slip my life . I dodge pull up stakes ; fabric tear up where the spear impale my cloak . The shaft retracts and the djinni consider me keenly . Time stretches . Waits , almost , with bated breathing space in the lengthen phantasma of suspense . Then it exhales .
The djinn deign upon me in a flood of smoke . One swings a lance at my breast . I parry as it slices the zephyr above my drumhead . I spring up and thrust the steel through the djinni ’s organic structure , scattering wisps of smoke like panicky baitfish . The genie ’s scream inflates in my skull , which pulse , ache to fracture with the atmospheric pressure . Distantly Amira groans in pain sensation .
Another is on me , pilfer with something resemble a claw . I sidestep the rap and put my shoulder into my swing , and discerp the djinni ’s head from its body . The dais of its neck opening spray ink-black calamitous blood before the djinni crumples to ash . More and more emerge from the smoke around me , all sneering eyes and trilled laugh . I burn through them , and they keep coming , these edacious worm swarm from the iniquity around a torch . My blade is part of me , wielded as intuitively as my own limbs . It lengthens to a pole - limb when I need to slash in a circle ; it shortens to a obelisk when the gap between me and a djinni is too humble . It transfix as a spear and severs as a sword , the djinny crumbling to pile ash tree around my boots . Using my affinity makes me palpate whole , sodding , as if I am ordinarily composed of fractured pieces and conjuration is the only glue that can seamlessly unify them . The misra course through me , my magic trick surge when the blade changes and ebb down in the wake , bit by bit being drop . I stream my rage into the battle ; it is all I ’ve done since Atheer died . Harden my heart until I have become more steel than flesh . Fight my way from the pitiful feelings I can not shoot down , the raging fear that my big brother abandoned me for reasons he did n’t consider me worthy of have a go at it .
A djinni screams . The mountain moan , and fractures finger through the careen walls . Warm blood oozes from my olfactory organ onto my lip , from my ears too . I cut the djinni down , freeing my vision of the smoke . I turn to attack another , but only the leader remain , strike my artillery hand . A fierce burning takes up in it ; my fingerbreadth muscle spasm and I drop my sword . He hold out a fantastic tree branch and kicks the vane out .
“ No , ” Amira yells from her hiding spot . “ Stop it , do n’t hurt her ! ”
“ You will not hand , Djinni Slayer , ” he says .
“ So you ’ve heard of me . ” My longsword is discarded in the guts several meters aside . I keep my branch down , but I stretch my hand as I mentally call to the blade . It ’s like reaching out to a lost part of myself . I am me , but I am also the blade , and both aspects try reunification across this divide .
The djinni raises a spike prim up for my heart . “ password of your barbarity has spread far . parole of your death will too . ”
“ One day , ” I say through clinched tooth . “ For all who live must die . ” The sword shifts , turns slow ; the hilt pops off the grit . I thrust my mitt out . The sword spears through the air and lands in my fist . “ But today is not that day . ”
The snarling djinni drives the spike . I dodge and push up my beam sword through his chest . He shout and drops like a drapery of silk , decaying to an ash tree pitcher’s mound . The wind hold on howling ; sand and pebbles rain on me in a dreamy whisper . I transform the sword to a dagger and sheathe it .
Amira sprints over as I collapse onto hands and knees . “ That was the most brilliant affair I have ever go steady ! I ’d be dead if it were n’t for you . ”
Sweat slide off my face and splashes into the Baroness Dudevant between my finger , carving little pools . A drop curtain of red link them , then another . Amira kisses my brow , hug me so tightly , I think my nerve is about to pop out of my mouth . I do n’t kvetch ; this is the most warmheartedness she ’s shown me in calendar month .
“ The Djinni Slayer all right . Even that genie knew who you are . Are you hurt ? ” She brushes the isolated brown hairsbreadth that has escaped my braid and study me like a therapist , with puckered rim and furrowed forehead , first my throbbing ears , then my bloody nozzle .
“ I ’m fine , ” I say , flake off my boxing glove off my handwriting . It is already blister .
She slip a sharp breath . “ That looks painful . Here . ” She pulls a flaskful from her traveling bag and rain cats and dogs water onto the inflamed skin . I wince but gratefully keep it there until she is done .
“ give thanks you , ” I gnarl .
She begins dab the parentage off my face using a scarf joint , trying to overhear my eye . “ Why do you think Raad has come here ? And how did he put down without being attacked by those things ? ”
Excerpt from Spice Road by Maiya Ibrahim reprinted by permit of Random House Children ’s Holy Scripture .
Maiya Ibrahim ’s Spice Road is out January 24 ; you may pre - regularise a copyhere .
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