Synopsis

She is bound to serve. He is meant to kill. Survival is their prison. Choice is their weapon.

As the sacred slave of a goddess, Roma is of a lower caste that serves patrons to sustain the balance between gods and men. What she wants is her freedom, but deserters are hunted and hanged, and Roma only knows how to survive in her village where women are vessels without a voice. When her younger brother is condemned to the same wretched fate as hers, Roma must choose between silence and rebellion.

Leviathan is the bastard son of an immortal tyrant. Raised in a military city where everyone knows of his blood relation to the persecuted clans, Leviathan is considered casteless. Lowest of the low. Graduating as one of the deadliest soldiers, he executes in his father’s name, displaying his worth. When he faces judgement from his mother’s people—the clans—Leviathan must confront his demons and forge his own path, if he ever hopes to reclaim his soul.

But in the struggle to protect the people they love and rebuild their identities, Roma’s and Leviathan’s destinies interlock as the tyrant hunts an ancient treasure that will doom humankind should it come into his possession—a living treasure to which Roma and Leviathan are the ultimate key.

Set in a colonised Indo-Persian world and inspired by pre-Islamic Arabian mythology, The Descent of the Drowned is a tale about power, identity, and redemption, and what it takes to hold on to one’s humanity in the face of devastation.

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Book releases March 15, 2021 – preorder now!

Excerpt

Roma clutched the hairpin in her hand. The daunting frame of the Firawn’s son was shrouded in a black cloak, the curved-sword pendant tucked out of sight, but his hood was drawn back from his head. Shadows haunted the hollows of his face and obscured his emotions to anyone who might search beyond the surface. She met his unwavering stare with a cumulative numbness within her chest and the promise of blood in her eyes. She didn’t want to feel such despair, nor did she want darkness to swaddle her mind, but she had accepted that her auction would end with her death.

What did it matter if it were an executioner who took her life or if it were her?

When the Firawn’s son took a deliberate step toward her, the blood promise blazed like a fuelled torch, and she touched the tip of the blade to her throat.

“Don’t come near me,” she warned.

Every sound, smell, and taste overpowered her heightened senses. Her frantic pulse throbbed like drumbeats in her ears. She smelled the scattered rose petals and tasted the subtle vibration in the air at his slightest shift. It somehow reached her, pricking her sensitive nerves and exposing his invisible stealth. She shifted as he did. Her mirrored movement caught his attention, and he looked at her with a different awareness.

“You don’t want to do this, Roma.”

Tipping back her head, she pressed the point of the blade into her skin. A warm line of blood seeped down the side of her bared throat. His face hardened and his movement stilled.

“I don’t want you to touch me.”

“If I wanted to touch you,” he said, disturbingly calm, “you’d already be on the bed.”

Her knees trembled from exhaustion and her skin still burned from the fever. Fear had eroded her for hours, days, years. Now she came full circle. It would all end tonight. “Then why am I here?” she asked in no more than a whisper. He was silent. Because he didn’t have an answer that could convince her of his lies. “I’m not educated like you, Saheb, but I’m not stupid.”

“No, you’re not,” he murmured.

“I know what you want. You want power. And it makes you feel powerful when you subdue me.” The blade burrowed deeper and the blood trail thickened. A surreptitious shadow of emotion came and went in the nadirs of his eyes. She didn’t care to define it. “I won’t be broken by your kind again.”

“My kind?”

“Your kind, Saheb. Men.”

“You’re a survivor.”

“This is my survival,” she whispered.

Drawing back her hand to stab her throat, she saw him close the distance in mere heartbeats. She should have killed herself, but an instinctual part of her—a part far too strong that always sought life over death—overwhelmed her, and she switched to sink the blade into him in the very last second.

It was a mistake.

About the Author

Ana Lal Din is an #ownvoices author who was born in a Danish southwestern city and raised in a small town outside Copenhagen. Passionate about culture, language, religion and social justice issues, Ana’s story worlds are usually full of all four. What drives her as a writer is developing characters that are psychologically and emotionally complex, reflecting human nature at its darkest and brightest — and everything in between. Since Ana is a Danish-Pakistani Muslim with Indian heritage, she often explores the intricacies of a multicultural identity through her characters. “The Descent of the Drowned” is her debut novel.

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