What if she conquered the voracious mammals? If she survived, nothing could ever stand in her way. Not even kings.

“Headfirst,” Cyrus warned behind her. “Remember. Only fifty seconds.”

The hiss of parting air in her ears, she shut her eyes, preferring the dark to the reality of the shark-infested waters, rising to meet her with cruel speed. The velocity of her fall stung her face and caused her insides to collapse. A single thought flashed in her mind: she would have liked to be present to relish her father’s tears when he received news of her death.

Her small body slashed the river.

Terrifying stillness. Her eyes sprang open. The river was collecting its power, readying itself for a massive assault. Her limbs shook. Her gaze swept the deep.

The water was sapphire clear, the river walls upholstered with a carpet of Persian sponges and corals. An emerald jungle of giant kelp sparkled below her. Diamond corals, the shape of daggers, swords, and scimitars, rose from between whip gorgonians and pointed their blades up at her. Horned river dragons with yellow, bulging eyes swam with great speed. Silvery fish wove past velvet fish. Handfish gripped the sand with their wild, dancing fins and dashed away, pursued by tails of sand. They were all in constant flight.

Her father’s black pearls nestled in bloody mouths of giant oysters. Seeds of his beloved roses. She would learn to harvest them. She averted her gaze from the threatening world underneath and prepared to propel herself up to the surface.

Liquid, pensive eyes circled her like a chain of marbles suspended in water. Her heart slapped against her chest. Hundreds of voracious riverain sharks gauged her. They were smaller than she. Their skin the color of bile and covered with razor scales, they lashed their fan-like tails, spiked with bony arrows.

Daggers scrubbed against her thighs. Her flesh stung. Was she bleeding? They would react to the smell of blood.

With all the might of her legs, she fought and kicked to rise up and escape. But the river had awakened and she could not grapple with the momentum of the waves. She must conserve her energy and oxygen and try not to swallow water. Her lungs about to burst, she willed her body to calm down and float weightless.

The sharks glided away, abandoning a trail of froth and fear behind.

She shattered the surface, emerging for air, and swam to shore with all the speed she could muster. Cyrus rushed to hoist her out.

He lifted her on his palms, high above his head, an offering to the sun, to melt the rest of the ointment and dry her. Afraid to puncture the miraculous bubble she floated in, she remained silent. Had she mastered the sharks? Would she dare tell her father what had happened?

Ferocious sharks had observed her, had reeled away, not one had attacked. Soon she would learn their language and tame them. If she could last underwater for fifty seconds, might she not prolong her stay?