Girl, Serpent, Thorn (14 page)

He paused, and there was a low buzzing of murmurs all around the garden, people looking up and noticing the plumes of smoke overhead, wafting from the direction of the city. Sorush's jaw tensed as he tried to remain impassive.

“You've noticed,” the Shahmar said, still addressing the crowd more than the shah, “that the divs listen to me. They obey my commands. Over the years of my exile, I have taught them what it means to band together under a king, to follow a vision—
my
vision. The simorgh will not come to your rescue this time, I promise you that. Only I can end this violence. I can return you to your lives of wealth and influence. But first—first you must accept me as your new shah.”

He knew when to speak and when to fall silent—to allow the full meaning of his words to sink deeply into the minds of every person present. And they weren't just any people gathered here for the wedding of the shah. They were the bozorgan and satraps from all across the country, the people who chose the shah and those who governed the provinces in his name.

This was why the divs had been instructed not to seriously harm or kill anyone apart from soldiers—the Shahmar didn't want to destroy Atashar. He wanted to rule it.

“Well, then?” the Shahmar said to Sorush. “Will you give up your crown to protect your people? Will you bend your knee to me in supplication?”

Sorush lifted his head to look his enemy in the eye. “The Creator will protect us,” he said, his voice quieter than the Shahmar's, but no less powerful. “And you will fail.”

The Shahmar didn't respond, staring down at Sorush with deadly stillness. And then, with one fluid movement of his graceful neck, he turned his head and looked directly at Soraya.

“No,” Soraya breathed. She didn't think she'd spoken aloud, but then she felt her mother's hands clasp around her arms.

The Shahmar began to walk slowly in her direction. “I understand
now,” he said. “You refuse to surrender to me because you still believe that the simorgh's protection will shield you.” The closer he came to Soraya, the more her mother's grip tightened. He came to stand directly in front of her, shaking his head in disapproval. “So many lies in this family. Perhaps it's time to bring everything to the surface.” He wrapped his scaled hand around Soraya's wrist, and with one sharp tug, he tore her from her mother's grip.

Soraya and her mother both cried out together, but the tusked div prevented Tahmineh from following, and the Shahmar effortlessly dragged Soraya to the center of the garden, directly across from her brother. Sorush didn't look at her or show any reaction to his mother's and sister's cries, knowing the Shahmar would use any emotion against him.

But then Sorush's eyes widened as he realized the Shahmar was touching Soraya's bare skin—a subtle movement, but one the Shahmar noticed as well.

“Do you want to tell him, or shall I?” he said to Soraya, his hand still encircling her wrist.

Soraya looked up at the Shahmar, her eyes pleading—and for the first time, she noticed that there were patches of skin visible between the scales that covered his face. She saw the shape of Azad underneath the Shahmar, the boy he had once been before his corruption, the boy she had come to trust and had wanted to run away with. And at the sight of him, a lightning flash of rage pierced through the thick gray fog of her guilt.

“Don't touch me,” she said through gritted teeth, wrenching her wrist out of his grip. It was the worst insult she could think of to say to him—that no touch at all was still better than his.

The Shahmar let out a low growl as he stared down at Soraya. He grabbed her wrist again and swung her around to face the encircling crowd.

“People of Atashar,” he called to his audience, “I'm sure you've
heard tales of the shah's mysterious sister. Perhaps you've wondered why she remains hidden, why she never appears with her family.”

Soraya tried to pull herself out of his grip again, but his claws were piercing her skin.

“Allow me, then”—he looked down at Soraya, the beginning of a smile on his thin lips—“to tell you the truth of the shahzadeh's curse.”

The Shahmar pointed directly at Tahmineh, who was still in the grip of the div. “When her children were first born, your beloved queen mother—then, the shahbanu—took her infant daughter to the divs and asked them to grant her protection.”

Protection?
Soraya froze, no longer struggling. She had told Azad that her mother was the cause of her curse, but not even she had known the reason for it. But if he knew the reason, then he'd known the truth all along, watching her stumble from the dungeon to the dakhmeh to the fire temple, looking for answers while her hands grew more and more stained with blood. But even as she hated him for it, she longed to know what he would say next.

“And the divs agreed,” he continued, “because the shahbanu had helped them once, and they owed her a debt. They laid a curse on the child and filled her veins with poison, so that she would be deadly to the touch.”

The crowd's murmuring was louder now, like the furious roar of a wasp nest. How could the shah's mother have committed such an atrocity? How could the shah have kept his sister's curse a secret from the court all this time? What else was this family hiding?

But Soraya knew the worst was still to come.

The Shahmar spun her around again, holding her in place by her arms, so that she couldn't look away from her brother's grief-stricken face. “And so this girl decided to take her revenge on the family
that had cursed her. She waited until the day of her brother's wedding, and then she went to the fire temple, slew the guards, and put out the Royal Fire, because she had discovered that inside the fire was the one object that could free her from her curse—the simorgh's feather.”

The Shahmar didn't have to explain further. He put one hand under Soraya's chin and held her face, so that all could see him touching her bare skin without consequence.

Soraya couldn't even turn her head to look away from her brother's broken gaze. “I'm sorry,” she tried to say, but the words were so mangled by the sob trapped in her throat that they were barely audible.

The Shahmar released her then, and she fell immediately to the ground, crushed under the weight of her guilt, her brother's shame, and her mother's secrets. She managed to lift her head and see the Shahmar approach her brother slowly, with the same elegance that she had so admired in him when she thought he was hers.

“Well?” he said. “Do you still believe your Creator will keep you safe? Do you think you can protect Atashar better than I can? Or will you kneel?” He turned to the crowd. “Will you kneel,” he called out, his arms outstretched, “to save your land from ruin?”

Soraya didn't know who was the first to kneel. She didn't know if it was done out of anger at her family or out of hopeless despair. But all around her, one by one, the most influential people in Atashar went to their knees and chose a new shah. She didn't blame them; pride or loyalty would only lead to more destruction.

Soon, all the bozorgan were kneeling except for relations of the shah—aunts and uncles and cousins Soraya had never really known. Laleh and her wounded father, huddled together. Tahmineh. And Sorush.

From where she lay on the ground, Soraya watched her brother, waiting to see if he would look at her. But Sorush kept his eyes on his usurper as he slowly went down on one knee, then the other, before pressing his forehead to the ground in supplication.

The Shahmar had won.

 

For years, Soraya had thought of herself as a prisoner in the walls of Golvahar, but now, she actually was one.

Her prison was luxurious, certainly—one of the rooms in the new wing, usually reserved for the shah's most important visitors. Its beauty was slightly tarnished, though, since the divs had stripped the room nearly bare, removing anything that could be used as either weapon or escape route—bedding, letter openers, and vases, as well as practically any piece of furniture that could be lifted. When the div had first locked her inside, Soraya had almost longed for the shadows of the dungeon—they were more comfortable to her than a room where there was nowhere to hide.

But more important, there was no way to escape. Soraya didn't need to wonder why the Shahmar had chosen such a gilded prison for her and her family. She already knew the answer:

These tunnels run all through the palace?

Everywhere except for the newer wing on the other side.

Still, the first thing Soraya did was check the walls for hollow spaces. It was something to do other than wonder how long the Shahmar planned to keep them all alive. She had expected him to execute her brother on the spot once Sorush had bowed his head, but the Shahmar had simply ordered his div soldiers to herd together the shah's family and anyone who hadn't kneeled, and keep them confined to the new wing. Soraya didn't think it was mercy—she assumed the Shahmar wanted to kill them later in secret, so as not to upset his new subjects.

Around the room she went, putting her ear to the wall as she knocked, listening for the echo that would tell her she was wrong about there being no passages linked to these rooms. But all she heard were the words echoing in her head to the rhythm of her knocking:
Your fault. Your fault. Your fault.

Just as she reached the doorway, the door opened and she froze, one fist still in the air. The beaked head of a div poked into the room, took one look at Soraya, and then flung Tahmineh into the room before shutting the door on them both.

Was it a coincidence that they were locked up together? Or did the Shahmar hope that they would tear each other apart and save him the trouble?

They stared at each other, neither of them speaking or moving. They were both bedraggled, their faces tearstained, their hearts heavy. Soraya didn't know whether to beg forgiveness or demand an explanation. Even now, she didn't know how to speak to her mother candidly, without layers of courtesy and formality.

Finally, Tahmineh stepped forward, eyes glistening, and reached one hand to touch Soraya's face. Soraya backed away, more from habit than anything else, but she could tell from her mother's wince of pain that Tahmineh believed the movement had been a rejection.

With a weary sigh, Tahmineh turned away and moved to the
window. Soraya had already checked the window and found that it was too small to fit through and too high up to jump from without breaking bones. She started to say so when her mother turned to her and said, “You weren't surprised when he told everyone I did this to you. You already knew.”

“I knew you did this to me, but I still don't know why.”

If Tahmineh heard the implied question, she ignored it. “How did you find out?”

“The div,” Soraya said. There seemed little point in keeping that secret anymore. “The one in the dungeon.”

Tahmineh arched her eyebrows. “You spoke to her?”

“At Sorush's request. He wanted me to report to him if she told me anything useful.”

Tahmineh shook her head with a wry smile. “I should have known better than to think I could control my children. At least now you know why I was so insistent that you not speak to her. But what I don't understand,” she said as she stepped forward into the center of the room, still leaving plenty of space between her and Soraya, “is why you didn't come talk to me after you found out.”

Her hands were open, her eyes entreating, and Soraya wondered if she would have gone to Tahmineh first if
this
had been her image of her mother—open and honest. But how could Tahmineh ask her that question when every time Soraya had ventured too close to forbidden topics, that one worried line would appear on her forehead, and her body would tense as if ready to receive a blow?

“Tell me honestly,” Soraya said, her voice shaking slightly. “If I had come to you and told you what the div had said, would you have told me the truth? Or would you have denied it and said the div was lying?”

Tahmineh was silent, which was all the answer Soraya needed.

“And I still don't understand
why,
” she said, the last constraints of formality falling away. “The Shahmar said you did this for my protection, that the divs owed you a debt.
He
knows more about
my life than I do. It's no wonder he—” She stopped, not even sure how to finish. What had Azad done? Before she had taken the feather, what had he done that she did not want him to do? Soraya wrapped her arms around her waist and turned away from her mother, ashamed of her outburst. She wasn't sure she had any right to anger anymore.

From behind her, Tahmineh placed a tentative hand on her shoulder. “Did he make you do this?” she asked in a low voice.

Soraya shook her head, wishing she could answer otherwise. “He didn't make me take the feather. But he always knew what to do, what to say, to make me trust him.”

“So you didn't know what he was? What he was planning to do?”

Soraya turned to her mother in surprise. “Of course not!” she said. “I didn't want any of this. I only wanted to be free from my curse.”

Tahmineh let out a brittle laugh that didn't reach her eyes. “And now by breaking one, you've fallen into the other.”

“What do you mean?” Soraya asked. “What other? Will you ever tell me the truth?” The last question came out harsher than she'd intended, but there was no point in hiding her feelings now.

Tahmineh went to the wall beside the door and leaned back against it, her eyes pointed up to the ceiling. “You're right. It's time for you to know the full story,” she said. “It's
past
time. Maybe if I had told you before, I could have prevented this from happening.” She smiled sadly. “Or maybe you would have just learned to hate me sooner.” She slid down to sit on the floor, her knees bent in front of her. Soraya had never seen her sit so casually, without her perfect posture. It felt like being in the room with a stranger. She sat on the bare floor across from her mother and, as she had done so often as a child, waited for her story to begin.

“The first part was true,” Tahmineh said. “I did wander into the forestland near Mount Arzur when I was little more than a
child, and I did find a woman wrapped in a net. But the woman wasn't human. I didn't know that at first—I couldn't see her clearly enough in the net, and she looked so close to human—but when I freed her, she unfurled her wings, and I understood. She was a div—a parik. She gave me a lock of her hair, and told me that if I ever needed a favor in return, I should burn the hair and breathe in the smoke, and then that night I could speak to her in my dreams. She flew away, and I was alone.”

She paused, her lips clamped shut, as if it physically pained her to speak.

“And then the Shahmar found me,” she said.

Soraya's heart gave a lurch. “The Shahmar was the same div who found you in the forest?” But even as she asked it, she knew it was true—she remembered the look of recognition that passed between them in the garden.

“The Shahmar found me,” Tahmineh repeated, her voice louder, like she was trying to scare away her own fear. “I didn't know who he was at the time. I just thought he was a monster. He told me I had taken something of his, and so now he would take something of mine.”

Soraya frowned. She knew this part already. “But—”

“He told me he would wait until I had a daughter, and when that daughter came of age, he would steal her away and make her his bride.”

Tahmineh's words hovered over them like a blast of cold air, and Soraya let out a low moan of regret, because now she understood why her mother had wanted her to be untouchable. She had spent these years believing Tahmineh had hidden her to protect their family or the safety of others—but Soraya had been the one Tahmineh was trying to protect all along.

“For years, I tried to forget what he said,” Tahmineh continued. “I didn't know if he had meant it or if it was an empty threat. But I prayed—I prayed every night from that day on—that I would
never have a girl. When Sorush was born, I thought my prayers had been answered—but then you were born, minutes later, and I loved you and feared for you at the same time.”

“The parik's favor.”

Tahmineh nodded. “I had kept the lock of her hair all those years, knowing this day might come. I burned it the night after you were born, and I dreamt I was in a forest—but not the same one where the Shahmar had found me. It was a forest I had never seen before, lush and green. The parik was there, and I told her I needed protection for my daughter, so that no div could ever touch her. She told me to meet her at the dakhmeh near the palace the next night, and to bring you with me.”

“You went to the dakhmeh?”

Tahmineh bowed her head in shame, but Soraya felt an unexpected tenderness for her mother, knowing they had both made the same choice to brave the dakhmeh. But her mother was even braver, because she had gone alone, undefended.
For me,
Soraya thought.
She did that for me, and I betrayed her.

“I was desperate,” Tahmineh continued, “and so I did as the parik asked. She was there with a few others of her kind, and she had brought a basin large enough for an infant, filled with water. She had a vial of some red liquid and told me that a few drops of it mixed in the water would make you untouchable. Any human, beast, or div who touched you would die almost instantly.”

Tahmineh looked directly at her, a fierce glint in her dark eyes. “And I agreed,” she said, her voice firm—defiant, even. “I agreed because I didn't know how else to protect you in such a dangerous world. There were times when I even envied your curse, because I thought you would never know the fear that I knew when the Shahmar found me in the forest. I kept you hidden away in Golvahar and forced myself to leave you here, because I didn't want to draw the Shahmar's attention to you in case he ever sought me out. But I wish I could have kept you with me. I wish I had told you the truth sooner.”

“Why didn't you?” Soraya asked at once. A curious mixture of remorse and resentment swam inside her.

“At first I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to be afraid,” Tahmineh answered. “How could I tell my child that a monster might steal her away? And how could I explain what I had done without letting you know why? I didn't want you to grow up with that shadow over you. And when you were older…” She looked down at her lap, avoiding Soraya's eye. “I didn't want you to hate me. I saw how unhappy you were, and I couldn't stand knowing that it was because of my actions—because I couldn't protect you myself. I felt so guilty every time I left you here on your own.” She lifted her head, her eyes swimming with tears. “Soraya, can you forgive me?”

Soraya's eyes were stinging, her throat closing up. A part of her wanted to say that she was the one who should be asking for forgiveness—she was the one who had brought ruin on them all with her choices. And another part wanted to say no, she couldn't forgive Tahmineh, because by trying to protect her daughter from one kind of danger, she had left her completely vulnerable to another.

But instead of saying either of those things, Soraya did what she had wanted to do since she was a child. She inched closer to her mother and laid her bare hand on Tahmineh's. In the space of a breath—a sob, really—Tahmineh had enclosed Soraya in her arms, laying her daughter's head on her chest and stroking her hair as she rocked them both slowly back and forth.

They wept, forgiveness neither granted nor denied for now. Perhaps they both were to blame, but they both also knew the kinds of terrible choices a person made when at the mercy of the Shahmar. It was a curse they shared, a curse that Soraya had inherited—and in a strange way, it was the first time she truly felt she was her mother's daughter.

The heavy, formless guilt that had been threatening to suffo
cate her was now taking shape, becoming something she could
do
rather than feel. “I started this,” Soraya said, her voice thick with tears. She lifted her head. “And I have to end it—for all of us.”

Tahmineh put her hands on Soraya's face, one palm on either cheek, and for a moment, they remained like that, enjoying a simple pleasure that had so long been denied them. Then she dropped her hands and said, “He started this, not you. But you
are
the only one who can end this. If anyone can find a way to sneak out of the palace, it's you. And once you've escaped, you have to find the parik with the wings of an owl. She already paid her debt to me, but maybe she'll help us again. The pariks are against him, I think. If I can get you out of this room, will you do the rest?”

“Of course, but how—”

Tahmineh shook her head and held a finger to her lips. “Not now. Later, when it's dark.” She gestured to the window, which was letting in the warm orange light of sunset.

They waited together until the light slowly faded away, and then Tahmineh whispered to her, “Wait behind the door. As soon as it opens, and the div enters, run out of here as quickly as you can. Don't hesitate, Soraya, do you understand me?”

Soraya nodded, but she still didn't know what her mother was planning. She stood with her back flat against the wall so that when the door opened, it would hide her. Tahmineh went to the window, curled her hand into a fist, and slammed it into the glass pane, shattering it with a loud crash.