Girl, Serpent, Thorn (22 page)

 

I saw him die,
Soraya thought as she stared down at him. She hadn't, though, she reminded herself. She had only seen him wounded, and assumed that death would shortly follow. But other than the wound at his side and a few scrapes and scratches on his face and torso, he appeared unharmed.

Soraya wasn't sure how to feel at the sight of him—relief that he was alive, or pity for his current position … or satisfaction at knowing he was her prisoner, and that he was utterly alone when he was the reason she had felt so alone. Soraya couldn't help seeing the justice in that.

“Do whatever you want with him,” Azad said from beside her, low enough so only she could hear. “He's yours to control. No one else may intervene unless you wish it.”

Of course this was Azad's gift to her. He had met Ramin on Nog Roz. Azad had struck him, and Soraya had thanked him
for it. That was the first time she and Azad had felt a pull toward each other, their first shared act of violence. And now, in this room of demons, she knew no one would stop her, or even care, if she did something to hurt him. More likely, they would cheer her on.

She couldn't help the flicker of excitement this ignited in her blood. She no longer had poison in her veins, but she still had—what was it Azad had said?—her will, her fury.
It isn't the poison that makes you deadly.

But no, she wasn't thinking clearly. She had to think like Parvaneh, to see what use she could make of this situation. Ramin was the only other human here, the only other possible ally outside of the pariks. If she could somehow convince him that he could trust her, then maybe they could work together to find the feather.

Soraya went toward him. Her pulse was slow, like her heart had been sealed in ice. Ramin glared up at her as she approached, his jaw locked in defiance. “I always knew not to trust you,” he spat at her. “I warned my father a hundred times, but he never believed me.”

Aware of Azad's watchful stare behind her, and of all the other divs in the cavern waiting for violence, Soraya circled around him, placed one hand on his shoulder, and kept her voice as low as possible. “I came here the same way that you did—by force.”

He scoffed at her. “The Shahmar told us who he is—who we all thought he was. But you knew all along. You were with him on Nog Roz.”

She buried her hand in his hair and pulled his head back with a violent jerk, causing a snicker of delight to go through the room. “I didn't know,” she murmured to him. “He fooled me, too. I'm a prisoner here like you. We can help each oth—”

“A prisoner like me? Is that so?” Ramin's eyes were so cold, his voice so biting, that Soraya knew he would never trust her, no matter what she said to him. His lip curled with disdain. “Will he
give me clothes as nice as yours? Or do I have to pay for them with my family's blood like you did?”

She was too hurt to react at first. But that had always been her instinct—to freeze, to retreat, to cradle her anger in her hands until the flame went out safely. That was what she would have done before. That was what she
had
done before, a thousand times over the years, during every encounter with Ramin. Even surrounded by divs, powerless, he still thought he could say whatever he wanted to her. He thought she wouldn't strike back.

And now, her blood still singing after her surrender to the divs, all Soraya wanted was the pleasure of proving him wrong.

With one hand still grasping his hair, she bent down and dug her nails into his chest, causing him to hiss in pain and the divs to let out a cheer.

“You think you can speak to me that way,” Soraya whispered to him, her head bent beside his, “because you never believed I would fight back.” She was herself and not herself—she didn't know what she was, except that she was free. “I could have shocked you into silence with a single touch so many times over the years, but I always let you win. That's why you were never afraid of me. That's why you mocked and insulted me. But you should have been afraid, Ramin. You should have been afraid of me from the start.” She dragged her nails up his chest as she straightened, tearing through skin, and leaving an angry scratch on his chest.

The divs cheered for her again, as if she had scored a blow in a sparring match, and she couldn't fight the flush of satisfaction that went through her—nor did she want to. When she looked up, her eyes met Azad's, and it was the same as it had been on Nog Roz, a crackle of energy passing from one to the other like lightning.

Ramin had bent his head, and his shoulders convulsed in what Soraya thought was pain—until she realized he was laughing. He looked up at her and said loudly, “You think I wasn't afraid of you? You're deluded, Soraya—I've
always
feared you. But I promised
myself I would never show fear in front of you, because how could I protect my sister from something I was scared of myself?”

She didn't want to hear Laleh's name or anything that would stop her from enjoying Azad's gift to her. But still, she asked, “What do you mean?”

“Why do you think I trailed along after you and Laleh? I couldn't stand to leave you alone with her. I saw the way your eyes followed her when she and Sorush would leave you behind in your dismal passageways—that jealous, hateful look.”

“That's not true,” Soraya snapped, but whether it was true or not, she knew Ramin didn't think he was lying. He couldn't fall back on his usual arrogant posturing anymore, and there was raw emotion in his face and voice. This was a confession: he had feared her—and he feared for Laleh.

“I've seen that look grow sharper over the years, seen the poison in you grow stronger,” Ramin continued. “I told Laleh to stay away from you, but she was too kind, or maybe she pitied you too much, so I found other ways to separate you. I knew you would hurt her one day.”

“Enough,” Soraya ordered. Each word that he spoke threatened to dim the glow of satisfaction that came from her control over him. She couldn't lose that glow—without it, she would be left in darkness.

But Ramin's voice only became louder. “I thought that would be enough to keep my family safe from you, but clearly, I was wrong. My sister spent her wedding day in tears because of you and your—”

“I said,
enough
!” Soraya shouted as she stepped forward, pulled her foot back, and aimed a hard kick at his side—at the wound.

The shout of triumph from the divs was so loud that she almost didn't hear Ramin crying out as he slumped forward. But she
did
hear it, and the sound of that cry, so agonized, so primal, brought her back to herself.

Oh no.

She had been so desperate to keep his words from reaching her, from letting him win
again,
even when he was her prisoner, that she had barely thought before reacting. Now as the words were sinking in, Soraya looked at Ramin, his eyes shut from the pain, and saw him anew. All this time, she had thought of him as her persecutor and herself as the maligned victim of his pride, intimidated into submission because she refused to hurt him. But Ramin had been living in a different story, with himself as the hero, protecting his family from a demon in their midst that only he could recognize.

Standing here in a cavern of divs with blood under her nails and on the hem of her gown, Soraya was no longer sure which story was true.

Once more, she moved toward Ramin—but this time, she bent to undo the cords around his wrists.

“What are you doing?” he asked her with surprise.

“I'm sorry,” Soraya responded, unable to look him in the eye.

Before she could even begin to loosen the cords, a hand came down on her shoulder and she froze. “Stop at once,” Azad hissed at her under his breath. “You mustn't show any weakness in front of the divs.”

She looked up at his stern face. “You said I could do whatever I wanted with him. I choose to free him.”

He shook his head. “I won't allow that.
They
won't allow that.”

Soraya looked up at the crowd of murmuring divs, craning their necks to see what violence Soraya would inflict next. “Then I want him returned to Golvahar unharmed.” She faced Ramin now, who was staring at her with a bewildered frown. “Look after them all,” she said to him in a hushed voice. “Protect them as much as you can.”

Azad took her arm and lifted her to her feet. “Go wait for me in that hall,” he whispered to her, gesturing to one of the tunnels
leading out of the cavern. With a last guilty glance at Ramin, Soraya did as he said, hurrying through the crowd. As she pushed her way through to the tunnel, she heard Azad call out, “Your champion has wisely decided to let her prisoner recover before she causes him further injury.…”

As soon as she was alone in the tunnel, Soraya leaned her head against the stone wall, taking deep, shuddering breaths. Ramin's cry of pain was still in her ears. How could she have let herself lose control like that? After so many years of holding herself back, she had lost that skill. It seemed to her sometimes that she could only ever be one thing or the other, a mouse or a viper, with nothing in between. And if that were true, then she didn't know which she would choose. Either way brought her misery and shame.

“Soraya.” Azad's hands wrapped around her arms and turned her to face him, his grip surprisingly gentle. “I gave orders for him to be returned unharmed to Golvahar.”

“Are you lying to me?”

“I swear on my throne that I'm not lying to you.”

Soraya supposed she'd have to be content with that—Azad was already leading her farther down the tunnel, away from the cavern. “Where are you taking me?” she asked.

“Somewhere you can rest safely,” he said. “I was hoping you would be pleased with my gift, but it seems to have upset you. Perhaps I gave it to you too soon.”

Not too soon, but too late,
she thought. She never would have hurt Ramin like that before the fire temple, before the dakhmeh—before she'd first learned the pleasure of lashing out.

She had assumed he would return her to her room, but they passed the now-familiar tunnel that would take them there. They kept going, higher up the mountain than she had been before. Only when he finally stopped and opened a thick iron door wedged into the door frame did Soraya understand where he had taken her.

She was in a room much larger and more lushly furnished than
her own, with a daybed and several chairs. The hard stone floor was covered in overlapping rugs, their threads worn and colors faded. A crystal chandelier lit with candles hung above a large, oval table of polished wood. A map of Atashar was laid out on the table, with carved wooden figures painted in red or white set out in different arrangements. There was even an ornate fireplace carved into one wall. A cool breeze chilled her face, and she looked up in surprise to see a window in the wall opposite. It was no more than an uneven rectangle carved into the rock, no glass to keep out the wind.

Compared to the rest of Arzur, this was a room fit for a shah.

Azad put his hands on her shoulders, and she stiffened. “Why did you bring me here?”

“I thought the fresh air would do you good,” he said. “There are no other windows in the mountain.”

She went to the window, wanting to put distance between them, and in truth, she did find the fresh air a relief. She thought she saw the dark outline of Golvahar's dome in the distance, past the brush on the south side of the mountain. The sight of it made her ache.

“That night at the dakhmeh,” Soraya said, turning to face him, “when I killed the yatu, you comforted me. You told me I had done right, that I shouldn't be ashamed. Are you going to try to do the same for me now?” She hadn't meant the question to sound like a plea, but the wavering final note in her voice was unmistakable.

He studied her, and then he said, “Is that what you want? For me to absolve you? It's easy enough. That boy deserved what you did to him tonight. They all deserve it. That's why…” He stopped, but his eyes were alight with some unknown excitement. “That's why I want you to be the one to execute your brother.”

Despite all the horrors around her, Soraya barked out a shocked laugh. “I would never kill my brother,” she said, aghast.

“That's what I once believed. But during all the time we've spent together, Soraya, one thing has become increasingly clear to me.”
He began to walk toward her, taking slow, measured steps across the room as if he would frighten her away if he moved too quickly. “I can never show myself as human in front of the divs. I don't want them to remember my origins, my weaknesses. I want them to see me at my full strength. And so I forget him sometimes, the man I used to be. I forget what he looked like, how it felt to be human. But when I'm with you, I remember.” As he continued walking toward her, the scales on his skin began to recede, his body slimming into the familiar form of his human self. “You and I don't belong fully to either world. We know what it is to be something between human and div. We know what it means to turn against families who have hurt us. That night in the throne room, I truly meant to execute your brother. But when I saw you fight back against him, I couldn't bring myself do it, because I knew that it should be you. I
want
it to be you. I've been waiting all this time for you to want it as well. Once you do this, you'll know that there's nothing you can't do. You'll be free.” He was in front of her now, fully human, vulnerable in a way Soraya hadn't understood until she had seen the veins under her skin fade away, her own armor dissolved. “And you'll rule with me, at my side, as my queen.”

She shook her head. She had heard him wrong, she thought, too distracted by seeing him human again—by the curl of his eyelashes, the bridge of his nose, the shape of his upper lip. “What are you asking me?”