Girl, Serpent, Thorn

by Melissa Bashardoust

  The security of this room gave Soraya hope—perhaps he was going to take her to the feather now after all.

  But when the two of them stepped inside, all thought of the feather briefly fled Soraya’s mind. Everywhere Soraya looked were relics of the past—vases and painted jars, goblets and gold-rimmed dishes, tapestries and piles of coins. And all of them bore the image of the same man—Azad, before his transformation.

  She walked up to a tapestry hanging on the wall to study the image of a young man hunting. She recognized him from the profile that she had found so beautiful, her eyes tracing the curve of his neck up to his face. He was riding a horse, a bow pulled taut in his hands, with a fierce look in his eye—a hunter tracking his prey. She knew that look. She had seen it on that first day, when he had spotted her on the roof.

  When she turned to face him again, he was watching her. And even though he was as monstrous as ever, he seemed pathetic to her then, standing in the middle of this shrine to his lost humanity.

  “Look around you,” he said. “What do you see?”

  “You.”

  “What else?”

  She walked around the cavern, eyes glancing over the hoard of useless treasure, at the image of Azad engraved and carved and painted on each relic. She found a plate on the ground, chipped around the edges, but with a clear image of Azad in the center, and she picked it up, frowning. It was a garden scene, etched in gold. Azad was seated on a rug, under the shade of the pavilion, and all around the pavilion were rosebushes. She brushed one of the roses with her thumb, and the indentations of the petals felt like a spiral.

  What else?

  I see a selfish child who betrayed his family.

  I see a demon in the making.

  Soraya’s hands clenched tighter over the plate. She had the urge to throw it to the ground or dash it against the wall. She wanted to destroy everything in this room, not stopping until the images were unrecognizable and there were no longer any surfaces in which to see her reflection.

  She didn’t hear Azad coming nearer, but he was suddenly in front of her, prying the gold plate from her grip as if he sensed what she wanted to do to it. “You’d like to know more about who I am, who I used to be? You already know him. You are him.”

  “Why did you do it?” she asked, looking up at him. It was one of the questions she had planned to ask to guide the conversation, but now she found that she truly, desperately wanted to know the answer. “What made you decide to destroy your family?”

  He sighed and turned away from her, moving toward a pile of rolled-up rugs and tapestries. He knocked the pile down with one wave of his arm and picked up the tapestry at the very bottom. He gestured for Soraya to come see, and unrolled the tapestry along the ground.

  Soraya came to his side and looked down at the woven image before her. A shah, middle-aged and full-bearded, sat in a throne at the center of the tapestry. Surrounding him were five younger men of different heights and ages. Soraya looked at each one in turn, but none of them resembled Azad. All along the edge of the tapestry were dark singe marks, as if someone had decided to burn it but then changed his mind, several times.

  “Are … are those…?” Soraya couldn’t finish the question, unsure of what reaction it would draw from him.

  “My father and brothers,” Azad said.

  “Was this before you were born?”

  He snorted. “No,” he said. “I was the youngest, still a child, but that’s not why I’m missing. All five of my brothers were destined to rule—the eldest as shah, the younger four as satraps of rich provinces. But I was born under bad stars. The astrologist told my father that if I ever ruled even the smallest province, dire consequences would follow. My father took this advice very seriously. While I watched my brothers become the princes they were meant to be, I was allowed no battle training, no education in affairs of state, no sense of my future at all.” He kicked the tapestry aside, letting the edges curl up over his dead brothers’ faces. “I wanted so much to prove the stars wrong. I used to stay up through the night and read in secret or practice on the training grounds on my own, desperate for any opportunity to impress my father. He was never cruel to me, but I knew how he must have seen me. I knew that I was…”

  He trailed off, unable to find the words, and so Soraya provided them: “You were your family’s shame.” No wonder he had found her so easily at Golvahar. He knew where to look for someone who felt unwanted.

  Something strange happened then. Perhaps Soraya only imagined it, but for a moment, Azad’s eyes changed—no longer cold and yellow, but the rich brown she remembered. And in that brief time, she saw in them the kind of self-loathing that seemed exclusively human. Once more, she became aware of the patches of skin showing through the scales, the pieces of Azad that refused to be swallowed up by the demon. She wondered if his transformation was even complete, or if he still woke sometimes to find another patch of skin covered in scales, another piece of himself gone.

  “And then I met the div,” he continued, his voice hardening. “It’s much as you once told me—one night, when I went out riding in secret, I caught a div. But I didn’t want to take her to the palace with me yet. Instead, I kept the div trapped in a cave, and I returned every night to learn her secrets, hoping that I would discover something invaluable to present to my father. But you know as well as I do that when you learn a div’s secrets, the div learns your secrets, too. The div became my most constant companion, and so when she began to tell me that I would be a better ruler than my father or any of my brothers, I believed her. When she told me how furious I must be at my treatment, I became furious. She made me question whether the astrologist’s warning was even true, or if my father was lying to me for his own purposes.” He took a halting breath before continuing. “And so I approached a faction of powerful nobles and soldiers opposed to my father’s rule, and suggested they should help me replace him. I had decided that if I could not rule with the blessing of my father or the stars, I would defy them all, no matter whose blood I had to spill.”

  Soraya didn’t know where to look—everywhere, she saw Azad, and so everywhere, she saw herself. She shut her eyes, but in the darkness behind her eyelids, she saw the young man she had known with blood on his hands, slaughtering everyone in his path to the throne. She tore her mind away from the image, reminding herself of her plan to find the feather.

  She opened her eyes and asked, “And how did you … When did you become…?”

  He hesitated, and when he spoke, his voice was hushed, like that of a child telling a secret. “I asked for this,” he said. “After my father’s and brothers’ deaths, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep control of Atashar. I had so little education on the subject, so I asked the div what I should do. She told me to tear out the heart of a div, and to bathe in the blood from that heart. I didn’t want to kill the div I had, and so I hunted down another, one with scales and claws and wings. I didn’t realize what would happen. I didn’t know…” He looked down at his hands—clawed and scaled, gnarled and bloodstained—and then looked up at Soraya, eyes pleading for understanding.

  And she did understand, of course. It was so easy to imagine their places switched. She knew, too, why he had been so affected on the night of the dakhmeh, when she told him his story. Because it was not just his story that he heard, but his fears, his own strangled heartbeat, echoing back to him from someone else for the first time.

  “You appeared as a human to me,” she said, returning to her plan. “Why don’t you do so all the time? Why would you choose to live as a div instead of a human?”

  From the way Azad avoided her eye, she could tell he didn’t want her to know the answer. “I tried, for a time,” he said. “But the effect is temporary, and the price is not always easy to obtain.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “The blood from a div’s heart made me a div. I thought, then, that the opposite might be true as well.”

  “The oppo
site—?” Soraya’s eyes widened in understanding. “Blood from a human heart?”

  “Yes,” he admitted. “And it did work, but as I said, only for a short time. Little more than a month before I would need to repeat the process.”

  Soraya grimaced and covered her mouth with her hand, remembering one of the more gruesome parts of the Shahmar’s story—that he would demand the sacrifice of two men every month, seemingly for no reason. And in a strange way, Soraya was grateful for the knowledge. The image of the ill-omened boy had become too strong and too familiar in her mind. She needed a reminder of his blood-soaked reign.

  But then an even more unsavory truth occurred to her. “That means that before you returned to Golvahar, before I first saw you, you must have…”

  He nodded. “I can still change form, but it will wear off soon.” He had been avoiding her eye, but now he looked at her, and he bristled at the revulsion on her face. “Besides, to live as a human would mean living as no one, as nothing, the way I once was. If that’s a human life, then I prefer to live as I am. As the Shahmar, I have the power to command a shah to his knees.”

  The image of Sorush kneeling before him sent a welcome burst of anger through her, and before she could stop herself, she said, “And as the Shahmar, you lost your throne.”

  One of his hands clenched and unclenched at his side. In a cold voice, he said, “There’s something you haven’t asked me yet, Soraya.”

  Soraya’s pulse quickened. Had he seen through her line of questioning? Did he know she was going to ask about the feather next? “What question is that?”

  “Ask me for the name of the div who turned me into the Shahmar.”

  If Soraya felt a prickle of foreboding at his words, she ignored it in favor of relief that he didn’t know her true purpose. “Fine, then. What’s the name of the div who turned you into the Shahmar?”

  His mouth twisted into a thin, cruel smile as he pronounced the name that Soraya should have expected, because it was the only name that would have meant anything to her, the name that would hurt her most:

  “Parvaneh.”

  21

  In her room once more, Soraya tried to erase Azad’s words from her mind.

  Ask me for the name of the div who turned me into the Shahmar.

  She had wanted to deny it, but the more she considered it, the more it made sense. This was why Azad hunted down and captured pariks. This was why the other pariks shunned Parvaneh—and why she was so desperate to defeat the Shahmar. Parvaneh had done to Azad what Azad had done to Soraya. Soraya wasn’t surprised, then, that he still hadn’t forgiven her.

  Azad had returned her to her room, promising to return again the next night. And now Soraya sat at her table, the candelabra on the end closest to her, waiting for Parvaneh to appear.

  “Any luck?”

  Soraya’s head snapped up at the sound of Parvaneh’s voice. She was no longer wearing the worn shift from her captivity, but a shimmery gray tunic with a slit in the back for her wings. Had she been Azad’s prisoner ever since he had been a young prince, still human? No wonder, then, that there was an effusive energy around her now that she was free, her eyes bright and smiling.

  “No,” Soraya said. “Not yet. I think he’s beginning to trust me, though. He told me a great deal about himself.”

  The smile in Parvaneh’s eyes wavered. “Did he? Anything useful?”

  “In a way.”

  Parvaneh turned away from her, arms crossing over her chest as she looked around the cavern. “Being here makes me feel like a prisoner again,” she said. “Is it safe for you to sneak out to the forest?”

  She almost said no to be contrary—or to punish Parvaneh for her deception. But she knew staying here would be more of a punishment for herself. Unlike Parvaneh, Soraya couldn’t come and go anytime she liked.

  They left the mountain the same way as before, using the cloak and the secret escape tunnel. When they were outside, Parvaneh led her through the trees, back to the grove of hornbeams. There, a small fire was burning on the ground, and a number of dark moths fluttered around it, drawn to its light. Soraya hadn’t known Parvaneh would bring her back to this spot, and her face warmed from the memory of last night. Was she destined always to grow close to people who would betray her? Or perhaps the problem was that she wasn’t growing close to people, but to demons.

  A mossy log lay beside the fire, and Soraya sat down at one end of it, watching the moths dance around the flames. Parvaneh sat beside her, close enough for their shoulders to touch and said, “I have something for you. A gift.”

  Soraya was tempted to say that she didn’t want anything Parvaneh offered—or to ask her whether she had thought she was giving Azad a gift, too, when she convinced him to murder his family. But before she could say anything, Parvaneh was holding out the gift: a sprig of white hyacinth.

  “That’s from Golvahar,” Soraya said, reaching to take it. She instinctively brushed it against her cheek, the familiar scent and feel making her eyes sting with tears. “You went back?”

  Parvaneh nodded. “I wanted to know what the Shahmar was doing during the day—he’s been holding audiences with the nobility, offering them gifts and land to solidify their loyalty. Some of them have refused, but the ones who agreed are granted more freedom of movement. Some have even been allowed to leave the palace with their families. He’s also been sending divs out into the city to patrol the streets. Many of the buildings are damaged, but the people are safe for now. I think they’re trying to go about their days without attracting any attention.” She paused, and glancing at the hyacinth in Soraya’s hands, she said, “I checked to make sure your family was safe too. They’re locked in a wing of the palace, but they seemed unharmed from what I could see. And then I couldn’t resist bringing something back for you.”

  Soraya looked at her in surprise, forgetting Azad’s revelation and her feelings of betrayal. Parvaneh had risked returning to the place of her captivity, risked doing so when Azad was still there, even risked changing forms, to bring Soraya some peace of mind—and a reminder of home. She stared down at the hyacinth in her hands, unable to look at Parvaneh. “You endangered yourself, your freedom, for—” For me.

  Parvaneh brushed some of Soraya’s hair away, her fingertips lingering on Soraya’s neck. “You have faith in me,” she said softly. “It’s been a long time since anyone has. I wish I could give you more.”

  Soraya lifted her head and froze as she found Parvaneh closer to her than she had expected, their faces mere breaths apart. Parvaneh’s eyes were on Soraya’s lips, and Soraya couldn’t bring herself to move away as Parvaneh leaned closer—as their lips met.

  Her kiss with Azad had been devouring, almost violent, but this was different, delicate—as delicate as a moth’s wing. Soraya felt like a cat stretched out in a patch of sunlight, luxuriating in the softness of Parvaneh’s mouth, in the slow drag of Parvaneh’s fingertips along the length of her neck. Parvaneh seemed to be trying to memorize the feel of Soraya’s skin, and Soraya, remembering the sight of her tattered wings, wondered when Parvaneh had last experienced any kind of touch that was not in violence.

  But that thought only made her remember the violence that Parvaneh herself had done.

  Soraya broke off abruptly, standing and practically bolting to the other side of the fire, away from Parvaneh.

  “Is something wrong?” Parvaneh asked with a tilt of her head. Her voice went cold as she asked, “Do you wish I were him instead?”

  Soraya shot her an incredulous glare. “Of course not,” she said. “I only wish you were who I thought you were.”

  “And who is that?”

  “Someone without blood on her hands.”

  Parvaneh hesitated before replying, “What is this about?”

  Soraya shook her head. “You’re only asking me that because you don’t want to give away your secret unless you have to. But maybe if you had told me, if you hadn’t let me hear it from him—”

  “Hear
what, Soraya? The Shahmar is a liar, in case you haven’t noticed. He might have told you any number of terrible things about me. He and I have known each other a long time, and we’ve seen the worst in each other. I didn’t know you expected me to give you a full account of so many years.”

  “Not a full account,” Soraya said. “Only the beginning. You were the div who convinced him to murder his family. You were the div who turned him into a monster in every way. All of this is your fault!”

  “I know it’s my fault!” Parvaneh snapped, rising to her feet. “Why do you think I’m trying so hard to fix my mistake? I’m the reason my sisters have had to go into hiding. They won’t even take me back until I’ve repaired the damage I’ve done. And this is the first time I’ve even come close to stopping him, because I’ve been his prisoner for over a century!” Her anger dissipated, her face contorting in pain as her wings drooped behind her. When she was composed again, she said, “At first, I didn’t tell you because you were my only chance at freedom, and at stopping the Shahmar. Then you defended me to Parisa and the others…” She looked away, avoiding Soraya’s gaze. “I didn’t want you to regret that decision, or to look at me the way they do. I wanted you to keep looking at me the way you did last night.”

  Soraya wrapped her arms around her waist and looked down at the ground. She didn’t know what Parvaneh would see on her face right now, and so she didn’t want to look at her at all, not until she sorted through her feelings. “What made you do it?” she said to the ground, an echo of the question she had asked Azad. “Why did you tell him to kill his family?”

  “I didn’t tell him to kill anyone, not directly. He had captured me, bound my wings so I couldn’t transform, and refused to release me until I told him something useful. So I did what any div would do—I tried to destroy him, however I could. I sought out his weaknesses, his insecurities, and I reminded him of them at every opportunity. I didn’t know what he would choose to do.”