Girl, Serpent, Thorn

by Melissa Bashardoust

  A low growl escaped his throat. “When did you find the other pariks? You freed them, too, didn’t you?”

  Soraya nodded. “The first night, after you left. Parvaneh took me into the forest and we found them … and I freed them.”

  “And where are they now?”

  “I don’t know,” Soraya said, thankful it was true. “They all left together, but I don’t know where they went.”

  He released her face and turned away from her with another heavy sigh, his hands running over his head where his hair had once been. “I don’t know what to do with you now, Soraya,” he said, a note of regret in his voice.

  Soraya was on the verge of tears. She had spoiled everything because of one thoughtless moment. How had Azad managed to fool her for so long without letting his mask slip? She had started to see it at one point—she had realized that he was playing a part, telling her what she wanted to hear. Then he had told her the story of his merchant father, and she had believed him again—because even though the details weren’t true, his resentment was. That was the trick of it, then—to sharpen lies with the truth.

  She swallowed down her fear and approached him, her hands resting on his back. He went rigid under her touch, but she took a breath and said, “When I freed her, I didn’t know what she had done to you. She lied to me, fooled me as she fooled you.” He didn’t respond, but he didn’t pull away, either, and so she moved around him so that they were facing each other. “I was furious with her when I found out. Whatever alliance we once had is over.”

  From his long silence, his searching stare, she knew that he wanted to believe her. Finally, he said, “Why should I trust you?”

  Soraya shut her eyes, the flickering flame of a candle appearing in her mind. “Because I can give her to you,” she said, the words scraping her throat. It was the worst betrayal she could think of, but it was also the only solution to make Azad trust her again.

  She opened her eyes to find him watching her with curiosity.

  “How?” he said.

  “She always comes to my room after you leave for Golvahar. If you hide there, you can catch her when she appears.”

  “And you would be content with this?”

  Soraya nodded, thankful now that she had become so adept at pushing down her emotions over the years. “I don’t care what happens to her.”

  Azad abruptly left her side and went to an iron chest against the wall. He retrieved something from it, and when he returned, Soraya saw he had a coil of rope around his arm. He had captured me, bound my wings so I couldn’t transform, she remembered Parvaneh telling her. Azad went to the door and gestured for her to follow.

  “Now?” Soraya said, her voice going up an octave.

  He looked at her coolly. “Why not? The time for her arrival is near. If you meant what you said, there’s no reason to wait.”

  Soraya followed him out into the tunnels, walking quickly to keep up with his determined stride. “What are you planning to do with her?” she asked.

  “You said you didn’t care what happens to her,” Azad answered, and Soraya went quiet.

  He won’t kill her, she reminded herself. Parvaneh had told her that he always captured pariks rather than kill them. He probably would keep her unconscious, as he had done with the others. But what if she was wrong and he preferred to kill Parvaneh rather than risk her escaping again? What if he kept her alive but tore her wings, or found other ways to harm her? Soraya’s stomach twisted with nausea. Perhaps if she used the candle to signal to Parvaneh that it wasn’t safe, then she would understand not to appear, and Soraya could tell him that they’d fought, and that Parvaneh had abandoned her.

  Soraya practiced the conversation in her head, and by the time they reached her room, she was calmer.

  Before Azad’s banquet, she had left the candelabra at the far end of the table—the signal for Parvaneh not to appear—and it remained there still. As long as Soraya didn’t move it, she could pretend that Parvaneh should have come by now. She gestured to a shadowy part of her room beyond the table where Azad could hide, and he nodded, tightening the rope between his hands.

  “She may not come,” Soraya said quickly. “We fought the last time we spoke. I told her I was finished with her.”

  Azad laughed softly and took Soraya’s head in his hands, the rope around his wrist scratching her cheek. “I hope that isn’t the case, Soraya. Because if she doesn’t appear tonight, I’ll think you were lying to me, and I’ll have to take measures to ensure that you don’t betray me again. What was it you said before? That as long as I have your family, you’re under my control? I’ll make you a deal, then. If I capture Parvaneh tonight, I will let your family live—other than your brother, of course. But if Parvaneh doesn’t appear tonight, or if she escapes me, then I will start to kill them one by one every time you defy me, beginning with your brother’s pretty bride.”

  He released her face and went to conceal himself in the shadowed alcove, only the yellow of his eyes revealing his position. Soraya fought to control her breathing as she counted one, two, three seconds. She stepped forward and slid the candelabra across the table to rest in front of her.

  A few seconds passed, and Soraya felt more and more ill with each one. Her vision was blurring, and her mouth was bitter with the taste of bile. She kept hearing Parvaneh’s voice in her mind, asking, Are you still with me? She wished she had said yes—full-heartedly, in every way possible, yes. She wished she had one more memory of joy between them before she would have to see the hurt and betrayal in those eyes that had captivated Soraya from the start.

  From the corner of her vision, Soraya saw a flutter of wings, and then Parvaneh appeared beside the table, her back—her wings—to Azad.

  Soraya wanted to say something to warn her, or to apologize at least, but any indication of loyalty to Parvaneh would make Azad suspicious.

  Parvaneh shook her head slightly. “What’s the matter, Soraya? Are you still angry with me?” At the same time, Soraya saw Azad peel away from the shadows, approaching silently with the rope taut between his hands.

  “Of course I’m still angry with you,” Soraya said. Despite her effort to muster some conviction, her voice sounded lifeless. “You lied to me.”

  As if he had been waiting to hear Soraya say those words first, Azad struck, lunging forward to bind Parvaneh’s wings with the rope with expert speed. Parvaneh thrashed and struggled against him, but he used the rope to pull Parvaneh back against him as they tightened around her wings, and one of his hands came to encircle her throat, holding her head still.

  Soraya couldn’t stop a tear from running down her cheek as she stood rigidly apart from the two of them, her hands clenched at her sides. She couldn’t speak—if she opened her mouth, the words I’m sorry would spill out.

  “Parvaneh,” Azad said, the name a low growl in his throat. “Haven’t you missed me? We’ve been together so long, I can’t imagine what you would do without me.”

  With his hand still around her throat, Parvaneh choked out a laugh. “Do you think I care what you do to me? I’ve freed my sisters from you. That’s all that matters to me.”

  “I’ll simply hunt them down again. It’s been at least a year since I caught one of you—I was starting to grow bored.”

  He pushed her forward, and she landed on the ground in front of Soraya, her wings tightly bound behind her, still connected to the rope in Azad’s hand. I could unbind her, Soraya thought. If I do it quickly enough, she can transform—and then Laleh would die, followed by the others.

  Parvaneh pushed herself up and looked at Soraya through a sheet of black hair. “You’ve made your choice, then,” she said. “I knew you would join him in the end.”

  Soraya frowned, her confusion genuine. “What do you mean?”

  Parvaneh laughed again but her eyes were hard and cold. “You’re too alike. I’ve known it since the dungeon. Every time I spoke to you, it was like speaking to him, all those years ago. I thought I could stop yo
u from making his mistakes, but I should have known it was pointless.” Her face twisted into a grimace. “You deserve each other.”

  “On your feet.” Azad tugged sharply on the rope, and Parvaneh hissed in pain. “You’ve said enough.”

  “Congratulations, Azad,” she said, his name sounding like an insult on her tongue as she rose to her feet. Even though she addressed Azad, her eyes remained on Soraya as she spoke. “You finally found someone as wretched and despicable as you are. I would keep her close if I were you.”

  The sting of Parvaneh’s words was all the more painful considering how close Soraya had come to succumbing to Azad tonight. Was there truth in what she was saying, or was she only speaking out of anger, lashing out because she had been betrayed? Soraya trembled with the effort of not speaking, knowing that if she challenged Parvaneh now or told her how wrong she was, Azad would know her true loyalties.

  “I’m sorry it happened this way,” was all she could trust herself to say in a small, shaky voice.

  “I’m sure you are,” Parvaneh replied with a sneer.

  Azad held her by the back of her neck and guided her toward the door. Anger spiked through Soraya as she watched his smug, retreating form. He owned her now. The only way she could ever escape him was to cut her heartstrings and abandon all the people she had betrayed.

  Before he led Parvaneh out, Azad turned back to Soraya and said, “You’ve proven yourself to me tonight, in more ways than one. I’ll return tomorrow.” He left her then, taking Parvaneh with him.

  Soraya couldn’t move. She stood rooted to where she was standing, as if time would stop if she simply never moved again. Her anger had faded now, snuffed out as soon as Azad and Parvaneh were gone. She had always wanted to extinguish the persistent spark of anger that burned deep in her heart, so sure that it would turn her into a monster. She hadn’t realized that her anger could only exist because she still had hope. Once hope was gone, there was no point in fighting, and so she had no need for anger anymore.

  Soraya finally found a reason to move. She went to the table and blew out the candles, leaving her in darkness.

  * * *

  Without even the candles to help her determine the passage of time, Soraya had no idea how long she had been lying curled up on the ground, hot tears pouring out of her tightly shut eyes. She wished for sleep, for a temporary reprieve from thought and memory, but instead, she spent the time sinking into a kind of waking nightmare, too awake to find peace, but too exhausted in every possible way to pull herself out of it.

  After what must have been hours, Soraya managed to open her eyes and found two round orange beams pointed at her.

  She sat up in a flurry of groggy confusion, her head aching. It was too dark to see anything except for the orange lights glowing at her from the direction of the table. The orange lights emitted a low, hooting sound, and Soraya understood.

  “Parisa?” she whispered.

  The lights went out, and a dim, shadowy figure stood at the table. Parisa lit the candles with the flint beside it and, newly illuminated, faced Soraya with an accusing stare. “Where is Parvaneh?”

  The name made her wince. “You shouldn’t be here,” Soraya said as she rose to her feet. “He might return.”

  “It’s still day. He never returns until dusk. Where is Parvaneh?”

  “Why do you even care what happens to her? You cast her out.”

  The eerie orange glow of her eyes dimmed a little, her wings bristling behind her. “She’s still our sister,” she said with a note of irritation. “We keep track of her movements. She entered Arzur last night by the pariks’ passage, but she never returned.” Parisa took a step toward her. “Where is Parvaneh?” she said again, emphasizing each word.

  Soraya had to look away from her insistent stare before she could answer. “I don’t know,” she said. “He captured her.” I betrayed her. “I don’t know where he took her—or if she’s even alive.”

  “She’s alive,” Parisa said, and Soraya looked up at her with the first semblance of hope she’d felt since last night. “We would know if she had died, or if another parik had risen.”

  Soraya let out a heavy sigh, relief bubbling through her—until Parisa stepped closer to Soraya and held out her hand, palm upward. “Here,” she said. “Take this and use it to find her.”

  In the dim light, Parisa’s hand appeared empty, and Soraya had to squint before she saw the few dark tendrils of hair across her palm. Hair? She was confused until she remembered what her mother had told her—how she had burned a lock of Parisa’s hair to speak to her in a dream. Soraya’s chest tightened. “No,” she said in a rasp. “I can’t. You do it.”

  Parisa shook her head. “It will only work with a human.”

  Soraya started to reach for the lock of hair, but the memory of Parvaneh’s furious, glowing eyes burning at her through a sheet of that same hair made Soraya physically recoil from Parisa’s outstretched hand and sink back into herself the way she had always done. Her arms wrapped around her waist, her shoulders hunched over, her hair falling down around her face. Poison, she thought. I’ll always be poison.

  “She won’t want to speak to me,” Soraya said. “I’m the reason she was captured.”

  She peeked up through her hair, expecting Parisa’s eyes to go cold or angry, for her fist to close, but she mostly seemed impatient. “Yes, and Parvaneh is the reason we were captured, but that never stopped her from trying to find us again.” With her other hand, she took Soraya’s chin and lifted it, so they were eye to eye. “Even if she’s upset with you now, if you do right by her, she will forgive you.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to be forgiven,” Soraya said, pulling away from Parisa’s hand. “Maybe I just want to be forgotten.”

  And now Parisa’s frown deepened into a look of disgust. “Then what do you plan to do?” she asked, her voice stern. “Are you still going to bring us the simorgh’s feather?”

  Soraya looked away. “Every mistake I’ve made has come from trying to find that damned feather at any cost. I’m finished planning.”

  Parisa was silent at first, then shook her head slowly. “You should be angry.”

  Soraya laughed harshly and shrank even further into herself. “Do you think that would do any good? I’ve been angry my entire life, and all it’s done is twist me into something as terrible and violent as he is.” Memories flashed through her mind—the yatu’s face draining of all life, her brother on his knees, Ramin’s agonized scream. And at the heart of it all was a little girl with green veins looking at an illustration in a book, seeing a prince with scales growing over his skin, and knowing that they were the same. You deserve each other.

  Shame flooded her, and she buried her head in her hands, trying to make the memories stop. Parisa took her hands and brought them down from her face. She held them tight, her gaze as sharp and knowing as that of the bird she resembled.

  “You say you’ve been angry, that you’ve hurt others, that you’ve become something violent like him,” Parisa said. “Very well, then. Be angry. Be violent. But not for his sake. Not to do as he commands. Be angry for yourself. Use that rage to fight him.”

  Soraya shook her head. “It’s too late. My mother was right to make me poisonous—I see that now. I can’t fight anyone like this.”

  “Your mother fought him. She outsmarted him by bringing you to me and asking me for protection. If you truly are like her, as you told me you were, then you’ll find a way to outsmart him, too. Be clever. Be patient. Keep that anger close to you, nourish it like a flame, and when the time is right, fight him however you can. No one is untouchable, Soraya.”

  Her hands slipped out of Soraya’s and she turned and went to the door, opening it before becoming an owl and flying into the darkness of the tunnels.

  Soraya stood there alone awhile longer, looking down at her hands—open but not empty.

  25

  As the smell of burning hair filled the cavern, Soraya inhaled deeply, breathing i
n the smoke. She had spent several minutes staring down at the strands of hair that Parisa had left for her, but in the end, she knew that the only thing more unforgivable than betraying Parvaneh would be to give up without even trying to free her.

  When the hair had finished burning, Soraya lay back on her straw mattress and tried to will herself to sleep. Eventually, her breathing slowed and her thoughts became hazy and disconnected as her dreaming mind took over. Parvaneh, she thought. I have to speak to Parvaneh.

  She knew where her dream had taken her before she even opened her eyes again. The air around her was chill and slightly damp, and when she breathed, she smelled esfand.

  Golvahar. She was in the dungeon of Golvahar. She kept her eyes shut tight, not yet ready to face the home she had betrayed, but they filled with tears anyway. Tears of relief or regret, she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t even sure she had a right to call Golvahar home anymore.

  She pushed self-pity aside, reminding herself that she had come here with a purpose, and that Parvaneh would find no comfort in being locked up in her former prison. Soraya opened her eyes and sat up from the cold, stony ground. She couldn’t see much—the entire cavern was swirling with misty gray smoke, so thick that it obscured her vision, though strangely enough, she had no trouble breathing.

  When her eyes adjusted enough to see the shape of bars in the distance, she rose and went toward them. As she came up to them, though, her foot met something hard. When she looked down, she found a row of dim orange lights hidden deep under the layers of smoke. She bent down, hoping they were the braziers with the esfand. There were at least five of them, enough to ensure that Parvaneh would be completely weakened, if not fully unconscious. Her hand met the metal of the brazier, but to her surprise, it wasn’t hot, or even warm, to the touch. It was solid under her fingers, but it didn’t feel like anything at all, as if she were touching it in a dream—which, she supposed, she was. When she tried to lift or move it, it wouldn’t budge, and so she gave up on trying to put out the smoke and went on toward the bars, feeling for them with her hands.