Girl, Serpent, Thorn(24)

The wedding—Soraya had nearly forgotten about the wedding, let alone realized it was tomorrow. She had forgotten about everything other than her hopeless quest. But even now, the grounds below were bustling with people preparing for the wedding, setting out long trestle tables and rugs and tying crystal birds to the tree branches.

“Besides,” Azad continued, his eyes locking on hers, “I think I prefer the company of his sister. I’ve thought of you often since Nog Roz.”

A shiver went down her spine, not only because of the way his voice lowered into a caress, but also from the spiteful pleasure of knowing that someone preferred being with her over Sorush. Nothing can come of this, an insistent inner voice whispered. Even so, the novelty of Azad’s attention was thrilling enough on its own. She still remembered the feeling of his arm around her from when he had helped her on Nog Roz.

The memory sparked an idea in her mind—if he had helped her navigate one crowd, couldn’t he do so again? But could she ask this of him? He had already put his position at risk by helping her once.

“You’re thinking about something else,” Azad said. “I can see it in your eyes.”

“I was thinking about Nog Roz,” she said. “About what you did for me then.”

“The div? Did she tell you what you wanted to hear?”

She took a breath, wondering how much to tell him, how much he deserved to know. But she remembered Parvaneh’s warning not to tell anyone—including a certain handsome soldier. “No,” she said. “I didn’t like what she had to say. But I think there may be another way.”

“What is it?”

Soraya hesitated again, but the pull to the dakhmeh was as strong as the pull to the dungeon. She hadn’t spared Azad then, and she knew she wouldn’t now, either—especially not when it provided such a perfect excuse to keep him close to her. “I have to go to the dakhmeh,” she answered. “I’m hoping to find a yatu there who might have the answers I’m looking for.”

She expected him to argue or stare at her in disbelief, but in the silence that followed, he only frowned in thought. Finally, he said, “I don’t want you to go alone. Would you let me come with you?”

She almost laughed in relief. “I do need help getting out of the palace and through the city. I wouldn’t ask you to come inside the dakhmeh—”

“You don’t have to ask,” he said. He took a step toward her, closing the already short distance between them, and clasped one of her gloved hands. “This is what I always wanted—to save you.” Slowly, never taking his eyes off her, he brought her hand to his lips.

His courtly action should have moved or thrilled her, but the dulled feeling of his lips on her gloved hand only sharpened the reality of their situation. He still thinks this is a story, and I’m letting him do so for my own sake. He was saying all the right words, making all the right gestures, almost as if he had practiced them in his head a hundred times—which he probably had. And even though Soraya knew better, she hadn’t stopped him, letting him play the hero despite the risk to his safety and position in court.

“This was a mistake,” she said, as much to herself as to him. She pulled her hand away.

He shook his head, a flicker of worry in his eye. “What do you mean? Have I offended you?”

“Not at all,” she said. “But you can’t save me, Azad. And I shouldn’t ask it of you, either. I think we both see each other as something a little less than real.” She looked down at her gloved hands, at the loose threads of her sleeves, picked apart during moments of thwarted anger. “I can’t promise that I’ll be what you want me to be at the end of this,” she said quietly.

He started to disagree, but then he stopped and looked at her, and he sighed. “You may be right,” he said. “I suppose I wanted to remember what it was like—to live in a palace, to be a part of a court, to feel like a hero again.”

“Again?”

He ran a hand through his curls, his shoulders tensing, and Soraya felt like she was seeing him for the first time—not as a brave hero or her dashing rescuer, but as a young man with burdens of his own.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve moved up or down in society,” he said, bitterness lacing his words. “I told you, I think, that my father was a merchant. He was a very successful one, and he was often a guest in the palaces of satraps and the estates of the bozorgan. Sometimes he would take me with him, and I suppose I began to feel like I was one of them, like I belonged there. But then my father made some bad investments and fell out of favor. We were cast out. I lost everything I had, everything I believed I was.”

“Your father,” she said, “is he…”

“Dead?” He looked her in the eye, not flinching from the word. “Yes. He died shortly after our disgrace. I lived on my own in the village we ran to until the divs came and slaughtered half the villagers.” He paused, his eyes flickering to the ground. “It seems wrong, but sometimes I still feel such anger toward him, for all the things he couldn’t be. For the ways he failed me.”

His fists clenched at his sides, and Soraya saw the veins on his knuckles stand out as he fought down his anger. She wanted to trace them with her fingers, to feel the shape of someone else’s anger, someone else’s pain. She thought of the look they had shared after he had struck Ramin, the sense of connection between them. It was when they let each other see their harsh edges that they both felt real.