Girl, Serpent, Thorn(37)

She wanted to linger, but she took back her hand and said, “It has to be now, while the priests are occupied and the temple is unguarded.”

They went together to the low hill behind the palace. Azad offered to take the urn from her, but she refused; she wanted something to hold on to. They did encounter a few palace attendants on their way, but they were all so preoccupied with the wedding that they hurried past Soraya and Azad without a glance, never noticing the way Soraya’s hands were trembling, or the dark green lines spread out over her skin.

They ascended the stairs cut into the hill, and when they reached the top, they came face-to-face with the only other two people in Golvahar not attending the wedding.

Soraya had been right that the priests would be in the garden, but she hadn’t considered that there would be guards watching over the fire in their stead.

Azad, however, didn’t seem surprised at all. “I’ll handle this,” he murmured to Soraya, and he went forward with a wave to approach the two guards. Soraya exhaled in relief, thankful once again for Azad’s special status among the azatan. He was better than any key.

She watched Azad greet the two men, putting his hand on the shoulder of the guard on the right as he continued speaking. And then she saw him reach for something at his side, something tucked away in the folds of his tunic—something that glinted sharply in the white spring sun.

Azad struck so quickly, so smoothly, that when the guard on the right let out a cry of surprise and clutched at his side, staggering to his knees, the other guard didn’t realize what had happened. He hadn’t seen the edge of Azad’s dagger find its way in the gap between the first guard’s armor plates, digging into his flesh. But Soraya had—and she was frozen in horror even as she knew what would happen next.

The second guard knelt down to inspect the first, and before he could see the blood seeping through the injured man’s fingers and know that he’d been stabbed, Azad struck again—this time for the throat.

The second guard fell to the ground instantly, and while his life bled out of him, Azad finished the first guard with another slash to the throat. By the time he returned to Soraya’s side, both men were dead.

Azad put a hand on her shoulder, and she flinched violently and rounded on him. “What did you do? I thought you were going to talk to them and get us inside the temple, not slaughter them!”

“And then what would have happened?” Azad shot back. There was a smear of blood on his cheek, but he was otherwise unaffected—there was only conviction in his eyes, cold and determined. “Do you think they would have let us simply walk away once they found out what we had done? I asked if you were ready for the consequences, Soraya. And some part of you knows I’m right, or else you wouldn’t have stood there and let me do it.”

Whatever argument she wanted to make died on her tongue. He was right, of course—she had seen him take the dagger from his tunic, and she had said nothing, done nothing. She had let it happen as if it were unavoidable, because she knew that if she stopped him, they would fail before even entering the temple. No, it wasn’t that he had killed them that bothered her—it was that he had done it so well.

She nodded to him in concession, and without speaking again of the dead men on the ground, they continued into the fire temple.

Soraya saw the flicker of the Royal Fire in its silver urn behind the iron grate, and she felt the flame inside of her, too, burning her from the inside out. This is a mistake, the fire was warning her, but if she turned back now, those two guards would have died for nothing. It was too late for regrets.

Azad remained outside the temple entrance, both keeping guard and giving Soraya some privacy, as Soraya walked up to the grate and slid it open. The smell of esfand and sandalwood was almost overpowering as she stepped onto the pedestal and felt the heat of the fire on her face. She looked into the heart of it, searching for some sign of the simorgh’s feather embedded in the flames, a mother’s protection for her son.

The thought made her bristle, and her anger from this morning flared up again, replacing the dread that had begun to creep over her when she saw the fire. All these years, she had tried to be a good daughter, a good sister. She’d made it so easy for her family to forget and ignore her existence, folding herself away without complaint. Even as she had tried to find a way to lift this curse, she had told herself that she had been doing it in part for her family, so she would no longer be a shadow over them. But she could no longer lie to herself. If she put out the Royal Fire, it would be an act of pure selfishness, designed to benefit herself and no one else.

And just this once, she wanted to be selfish.

She raised the urn full of water over the fire and poured. The water hit the fire with the hiss of a serpent, and steam immediately billowed around her. When it cleared, the fire was gone, leaving only ashes. The urn fell from Soraya’s shaking hands and shattered on the ground. Before she could think too hard about what she had done, Soraya dug her hands into the ashes, her gloves becoming streaked with soot.

And there, buried under the ashes, was a flash of color. Soraya brushed aside the rest of the ash and uncovered the simorgh’s feather, mostly green but tipped with vibrant orange. It was unburned and unstained, as if it had just been plucked from the simorgh herself.

Soraya removed her gloves and gently lifted the feather, holding it across her palms like it might crumble into ash—as punishment, perhaps, for this ultimate betrayal.