Girl, Serpent, Thorn(40)

Soraya turned away, feeling no right to witness his last breaths. Hadn’t she fantasized about killing him only weeks ago? Wasn’t she responsible for his death now? He never would have fallen so easily in a true battle—none of the azatan would—but today the azatan were outnumbered, unarmored, and unprepared, while the divs moved with perfect certainty. Soraya remembered what Sorush had told her about the recent div raids, that the divs seemed to be practicing for something bigger.

The memory cut through her haze of guilt and fear, and Soraya began to notice something about the ensuing chaos—that it wasn’t chaos at all. She had learned enough about div raids to know that their main goal was destruction and carnage, but most of the dead among them now were soldiers and guards. None of the divs made any move to enter the palace, though a few were still crawling over the surface and the walls, and a group of them was barricading the entrance. She watched as one div with a horn and skin plates like those of a rhinoceros roughly grabbed an elderly man who was trying to sneak inside, but all the div did was add him to a group of people huddled together under the watchful guard of another div. In fact, all around the garden, the divs were herding the wedding guests into small groups, preventing them from escape but making no other move to harm them. And Soraya understood now why she had managed to escape their attention so far—she was neither running away nor fighting, and so they didn’t care what she did.

The div guarding a group of people near the palace steps moved to the side, and Soraya saw the agonized face of her mother, her composure fallen away. Soraya didn’t think—she ran toward her, seeking comfort or forgiveness or simply some reassurance that she hadn’t brought on the death of her entire family.

As she reached the palace steps, she tripped over her dress, landing on her hands and knees in front of her mother—a fitting position, she thought, to beg for forgiveness.

“Soraya? What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here!” Tahmineh’s voice was shrill with panic and utter dismay.

Soraya looked up at her mother—the purple silk of her gown was torn, the jewels in her hair were tangled in her elaborate braids, and her face was swollen from tears. Soraya had always wondered what her mother would look like undone, and now she wished she didn’t know. “I’m sorry, Maman,” she said, reaching up to her. “I’m so sorry.”

For the first time in her memory, Soraya touched her mother’s hands, taking them in her own as if that would explain everything.

Tahmineh didn’t flinch or pull her hands away from Soraya’s grasp—instead, she immediately gripped Soraya’s hands more tightly, like they were locking into place. She didn’t even seem to know anything was amiss until she looked down at the bare, smooth surface of Soraya’s hands and realized there was no poison under Soraya’s skin.

“No,” she said, the word escaping her like it was her last breath. She lifted her head and looked Soraya in the eye. “Soraya, what have you done?”

The words rang through Soraya’s head, an echo of the question she had been asking herself from the moment she had stepped back from her first kiss to see the creature from her nightmares.

Before she could answer, something wrenched her up from the ground, its grip tight around her upper arm. The div towered over her, long tusks emerging from his mouth. “I don’t remember you,” he growled at her.

“You can’t harm me,” Soraya said with more confidence than she felt. All she could think was that if she were still cursed, the div would be dead by now.

The div narrowed his eyes. “I can’t kill you. I can still—”

But before the div could explain in any further detail what he could do to Soraya, a shadow blocked the sun again, and all heads turned up to see a winged silhouette descending from the sky.

The Shahmar landed at the head of the palace steps, wings outstretched, framed by the ayvan behind him. He was still dressed in Azad’s clothing—the red tunic and trousers stretched over his scaled form in a mockery of humanity. The garden was hushed as he walked down the palace steps.

He stopped in front of the div that was still holding on to Soraya’s arm. “If you touch or threaten her again, I’ll tear out your tusks myself,” he said in a low, calm voice.

The div’s hand instantly fell away from Soraya’s arm.

The Shahmar turned to Soraya, holding her gaze. And then—to Soraya’s surprise—his eyes moved away from hers, to rest on something right behind her. When she turned her head, she saw her mother standing close to her, her face bloodless, returning the Shahmar’s gaze with cold recognition.

But before Soraya could begin to make sense of what she was seeing, the Shahmar turned away from them both and swept forward into the center of the crowd. Even the placement of the captive guests in small groups around the garden had been deliberate—the divs had formed an audience for the Shahmar, who now stood on the trampled rug where the bride and groom should have been sitting.

“You know who I am,” he bellowed in his deep, sonorous voice, his arms and wings both outspread to address the crowd. “Many of you have thought me dead, or merely a story to scare your children. But the legend of the Shahmar is real, and I have returned to take back my crown from the line that usurped mine all those years ago. The descendant of that line is among you now. Bring him forward.”

There was a flurry of movement among the crowd as everyone looked around them for the shah. Soraya let out a long, relieved exhale. If the Shahmar wanted to see her brother, that meant he wasn’t dead.