Girl, Serpent, Thorn(43)

Just as she reached the doorway, the door opened and she froze, one fist still in the air. The beaked head of a div poked into the room, took one look at Soraya, and then flung Tahmineh into the room before shutting the door on them both.

Was it a coincidence that they were locked up together? Or did the Shahmar hope that they would tear each other apart and save him the trouble?

They stared at each other, neither of them speaking or moving. They were both bedraggled, their faces tearstained, their hearts heavy. Soraya didn’t know whether to beg forgiveness or demand an explanation. Even now, she didn’t know how to speak to her mother candidly, without layers of courtesy and formality.

Finally, Tahmineh stepped forward, eyes glistening, and reached one hand to touch Soraya’s face. Soraya backed away, more from habit than anything else, but she could tell from her mother’s wince of pain that Tahmineh believed the movement had been a rejection.

With a weary sigh, Tahmineh turned away and moved to the window. Soraya had already checked the window and found that it was too small to fit through and too high up to jump from without breaking bones. She started to say so when her mother turned to her and said, “You weren’t surprised when he told everyone I did this to you. You already knew.”

“I knew you did this to me, but I still don’t know why.”

If Tahmineh heard the implied question, she ignored it. “How did you find out?”

“The div,” Soraya said. There seemed little point in keeping that secret anymore. “The one in the dungeon.”

Tahmineh arched her eyebrows. “You spoke to her?”

“At Sorush’s request. He wanted me to report to him if she told me anything useful.”

Tahmineh shook her head with a wry smile. “I should have known better than to think I could control my children. At least now you know why I was so insistent that you not speak to her. But what I don’t understand,” she said as she stepped forward into the center of the room, still leaving plenty of space between her and Soraya, “is why you didn’t come talk to me after you found out.”

Her hands were open, her eyes entreating, and Soraya wondered if she would have gone to Tahmineh first if this had been her image of her mother—open and honest. But how could Tahmineh ask her that question when every time Soraya had ventured too close to forbidden topics, that one worried line would appear on her forehead, and her body would tense as if ready to receive a blow?

“Tell me honestly,” Soraya said, her voice shaking slightly. “If I had come to you and told you what the div had said, would you have told me the truth? Or would you have denied it and said the div was lying?”

Tahmineh was silent, which was all the answer Soraya needed.

“And I still don’t understand why,” she said, the last constraints of formality falling away. “The Shahmar said you did this for my protection, that the divs owed you a debt. He knows more about my life than I do. It’s no wonder he—” She stopped, not even sure how to finish. What had Azad done? Before she had taken the feather, what had he done that she did not want him to do? Soraya wrapped her arms around her waist and turned away from her mother, ashamed of her outburst. She wasn’t sure she had any right to anger anymore.

From behind her, Tahmineh placed a tentative hand on her shoulder. “Did he make you do this?” she asked in a low voice.

Soraya shook her head, wishing she could answer otherwise. “He didn’t make me take the feather. But he always knew what to do, what to say, to make me trust him.”

“So you didn’t know what he was? What he was planning to do?”

Soraya turned to her mother in surprise. “Of course not!” she said. “I didn’t want any of this. I only wanted to be free from my curse.”

Tahmineh let out a brittle laugh that didn’t reach her eyes. “And now by breaking one, you’ve fallen into the other.”

“What do you mean?” Soraya asked. “What other? Will you ever tell me the truth?” The last question came out harsher than she’d intended, but there was no point in hiding her feelings now.

Tahmineh went to the wall beside the door and leaned back against it, her eyes pointed up to the ceiling. “You’re right. It’s time for you to know the full story,” she said. “It’s past time. Maybe if I had told you before, I could have prevented this from happening.” She smiled sadly. “Or maybe you would have just learned to hate me sooner.” She slid down to sit on the floor, her knees bent in front of her. Soraya had never seen her sit so casually, without her perfect posture. It felt like being in the room with a stranger. She sat on the bare floor across from her mother and, as she had done so often as a child, waited for her story to begin.

“The first part was true,” Tahmineh said. “I did wander into the forestland near Mount Arzur when I was little more than a child, and I did find a woman wrapped in a net. But the woman wasn’t human. I didn’t know that at first—I couldn’t see her clearly enough in the net, and she looked so close to human—but when I freed her, she unfurled her wings, and I understood. She was a div—a parik. She gave me a lock of her hair, and told me that if I ever needed a favor in return, I should burn the hair and breathe in the smoke, and then that night I could speak to her in my dreams. She flew away, and I was alone.”