Girl, Serpent, Thorn(51)

It was all too familiar. He was too familiar—the cadence of his voice, the intensity of his gaze, even the way he touched her hair. And worst of all, she had felt from the beginning as if she had known him, as if she had dreamed him into existence. As if you were already mine.

But if familiarity weakened her resolve, it also saved her. In some corner of her mind, a knowing voice whispered, He’s doing it again. And she knew at once that the voice was right. In either form, Azad or the Shahmar, he knew the exact words she wanted most to hear, the exact gestures that would stir up desires that she had long ago put to rest. Even now, he was playing on her as easily as if she were an instrument, hoping the chord he struck would be louder than the screams from the garden.

He must have seen something harden in her expression, because his eyes narrowed and his hand fell away.

“Did you think the same tricks would work on me again?” she said coldly. “What do you even want with me? Why did you lock me up here instead of killing me?”

He stared at her in silence for the space of a heartbeat, then another, like he was waiting or searching for something, and Soraya realized, He doesn’t know, either. He had meant it when he said he’d planned to kill her. But for all his planning and manipulating, Soraya must have managed to surprise him. That gave her hope—it meant there was still a part of her that he couldn’t possess or predict.

Finally he said, “You’re wrong about one thing, Soraya. There’s no lock on the door. You can step outside anytime you’d like.” He gestured to the door, and Soraya tried to find some hint of his intentions in those cold eyes. But whatever was beyond this room, she had to know, and so with a last suspicious look in his direction, she went to the door and pulled it open.

She blinked, thinking that she was still unconscious, that this was a cruel dream, because she could have sworn she was standing at the threshold of Golvahar’s secret passageways. But then she noticed the differences—mud-brown rock instead of tan brick, wider walls and a higher ceiling, and a lit torch in a sconce on the wall.

“Go on,” the Shahmar urged from behind her.

Soraya stepped out into the tunnel, unnerved to be in a setting that was familiar and yet foreign, and to know that the Shahmar was behind her at every step. There was only one path to take, so she followed the tunnel until it opened out into a larger one, at which point the Shahmar grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back.

“Don’t leave my side,” he said. He led her out into the larger tunnel, still holding on to her arm, and soon Soraya realized why.

Divs roamed this tunnel—though Soraya didn’t feel like she was in a tunnel anymore, but rather in a hallway that might have been lifted from Golvahar. High above her head was a vaulted roof, and the torches illuminated a series of carvings along the wall, all of the Shahmar victorious in battle. She might have been in a nightmare version of Golvahar, complete with monstrous inhabitants.

But Soraya knew where she was, and a soft groan escaped her lips. She recalled the feeling of being buried alive, and she had been almost right, except she wasn’t underground. She was inside Mount Arzur, the home of divs. And now she understood why there was no lock on her door. She was trapped inside a mountain, and every div here was her jailor.

“It took me years to achieve this,” the Shahmar said with pride as he led her down the hall. Every time a div approached them, Soraya tensed in fear, but none of them noticed her. Instead, they bowed their heads in deference to the Shahmar, passing her by without a glance. As much as Soraya hated to admit it, the Shahmar’s presence beside her was almost like having her curse restored, a shield of safety that made her untouchable. “First to win the divs to my side,” the Shahmar continued, “to make them understand that they would be more powerful united under my command—then to carve this mountain into something worthy of a king. But it was only something to occupy me until I found a way to return to my true home—” He looked down at her. “Until I found you.”

His words stung, reminding her of her role in her family’s downfall. But before she could respond, he turned her to the left, through a rounded opening that brought them into a massive cavern.

They were standing on a narrow rock bridge that spanned the entire cavern, and Soraya might have stumbled over the edge if the Shahmar hadn’t held her back. “Careful now,” he said.

A metallic smell filled the air, the smell of blood and weaponry. Above her was the mountain peak, allowing no escape except for a few holes carved into the rock that let down beams of silvery moonlight. Below, inside a shallow, rectangular pit in the center of the cavern, two divs—one female with sharp horns, and the other male with bristling gray fur and the snout of a wolf—were locked in fierce battle, their battle-axes clashing loudly against each other. Soraya would have thought they were sparring, except they swung their axes wildly, without concern for limbs lost or blood shed. All around the pit were other divs, some cheering, some shouting curses, while yet others were occupied by sharpening weapons on grinding wheels, or performing drills.

The Shahmar kept his hand wrapped around her arm as he led her to the center of the bridge, where another div was watching the training below. He resembled the Shahmar more than the other divs—his build was leaner, closer to human, and his skin was covered in a kind of shell, like a scorpion. But what caught Soraya’s attention the most was the large, bloodstained club in his hand. Aeshma, she remembered from her books. The div of wrath.