Girl, Serpent, Thorn(71)

As soon as she was alone in the tunnel, Soraya leaned her head against the stone wall, taking deep, shuddering breaths. Ramin’s cry of pain was still in her ears. How could she have let herself lose control like that? After so many years of holding herself back, she had lost that skill. It seemed to her sometimes that she could only ever be one thing or the other, a mouse or a viper, with nothing in between. And if that were true, then she didn’t know which she would choose. Either way brought her misery and shame.

“Soraya.” Azad’s hands wrapped around her arms and turned her to face him, his grip surprisingly gentle. “I gave orders for him to be returned unharmed to Golvahar.”

“Are you lying to me?”

“I swear on my throne that I’m not lying to you.”

Soraya supposed she’d have to be content with that—Azad was already leading her farther down the tunnel, away from the cavern. “Where are you taking me?” she asked.

“Somewhere you can rest safely,” he said. “I was hoping you would be pleased with my gift, but it seems to have upset you. Perhaps I gave it to you too soon.”

Not too soon, but too late, she thought. She never would have hurt Ramin like that before the fire temple, before the dakhmeh—before she’d first learned the pleasure of lashing out.

She had assumed he would return her to her room, but they passed the now-familiar tunnel that would take them there. They kept going, higher up the mountain than she had been before. Only when he finally stopped and opened a thick iron door wedged into the door frame did Soraya understand where he had taken her.

She was in a room much larger and more lushly furnished than her own, with a daybed and several chairs. The hard stone floor was covered in overlapping rugs, their threads worn and colors faded. A crystal chandelier lit with candles hung above a large, oval table of polished wood. A map of Atashar was laid out on the table, with carved wooden figures painted in red or white set out in different arrangements. There was even an ornate fireplace carved into one wall. A cool breeze chilled her face, and she looked up in surprise to see a window in the wall opposite. It was no more than an uneven rectangle carved into the rock, no glass to keep out the wind.

Compared to the rest of Arzur, this was a room fit for a shah.

Azad put his hands on her shoulders, and she stiffened. “Why did you bring me here?”

“I thought the fresh air would do you good,” he said. “There are no other windows in the mountain.”

She went to the window, wanting to put distance between them, and in truth, she did find the fresh air a relief. She thought she saw the dark outline of Golvahar’s dome in the distance, past the brush on the south side of the mountain. The sight of it made her ache.

“That night at the dakhmeh,” Soraya said, turning to face him, “when I killed the yatu, you comforted me. You told me I had done right, that I shouldn’t be ashamed. Are you going to try to do the same for me now?” She hadn’t meant the question to sound like a plea, but the wavering final note in her voice was unmistakable.

He studied her, and then he said, “Is that what you want? For me to absolve you? It’s easy enough. That boy deserved what you did to him tonight. They all deserve it. That’s why…” He stopped, but his eyes were alight with some unknown excitement. “That’s why I want you to be the one to execute your brother.”

Despite all the horrors around her, Soraya barked out a shocked laugh. “I would never kill my brother,” she said, aghast.

“That’s what I once believed. But during all the time we’ve spent together, Soraya, one thing has become increasingly clear to me.” He began to walk toward her, taking slow, measured steps across the room as if he would frighten her away if he moved too quickly. “I can never show myself as human in front of the divs. I don’t want them to remember my origins, my weaknesses. I want them to see me at my full strength. And so I forget him sometimes, the man I used to be. I forget what he looked like, how it felt to be human. But when I’m with you, I remember.” As he continued walking toward her, the scales on his skin began to recede, his body slimming into the familiar form of his human self. “You and I don’t belong fully to either world. We know what it is to be something between human and div. We know what it means to turn against families who have hurt us. That night in the throne room, I truly meant to execute your brother. But when I saw you fight back against him, I couldn’t bring myself do it, because I knew that it should be you. I want it to be you. I’ve been waiting all this time for you to want it as well. Once you do this, you’ll know that there’s nothing you can’t do. You’ll be free.” He was in front of her now, fully human, vulnerable in a way Soraya hadn’t understood until she had seen the veins under her skin fade away, her own armor dissolved. “And you’ll rule with me, at my side, as my queen.”

She shook her head. She had heard him wrong, she thought, too distracted by seeing him human again—by the curl of his eyelashes, the bridge of his nose, the shape of his upper lip. “What are you asking me?”

His eyes were so bright, so young, as if he truly were a young prince again. “To be mine. To love me, as I love you.”

“You don’t love me,” Soraya said at once.

A melancholy smile passed over his face. “It’s easier for you to believe that, but you know it isn’t true, and I can’t deny it anymore, either. I’ve loved you since the dakhmeh, when you showed me who you are. You’re the part of me that I had forgotten, Soraya. And I’m the part of you that you could be—unrestrained, unburdened.”