Girl, Serpent, Thorn(90)

The dagger in his hand wavered slightly, but his face remained impassive as he said, “Would you come with me if I did?”

Soraya hesitated for half a breath, then forced herself to say, “Yes.”

He laughed wryly. “I was hoping you would say that. I wanted to hear you lie to me one last time. But even though you never keep your promises, Soraya, I always do.”

His arm moved in one quick motion, the blade slicing across Tahmineh’s throat, and Soraya screamed.

But Azad’s reflexes were human now, and as his arm began to move, Soraya saw a flash of movement beside her—a flash of wings—and Parvaneh knocked his arm aside. The dagger flew out of his hand and skittered across the roof.

Soraya ran to her mother, the woman who had both cursed and saved her, and knelt at her side. Parvaneh was already removing the sash from her tunic and wrapping it tightly around the wound to stop the blood from seeping out. “It’s not deep,” she said. “If we bind the wound—” Her hand went to her waist, where her sash had been, and then her head shot up. “I must have dropped the feather when I flew up here, but if I can find it—”

“Go!” Soraya cried. She was holding her mother’s hand, but it was cold—too cold. “Go quickly.”

Parvaneh glanced up at Azad, who had been knocked to the ground during her attack. She hesitated, but then she rose and dove off the edge of the roof, her wings carrying her down.

The pressure under Soraya’s skin was building, but she paid it little attention, too concerned with her mother’s pain to worry about her own. Tahmineh’s eyes were still open, and she raised a hand to Soraya’s cheek, her lips parting to speak. “Don’t let him win,” she said with her remaining strength before her eyes fluttered closed.

She was still breathing, but Soraya thought of all her mother had endured—of the shadow she had lived under since childhood, the sacrifices she had made—and her vision went black for a moment. And then it burned red.

Her heart was pounding so strongly she felt the blood in her veins rushing to the surface of her skin. She knew this feeling, and so she knew what she would find when she looked down at her hands, her wrists.

Dark green veins were spreading over her skin, but even without seeing them, Soraya felt the poison inside her. She welcomed it like a friend, like a savior. At this point she had always stepped back from the cliff’s edge—she would take deep breaths, calm her beating heart, wait until the spread of her veins slowed. But words were turning over and over in her mind.

Be angry for yourself. Use that rage to fight him.

Don’t let him win.

The pressure was unbearable now, and her skin felt tight on her bones, like something was trying to burst out of her. It was the same feeling as in her nightmares, just before she awakened. Surrender or destruction, she thought. That was the way of divs. She could surrender to the div’s blood inside her, or she could let it destroy her.

For so many years, Soraya had tried to fight down the poison inside her, but this time … this time, she surrendered.

The sky was a vivid orange now from the setting sun, and she turned her head up to it and let out a cry of rage and pain and release. And as she did, the pressure began to fade, the pain dissipating.

Something was happening to her—something new.

All along the lines of her veins, thorns were beginning to pierce through her skin, sharp and long like the ones in the golestan. She held her hands in front of her, watching in silent awe as the greenish-brown thorns appeared along the backs of her hands. They pushed out through the fabric of her dress, and when she touched her face, she felt more of them trailing down in two lines along her cheeks, down to her neck. This was what she had always feared: that her transformation wasn’t complete, but was waiting for the day she could no longer control the poison within her. But instead of feeling horrified by the change that had come over her, Soraya felt whole.

She could sense the poison inside her now more keenly than she ever had before—but more than that, she could control it, directing its movement through her veins until she chose to release it through her thorns. If she had only given in to this transformation years ago, she could have had this power and protection without having to forgo touch—but there was no point in dwelling on the past now. That was what Azad had done.

At the thought of Azad, her head jerked up, and Soraya briefly thought she had been transported somewhere else. Azad was still there, backed into one corner of the roof, and he was looking at her in awe—and unmistakable jealousy. But all around him, climbing over the edge of the roof, were vines from the golestan. They were spreading out along the surface of the roof like a green web, moving closer and closer to Azad, surrounding him until he had nowhere to turn. Soraya could feel the golestan in her blood—in the div’s blood that joined them both. There was something alive about it, and it seemed to know what she would want, what she would do, like an extension of her thoughts.

After checking her mother’s pulse, Soraya rose, slowly approaching Azad. He looked nervously at the vines that kept inching closer to him, creating a cage of thorns around him.

“I wouldn’t touch them if I were you,” Soraya said.

He looked up at the sound of her voice and spoke her name under his breath. He tried to move toward her, but the thorns only grew closer around him.

“Don’t you like me this way?” she said. The vines parted for her, creating a path to him. “Beautiful yet deadly, remember?”