“It’s inside the fire?” Soraya thought of the iron grate shielding the fire, of the priests who stood guard day and night to ensure no one extinguished it. If she could find a way to be in the fire temple alone, then perhaps Soraya could use some tool to take the feather from the fire. Parvaneh had said she would be able to return the feather once she was finished with it—Soraya could discreetly replace it once she knew the answer to lifting her curse. She could be free without betraying her family. Something like joy was beginning to ripple through her.
But as if he could hear the direction of her thoughts, the yatu was shaking his head. “You don’t understand. The feather is not inside the fire. It’s part of the fire. In any other fire, the feather would simply burn, but in the Royal Fire, it becomes part of the flames, giving the fire the power to protect the shah.”
Soraya frowned. “The fire protects the shah?”
The yatu nodded. “As long as the feather is part of it.”
Already her joy was fading away, replaced by a cold, creeping dread making its way through her limbs, her body understanding before her mind did. “And so the only way to take the feather…”
The yatu said what she could not: “… is to put out the fire.”
Those words extinguished Soraya’s last hope. Even if she replaced the feather, it wouldn’t matter. The feather alone couldn’t protect her brother, and the fire, with its many ritual sources, couldn’t be rebuilt immediately, leaving her brother vulnerable to attack for a dangerously indefinite period of time. The only way she could learn how to lift her curse was by endangering her brother and committing a crime the yatu had been sentenced to death for attempting.
The yatu was watching her. “Ah,” he said with mocking pity. “I didn’t tell you what you wanted to hear. Does that mean you won’t search for my books after all, shahzadeh?”
“Maybe you can still earn them,” Soraya answered, her voice hard. She had almost forgotten her distant hope that the yatu would know a way to lift her curse. If he knew the answer, then she wouldn’t need the feather after all. “Tell me how to lift the curse that makes me poisonous.”
This time, her request surprised him. He shook his head. “I thought you knew, shahzadeh. The feather is the way to lift your curse.”
Soraya thought she had misheard, her anxiety over the feather twisting the yatu’s words. But then the yatu continued: “The simorgh’s feather has restorative powers. In your case, you need the tip of the simorgh’s feather to break your skin. A prick of the finger would do.”
Soraya shut her eyes, her blood churning. “Thank you,” she murmured tonelessly, turning her back on the yatu. Something had gone numb within her. She was barely aware of her surroundings, the world blurring around her as if it were all an indistinct dream. No more thoughts tonight, she decided. No more hopes, either.
“Wait, shahzadeh,” the yatu’s gravelly voice called out behind her. “I give nothing for free. You owe me for the information I’ve given you.”
She waved a hand listlessly in his direction, saying, “I’ll search for your books and bring them to you if I find them, as promised.”
“I think you can offer me something better than that.”
She started to turn toward him to ask him what he meant, and then all she saw was something blurry from the corner of her eye—all she heard was the thud of an impact—
And as she tumbled to the dirty, bone-littered ground, all she felt was pain.
10
Her vision went briefly dark, but when she came to herself again, Soraya was still on the ground, one hand over her eye, where something blunt had struck her. And then her hand was wrenched away, and she looked up at the chiseled face of the yatu, who was quickly tying her wrists together with a thick cord around her gloves. Between his teeth was a long knife with an ivory handle—he must have used that handle to strike her.
“Stop! What are you doing?” Soraya cried out, trying to jerk her hands away from him. She didn’t dare shout for Azad, not when that blade was so close to her face, but if she spoke loudly enough, maybe he would hear and know something was wrong. “What do you want with me?”
The yatu finished tying her hands and retrieved the knife from his mouth. “What do you think your family would give me in exchange for your life? Wealth? An official pardon, even? Far more than just my books, surely. Or perhaps they’re more likely to pay me for making you disappear.”
Soraya bit down on her tongue to keep herself from calling for Azad. The yatu was working on her ankles now, using the hem of her dress to guard his hands from her skin. Maybe if she screamed quickly enough, maybe if she lunged for him, maybe if she pretended to faint—
But before she could form a plan, something tackled the yatu, throwing him to the ground. The yatu hadn’t finished with Soraya’s ankles, and so she kicked the cord away, rolling to her side and pushing herself up onto her knees. And now she saw that it was Azad who had attacked the yatu—he had left behind his lantern, allowing him to sneak down the platform—and the two of them were both struggling for control of the knife in the yatu’s hand.
Soraya looked in horror at Azad, pinned to the ground by the yatu’s weight, the knife’s edge dangerously close to his throat. “Go!” Azad called to her.
But of course she couldn’t leave him here. Soraya tried not to lose her balance as she struggled to her feet, her bound hands shaking in her gloves … gloves that were slightly too large for her. Saying a silent thank-you to Parvaneh, Soraya bent down and stepped on the very edge of one glove, on the tiny pocket of air the glove left above her fingertips. And then she tore her hand from the glove with as much force as she could.
If she had been wearing her usual gloves, her plan might have failed, or she might have injured herself. But thanks to fate, or the Creator—or Parvaneh—the glove was just loose enough to let her pull her hand partly out of it. She pulled again—and again—until her right hand was free from both the glove and the bindings around her wrist. Quickly, she shook the cord off her other wrist.
While she had been working to free herself, Azad had continued struggling against the yatu. But once Soraya slipped free from her bindings, she looked up to see the yatu slam his knee into Azad’s stomach. Azad lost his grip on the yatu’s wrist as he cried out in pain.
That cry sparked something in Soraya, a shame that flooded through her whole body. Azad was going to die because of her—because he had agreed to her dangerous plan, because he had come running when she had cried out—and Soraya was powerless to stop it.
And once more, Parvaneh’s voice whispered in her mind: You could wield such power.
Those words were no longer a taunt but a suggestion—a solution. The yatu had a knife, but Soraya had her own weapon. The firelight glinted on the yatu’s raised knife, and Soraya’s shame ignited into rage.
He plunged the knife downward—just as Soraya wrapped her bare fingers around his wrist, pressing into his skin with bruising force.
I’m touching his skin. My skin is touching his skin. The yatu’s skin was cold, but still it was warm in a way that she had never felt before. Even though the circumstances were unpleasant, the simple sensation of it was so unfamiliar to her that Soraya briefly forgot who and where she was. She forgot what would happen next.