As her veins finished fading, her heart gave a last lurch and returned to normal, a steady beat in her chest that echoed through her ears. Her vision steadied, her blood stilled, and she knew it was over. The poison was gone.
A strange, muffled sound between a sob and a laugh bubbled out of her. She could feel the poison missing, but to her surprise, the absence felt cold, like a draft blowing through an open window, like the chill of regret. Soraya shook the thought away. She wouldn’t regret this decision, not once she told Azad or tried touching something. She tucked the feather into her sash in case she needed it again. When she was sure its effects were permanent, she would find a way to send it back.
Stumbling down from the pedestal in her haste, Soraya ran to Azad, who turned at the sound of her footsteps.
“Your face,” he said, his eyes wide. He took a step into the temple. “Your veins…”
“I think it worked,” she said, fighting to keep calm, to think rationally. “But I have to test it first, I have to touch something and see if—”
But before she could finish speaking, Azad had taken her face in his hands and crushed his mouth to hers.
Oh, Soraya thought. Oh.
It was the first touch she had ever known, and it consumed her. There were too many new sensations—his lips on hers, his hands on her face, his heart beating against hers, the heat rushing through her veins—and so she couldn’t focus on just one. It would have been like trying to feel a single raindrop during a storm. Instead, she gave herself up to it—to him—and stopped thinking at all, letting long-dormant instincts take over. Her hands did what they had itched to do from the beginning, and wound around Azad’s beautiful neck, pulling him flush against her. And all the while she was thinking, He’s still alive. I’m touching him but he’s still alive.
There was a sudden flash of pain like a pinprick on her bottom lip, and she let out an involuntary muffled cry—whether from pain or pleasure, she didn’t know. Her skin felt raw and sensitive, like it had been scoured clean, and so the line between pain and pleasure didn’t exist anymore. There was only touch, so overwhelming that it was almost unbearable.
But Azad must have thought he hurt her, because he drew her away from him, untangling himself from her hungry grasp. Soraya tried to catch her breath, and her eyes slowly fluttered open as she looked up at—
No.
The blood drained from Soraya’s face as she looked up, up, at a figure a head taller than Azad, a creature that wasn’t Azad but was horrifyingly familiar.
Her first thought was that she had done this to him. She had transferred her curse to him somehow. But the hideous scaled monster standing before her wasn’t at all surprised by his transformation. That neck that she had always admired was covered in patches of coarse green and brown scales. The hands that had just been on her skin were now longer, with spindly fingers tipped by sharp, curved nails like the claws of a lizard. His hair was gone, his head ridged and scaled like the rest of him. From his back emerged two large, leathery wings. And his face—his face was smiling, sharp, curved fangs showing between thin lips.
Soraya’s knees buckled, but she fought to remain standing, not wanting to be on her knees in front of this creature from her nightmares. “What are you?” she said, her voice escaping in a gasp.
He tilted his head, the curve of his neck painfully familiar to her. “I’m hurt, Soraya,” he said in a mocking tone. It was the same voice, the same cadence, but deeper now, like she was hearing Azad calling up from the bottom of a well. “I would have thought you’d know exactly who I am.”
Yes, she knew who he was. She knew even before she had asked. She knew when she had looked up and seen him in place of the young man she had expected.
But he still told her anyway.
“I’m your favorite story,” said the Shahmar.
13
Soraya prayed that she was dreaming, that this was yet another nightmare. After all, she had never heard of a div being able to appear as human, or to resist the effects of esfand. But in her dreams, she always woke soon after the Shahmar appeared—just when the dream turned into a nightmare.
This time, the nightmare didn’t end.
Azad—the Shahmar—took a step toward her, and for the slightest moment, she forgot to be scared. She forgot that she no longer had poison to protect her. And then the memory of Azad’s hands on her face, his mouth on hers, came back to her, and she shuddered—not from repulsion or regret, but from a fear she had never known before.
For the first time in her life, she was completely defenseless.
The Shahmar lifted one clawed, scaled hand to hover over her cheek, and Soraya froze, years of habit forcing her to stay still when someone came too near. She looked for the eyes she had known before, but now they were yellow, the pupils vertical slits—the eyes of a serpent.
“Brave, ruthless Soraya,” he said, an oddly tender note in his deep voice. “I’m much fonder of you than I thought I’d be.” His hand fell away from her face, and she fought down the instinctive disappointment she felt, her traitorous skin still longing for touch, even from a monster. “I have other matters to attend to,” he continued, turning away from her. “Stay out of the way, and you’ll be safe.”
Before she could find her voice, he had stepped out of the fire temple. His wings spread out to their full span, each one the length of a human body, and carried him up into the air.
Soraya recovered at last and ran outside, looking up at the shape of the Shahmar soaring overhead. A shadow fell over the palace—he had paused in front of the sun, his wings blocking its light. She gazed up with a mixture of terror and awe, wondering how this fearsome creature had ever contained himself in the shape of a human, how he could have fooled her so utterly.…
Then the screaming began.
The screams seemed to surround her, a wave of terror crashing over her from every direction. And soon she knew why. From her vantage point on the hill, she could see the northwest quarter of the city. She saw the fissures running down the streets, splitting open to release a horde of divs in a kind of hellish earthquake. She saw people run screaming through the streets, trying not to be trampled underfoot or crushed by falling rubble from overturned buildings.
He promised he would show me the city during the day, Soraya remembered. But would there be anything left to see?
She had been frozen, numb with horror and shock, but now she ran. Soraya tore down the hill and around the side of the palace, going in the direction of the nearest screams—to the wedding party in the garden where the most important people in Atashar were all currently gathered like a herd of sheep. She had been so shocked by the revelation of Azad’s identity that she had forgotten the reason for the entire pretense. He made me put out the fire, she thought. Never mind that she had put it out willingly, that in fact she had convinced him to come with her—the truth was that he had been leading her to this moment step by step. He had been waiting for her to find the feather so that he could strike.
And now Soraya’s family—her entire country—was in danger because of her. Because of her one selfish action.
Even as she ran, her chest stinging from breathlessness, she wondered what use she would possibly be now that her only weapon was gone. She could do little more than warn people of a threat that was already upon them.