You would be welcome among my sisters. If you freed me now, I could take you to them.
The solution was both obvious and ridiculous. Parvaneh would know how to find the other pariks, of course. She probably even knew the owl-winged parik her mother had mentioned, since she had known so much about Soraya’s curse. But why would Parvaneh ever agree to help her? The feather, Soraya remembered, putting a hand to her waist, feeling the outline of the feather inside her sash.
She began to walk in the direction of the chamber that would take her to the dungeon, but even though she knew Parvaneh was her best option, she worried she was making yet another terrible mistake. Parvaneh was a div—she would surely be in league with the Shahmar.
As if Parvaneh were in the same room with her, Soraya could clearly see the insulted look on her face and hear the irritation in her voice. I’m not any div, she had once told her. I’m a parik, and my purposes are my own.
Soraya remembered, too, that Parvaneh had last urged her not to take the feather at all, to live with her curse in peace—and to ask her mother why she had wanted her daughter cursed. If Soraya had followed any of her advice, the Shahmar’s plan might have failed.
Even as Soraya argued with herself, every step she took led her closer to the dungeon. When she emerged into the round chamber where she had once stood with Azad, she knew there was never a question of whether she would return to the dungeon, not truly. Even if she didn’t need help finding the owl-winged parik, Soraya would still want to look into those amber eyes and see for herself if Parvaneh had been a part of this plot from the beginning.
The familiar and reassuring smell of esfand surrounded her as soon as she stepped out into the dungeon. If the smoke was still this strong, then no other divs had been here—which meant, possibly, that Parvaneh wasn’t a part of their plot. Soraya reminded herself that the esfand hadn’t had any effect on Azad, but she supposed that was because of his former humanity.
Letting out a slow breath, Soraya crept down the stairs to Parvaneh’s cavern. The light was stronger this time, and so she could clearly see Parvaneh restlessly pacing the length of her cell. As soon as she saw Soraya, she froze and walked up to the bars. Her gaze immediately went from Soraya’s face and neck to her bare hands. “You did it, didn’t you?” she said. Her eyes snapped back to Soraya’s face with an urgent gleam. “Do you have the feather?”
Soraya stepped forward, ignoring Parvaneh’s question. “Did you know? When you saw him here with me that first day, did you know who he was—and what he was planning?”
Parvaneh didn’t need to speak her answer aloud. The glow of her eyes dimmed, her shoulders sagged, and her hands fell away from the bars. Everything about her spoke of defeat.
Soraya shook her head in disappointment. She didn’t understand why she was so surprised, so betrayed. Parvaneh was a div, wasn’t she? “You knew and you said nothing.”
“I said plenty. You didn’t listen.”
“You were a part of this from the beginning, weren’t you? When you attacked my brother—that was all part of the plan to get both of you into the palace. What a wonderful spy you’ve been for your king,” Soraya sneered.
Parvaneh’s eyes flashed with anger. “He’s not my king,” she said, her voice a snarl. “He’s my captor. If I had told you everything, would you have believed me? You barely believed a word I said as it was. If I had told you that your handsome new friend was secretly the leader of the divs, you would have denied it at best. At worst, you would have told him, so he could reassure you that I was a liar, and then he would have punished me and my sisters.”
Soraya heard the echo of her own response to her mother’s question of why Soraya hadn’t confronted her sooner, and so she couldn’t deny that Parvaneh was probably right. Soraya’s voice softened a little as she repeated, “Your sisters?”
“He hunts us for sport. Many of my sisters are his prisoners.”
Like the parik my mother freed in the forest, Soraya remembered. “The other pariks—does one of them have the wings of an owl?”
Parvaneh’s head tilted in surprise. “Parisa,” she said, with a glimmer of a smile. “She’s the one who made you what you are.”
“I need to find her. Do you know where she is?”
“Captured, or so he told me. But…” Parvaneh’s eyes flickered to a spot behind Soraya’s shoulder—the source of the fragrant smoke all around them. “If you let me out, I could take you to her and the others, and we could free them. We both have families to save.”
Soraya considered in silence. She didn’t know whom to trust anymore—she had trusted Azad completely, and she had been wrong. Was it possible, then, that she had been wrong to think that Parvaneh was her enemy? Or would she be even more of a fool to trust her now?
Parvaneh nodded in understanding. “You still don’t trust me. But maybe if I show you what he’s done to me, you’ll believe that I’m no friend of the Shahmar.” Parvaneh turned, her back facing Soraya, and lifted her worn shift over her head. Startled, Soraya began to look away, but then she understood what Parvaneh was showing her.
Her mother had thought she was freeing a girl until the parik unfurled her wings—the wings of an owl. Parvaneh’s wings were, of course, the wings of a moth, bearing the same patterns as the ones on her skin. Or at least Soraya thought they were the same patterns—it was difficult to tell because Parvaneh’s wings were slashed and torn, hanging like ribbons down her back.
Without thinking, Soraya came closer, all the way up to the bars. From here, she saw the tears in the wings more clearly, long, clean lines as if from a dagger—or claws.
“He did this to you?” Soraya asked in a small voice.
Parvaneh put her shift back on and turned around to face her again. “Bit by bit over time, yes. I had hoped the simorgh’s feather could restore them.”
Soraya listened to her, but it wasn’t the words that spoke to her loudest. In the hollow sound of Parvaneh’s voice, the dimmed glow of her eyes, the tired lines on her face, Soraya recognized someone who had lost not just her family, but a piece of herself.
Soraya pulled out the feather from her sash, careful not to hold it out of Parvaneh’s reach. Parvaneh’s eyes locked on the feather with a hungry, desperate look. “You have it,” she breathed.
Soraya turned away from Parvaneh and went to the lit brazier hanging from the wall. Perhaps she was a fool to trust Parvaneh, but images kept swimming in her mind—images of destruction and despair, of sharp claws and leathery wings, of a terrified girl in the forest and a young shah on his knees. Soraya couldn’t undo any of the Shahmar’s actions—except that she could free Parvaneh.
For the second time that day, she put out a fire, upending the brazier and sending the coals to scatter over the ground.
Parvaneh didn’t need an explanation. As soon as the esfand smoke began to disperse, she wrenched two of the bars apart with unearthly strength and walked through them—free.
Soraya wondered if she had made another mistake, if Parvaneh would snap her neck and go join her master, where they would both laugh at the naive girl they had fooled. But Parvaneh made no move toward her. She closed her eyes, lifted her head, and took a deep breath. “Thank you,” she said.