Her stomach lurched, and she tried to find Sorush’s eye, but he kept his gaze straight ahead. Instead, she faced the Shahmar and said, “Why kill him? Isn’t it enough that he’s your prisoner?”
It was a weak argument, and they both knew it. The Shahmar shook his head. “I won’t make the same mistake I did last time, Soraya. As long as he lives, people will have hope that he can rise against me, and I won’t be overthrown by your family again.” He rose from the throne and descended from the dais. At once, Soraya stepped in front of her oddly passive brother.
“I won’t stand and watch,” she said to the Shahmar as he stepped closer and closer. “I won’t let you—”
“Soraya, stop.” Sorush’s voice rang clear, his hand firm on her shoulder. “It doesn’t matter.”
She spun to face him in astonishment. His face was blank and unfeeling, but somehow his calm demeanor only made her feel more frantic, more desperate. “How can you say that?” she said to him. “That is your throne. Those are your people!”
He gave a slight shake of the head. “Not anymore. You saw to that.”
The chill in his voice made Soraya shiver. “Sorush, I’m sorry,” she said to him, her throat dry. “I never thought this would happen. When I put out the fire, I didn’t know—”
“And I didn’t know you hated me this much. I didn’t know you were capable of this.”
Soraya’s hands clenched at her sides, and before she could stop herself, she snapped, “Of course you didn’t know. How would you know anything I feel, or what I’m capable of, when you’ve barely spoken to me since childhood? After you became shah, you left me behind.”
This was wrong—she wasn’t supposed to be angry with him, not now, not after what she had done. But her old wounds hadn’t disappeared just because she had struck him a new one, and Sorush’s coldness toward her only reminded her of what had driven her to the fire temple in the first place.
Sorush’s eyes flickered, but only briefly. “You’re right,” he said. “I left you behind, and I worried about you often—but I had to worry about everyone else in this country as well. And now you’ve had your revenge on all of us—a very thorough one.”
The Shahmar’s scaled hand came down on her shoulder before she could respond. “As much as I enjoy seeing you like this, I think we’re finished here.”
He gestured to one of the divs, who came forward to lead Sorush away.
Soraya started to follow, but the Shahmar kept her in place. “Where are you taking him?” she asked hoarsely.
“I’ve changed my mind about the execution,” the Shahmar said, circling around to stand in front of her and block her view of Sorush’s retreating back.
“Why?”
“Perhaps your tender plea has moved me.” His hand encircled her wrist, and he pulled her alongside him as he strode out of the room.
Soraya fought to keep up with his determined stride, which only halted when they were both outside the main doors of the palace. The wreckage of the garden was masked by the darkness of night, but still, Soraya couldn’t bear to look at it.
“Where’s Sorush?” she demanded. “What are you going to do with him?” Her voice was growing ragged with the start of tears.
“You needn’t worry about him for now.”
“And my mother?” she said, Tahmineh’s pained cry still fresh in her mind. “Is she…？”
“Is she alive, or did I let her bleed to death after creating a distraction that allowed you to escape?” the Shahmar finished for her with a sneer. Soraya waited, hardly breathing, until he said, “She’s alive and safely bandaged.”
“Let me see her.”
“No,” he said without hesitation.
“Fine,” she said, weariness draining her remaining resistance. “Return me to my room.”
“No,” he repeated with a note of amusement. His lips twitched as he tried not to smile.
It was that hint of a smile, so maddeningly familiar, that shattered her last remnants of composure. “What more do you want from me, then?” she shouted at him as she ripped out of his grip. “You’re like a cat with prey, the way you’ve toyed with me all this time.”
The Shahmar’s smile was gone, but his eyes gleamed in the dark. “It’s strange, isn’t it? I thought I would surely kill you once you handed over the feather.” He reached for her, hooking one claw into her sash and using it to drag her toward him. When he withdrew his hand, he pulled the feather out from its hiding place, too, enclosing it in his scaled fist. “And yet, as I told you, I’ve grown quite fond of you, Soraya. You impressed me greatly during our time together. I find that I don’t want to kill you—I want to keep you.” He took hold of her again, his long fingers encircling her upper arm in a firm grip. “But I clearly can’t keep you here. You would escape me eventually. I’ll have to take you elsewhere.”
Before Soraya could respond, he swept her up in his arms and beat his massive wings until they were both high up above the palace.
In fear, Soraya clung to him, her eyes squeezing shut. She had read a story like this once, about a girl who was carried away by a monstrous bird to Mount Arzur. But the bird was enchanted, and when the girl kissed him, he turned into a handsome young man. It was fitting, Soraya supposed, that she would kiss a handsome young man and turn him into a monster.
She risked opening her eyes again, looking down as her conquered home and the charred outline of the city became smaller and smaller. Her breathing grew thin, and she gasped for air before her terror and exhaustion were finally strong enough to make the world go dark.
16
Soraya woke with a gasp. The last thing she remembered was moving up toward the stars and seeing Golvahar disappear below her. She remembered the beating of wings and the sharp points of claws digging into her skin. But these were all just memories. She was lying on something solid now—a bed?—and she was alone. Or at least she hoped she was alone. The light was dim, wherever she was.
Soraya sat up cautiously and squinted in the low light. When she touched the wall beside her for leverage, her hand met cool, uneven stone. What had the Shahmar said? That he couldn’t keep her in Golvahar, and so needed to take her elsewhere. She tried to keep her breathing even as she considered the possibilities—was she in a cave somewhere in the forest? Did he intend to keep her locked up here until he tired of her? She still wasn’t entirely convinced he didn’t plan to kill her.
She rose from the bed, and went toward the source of light. As her eyes adjusted, she saw that she was in a windowless room hewn out of rock. The light came from an iron candelabra set on a table, alongside a jug of water and a bowl of fruit. Everything in the room seemed cobbled together and slightly worn, from the rickety wooden bed frame to the chipped marble of the table to the moth-eaten rug beneath it. It seemed more like a mismatched collection than anything else, and it did nothing to alleviate the feeling that she had been buried alive.
But she let out a breath of relief when she saw a door set into the wall. The door, too, seemed misplaced—a rectangular wooden panel jammed into an arched opening—but more important, there was no keyhole beneath the handle. She wasn’t trapped, then … unless it was a different kind of trap. What would happen to her if she opened that door? What would be waiting for her on the other side?