“Go on,” the Shahmar urged from behind her.
Soraya stepped out into the tunnel, unnerved to be in a setting that was familiar and yet foreign, and to know that the Shahmar was behind her at every step. There was only one path to take, so she followed the tunnel until it opened out into a larger one, at which point the Shahmar grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back.
“Don’t leave my side,” he said. He led her out into the larger tunnel, still holding on to her arm, and soon Soraya realized why.
Divs roamed this tunnel—though Soraya didn’t feel like she was in a tunnel anymore, but rather in a hallway that might have been lifted from Golvahar. High above her head was a vaulted roof, and the torches illuminated a series of carvings along the wall, all of the Shahmar victorious in battle. She might have been in a nightmare version of Golvahar, complete with monstrous inhabitants.
But Soraya knew where she was, and a soft groan escaped her lips. She recalled the feeling of being buried alive, and she had been almost right, except she wasn’t underground. She was inside Mount Arzur, the home of divs. And now she understood why there was no lock on her door. She was trapped inside a mountain, and every div here was her jailor.
“It took me years to achieve this,” the Shahmar said with pride as he led her down the hall. Every time a div approached them, Soraya tensed in fear, but none of them noticed her. Instead, they bowed their heads in deference to the Shahmar, passing her by without a glance. As much as Soraya hated to admit it, the Shahmar’s presence beside her was almost like having her curse restored, a shield of safety that made her untouchable. “First to win the divs to my side,” the Shahmar continued, “to make them understand that they would be more powerful united under my command—then to carve this mountain into something worthy of a king. But it was only something to occupy me until I found a way to return to my true home—” He looked down at her. “Until I found you.”
His words stung, reminding her of her role in her family’s downfall. But before she could respond, he turned her to the left, through a rounded opening that brought them into a massive cavern.
They were standing on a narrow rock bridge that spanned the entire cavern, and Soraya might have stumbled over the edge if the Shahmar hadn’t held her back. “Careful now,” he said.
A metallic smell filled the air, the smell of blood and weaponry. Above her was the mountain peak, allowing no escape except for a few holes carved into the rock that let down beams of silvery moonlight. Below, inside a shallow, rectangular pit in the center of the cavern, two divs—one female with sharp horns, and the other male with bristling gray fur and the snout of a wolf—were locked in fierce battle, their battle-axes clashing loudly against each other. Soraya would have thought they were sparring, except they swung their axes wildly, without concern for limbs lost or blood shed. All around the pit were other divs, some cheering, some shouting curses, while yet others were occupied by sharpening weapons on grinding wheels, or performing drills.
The Shahmar kept his hand wrapped around her arm as he led her to the center of the bridge, where another div was watching the training below. He resembled the Shahmar more than the other divs—his build was leaner, closer to human, and his skin was covered in a kind of shell, like a scorpion. But what caught Soraya’s attention the most was the large, bloodstained club in his hand. Aeshma, she remembered from her books. The div of wrath.
“Aeshma,” the Shahmar said to him as they approached. “Is all as it should be?”
Aeshma turned at the sound of his voice and quickly bowed his head. “Yes, shahryar,” Aeshma said in a voice like a rattle. He gestured to the fight below. “Please, watch the battle below and see if your soldiers are as fierce as you wish them to be.”
“Thank you, Aeshma. Leave us now.”
Aeshma bowed again and retreated to the other side of the bridge.
“Shall we watch?” the Shahmar said, positioning Soraya in front of him for her to see the fight below. “These are my training grounds, and the kastars are my soldiers,” he said with pride.
“Kastars?” Soraya echoed, remembering the word from before—something Parvaneh had said about different kinds of divs.
“Kastars are large and brutish divs, their methods of destruction more obvious, as you can see below. The div you just saw—Aeshma—is a druj. I use the drujes as my generals. They’re smaller in build, but their minds are sharper and more strategic. Before I united them, the divs rarely worked together, their powers limited, which is why they were never able to accomplish more than petty violence and short-sighted raids. But joined under one vision, they can conquer kingdoms. As you’ve seen.”
“What about the pariks?” Soraya snapped, irritated by that last remark.
His hands tightened around her arms. “The pariks are spies, and cannot be trusted.”
With this new knowledge, Soraya surveyed the cavern once more, noticing that the divs practicing the drills were all larger than the divs who barked orders. Her gaze went back to the pit where the two divs were fighting—both of them kastars, large and menacing, showing no restraint.
Soraya had never seen a female soldier before. She had read stories of women who had donned armor and fought in armies, but she had never seen any herself, and so her eyes kept returning to the horned div and the pure, relentless fury of her movements. Soraya felt the impact of each blow that the horned div struck somewhere deep in her chest, as if the battle below were an extension of herself, the sound of metal against metal the scream that she had been holding inside her lungs for her entire life.
“Do you want to know why I brought you here, why I can’t bring myself to kill you?” the Shahmar said from behind her, his voice low and soft. “Because I know this is where you belong. I knew it the night we went to the dakhmeh. Before then, I thought you would merely be useful to me. But when I heard my story from your lips, when I saw you unleash all your fury on the yatu, I knew you deserved more than what your family had given you—as I once did.”
“I’m not like you,” Soraya said. She stared straight ahead, wishing she could tear her eyes away from the violence below and prove him wrong. “I won’t be like you.”
“That’s not what you told me that night, on the way to the dakhmeh.” He placed his hands on her shoulders, the tips of his claws brushing against her collarbone. “And do you remember what I told you? I said you were extraordinary—and I meant it. You came alive that night.”
Of course she remembered—he had stood behind her then, too, just like this, his hands on her shoulders, and she had wanted nothing more than to sink back against him.
Soraya twisted to face him, and his claws raked against her skin, leaving thin red scratches. “Then what good am I to you now?” she said in a rasp. “I’m not deadly anymore.”
He shook his head. “It isn’t the poison that makes you deadly, Soraya. It’s you. The poison was only a tool, a weapon like any other. But your will, your fury—that was what I saw in you. And I knew then that you were capable of anything. You proved that to me at the fire temple.”