“Yes,” she said, her hand pressed down over her sash. “I have it. But I’ll give it to you after we find the parik.”
Parvaneh started to argue, but then she nodded, a wry smile on her lips. “Fair enough,” she said. “I won’t need it till then anyway.”
“Why do you still need it at all?”
Parvaneh hesitated, and Soraya supposed she was also deciding how much they could trust each other. “We can’t defeat the Shahmar without the feather,” she said.
Soraya couldn’t help scoffing. “How is a single feather going to stop him?” But Parvaneh’s expression remained grave, and Soraya felt a twinge of worry as she again remembered the feather in Azad’s fist.
“That feather,” Parvaneh said, “is the only thing that can make him human.”
Soraya shook her head. “He can change form at will—I’ve seen him do it.”
Parvaneh again hesitated, as if trying to determine how much to say. “I mean permanently,” she said. “The feather will make him human, as he once was, before he became a div—just as it removed your curse. And only then can we kill him.”
In the silence that followed, Soraya wondered for the first time how Azad had become a div. The stories made his transformation sound like some kind of divine punishment—he acted monstrously and became a monster. Stories lie, he had told her. She wondered, too, if he knew that the feather could restore his humanity. If he did, why hadn’t he used it? He must have already known what Soraya hadn’t understood—that the price of humanity was vulnerability.
Soraya’s fingers curled over her waist. “Is there no way to defeat him while he’s still a div?”
“It would be difficult to strike any blow—his scales are like armor,” Parvaneh answered. “But even then … there’s something you don’t know about divs. It would be easier to show you.”
Parvaneh took the tattered cloak from her, looking from its length to Soraya with an appraising eye. “We can both hide under this,” she said. She stood beside Soraya and threw the cloak over Soraya’s shoulders, drawing it forward over both their heads to create a makeshift hood. “Hold it tight,” she said.
Soraya drew the edge of the cloak in toward herself, and she and Parvaneh huddled close under the fabric. It was long enough to hide their feet, and thin enough that they could see where they were going.
“Something’s wrong,” Parvaneh said. “Can you not breathe?”
Soraya’s breathing was quickening, but not because of lack of air. “I’m not used to this,” she managed to say. Parvaneh’s shoulder was flush against hers, and every time their hands brushed against each other in the close proximity under the cloak, Soraya felt an instinctive jolt of panic.
“Give me your hand,” Parvaneh said. Soraya shyly threaded her fingers through Parvaneh’s, and then they waited—waited until Soraya adjusted to the presence of touch, until her heart slowed and her breathing became normal. It was like sinking into a hot bath, the water gradually becoming bearable against sensitive skin.
“I’m ready,” Soraya said.
Parvaneh led the way through the tunnels, using their joined hands to indicate which direction she wanted them to go. Soraya kept her eyes down so she wouldn’t trip over the cloak’s hem. They passed other divs on their way, but none of them glanced at the unwieldy shape beneath the cloak.
Once they had returned to the long hallway, Parvaneh led them down—the way Soraya had been planning to go before she’d become lost. But when they reached the end of the path, at the base of the mountain at last, Soraya saw that she would never have managed to make it out of the mountain alive.
At the base of the mountain was the largest cavern that Soraya had seen yet—it was larger than the palace gardens. They stayed close to the wall, still hidden under the cloak, and Soraya’s hand tightened around Parvaneh’s. Through the fabric, she saw mostly shapes and shadows, but it was enough to let her know she was looking into the hellish heart of this mountain.
There were divs lounging throughout the massive cavern, some drinking or eating, many sleeping, and others just watching. In the center of the cavern was a wide pit, and from its unknown depths, more divs climbed out at irregular intervals.
“Is this some kind of test?” Soraya asked, thinking of the training grounds.
“This is his throne room,” Parvaneh said, gesturing to the far wall of the cavern. There, a massive throne had been carved into the rock. It was empty, of course, its usual occupant currently visiting a different throne. “And that,” she said, pointing to the large pit, “is Duzakh.”
Soraya shuddered at the word. “That’s the home of the Destroyer,” she said, remembering the yatu.
“When the Destroyer releases us into the world, this is where we emerge,” Parvaneh said. “When a div dies, the Destroyer feels it, and he sends out a replacement, a druj for a druj, or a parik for a parik, and so on. That’s why the Shahmar always captures pariks but never kills them.”
Soraya’s eyes were locked onto the mouth of Duzakh as a wolfish head emerged from it. A div similar but not identical in appearance to the one who had perished in the sparring pit crawled his way out. As soon as he was fully above the surface, a wiry druj came to his side and led him away—recruiting him to the Shahmar’s cause, Soraya guessed. She thought of all the battles her brother and the shahs before him had led, all the divs they had killed, not knowing that each victory was only temporary.
“Will the same thing happen if we kill the Shahmar?” she asked. “Another div will rise to take his place?”
“Not exactly,” Parvaneh said, her voice strained. “Some of us tried to kill the Shahmar in the beginning. But something about his human origins has interfered with the usual process. When he’s struck a mortal blow, he doesn’t die—he regenerates. His scales spread out and close over any wound. I think the div in him only grows stronger with each attempt. In order to truly defeat him, we must make him human first—and to do that, we need the simorgh’s feather.”
Soraya’s hand went to her sash again, a hollow feeling growing in the pit of her stomach.
18
From Azad’s throne room, Parvaneh led her back into the tunnels. She mentioned something about a secret escape route known only to pariks, but Soraya only half listened. She was too busy arguing with herself.
Tell her about the feather, one part of her was saying. Tell her now.
If you tell her now, she’ll never help you, the other insisted. She’ll leave you here in the tunnels to be torn apart.
They stopped in front of a blank wall, Parvaneh looking around before she dug her fingers into a crease and pulled open a heavy slab of rock. She removed the cloak from around their shoulders, and both of them took a breath. “Watch your head,” Parvaneh warned, and they ducked into a narrow passage. Once they were inside, Parvaneh pulled the hidden door back in place, leaving them in total darkness.
Soraya tried to straighten up, but her head met the rock above with a dull thud. This passage was clearly smaller than any of the others; she felt more like she was inside the passages of Golvahar than the finely carved halls of Azad’s mountain palace. But the darkness of Golvahar’s passages was far more familiar to her, and she tried to find the wall with her hand to give her something solid in the nebulous dark.