“What do you mean?” Soraya asked, feeling slightly breathless.
“Can’t you smell it?”
Soraya lifted her head and inhaled deeply, and a familiar feeling of safety wrapped around her. That scent …
“Esfand,” Soraya said, her excitement building. “If the pariks are being held prisoner—”
“The Shahmar would need esfand to weaken them and keep them from transforming,” Parvaneh finished for her.
Parvaneh took the lead again with renewed purpose, and Soraya followed, struggling to match her quickened pace in the dark. But even though her skin was damp from perspiration and the humidity in the air, and she kept scratching herself on branches and shrubs, and she heard the ragged sound of her own breath, Soraya wasn’t tired. On the contrary, she was invigorated, like she was coming to life with every step deeper into the heart of this forest.
“We’re getting closer,” Soraya said. “The smell is getting stronger.”
“I know.” Parvaneh panted beside her. “I feel weak. You have to go on without me.”
Soraya spun in the direction of her voice with a disbelieving glare. “You’re going to leave me?”
“I’ll wait right here. But you have to put out the esfand first—I can barely breathe. As soon as you do, I’ll find you. I promise.”
It was foolish to trust the promise of a div, but Parvaneh hadn’t broken a promise to her yet, and Soraya was the one with a secret. Soraya nodded and walked ahead, following the scent of the esfand.
To her immense relief, she went only a little way farther before she stepped out into a clearing where the moonlight streamed down unfettered. But there was more than moonlight floating in the clearing. Smoke, she thought. The entire clearing was thick with smoke and scent.
And yet it was empty. Soraya walked to the center of the clearing, waving the smoke away, but there was nothing there for the smoke to be coming from. Help me, she asked the forest. Show me what doesn’t belong here. But the forest didn’t answer, of course, and she made it to the other side of the clearing without finding the source of the esfand.
And then she heard a strange noise from above, like a sigh, and she looked up.
The smoke was thicker here, but through it, she saw an iron cage hanging from the high branches of a tree. Hanging below the cage was a brazier, the smoke wafting upward to surround the cage. The brazier was clearly the source of the esfand—although it couldn’t have been the only one, given the amount of smoke and the strength of its effect on Parvaneh—but it was the iron cage that caught Soraya’s gaze, because through the veil of smoke, she saw someone asleep inside it.
Soraya backed away toward the center of the clearing again, and now that she knew where to look, not even the smoke could hide the truth from her. All around the edge of the clearing was a ring of cages. There were a dozen of them, each hanging from a tree, and each with a brazier of esfand pouring smoke from below it. And inside each cage was a sleeping form. Long hair spilled from some of the cages, and Soraya thought she saw the shape of wings in others.
The pariks. She had found them.
19
Twelve sleeping figures in twelve iron cages, wrapped in smoke and moonlight. Soraya felt like she had stepped into one of the illustrations in her books. She wondered how she was supposed to climb up and free them, but then she remembered that she only had to put out the esfand before Parvaneh could come and help her.
When she went up on her toes, she could reach the brazier enough to overturn it, sending a shower of coal dangerously close to her head. One by one, she went around the ring and put out the braziers. As the last coals came tumbling down and the smoke dispersed, some of the pariks began to stir, awakening from their forced slumber. Soraya moved away from the cages, hoping that Parvaneh would appear soon. She didn’t know how the pariks would react to her, or if they would believe her when she claimed to be their ally.
“You,” came a voice to her right. Startled, Soraya turned and met the gaze of one of the pariks. She was still curled up from her sleep, but she lifted her head and peered at Soraya through the bars with wide orange eyes. She appeared mostly human, except for the feathered patterns on her skin. “I know you,” she said.
Soraya shook her head and began to explain, but then she heard a rustling of leaves, and Parvaneh appeared among the trees, glowing and healthy once more. Soraya gestured for her to look up, and Parvaneh let out a long breath as she looked around to see her family returning to life.
The pariks were awakening, a few of them calling out Parvaneh’s name in confusion, and Parvaneh unfurled her wings and rose up into the air to help them bend the bars of their cages enough to slip through.
Soraya watched but tried to keep to the shadows, away from this reunion she had no place in. They all had wings, though of different kinds, some feathered and others translucent like Parvaneh’s. One had the leathery wings of a bat. And though they were more human in appearance than other divs, their eyes all glowed with an inhuman sheen.
But human or demon, one thing was clear: the pariks were a family. As soon as one was free, she would go to help her sisters, until they were all joined together on the ground, laughing and talking and embracing, or adjusting each other’s hair or wings. Soraya felt a familiar ache in her chest, the same one she’d felt when she saw Sorush and Laleh and her mother together on Nog Roz. That sense of belonging and rightness was the same—and again, Soraya stood apart from it.
Soraya looked away, and to her surprise, found Parvaneh standing near her. She thought Parvaneh would be at the center of this joyful reunion, but she was lingering at the edge of the clearing, watching the other pariks intently with her wings flat against her back and her hands fidgeting in front of her. Even when she was held captive in the dungeon, she had never seemed so cowed, so unsure.
“Parvaneh,” a voice said, and Soraya turned her head in its direction. The pariks all stepped aside as one of them strode forward—the one with the orange eyes that had spoken to Soraya when she was waking. At the time, Soraya hadn’t noticed her wings, but now they were more visible: tawny brown, with serrated edges like the wings of an owl.
Soraya wanted to address her at once, but the parik’s gaze was locked on Parvaneh, and from the way the other pariks had parted for her, the way they all waited silently now, Soraya knew better than to interrupt.
“Parisa,” Parvaneh said, the word little more than a breath.
“You’ve returned,” Parisa said. Her voice was soft, but Soraya heard every word. “Does that mean you’ve completed your task?”
Parvaneh’s eyes flickered to the ground, and she gave a quick shake of her head. “Not yet.”
Parisa’s wings fluttered in what Soraya could somehow tell was disapproval. “Then why are you here?”
“I have something that can help,” Parvaneh said, her voice growing louder now. “I have something that can stop the Shahmar.” She turned her head to look straight at Soraya, and Soraya again felt that hollow sensation as she realized what Parvaneh was talking about.
“The simorgh’s feather,” Parvaneh announced with such certainty, such confidence.
An excited chattering erupted among the pariks until Parisa held up a hand to silence them. “Show it to me,” she said.