Parvaneh came to Soraya’s side, and Soraya felt a wave of nausea as all eyes turned expectantly to her. She shook her head lightly and whispered to Parvaneh, “I don’t have it.”
She hadn’t meant for the others to hear, but instantly, there was an uproar of angry voices and fluttering wings. Parvaneh clasped her hand around Soraya’s wrist. “You said you had it,” she bit out between clenched teeth.
“He took it from me before he brought me here,” Soraya said. “I didn’t know that…” She couldn’t finish the thought aloud. I didn’t know that they wouldn’t welcome you without it. I didn’t know you were an outcast.
But now she remembered Parvaneh’s furious outburst when she had told Soraya to abandon her family. Are they truly your family if they’ve failed to accept you as their own? If they cast you out and treat you with disdain? Why do they still matter to you? Perhaps Parvaneh had wanted Soraya’s answer so she could know it herself.
Parisa called for silence again. “We thank you for freeing us, Parvaneh, but it’s not enough to meet the conditions for your return.”
Parvaneh’s head was turned away from Parisa and the others, but Soraya saw the clench of her jaw, the dimming of her eyes. She felt Parvaneh’s shame and humiliation as if it were her own, because it had been—it still was.
“She doesn’t have the feather yet, but she will,” Soraya called to Parisa.
The pariks all fell silent in surprise. Parisa looked at Soraya now as if she had only just noticed her. Parvaneh placed a hand on her arm. “Soraya—”
But Soraya ignored her. “The Shahmar took it from me,” she said, stepping forward, “but I can find it again.” In her mind, she imagined green veins curling over her skin like vines, and the image made her feel bold.
“How?” called out the bat-winged parik from behind Parisa.
Parisa inclined her head, approving of the question. “How can you get close enough to the Shahmar to do such a thing?”
“The Shahmar is fond of me,” Soraya answered. “He brought me here rather than killing me. If I pretend that I want to join him, he’ll keep me close enough to learn his secrets. I’ll find the feather, and when I do, I’ll give it to Parvaneh—only to Parvaneh.”
Soraya didn’t know when she had become so comfortable making bargains with divs, but she managed to hold Parisa’s steady gaze as she spoke, her voice never wavering. The words came to her as if she had planned them, because as soon as Parvaneh had told her why they needed the feather, some part of her had known that she was the only one who could retrieve it again.
“How do we know we can trust her?” said another parik, her gossamer wings twitching.
Parisa came to stand directly in front of Soraya, studying her face closely. “I know you,” she said again. Now that the smoke had completely faded, the feathered pattern on her skin was clearer, her eyes even brighter. “You saved me once before, in the forest to the south. You freed me from one of the Shahmar’s traps.”
“That was my mother,” Soraya said. “My mother freed you when she was a girl.”
Parisa’s eyes widened in recognition. “You’re the child,” she said. She raised a hand to brush aside Soraya’s hair, but then she shook her head. “But you can’t be her. I gave that child a gift that you don’t have.”
“I did have it,” Soraya said. Grief and bitterness mingled on her tongue, her words both an accusation and an apology. She knew that Parisa would never understand that her gift had been a curse to Soraya—and Soraya wasn’t even sure of it herself anymore. “I had poison in my veins,” she continued, “but I rejected it, and in doing so, I put my whole family—my people—at risk. My mother told me to find you and ask for your help to defeat the Shahmar.”
Parisa tilted her head, the movement so much like Parvaneh’s that Soraya almost smiled. “Are you like your mother?” she asked.
Soraya flinched inwardly. Was she like her mother, a woman who was determined and ruthless enough to go to a dakhmeh at night, who had freed a parik and tried to thwart a div, who had let her shame fester inside her until the consequences spiraled out of her control? “Yes,” Soraya said, her voice thick with a mixture of pride and regret. “I’m very much like her.”
Parisa called back to the others, “We can trust this one. If she brings us the simorgh’s feather, we will stand with her and the humans against the Shahmar.” She turned to the other pariks. “Does anyone disagree?”
The other pariks all shook their heads. “No, Parisa. We trust your judgment,” the bat-winged parik said.
“We must leave this clearing at once.” Parisa turned back to Soraya. “You will return to Arzur, of course.”
Soraya swallowed down the lump in her throat. It was unthinkable that she should leave behind the freedom of the forest and the open sky to crawl back inside that prison of a mountain. But she nodded, accepting the task she had given herself.
Parisa looked to Parvaneh now. “When you have the feather, you know where to find us.”
The pariks all began to move deeper into the forest, and Soraya watched them go with a feeling of loss she didn’t quite understand.
When they were alone, Parvaneh said, “Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t have the feather anymore?” There was no anger or resentment in her tone, only curiosity.
Soraya turned to face her. “I didn’t know if you would keep helping me if you knew. Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t welcome among the pariks?”
“I didn’t know if you would give me the feather if you knew,” Parvaneh answered.
Standing face-to-face, it was almost as if they were in the dungeon again, trading pieces of the truth through the bars. “Why did they cast you out?” Soraya asked.
“I made an error in judgment that they still haven’t forgiven me for. They were lenient with me because of my age.”
“I thought divs didn’t age,” Soraya said with surprise.
A weak smile crossed Parvaneh’s face. “Not as humans do. I was never a child, but at that time, I was the most recent parik to emerge from Duzakh. By div standards, I’m not much older than you are.” Before Soraya could ask anything more, Parvaneh continued hastily, “We shouldn’t linger here, either.”
She set out in the direction they had come from, leaving Soraya with no choice but to follow.
The forest felt less liberating to her now that it was the path back to her prison, but still, Soraya tried to absorb it into her memory, breathing in the smell of wet soil. She hoped one day she could come back here in the sunlight.
“Thank you,” Parvaneh said, breaking the silence between them. She kept her eyes ahead of her as she continued. “Not just for freeing them, but for what you said. What you offered. It’s a dangerous task you’ve given yourself.”
“There’s not much else I can do,” Soraya muttered as she tried not to trip over her dress. “I’m not strong enough to fight a div, I can’t see in the dark, I’m not even—”
She tripped over a root, but Parvaneh caught her before she fell. Soraya straightened, but Parvaneh didn’t move away, still holding Soraya’s arms. “You’re not even what?” she asked.