A rough, scaly finger pressed under her chin, moving her head to the side to face Azad. “It’s rude to ignore your host,” he said, a touch of humor in his voice. “Especially after I went through so much trouble to make you feel at home.”
“Why are you doing this?” she asked him, her voice thick with emotion.
“You’ve been hidden away long enough,” he said with unexpected tenderness. “It’s time for you to become who you were meant to be.”
She looked out at the divs and back at him, uncertainty furrowing her brow. “This isn’t— I’m not—”
But before she could figure out what she was or wasn’t, he began to lead her off the dais. “Come, meet your new people,” he said.
They walked out together into the crowd, dressed in the color of royalty, and the divs all stepped aside to make room for them. As she swept past, many of them kneeled down, placing their heads against the ground or reaching out to touch and kiss the hem of her dress, as she had seen people do for her brother, her mother, her father. And yet, Soraya did not feel moved by these gestures. She had seen the divs bow for Azad, and she had thought it was out of deference, but now there was something about these exaggerated gestures that felt mocking or insincere to her. Azad was walking with his head held high, and so he didn’t see the glimpses of amusement in the divs’ eyes before their heads touched the ground, but Soraya did, and they made her uneasy.
Before Sorush, the shah was always set apart at Golvahar, and Soraya wondered if that distance was too cold or unnatural for the divs, who lived in such close proximity inside a mountain. She wondered what would happen if that distance were closed.
Her head was spinning from being so close to so many, and so she hardly thought as she slipped her hand out of Azad’s and moved ahead of him, drawing closer to the crowd. A murmur of excitement went through them, the divs lifting their bowed heads to regard Soraya with new interest. She reached out one arm, letting the divs brush their scaled and furred and plated hands against hers, a new variety of sensation to experience. Some of them were bold enough to reach out and touch her hair or her dress, and they began to close in more tightly around her, but strangely enough, Soraya wasn’t afraid. Div blood had once run through her veins—divs had shaped the course of her life—and so it seemed right to her that she should belong to them, and them to her.
There was a tearing sound, then a flash of pain, and she looked down to see a rip in her sleeve, a thin line of blood welling up. The divs were surrounding her so completely now that she could barely move, and she felt another bite of pain, this one on her scalp, as strands of her hair were pulled away. She felt something else tugging at the hem of her skirt, fingers around her ankle and curling in her hair, breath against the back of her neck, claws scraping her skin like the prick of thorns in her garden when she didn’t wear her gloves. Tears were filling her eyes, but Soraya didn’t resist. She simply offered herself up to them, wondering what would happen if she allowed the divs to claim her as their own. Would they rip her apart and rebuild her in their image? What would it mean to surrender? What would she become?
“Enough!”
At the sound of the Shahmar’s voice, the divs fell away, leaving Soraya both relieved and bereft. Azad’s arm came around her, and he guided her through the rest of the crowd, as he had done on Nog Roz.
At first, Soraya was afraid—more afraid than she wanted to admit—that Azad’s stern command would make the divs reject her, but if anything, the contrast between Azad’s almost paternalistic distance and Soraya’s full surrender brought the divs closer to her. Many of them nodded to her as she passed with sly smiles or knowing looks, as if they were conspirators, as if they shared something that not even the Shahmar could understand.
Once they had crossed the cavern, Azad raised his arms to keep the divs’ attention and announced, “It’s time now to give Soraya the gift we have prepared for her.” He beckoned to two of the divs, who separated from the crowd and went toward the cavern entrance for their unknown task.
Even through her intoxicated haze, Soraya felt a chill run down her spine. Parvaneh, she thought, suddenly afraid that he had captured her again. “What gift?” she asked him.
“You’ll see,” Azad said with a grin. “I promise you that you’ll enjoy it.”
Soraya tried to take a breath, but the air seemed trapped in her chest, unable to find its way out. “Please, just tell me.”
But instead of answering, he held out his arms once more to silence the noise of the cavern. “Some entertainment,” he called, loud enough to echo. “Bring him out.”
Him? Soraya looked to where he was gesturing, and saw the same two divs pushing their way forward, dragging something through the crowd. It was a man, his hands bound in front of him and a sack over his head. He was bare from the waist up, revealing a vicious wound cutting through his side, the skin caked with dried blood. He dragged his feet every step of the way, forcing the divs to practically carry him down the aisle until they stopped in front of Azad and Soraya. Azad nodded his head, and one of the divs pushed the man to his knees, while the other lifted the sack from his head to reveal Ramin, furious and very much alive.
“Well?” Azad whispered to her. “Aren’t you pleased?”
23
I saw him die, Soraya thought as she stared down at him. She hadn’t, though, she reminded herself. She had only seen him wounded, and assumed that death would shortly follow. But other than the wound at his side and a few scrapes and scratches on his face and torso, he appeared unharmed.
Soraya wasn’t sure how to feel at the sight of him—relief that he was alive, or pity for his current position … or satisfaction at knowing he was her prisoner, and that he was utterly alone when he was the reason she had felt so alone. Soraya couldn’t help seeing the justice in that.
“Do whatever you want with him,” Azad said from beside her, low enough so only she could hear. “He’s yours to control. No one else may intervene unless you wish it.”
Of course this was Azad’s gift to her. He had met Ramin on Nog Roz. Azad had struck him, and Soraya had thanked him for it. That was the first time she and Azad had felt a pull toward each other, their first shared act of violence. And now, in this room of demons, she knew no one would stop her, or even care, if she did something to hurt him. More likely, they would cheer her on.
She couldn’t help the flicker of excitement this ignited in her blood. She no longer had poison in her veins, but she still had—what was it Azad had said?—her will, her fury. It isn’t the poison that makes you deadly.
But no, she wasn’t thinking clearly. She had to think like Parvaneh, to see what use she could make of this situation. Ramin was the only other human here, the only other possible ally outside of the pariks. If she could somehow convince him that he could trust her, then maybe they could work together to find the feather.
Soraya went toward him. Her pulse was slow, like her heart had been sealed in ice. Ramin glared up at her as she approached, his jaw locked in defiance. “I always knew not to trust you,” he spat at her. “I warned my father a hundred times, but he never believed me.”