Aware of Azad’s watchful stare behind her, and of all the other divs in the cavern waiting for violence, Soraya circled around him, placed one hand on his shoulder, and kept her voice as low as possible. “I came here the same way that you did—by force.”
He scoffed at her. “The Shahmar told us who he is—who we all thought he was. But you knew all along. You were with him on Nog Roz.”
She buried her hand in his hair and pulled his head back with a violent jerk, causing a snicker of delight to go through the room. “I didn’t know,” she murmured to him. “He fooled me, too. I’m a prisoner here like you. We can help each oth—”
“A prisoner like me? Is that so?” Ramin’s eyes were so cold, his voice so biting, that Soraya knew he would never trust her, no matter what she said to him. His lip curled with disdain. “Will he give me clothes as nice as yours? Or do I have to pay for them with my family’s blood like you did?”
She was too hurt to react at first. But that had always been her instinct—to freeze, to retreat, to cradle her anger in her hands until the flame went out safely. That was what she would have done before. That was what she had done before, a thousand times over the years, during every encounter with Ramin. Even surrounded by divs, powerless, he still thought he could say whatever he wanted to her. He thought she wouldn’t strike back.
And now, her blood still singing after her surrender to the divs, all Soraya wanted was the pleasure of proving him wrong.
With one hand still grasping his hair, she bent down and dug her nails into his chest, causing him to hiss in pain and the divs to let out a cheer.
“You think you can speak to me that way,” Soraya whispered to him, her head bent beside his, “because you never believed I would fight back.” She was herself and not herself—she didn’t know what she was, except that she was free. “I could have shocked you into silence with a single touch so many times over the years, but I always let you win. That’s why you were never afraid of me. That’s why you mocked and insulted me. But you should have been afraid, Ramin. You should have been afraid of me from the start.” She dragged her nails up his chest as she straightened, tearing through skin, and leaving an angry scratch on his chest.
The divs cheered for her again, as if she had scored a blow in a sparring match, and she couldn’t fight the flush of satisfaction that went through her—nor did she want to. When she looked up, her eyes met Azad’s, and it was the same as it had been on Nog Roz, a crackle of energy passing from one to the other like lightning.
Ramin had bent his head, and his shoulders convulsed in what Soraya thought was pain—until she realized he was laughing. He looked up at her and said loudly, “You think I wasn’t afraid of you? You’re deluded, Soraya—I’ve always feared you. But I promised myself I would never show fear in front of you, because how could I protect my sister from something I was scared of myself?”
She didn’t want to hear Laleh’s name or anything that would stop her from enjoying Azad’s gift to her. But still, she asked, “What do you mean?”
“Why do you think I trailed along after you and Laleh? I couldn’t stand to leave you alone with her. I saw the way your eyes followed her when she and Sorush would leave you behind in your dismal passageways—that jealous, hateful look.”
“That’s not true,” Soraya snapped, but whether it was true or not, she knew Ramin didn’t think he was lying. He couldn’t fall back on his usual arrogant posturing anymore, and there was raw emotion in his face and voice. This was a confession: he had feared her—and he feared for Laleh.
“I’ve seen that look grow sharper over the years, seen the poison in you grow stronger,” Ramin continued. “I told Laleh to stay away from you, but she was too kind, or maybe she pitied you too much, so I found other ways to separate you. I knew you would hurt her one day.”
“Enough,” Soraya ordered. Each word that he spoke threatened to dim the glow of satisfaction that came from her control over him. She couldn’t lose that glow—without it, she would be left in darkness.
But Ramin’s voice only became louder. “I thought that would be enough to keep my family safe from you, but clearly, I was wrong. My sister spent her wedding day in tears because of you and your—”
“I said, enough!” Soraya shouted as she stepped forward, pulled her foot back, and aimed a hard kick at his side—at the wound.
The shout of triumph from the divs was so loud that she almost didn’t hear Ramin crying out as he slumped forward. But she did hear it, and the sound of that cry, so agonized, so primal, brought her back to herself.
Oh no.
She had been so desperate to keep his words from reaching her, from letting him win again, even when he was her prisoner, that she had barely thought before reacting. Now as the words were sinking in, Soraya looked at Ramin, his eyes shut from the pain, and saw him anew. All this time, she had thought of him as her persecutor and herself as the maligned victim of his pride, intimidated into submission because she refused to hurt him. But Ramin had been living in a different story, with himself as the hero, protecting his family from a demon in their midst that only he could recognize.
Standing here in a cavern of divs with blood under her nails and on the hem of her gown, Soraya was no longer sure which story was true.
Once more, she moved toward Ramin—but this time, she bent to undo the cords around his wrists.
“What are you doing?” he asked her with surprise.
“I’m sorry,” Soraya responded, unable to look him in the eye.
Before she could even begin to loosen the cords, a hand came down on her shoulder and she froze. “Stop at once,” Azad hissed at her under his breath. “You mustn’t show any weakness in front of the divs.”
She looked up at his stern face. “You said I could do whatever I wanted with him. I choose to free him.”
He shook his head. “I won’t allow that. They won’t allow that.”
Soraya looked up at the crowd of murmuring divs, craning their necks to see what violence Soraya would inflict next. “Then I want him returned to Golvahar unharmed.” She faced Ramin now, who was staring at her with a bewildered frown. “Look after them all,” she said to him in a hushed voice. “Protect them as much as you can.”
Azad took her arm and lifted her to her feet. “Go wait for me in that hall,” he whispered to her, gesturing to one of the tunnels leading out of the cavern. With a last guilty glance at Ramin, Soraya did as he said, hurrying through the crowd. As she pushed her way through to the tunnel, she heard Azad call out, “Your champion has wisely decided to let her prisoner recover before she causes him further injury.…”
As soon as she was alone in the tunnel, Soraya leaned her head against the stone wall, taking deep, shuddering breaths. Ramin’s cry of pain was still in her ears. How could she have let herself lose control like that? After so many years of holding herself back, she had lost that skill. It seemed to her sometimes that she could only ever be one thing or the other, a mouse or a viper, with nothing in between. And if that were true, then she didn’t know which she would choose. Either way brought her misery and shame.