Azad drew a sword from his side and wrapped Soraya’s hand around its handle. “Soon it will be finished,” he murmured, too low for anyone else to hear. “It will be easier than you think.”
She turned, sword in hand, to look down at her brother’s hunched form. She could still hear his vicious words from the throne room, and she had been afraid of what she would find in his eyes now. But she hadn’t expected that he wouldn’t look at her at all. He kept his gaze straight ahead, his spine as straight as his bindings would allow. He would die a king.
Beyond him, Laleh wasn’t looking at her, either, because her eyes were too full of tears, her head bowed so she wouldn’t have to witness Sorush’s death. But why wouldn’t Sorush look at her? Why wouldn’t he look up and see if she had some hidden message for him, some silent reassurance that all would be well? Soraya’s grip tightened on the sword handle. This was what he had always done—turned away from her when the sight was too difficult to acknowledge, or when it would damage the royal image he wanted to project. He had known how unhappy she had been, and yet he had done nothing to help her. Again, Soraya found Nasu in the crowd, and as their eyes met, Nasu gave her a small nod of approval.
She raised the sword, laying the flat of it against the nape of Sorush’s neck. He flinched at the feel of cold metal against his skin. You can’t ignore that, can you? “Bow your head,” Soraya said coldly—because Azad was watching, and she couldn’t show too much hesitation, or he would suspect. It will be easier than you think.
Sorush bowed his head, and as he did, her mother’s face came into view. She was the only one of the three prisoners who was looking at Soraya, her eyes red but dry. When Soraya’s eyes met hers, Tahmineh mouthed two words: I’m sorry.
The sword wavered in Soraya’s hand, and she felt the urge to cry—to throw the sword to the ground and crawl into her mother’s lap, as she had always wanted to do when she was a child. Instead, she looked down at the curling hair at the base of Sorush’s skull, at the ridge of his spine, and wondered if she would have the strength to kill him in one blow.
Because she would have to kill him—there was no way around that now. She was using the drama of the occasion to stall for time, hoping Azad would think she was trying to torture her brother, but she couldn’t do so for much longer. Parvaneh wasn’t coming, and if she didn’t kill Sorush, then Azad would murder him anyway, along with everyone else in her family. This was not an execution, but a sacrifice. And if Sorush would only have looked at her, she could have tried to tell him that, so he would know he was dying for a worthy cause.
She raised the sword …
… and almost dropped it as a piercing cry filled the air. It wasn’t a human sound, but the battle cry of a bird of prey. Soraya looked up and found the majestic form of the simorgh swooping down over the cypress trees. A mother coming to protect her young, she thought with a wave of relief.
Every head in the garden turned upward—and the first rain of arrows fell from the sky.
“What is this?” she heard Azad shout, and as he spoke, several of the divs in the garden—all of them with wings, Soraya noticed—fell to the ground, arrows lodged deeply in their chests. Above, at least twenty winged figures remained out of reach as they let loose more arrows. Parvaneh found the pariks, Soraya thought with a burst of pride.
Soraya acted quickly, kneeling beside Sorush and cutting through the rope around his wrists with her sword. “Here,” she said, putting the sword in his now-freed hands. “Be their shah again.”
“Soraya—” He finally faced her, mouth hanging open for a moment before his eyes hardened into a determined stare. And for the first time since he had become shah, Soraya saw herself reflected in those eyes, the two of them in perfect understanding. He gave her a short nod and rushed into the fray.
Next, Soraya freed Laleh, who didn’t need Soraya to tell her what to do. She grabbed Soraya’s head, kissed her cheek, and then ran into the palace, where her father and the other captured azatan were waiting.
“I knew it,” Tahmineh was saying as Soraya began to undo her bindings. “I knew you would find them.”
But before Soraya could completely free her mother’s hands, she felt a grip like iron clamp down on her wrist. Azad pulled her up from the ground like she was weightless and spun her around to face him. “You knew,” he said, and even in the growl of his voice, she could hear a note of hurt. “You deceived me.”
“You taught me how.”
His grip tightened around her wrist. “Remember that I warned you, Soraya.”
He might have said more, but then an arrow hit his shoulder, lodging in the armor of his scales. With a cry of surprise, he released Soraya and took a staggering step backward. “You,” he snarled, looking at someone behind Soraya. “But how—”
“Did you think I wouldn’t be here to see you fall?” Parvaneh said, stepping forward to Soraya’s side. Her bow was still drawn, a fresh arrow pointed at Azad. “Nothing could have kept me away.”
Azad wrenched the arrow out of his shoulder and tossed it aside, drawing a dagger from his belt. “Stay back,” Parvaneh said to Soraya. “I’ll keep my promise to you. On his knees, remember?”
Soraya gave Parvaneh’s shoulder a quick squeeze and hurried back to Tahmineh. “Look at them,” Tahmineh said quietly, her eyes fixed on the battle in the garden. “They’re fighting back.”
Soraya followed her mother’s gaze and saw that she was right. The simorgh and the pariks were still fighting the divs both from above and on the ground, but they weren’t the only ones. The other humans in the garden, perhaps rallied by Sorush’s example, had retrieved weapons from the fallen divs and were now doing their best to strike against the divs while they were distracted from above.
Tahmineh’s hands were free now, but when Soraya looked back to check on Parvaneh, she went cold with fear. Parvaneh’s bow lay in two pieces on the ground, and beside it was Parvaneh on her back, Azad poised above her with his dagger. Just like the dakhmeh, Soraya thought, only now Azad was in the place of the yatu. She had saved Azad then, but she’d had poison in her veins. What did she have now?
From above, the simorgh gave another fierce cry, and when Soraya looked up, she saw something floating down toward her. It was a green feather, tipped with orange—her birthright, granted to her freely.
Soraya leaped to pluck it from the air, then rushed toward Azad. She didn’t think she would have the strength to plunge the feather deeply enough to break through the scales and pierce his skin—but Parvaneh certainly did.
Azad was lifting his dagger over Parvaneh, and Soraya knew that she would need to do more than grab his wrist, as she had done with the yatu. She threw herself down over Parvaneh, shielding her with her body, and looked up at Azad with all the defiance she had been holding back.
His arm still in the air, Azad froze, his slit pupils becoming razor-thin. Slowly, he lowered his arm. “You care for her, don’t you?” he said, sounding despondent. “All this time, you’ve been working against me.”