Still keeping her eyes on Azad, Soraya’s hand found Parvaneh’s, waiting until she felt Parvaneh’s fist close over the simorgh’s feather. “Are you truly surprised?” she said. She started to rise from the ground, keeping herself between Azad and Parvaneh. All around them was violence and destruction, and yet the two of them might have been far from it all, Azad’s attention focused purely on her. “You’ve used me from the start. You used me to hurt my family—”
“You made that choice on your own. All I did was refuse to hold you back.”
“No,” she said forcefully, satisfied when he took a startled step backward. She had blamed herself so many times for what had happened, for the choices she had made, but at the root of every misguided choice, every terrible consequence, was one name. “If I have to bear the blame, then so do you. I thought it was my fault for trusting you, for being such an easy mark for you,” she said, moving steadily toward him, her fists bunched in the skirt of her gown. “But you were the one who betrayed that trust.” With each step she took, he retreated back from her, and it made her feel dangerous again. “I put out the fire, but you were the one who attacked Golvahar and made my brother kneel in front of you. My mother cursed me, but you were the reason why. Everything that happens to you now is your own—”
“Enough!” Azad barked, reaching to grab her by the shoulders. “None of this matters,” he said to her through clenched teeth. “You won’t win. Every div killed here today will be replaced in my army. All you’ve done is sentence your family to death.”
Soraya offered him a cold smile. “Your army won’t follow you for much longer.”
“And why is that?”
But she didn’t need to answer, because while they were speaking—while Soraya had kept him distracted—Parvaneh had risen from the ground and begun to circle around them. Soraya saw her now behind Azad, a flash of green in her hand. And immediately after Azad spoke, Parvaneh leaped onto his back and plunged the sharp end of the feather into his neck, burying it in a patch of exposed skin not covered by scales.
Everyone in the garden—div and parik and human alike—went still as the Shahmar let out a scream of rage and pain before falling heavily to his knees at Soraya’s feet, just as Parvaneh had promised.
As he’d fallen, Parvaneh had pulled out the feather and jumped down from his back, breathing a sigh of relief, her mission finally fulfilled. But now she was watching Azad in awe along with Soraya and the rest of the garden—because something was happening to the Shahmar. His scales rippled over his skin like they were eating him alive, and then, slowly, they began to recede, leaving him a mottled mixture of scale and skin, demon and man. He covered his face in his hands, and Soraya watched as those sharp nails became blunt, and the scales on his head were replaced with hair. He still had his wings, but when he looked up at her in despair, his eyes were human.
He looked so exposed, so vulnerable, kneeling in front of Soraya without his armor. She remembered that strange sense of emptiness when she realized the poison had left her, and she couldn’t help feeling a twinge of sympathy.
He rose on unsteady legs, and even though his transformation was still incomplete, he was human now in a way she had never seen him before. There was a murmur of discontent coming from the garden as the divs realized that their leader had become useless to them, but Soraya kept her eyes on Azad, willing him to ignore the divs. She held out her hand to him, and when she said his name, he looked at her, eyes wild and pleading. “It will be over soon,” she said softly. It was not a boast of victory, but an assurance, an attempt at comfort. His fight—with her, with himself, with fate—was over, and he could be free.
Soraya never knew what choice Azad would have made, because the silence between them was interrupted by sounds of battle coming from the back of the garden, near the palace gates.
People were surging onto the grounds—people from the city, bearing torches that shone against the darkening sky, bearing weapons they had forged and hidden away. The simorgh’s cry must have let them know that the time had come to fight. Soraya thought of the people she had seen in the city, seemingly defeated but in truth waiting for the right time to strike, as she had done, and she felt a surge of pride at their boundless resilience. The battle began anew, but it was clear now that the divs would be outnumbered.
She had lost her tentative connection with Azad, whose eyes were wide with panic. “Azad,” she said again, but when he turned to look at her, there was a familiar cold glint in his eyes. Ah, there he is, Soraya thought. She unconsciously recoiled from him, which seemed to awaken his remaining predatory instincts. Soraya saw the flash of his dagger in his hand before he lunged toward her. Parvaneh immediately bolted for him in response, but before either of them could reach their target, someone roughly shoved Soraya to the side.
Tahmineh now stood where Soraya had been, and so it was Tahmineh who ended up in Azad’s chokehold, with his dagger poised across her throat. “No!” Soraya shouted, and behind Azad, Parvaneh froze, afraid to provoke him.
“Don’t follow,” Azad snarled as he began to back both himself and Tahmineh toward the palace doorway. But as he began to retreat under the ayvan, figures appeared in the doorway with swords bared. Soraya recognized the spahbed—his waist was still bandaged, but he stood firm, sword pointed in Azad’s direction. Beside and behind him were other wounded soldiers recovered enough to fight.
Cornered again, Azad let out a cry of frustration. And then, with a flourish of his still-powerful wings, he rose up into the air, taking Soraya’s mother with him.
29
“No,” Soraya kept saying under her breath, that one word over and over again. She watched in terror as the two figures flew up over the roof. But the effort of flying had used up the remaining force of Azad’s wings, because when they were barely over the palace, his wings began to crumble like dry leaves, and he and Tahmineh crashed down onto the surface of the roof.
“Go!” Soraya shouted to Parvaneh, but Parvaneh was already flying up to the roof, and Soraya ran past the soldiers into the palace.
She’ll be safe, Soraya told herself. She’s always been able to outsmart him. But Azad’s promise to slaughter her family still rang in her ears as she rushed toward the stairwell to the roof. Just as she reached the stairs, something with claws grabbed her by the back of her dress, a low growl coming from above her. Soraya let out a frustrated cry and wildly thrashed against the div that held her, but soon the div let out a yelp of pain and the claws released her.
Soraya spun to find the div’s severed right arm on the ground. And behind the div was a familiar soldier, his sword red with the div’s blood.
“Go!” Ramin called to her, not taking his eyes off the div, which was moving toward him.
Soraya silently thanked him and began to climb. She ran breathlessly, but halfway up the stairs, she had to stop, because she felt sudden sharp stabs of pain all along her body. She put a hand on the wall to brace herself, waiting for the inexplicable pain to pass, then continued.
She had to pause again when she reached the final flight of stairs, which brought her onto a balconied platform on the outside wall of the palace. At first, she had only stopped because she had been startled by the unexpected flash of green, but then she realized what she was seeing, and her jaw dropped in awe.