The golestan was still growing. Twining through the bars of the balcony were thick green vines lined with thorns. When Soraya looked up at the wall, she saw more of the vines growing over the palace walls, covering nearly the entire facade. Again, she felt a stab of pain that took her breath away, but as soon as it passed, she continued up the last flight of stairs, careful to avoid the vines and their poisonous thorns.
At last she stepped up onto the roof. She rushed toward the edge near the front of the palace, where Azad was backing away, still holding his dagger to Tahmineh’s throat. Parvaneh stood several paces away from them both, alert but very still.
Soraya ran to Parvaneh’s side and called out, “Let her go, Azad. She has nothing to do with this.”
Azad’s head jerked in her direction, and Soraya felt a wave of dread. She had expected to find him frantic and afraid, still halfway between monster and man. She had thought she could appeal to him again, as she had tried to do on the steps below. But Azad’s eyes were cold and calm, his scales—and any other sign of the Shahmar—completely gone. He wasn’t using Tahmineh to protect himself—he knew he had lost his throne, as well as any command he had over the divs. All he had left to do was punish Soraya for his loss.
“Nothing to do with this?” he echoed coolly. “She’s the reason we’re all standing here now. It’s time for her to atone.”
“He’s right,” Tahmineh called back, eyes fixed on Soraya. “You shouldn’t be the one who has to stop him, Soraya. It should have always been me.” To Azad, she commanded, “Do it, then. Do what you should have done to me thirty years ago.”
Soraya balked at her mother’s words. But then Parvaneh put her hand on Soraya’s shoulder and whispered so only she could hear, “She’s doing you a favor,” and Soraya understood. Tahmineh’s life was the only thing standing in between them and Azad. And so she was offering that life as a sacrifice, so that her daughter could put an end to their family’s great enemy once and for all.
Tahmineh gave Soraya a small, subtle nod, and Parvaneh’s hand tightened on her shoulder. Let him do it, they were both saying to her. Another sacrifice, another exchange. She had put out the fire and endangered her brother so that she could lift her curse. She had given Parvaneh to Azad to save her family. She had nearly killed Sorush for the same reason. But now, just once, Soraya didn’t want to trade one life for another. She wanted her family safe, her mother alive, her people protected, Parvaneh free—she wanted it all, and she wouldn’t let Azad take a single one from her. Not again. Not anymore.
The stabbing pain was returning, only now she couldn’t feel each individual stab, but a constant sense of pressure all over her skin—all under her skin, like something fighting to break through. Ignoring it, she stepped forward, letting Parvaneh’s hand fall away from her shoulder. “Azad, listen to me, please. You’re fully human now, aren’t you? You can find a new life for yourself somewhere else, somewhere far from all of your worst memories. You could forget the past and begin again.”
The dagger in his hand wavered slightly, but his face remained impassive as he said, “Would you come with me if I did?”
Soraya hesitated for half a breath, then forced herself to say, “Yes.”
He laughed wryly. “I was hoping you would say that. I wanted to hear you lie to me one last time. But even though you never keep your promises, Soraya, I always do.”
His arm moved in one quick motion, the blade slicing across Tahmineh’s throat, and Soraya screamed.
But Azad’s reflexes were human now, and as his arm began to move, Soraya saw a flash of movement beside her—a flash of wings—and Parvaneh knocked his arm aside. The dagger flew out of his hand and skittered across the roof.
Soraya ran to her mother, the woman who had both cursed and saved her, and knelt at her side. Parvaneh was already removing the sash from her tunic and wrapping it tightly around the wound to stop the blood from seeping out. “It’s not deep,” she said. “If we bind the wound—” Her hand went to her waist, where her sash had been, and then her head shot up. “I must have dropped the feather when I flew up here, but if I can find it—”
“Go!” Soraya cried. She was holding her mother’s hand, but it was cold—too cold. “Go quickly.”
Parvaneh glanced up at Azad, who had been knocked to the ground during her attack. She hesitated, but then she rose and dove off the edge of the roof, her wings carrying her down.
The pressure under Soraya’s skin was building, but she paid it little attention, too concerned with her mother’s pain to worry about her own. Tahmineh’s eyes were still open, and she raised a hand to Soraya’s cheek, her lips parting to speak. “Don’t let him win,” she said with her remaining strength before her eyes fluttered closed.
She was still breathing, but Soraya thought of all her mother had endured—of the shadow she had lived under since childhood, the sacrifices she had made—and her vision went black for a moment. And then it burned red.
Her heart was pounding so strongly she felt the blood in her veins rushing to the surface of her skin. She knew this feeling, and so she knew what she would find when she looked down at her hands, her wrists.
Dark green veins were spreading over her skin, but even without seeing them, Soraya felt the poison inside her. She welcomed it like a friend, like a savior. At this point she had always stepped back from the cliff’s edge—she would take deep breaths, calm her beating heart, wait until the spread of her veins slowed. But words were turning over and over in her mind.
Be angry for yourself. Use that rage to fight him.
Don’t let him win.
The pressure was unbearable now, and her skin felt tight on her bones, like something was trying to burst out of her. It was the same feeling as in her nightmares, just before she awakened. Surrender or destruction, she thought. That was the way of divs. She could surrender to the div’s blood inside her, or she could let it destroy her.
For so many years, Soraya had tried to fight down the poison inside her, but this time … this time, she surrendered.
The sky was a vivid orange now from the setting sun, and she turned her head up to it and let out a cry of rage and pain and release. And as she did, the pressure began to fade, the pain dissipating.
Something was happening to her—something new.
All along the lines of her veins, thorns were beginning to pierce through her skin, sharp and long like the ones in the golestan. She held her hands in front of her, watching in silent awe as the greenish-brown thorns appeared along the backs of her hands. They pushed out through the fabric of her dress, and when she touched her face, she felt more of them trailing down in two lines along her cheeks, down to her neck. This was what she had always feared: that her transformation wasn’t complete, but was waiting for the day she could no longer control the poison within her. But instead of feeling horrified by the change that had come over her, Soraya felt whole.
She could sense the poison inside her now more keenly than she ever had before—but more than that, she could control it, directing its movement through her veins until she chose to release it through her thorns. If she had only given in to this transformation years ago, she could have had this power and protection without having to forgo touch—but there was no point in dwelling on the past now. That was what Azad had done.