Girl, Serpent, Thorn (19 page)

 

Twelve sleeping figures in twelve iron cages, wrapped in smoke and moonlight. Soraya felt like she had stepped into one of the illustrations in her books. She wondered how she was supposed to climb up and free them, but then she remembered that she only had to put out the esfand before Parvaneh could come and help her.

When she went up on her toes, she could reach the brazier enough to overturn it, sending a shower of coal dangerously close to her head. One by one, she went around the ring and put out the braziers. As the last coals came tumbling down and the smoke dispersed, some of the pariks began to stir, awakening from their forced slumber. Soraya moved away from the cages, hoping that Parvaneh would appear soon. She didn't know how the pariks would react to her, or if they would believe her when she claimed to be their ally.

“
You,
” came a voice to her right. Startled, Soraya turned and met the gaze of one of the pariks. She was still curled up from her sleep, but she lifted her head and peered at Soraya through the bars with wide orange eyes. She appeared mostly human, except for the feathered patterns on her skin. “I know you,” she said.

Soraya shook her head and began to explain, but then she heard a rustling of leaves, and Parvaneh appeared among the trees, glowing and healthy once more. Soraya gestured for her to look up, and Parvaneh let out a long breath as she looked around to see her family returning to life.

The pariks were awakening, a few of them calling out Parvaneh's name in confusion, and Parvaneh unfurled her wings and rose up into the air to help them bend the bars of their cages enough to slip through.

Soraya watched but tried to keep to the shadows, away from this reunion she had no place in. They all had wings, though of different kinds, some feathered and others translucent like Parvaneh's. One had the leathery wings of a bat. And though they were more human in appearance than other divs, their eyes all glowed with an inhuman sheen.

But human or demon, one thing was clear: the pariks were a family. As soon as one was free, she would go to help her sisters, until they were all joined together on the ground, laughing and talking and embracing, or adjusting each other's hair or wings. Soraya felt a familiar ache in her chest, the same one she'd felt when she saw Sorush and Laleh and her mother together on Nog Roz. That sense of belonging and rightness was the same—and again, Soraya stood apart from it.

Soraya looked away, and to her surprise, found Parvaneh standing near her. She thought Parvaneh would be at the center of this joyful reunion, but she was lingering at the edge of the clearing, watching the other pariks intently with her wings flat against her back and her hands fidgeting in front of her. Even when she was
held captive in the dungeon, she had never seemed so cowed, so unsure.

“Parvaneh,” a voice said, and Soraya turned her head in its direction. The pariks all stepped aside as one of them strode forward—the one with the orange eyes that had spoken to Soraya when she was waking. At the time, Soraya hadn't noticed her wings, but now they were more visible: tawny brown, with serrated edges like the wings of an owl.

Soraya wanted to address her at once, but the parik's gaze was locked on Parvaneh, and from the way the other pariks had parted for her, the way they all waited silently now, Soraya knew better than to interrupt.

“Parisa,” Parvaneh said, the word little more than a breath.

“You've returned,” Parisa said. Her voice was soft, but Soraya heard every word. “Does that mean you've completed your task?”

Parvaneh's eyes flickered to the ground, and she gave a quick shake of her head. “Not yet.”

Parisa's wings fluttered in what Soraya could somehow tell was disapproval. “Then why are you here?”

“I have something that can help,” Parvaneh said, her voice growing louder now. “I have something that can stop the Shahmar.” She turned her head to look straight at Soraya, and Soraya again felt that hollow sensation as she realized what Parvaneh was talking about.

“The simorgh's feather,” Parvaneh announced with such certainty, such confidence.

An excited chattering erupted among the pariks until Parisa held up a hand to silence them. “Show it to me,” she said.

Parvaneh came to Soraya's side, and Soraya felt a wave of nausea as all eyes turned expectantly to her. She shook her head lightly and whispered to Parvaneh, “I don't have it.”

She hadn't meant for the others to hear, but instantly, there was an uproar of angry voices and fluttering wings. Parvaneh clasped
her hand around Soraya's wrist. “You said you had it,” she bit out between clenched teeth.

“He took it from me before he brought me here,” Soraya said. “I didn't know that…” She couldn't finish the thought aloud.
I didn't know that they wouldn't welcome you without it
.
I didn't know you were an outcast
.

But now she remembered Parvaneh's furious outburst when she had told Soraya to abandon her family.
Are they truly your family if they've failed to accept you as their own? If they cast you out and treat you with disdain? Why do they still matter to you?
Perhaps Parvaneh had wanted Soraya's answer so she could know it herself.

Parisa called for silence again. “We thank you for freeing us, Parvaneh, but it's not enough to meet the conditions for your return.”

Parvaneh's head was turned away from Parisa and the others, but Soraya saw the clench of her jaw, the dimming of her eyes. She felt Parvaneh's shame and humiliation as if it were her own, because it had been—it still was.

“She doesn't have the feather yet, but she will,” Soraya called to Parisa.

The pariks all fell silent in surprise. Parisa looked at Soraya now as if she had only just noticed her. Parvaneh placed a hand on her arm. “Soraya—”

But Soraya ignored her. “The Shahmar took it from me,” she said, stepping forward, “but I can find it again.” In her mind, she imagined green veins curling over her skin like vines, and the image made her feel bold.

“How?” called out the bat-winged parik from behind Parisa.

Parisa inclined her head, approving of the question. “How can you get close enough to the Shahmar to do such a thing?”

“The Shahmar is fond of me,” Soraya answered. “He brought me here rather than killing me. If I pretend that I want to join him, he'll keep me close enough to learn his secrets. I'll find the feather, and when I do, I'll give it to Parvaneh—
only
to Parvaneh.”

Soraya didn't know when she had become so comfortable making bargains with divs, but she managed to hold Parisa's steady gaze as she spoke, her voice never wavering. The words came to her as if she had planned them, because as soon as Parvaneh had told her why they needed the feather, some part of her had known that she was the only one who could retrieve it again.

“How do we know we can trust her?” said another parik, her gossamer wings twitching.

Parisa came to stand directly in front of Soraya, studying her face closely. “I know you,” she said again. Now that the smoke had completely faded, the feathered pattern on her skin was clearer, her eyes even brighter. “You saved me once before, in the forest to the south. You freed me from one of the Shahmar's traps.”

“That was my mother,” Soraya said. “My mother freed you when she was a girl.”

Parisa's eyes widened in recognition. “You're the child,” she said. She raised a hand to brush aside Soraya's hair, but then she shook her head. “But you can't be her. I gave that child a gift that you don't have.”

“I did have it,” Soraya said. Grief and bitterness mingled on her tongue, her words both an accusation and an apology. She knew that Parisa would never understand that her gift had been a curse to Soraya—and Soraya wasn't even sure of it herself anymore. “I had poison in my veins,” she continued, “but I rejected it, and in doing so, I put my whole family—my people—at risk. My mother told me to find you and ask for your help to defeat the Shahmar.”

Parisa tilted her head, the movement so much like Parvaneh's that Soraya almost smiled. “Are you like your mother?” she asked.

Soraya flinched inwardly. Was she like her mother, a woman who was determined and ruthless enough to go to a dakhmeh at night, who had freed a parik and tried to thwart a div, who had let her shame fester inside her until the consequences spiraled out of
her control? “Yes,” Soraya said, her voice thick with a mixture of pride and regret. “I'm very much like her.”

Parisa called back to the others, “We can trust this one. If she brings us the simorgh's feather, we will stand with her and the humans against the Shahmar.” She turned to the other pariks. “Does anyone disagree?”

The other pariks all shook their heads. “No, Parisa. We trust your judgment,” the bat-winged parik said.

“We must leave this clearing at once.” Parisa turned back to Soraya. “You will return to Arzur, of course.”

Soraya swallowed down the lump in her throat. It was unthinkable that she should leave behind the freedom of the forest and the open sky to crawl back inside that prison of a mountain. But she nodded, accepting the task she had given herself.

Parisa looked to Parvaneh now. “When you have the feather, you know where to find us.”

The pariks all began to move deeper into the forest, and Soraya watched them go with a feeling of loss she didn't quite understand.

When they were alone, Parvaneh said, “Why didn't you tell me you didn't have the feather anymore?” There was no anger or resentment in her tone, only curiosity.

Soraya turned to face her. “I didn't know if you would keep helping me if you knew. Why didn't you tell me you weren't welcome among the pariks?”

“I didn't know if you would give me the feather if you knew,” Parvaneh answered.

Standing face-to-face, it was almost as if they were in the dungeon again, trading pieces of the truth through the bars. “Why did they cast you out?” Soraya asked.

“I made an error in judgment that they still haven't forgiven me for. They were lenient with me because of my age.”

“I thought divs didn't age,” Soraya said with surprise.

A weak smile crossed Parvaneh's face. “Not as humans do. I
was never a child, but at that time, I was the most recent parik to emerge from Duzakh. By div standards, I'm not much older than you are.” Before Soraya could ask anything more, Parvaneh continued hastily, “We shouldn't linger here, either.”

She set out in the direction they had come from, leaving Soraya with no choice but to follow.

The forest felt less liberating to her now that it was the path back to her prison, but still, Soraya tried to absorb it into her memory, breathing in the smell of wet soil. She hoped one day she could come back here in the sunlight.

“Thank you,” Parvaneh said, breaking the silence between them. She kept her eyes ahead of her as she continued. “Not just for freeing them, but for what you said. What you offered. It's a dangerous task you've given yourself.”

“There's not much else I can do,” Soraya muttered as she tried not to trip over her dress. “I'm not strong enough to fight a div, I can't see in the dark, I'm not even—”

She tripped over a root, but Parvaneh caught her before she fell. Soraya straightened, but Parvaneh didn't move away, still holding Soraya's arms. “You're not even what?” she asked.

Soraya had spoken without thinking, but now she faced the truth directly.
I'm not even poisonous anymore
, she had meant to say. But when she tried to say it aloud, her throat closed up. She had betrayed her family to be rid of that curse; she had no right now to mourn its absence.

But Parvaneh heard the words anyway. “You miss it now, don't you?”

The lump in Soraya's throat began to loosen at hearing the truth from someone else's voice. Why was it that all of her secrets came to light whenever she was alone with Parvaneh? Was it her, or was it the darkness, the feeling of being so far from her old life that anything seemed permissible—or forgivable?

“You must think me such a fool,” Soraya said, her voice waver
ing. “You warned me, but I didn't believe you. And yet I believed
him
. I trusted him so completely.”

Parvaneh's hands tightened around her arms, and her eyes flashed in the darkness. “He gave you reason to trust him—and then he abused that trust. Don't waste your anger on yourself. Save it for him.” Her hands fell away, and she stood there for a moment, watching Soraya before she stalked off in a different direction. “Follow me!” she called back.

Soraya quickly followed, not wanting to lose sight of Parvaneh in the dark forest. “Where are we going?”

Parvaneh slowed down for Soraya to catch up and said in an impassioned flurry, “You've lived your whole life with this curse because of him, and you can't even enjoy yourself once you're
free
of it because of him. Why should you suffer for what he did?”

Parvaneh stormed ahead again, and Soraya followed, muttering to herself, “But where are we
going
?”

Somewhat abruptly, Parvaneh stopped, and Soraya nearly collided with her. Parvaneh sniffed the air, put her hand on a nearby tree, and nodded. “Hornbeams,” she said. She led Soraya a little farther ahead, into a patch of moonlight that managed to pierce through the canopy. “Wait here,” she said, and then walked over to one of the trees.
Hornbeams,
she had said. Soraya looked around at the not-quite-identical trees around her, all of them with thick, sinewy trunks.

When Parvaneh returned, her hands were sticky with tree sap. “Roll up your sleeves.”

Soraya considered questioning her, but something about the excited glow of Parvaneh's eyes and their sudden rush through the forest made her want to play along. She rolled up the sleeves of her dress, which were hopelessly dingy by now, and said, “Now what?”