Girl, Serpent, Thorn - Melissa Bashardoust Page 0,100

to search.

Her cloak was bundled up under the straw of her mattress, and she retrieved it now, even though she hoped that after Azad’s decree, no one would trouble her. Her caution was unnecessary—as soon as she stepped out into the main tunnel, she encountered a div who passed by her with a simple nod of the head. There were fewer divs passing through than she had seen before—probably because it was day—but each div that she passed as she made the climb up to Azad’s room paid her similar treatment. A strange thrill went through her on each of these occasions. Unlike their exaggerated deference to Azad, these gestures of recognition were small and subtle—a quick nod, a flash of a smile, a knowing look. We see you and know you, they said, and you are welcome here. After a short while, Soraya found herself returning the gestures, and the cloak dropped from her hands.

When she thought she was near Azad’s room, she began to slow and peer down tunnels, looking for an iron door. Most of the rooms and caverns didn’t have doors at all, and the ones that did were either made of wood or were simply curtains, so it was easy enough to find the one she was looking for. Unlike the door to his treasury, this one had no lock—his attachment to his humanity was his only secret—and so Soraya opened it and went inside.

She had thought that returning to this room, where she had nearly given in to her worst instincts, would be unbearable. But the room around her was nothing like the one from last night. She would have thought she was in the wrong place except for the cool breeze coming in through the window, the only one in all of Arzur, Azad had said. Because the breeze wasn’t the only visitor to the chamber—sunlight also streamed through the window, transforming the room entirely. It was the bright orange light of a slowly dying sun, which meant she didn’t have much time until dusk, and yet she stood enraptured at seeing and feeling the sunlight for the first time since she had been taken from Golvahar. She had never realized how easily hope died when there was no sunlight, how hard it was to believe that another day was worth fighting for when there was only night.

But that sun was also a measure of how much time she had left until Azad’s return, so she quickly recovered herself and started rummaging through the room as she had once done in her mother’s chambers, not long ago. She began with the chest where he had retrieved the rope last night, but it held only tools that were appropriate for living in a mountain—chisels, pickax heads, more rope.

She overturned all the rugs next, careful to replace them when she was finished, then went to the table where the map still lay. She could look at the wooden figures on the map more clearly now, white and red figures clashing at various points along the borders of Atashar. She dimly remembered seeing a similar map, with the same areas marked. Those marks are where the divs have attacked in the last few years, Sorush had explained to her. It’s almost as if they’re practicing for something. Soraya was tempted to knock the map off the table, but she restrained herself, instead carefully lifting a corner to look underneath.

There was a short hall off to the side of the room, which Soraya followed to a doorway at its end. Inside was a smaller chamber, roughly the same size as her own, and nearly as simple—a table, some candles, and a pallet that served as a bed, without even a blanket. This is where he sleeps, she thought. She couldn’t make herself go into the room. There was too much of him there.

Back in the main chamber, though, she had run out of places to search. She walked through the room carefully, checking for anything she may have missed, and stopped at the massive fireplace. Would he have—?

With a growing sense of dread, Soraya knelt down in front of the fireplace and began to sift through the ashes. Would he have destroyed his only chance of becoming human again? He had said he had no interest in living a human life, but his treasury of mementos from his reign said otherwise. Soraya’s fingertips were becoming gray, but she kept digging through the soot, until a flash of