Girl, Serpent, Thorn - Melissa Bashardoust Page 0,103
“I’ve already made my decision.”
She had spoken without thinking, simply wanting to stop him from losing patience with her, but now her mind was working like an overactive hummingbird, trying to figure out what came next.
Azad studied her with narrowed eyes, and Soraya returned his stare with all the resolve she could muster. She weighed the options in her mind, and she knew there was only one choice she could make now.
“And what have you decided?” he asked her with some skepticism.
“I’ve been thinking of what you told me before,” she said, “when I asked you why you never chose to live as a human. You said it was because of power, but I think that’s only part of the truth.”
He walked toward her, stopping when he was close enough that she had to turn her head up to look him in the eye. “Is that so?” he said, his mouth twisting in amusement. “Then what’s the real reason?”
“Because if you chose to stop fighting for the throne and live a quiet life as a human, then everything you did to your family would have been for nothing.”
His smile faded. His eyes darkened. “Soraya—”
“And if I keep holding myself back, then the same will be true for me.”
His mouth hung open with whatever unspoken reprimand he had been about to speak. “What are you saying?”
“I’ll kill Sorush myself.” She turned her eyes up, looking at him through her eyelashes. “And then I’ll be yours.”
Is this cruel? she wondered. Was she being as cruel to him as he had been when he’d pledged himself to her outside the golestan, knowing that he was about to betray her? If I am being cruel, she decided, then it’s because he taught me how.
Azad was studying her again, searching for the trap that he was clever enough to suspect but didn’t want to find. “Are you toying with me?” he said, his voice a low growl.
“I’m done playing games,” she said. “I’ve felt more myself here among the divs than I ever have at Golvahar. I want what you promised me last night. I want to be free.”
And even though she had no intention of killing Sorush, the words were true enough that she knew Azad would believe them.
His hand came to rest on her shoulder, and he brushed his thumb along the curve of her throat. “Is that the only reason?” he said, his voice softening into something almost wistful.
She knew what he wanted to hear, and she took a breath, preparing the lie on her tongue. “I miss you,” she said. “I miss working with you instead of against you. I miss what we once had. I want to know if I can find it again.”
His hand tightened on her shoulder. “You will,” he said. “I promise you.”
The conviction in his voice made her wonder if it were true—if, given time, she would one day look at him and see only that young man again, the one who had noticed her on the roof and come to her rescue on Nog Roz. But no—that young man had never existed, and even if he had, she didn’t want him anymore. She didn’t want someone who always told her what she wanted to hear. There was something better than that, something truer and more alive, and it was currently waiting for her, asleep in the dungeon of Golvahar.
But first, she needed to free the simorgh. “That was all I came here to tell you,” Soraya said, turning away from him and moving toward the door. “I wanted you to know my decision before you returned to Golvahar.”
“Before we return to Golvahar,” Azad corrected.
Soraya turned, the hummingbird in her mind taking flight once more. “What do you mean?”
“There’s no reason to delay. We can leave for Golvahar at dawn—or sooner, if you’d prefer.”
She had thought he would wait at least another day before insisting on her return—on Sorush’s execution—and then she could return for the simorgh. I can still delay him, she thought. She just needed to make him leave Arzur again.
“You seem surprised,” he said. “Did you think I wouldn’t hold you to your promise?”
“I simply thought you would need more time to make arrangements. I don’t want to return the way I came, carried over your shoulder like a prisoner.”
He bowed his head and said, “Then you shall return on a golden litter down the city streets, my queen.”
“And I want something else,” she said, thinking of how to delay him, how to