Girl, Serpent, Thorn - Melissa Bashardoust Page 0,119

in awe—and unmistakable jealousy. But all around him, climbing over the edge of the roof, were vines from the golestan. They were spreading out along the surface of the roof like a green web, moving closer and closer to Azad, surrounding him until he had nowhere to turn. Soraya could feel the golestan in her blood—in the div’s blood that joined them both. There was something alive about it, and it seemed to know what she would want, what she would do, like an extension of her thoughts.

After checking her mother’s pulse, Soraya rose, slowly approaching Azad. He looked nervously at the vines that kept inching closer to him, creating a cage of thorns around him.

“I wouldn’t touch them if I were you,” Soraya said.

He looked up at the sound of her voice and spoke her name under his breath. He tried to move toward her, but the thorns only grew closer around him.

“Don’t you like me this way?” she said. The vines parted for her, creating a path to him. “Beautiful yet deadly, remember?”

“I remember,” he said, his voice strained as he tried to keep the thorns from touching his skin.

She stood directly in front of him, close enough to touch. Here was the great Shahmar, that monster of her nightmares, the demon who had terrorized her mother and deceived her into betraying her family. He was nothing now but a defenseless young man, fragile and exposed, so easy to destroy. Soraya reached a hand out to him, the thorns on the back of her hand moving closer to his throat …

“Soraya.”

Parvaneh’s voice was clear and loud behind her, but Soraya couldn’t make herself turn away. “My mother?” she said.

“I found the feather. She’ll heal now.”

Soraya did feel relief, but it was buried under something else, something sharp and hungry. Her eyes never leaving Azad’s throat, she said, “Does that mean you think I should spare him?”

“No.”

Her voice was closer now, and Soraya felt Parvaneh’s hand rest on her shoulder, her fingers fitting around the thorns. If Parvaneh wondered at her changed appearance, she must have decided that now was not the time for explanations. “I won’t stop you,” Parvaneh said, “but I don’t want you to do it like this, in anger, so quickly that you barely realize what you’re doing. I struck at him like that once, without thinking of the consequences, and I regretted it long after. If you’re going to kill him, you should want to do it even with a clear mind. So I’m asking you—are you sure you want to do this?”

Of course I do, she wanted to say, but she forced herself to lower her hand. She pulled away some of the vines encaging Azad, letting them wind around her arm in a kind of caress, as she considered the question more carefully. “What do you think, then?” she said to him. “Should I kill you, or should I do to you what you did to me and Parvaneh? Should I keep you locked away with nothing but your guilt for company? It would be fitting, wouldn’t it?”

Azad kept his eyes on her, his fear hardening into defiance, like liquid metal becoming a blade. “Lock me away if you will, but don’t think that you’ll break me so easily. I waited for over two hundred years to take back my throne—what makes you think chains and thorns will stop me this time?” He shook his head. “I won’t stop, Soraya. I won’t surrender, and I won’t stop fighting you until I see every single member of your family dead and—”

It happened so quickly that Soraya didn’t understand at first. Parvaneh had pulled her aside by the sash around her waist, and something blurred past her, and Azad was gasping in pain, the handle of his dagger sticking out from just below his ribs.

“Enough,” came a voice from behind them, and Soraya turned to find Tahmineh staggering to her feet. The blood-soaked feather was on the ground beside her, and there was nothing left of her wound except for a silvery, feather-shaped scar across her throat. Parvaneh must have noticed her moving for the dagger and pulled Soraya away so that Tahmineh’s aim would land true.

Tahmineh came to them, her eyes never leaving Azad. He had slumped down to the ground, his back against the parapet. While Soraya had gaped at her mother, Parvaneh had already retrieved the dagger, and Azad’s bloodied hands tried to cover the expanding circle of red above his