Girl, Serpent, Thorn - Melissa Bashardoust Page 0,42

darkness of the cavern enough to protect her from the truth of herself. “What I did find out tonight was what happens when I touch a living human being. I found out that I’m capable of killing—not as a mistake, but with purpose, with intent.” She swallowed. “With rage.”

She opened her eyes then, because she knew she would find no judgment on Parvaneh’s face. But what she didn’t expect was for Parvaneh to drop her gaze when Soraya looked at her. She seemed distracted, staring at a spot on the ground, her forehead creased in thought, lost in some private conversation that Soraya couldn’t hear. Finally, she looked up at Soraya and said, “So you’ve made your choice?”

Soraya shook her head. “There is no choice. I’ve always wondered who I would have been without my curse, what kind of person I would be if I hadn’t grown up hidden and ashamed. But after tonight, I wonder what kind of person I’m becoming, what this path is doing to me. I was always afraid the poison would make me a monster, but what if trying to get rid of it makes me more of a monster than I was before?”

Parvaneh didn’t respond. She was staring at Soraya with something heavy and unreadable in her eyes. And again, Soraya found herself wondering what kind of life Parvaneh had lived before now—what was the “far worse” she had endured? Why did Soraya think she could read her own remorse written in the lines and patterns on Parvaneh’s face? A delicate sympathy floated in the silence between them, like ashes falling after a fire had burned itself out.

“Then don’t do it,” Parvaneh said at last. Her voice rang out in the cavern with the clarity of conviction, and she shifted closer to the bars. “You were wrong when you said there is no choice. You made a choice. Now embrace it. You are the most powerful and protected being in Atashar. Why would you want to give that up? Why make yourself vulnerable? This is a dangerous world.”

Soraya thought again of the yatu—but this time she saw him not dead but alive, bending over her, tying her wrists together while her eye throbbed. Hadn’t she thrilled with the power of her curse when she had grabbed his wrist? Hadn’t she marveled at how easy it was to bring her attacker to his knees? Without her curse, he would have killed Azad and held her for ransom—but without her curse, she wouldn’t have been there in the first place.

“It’s because of you and all your talk of power that I killed the yatu,” Soraya snapped. It was an unfair accusation, but it comforted her a little. “That was what ran through my head tonight. I thought I was being powerful when I killed him, but all I’ve done is lose a piece of myself. It’s not power to be dangerous, to have to hide away behind walls so you don’t shame your family while everyone you’ve ever known leaves you behind. I want my family. I want companionship. I want—” But the word love refused to move beyond her lips, too new and precious to lay itself bare for mockery.

Parvaneh thought a moment, and then said, “Perhaps you’re simply keeping the wrong company. You would be welcome among my sisters. If you freed me now, I could take you to them. You could have a new family.”

Soraya let out a disbelieving laugh. She thought at first that Parvaneh was toying with her, but her tone had been solemn, her words sincere. “You want me to forsake my family and join the divs?”

“Not the divs—the pariks.”

“I still don’t understand the difference,” Soraya muttered as she pushed herself up from the ground.

“You should ask your mother. She knows.”

Those words made Soraya freeze. “What do you mean by that?”

Parvaneh rose from the ground, her movements more labored than Soraya would have expected. What happened to a div who was exposed to esfand for this long?

“Haven’t you wondered why your mother lied to you about your curse? It’s because she’s the one who did this to you.”

“You’re lying,” Soraya said. “You said the pariks did this to me.”

“At your mother’s request. She brought you to the pariks wrapped in a blanket of stars and asked for this curse. Are you curious to know how it’s done? It’s the blood of a div that made you poisonous. If a human bathes in blood from a div’s heart, that human takes

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