Soraya dropped the stick at once and looked around for another exit, but the stairs were the only way in or out of this cavern. She should have already known that. She should have turned back at once as soon as she saw this was a dead end, but the smell of the food had been too tempting to resist. She had allowed herself to be caught in a trap.
As the steps grew louder, Soraya moved away from the fire, into the shadows. She pressed herself flat against the wall right beside the opening to the stairwell, hoping she could repeat her trick from the palace and sneak past the div.
The steps slowed, then stopped, and Soraya waited for the div to appear.
And then a large fist slammed into the wall above her head.
Soraya ducked as the div lunged out from the stairway, bits of rock raining down onto the top of her head. He had only missed her because he had struck without looking, and she knew he wouldn’t miss again. She ran for the stairs, but it was a last, hopeless attempt at escape, and she wasn’t surprised when the div clutched the back of her dress and pulled her back into the cavern, throwing her to the ground.
“I heard you breathing, little thief,” the div said in a rumbling voice. He had the torso of a man, his skin deathly white, but the legs and head of a wildcat. “I can smell my dinner on your breath. But that’s no matter—I’ll just eat you, instead.”
“I’m the Shahmar’s guest!” Soraya cried, reaching out an arm as if that could somehow stop him from killing her. It would have, before, she thought with a strange pang. Once, she could have killed him easily, with only a touch. She would have been deadlier than he was. And she wouldn’t have to use the name of her captor as a shield. “He would be displeased if you harmed me.”
The div chuckled. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, human, but it doesn’t matter to—”
He never finished, because two hands appeared on either side of his head and viciously snapped his neck to the side with inhuman strength.
Before the div fell dead to the ground, Soraya’s rescuer jumped lightly off his back and stood with her hands on her hips.
“There you are,” Parvaneh said.
Soraya remained frozen on the ground at first, her mouth hanging open. “I thought you left me,” she said as she rose. “You disappeared.”
Parvaneh shook her head. “I transformed. Pariks all have one other form they can take.” To prove her point, she suddenly vanished—or so Soraya thought until she noticed a dark gray moth hovering where Parvaneh had been standing. In another moment, the moth was gone, and Parvaneh reappeared. “I followed you all the way here.”
“You’ve been here the entire time,” Soraya said, more to herself than to Parvaneh.
“I lost track of you for a while, and by the time I found you again, you were sneaking through the tunnels—which was very foolish, by the way.” She gestured to the dead div on the ground. “If I hadn’t heard you, he’d have eaten you by now.”
Soraya looked from Parvaneh’s disapproving stare to the div. And then, to her own surprise, she began to laugh. She didn’t know why she was laughing, exactly—because she’d almost been eaten, or because she was being lectured by a demon, or because she still had an ally and wasn’t trapped alone in this mountain with only Azad for company after all. She was laughing so hard that she couldn’t breathe, and tears began to stream down her cheeks, and now she wasn’t sure if she was laughing or sobbing.
She only stopped when she felt Parvaneh’s cold hands on either side of her face, shocking her into silence. Would she ever become used to something as simple as the feel of someone’s hands on her skin? It seemed impossible.
Soraya focused on those eyes like glowing embers, even more vivid now in the light of the fire, until the rise and fall of her chest slowed to normal.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she managed to say.
“We had a deal.”
“Yes, but divs aren’t known for being true to their word.”
Parvaneh lifted an eyebrow. “I must be fond of you, then.”
Soraya smiled to herself as Parvaneh returned to the div’s corpse and searched it. She pulled off the tattered, voluminous cloak he’d been wearing, her lip curling with distaste. “Here,” she said, tossing the cloak to Soraya.