A week after Nog Roz, Soraya met Sorush in the fire temple, as planned. The fire temple was not within the palace itself, but on a low hill behind the palace, so Soraya couldn’t take any tunnel or hidden passageway to reach it. Instead, she woke early, well before dawn, and made her way in the darkness before anyone else had risen.
She hadn’t returned to Parvaneh since receiving her impossible bargain. It was pointless—a dead end when the path had barely begun. She didn’t know where the simorgh’s feather was, and even if she did, she could never hand it over to a div.
She tried to put it out of her head, but every time she pulled on the new, unfamiliar pair of gloves that was slightly too large for her hands, she would remember the glow of Parvaneh’s eyes, and the price she had demanded. And she knew that even though she couldn’t move forward, she could no longer go back, either. She could never return to a time before she’d spoken to the div, a time before knowing that there was a way to remove her curse.
I could ask Sorush, she thought for the hundredth time as she climbed the hill to the fire temple. Sorush knew where the feather was, and so did the high priest, who even now was probably in the fire temple. It made her want to scream a little, knowing she was about to be alone with the only two people who could tell her what she needed to know, and yet she couldn’t ask either one of them without explaining why.
The sun was just rising as she reached the fire temple. Compared to the grandeur of the palace, the temple seemed misplaced in its simplicity: a round, domed roof over four stone columns forming a square, with an arch on each side. Soraya rarely came here, not only because of the location, but because of what had happened the last time she had come to the fire temple.
Shortly after the butterfly incident, Soraya had come by herself to the temple to pray—to apologize to the Creator for harming one of his creatures. The high priest at that time overheard her talking about her curse, and he told her that the Creator would not hear her prayers, because she did not belong to him—that anything venomous or deadly belonged to the Destroyer. His logic was too sound for her to disagree, and so she had never returned. It gave her some comfort to know that the priest had later been found guilty of some treasonous act and had been scheduled for execution, though he had escaped in the end, never to be heard from again. Even he knows where the feather is, Soraya thought bitterly.
The current high priest did not know about her curse, and so when she stepped into the temple, he simply smiled at her and bowed his head, his hair as white as his long robes. He and another, younger priest stood beside the Royal Fire, which burned in an urn on top of a stone pedestal in the center of the temple. There were many other sacred fires in many other temples throughout Atashar, all honoring the Creator, but only the Royal Fire had been ritually created from several sources, including lightning sent from the Creator himself. An iron grate enclosed the pedestal, and only a priest was allowed to open the grate and tend to the Fire, which never went out. The younger priest poured some esfand onto the flames now, and the smell of it filled the air.
Soraya stood uncomfortably near the temple entrance, still hearing the former high priest’s gravelly voice confirming all her worst fears. You don’t belong here in this temple, he had told her. You belong somewhere like the pit of Duzakh, where the Destroyer dwells among wicked spirits. Or even better—the dakhmeh, where the yatu seek refuge, where the vultures fly overhead, hungry for human flesh, where the div Nasu spreads death and corruption. Because isn’t that what you do, shahzadeh? Aren’t you made for death?
The words kept playing over and over again in Soraya’s head, and she was thankful when she heard Sorush’s steps behind her.
Sorush approached the high priest and spoke to him in a low voice. The priest looked from Sorush to Soraya, then nodded, and he and the other priest stepped outside the temple, leaving the two of them alone.
With the priests gone, Soraya was better able to relax, and she came to join Sorush in front of the iron grate, the fire crackling inside it.
“Did you learn anything new?” Sorush asked her quietly, his eyes locked on the fire.
Soraya had already decided what she would tell him—and what she would omit. “I think there may be some kind of animosity between the pariks and the other divs—or at least between this parik and the others,” she reported.
Sorush nodded. “That could be useful. I thought it was strange that I’ve never seen a div like her before on the battlefield. But if they’re not all aligned with one another, that would make sense.”
“There’s something else,” Soraya said. “She said it’s true that the divs are more united now than they have been, but that the question we should be asking is who united them. She might be lying, though. She guessed that I was digging for information.”
Sorush frowned in thought as he stared deep into the fire. “Did you learn anything else?”
“I tried asking what she meant by that, but she wouldn’t tell me anything more.”
“No,” Sorush said, turning to look at her. “I meant about your curse.”
She had hoped he wouldn’t ask, so she wouldn’t have to lie directly. But she couldn’t tell him what Parvaneh had asked for, because then he would always wonder if she would accept those terms and betray him for her own sake. “No,” she said, looking away from him. “I don’t know if there’s any point in going back.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw him nod. “I understand if you don’t. But if you do, and she tells you anything else, please send word to me.”
“Of course,” Soraya said, and to her surprise, she found herself disappointed that her mission would be over so soon. She would miss feeling useful.
Sorush began to walk away, their exchange having ended, and Soraya felt strangely cold, as if he had taken the fire’s warmth with him. “Sorush?” she called to him. He turned, and before she could stop herself, she asked, “Do you remember the man who was high priest when we were children—the one who escaped execution? Do you know what ever happened to him? Why was he arrested?”
“He was caught trying to put out the Royal Fire,” Sorush answered. “It turned out he was secretly a yatu posing as a priest. Why? Do you think he might be the one the parik was talking about?”
“No,” Soraya said. “Being here again reminded me of him, and I was curious.”
She remained in the fire temple until after Sorush left, even after the priests returned, staring into the fire until her eyes burned. The former high priest had been a sorcerer, then. He had told her she belonged to the Destroyer, and she supposed he would know, being aligned with the Destroyer himself. But she couldn’t afford to hold a grudge against him now, because he knew where to find the feather—and Soraya was fairly certain she knew where to find him.
From different parts of the roof, Soraya could look down at the entire city surrounding Golvahar like it was a map. Her eyes swept over the flat roofs of houses and shops, at the orderly streets that separated the city into its different districts. For years, that was how shahs had maintained a stable rule, with everything and everyone in its proper place. No wonder, then, that Soraya had to be hidden away like a stain on a tapestry or a weed in a garden. There was no place for her within these walls—just as there was no place inside the city for the dakhmeh.
Even without the memory of the false priest’s words in her mind, Soraya would have avoided looking directly at the roofless, cylindrical shape of the dakhmeh where it loomed on a hill outside the city walls. It wasn’t a choice so much as an instinct born out of fear and revulsion, the same way she would try not to look at a decaying animal. It was the same instinct, she imagined, that made her family avert their eyes from her. No one wanted to look at the face of death.
But Soraya had been caught unawares once. She had been on the roof, a few hours before sunset, and seen a funeral procession. She had watched as a family followed their dead to the dakhmeh, a priest leading the way with a brazier of esfand for protection against Nasu and other demons. The corpse-bearers took the body inside the dakhmeh—they alone were permitted to go inside, and they had to perform a rigorous cleansing ritual afterward. That day, Soraya had watched until she saw the first sign of vultures overhead, and then she turned away, wondering if the corpse-bearers would return later for the bones.
The dakhmeh—where the vultures fly overhead, hungry for human flesh, where the div Nasu spreads death and corruption.
Where the yatu seek refuge.
Every day since speaking to Sorush in the temple, she had come here to the roof to look out at the dakhmeh, searching for some hint that her suspicion was correct. Had the false priest run to the dakhmeh for refuge? It was the one place where the living dared not enter, the one place no one wanted to even think about, let alone disturb. Soraya had read that yatu used human remains, like hair or nail clippings, for their spells, and what better place to find such things than the dakhmeh? If she were a yatu, that was where she would hide.
But it had been years since the yatu had escaped. Even if he had gone to the dakhmeh at first, he might have moved on since then. He might even be dead. And even if he were there, and Soraya managed to travel through the city and cross the barren landscape beyond to walk into such a polluted place—would she ask him for the location of the simorgh’s feather? She had told herself she would never accept Parvaneh’s bargain. But then why did she still come to the roof, day after day, to look out at the dakhmeh and wonder?
Or maybe she didn’t need Parvaneh or the feather after all. Wasn’t it possible that the yatu knew the secret to lifting Soraya’s curse? Perhaps he had known all along but didn’t want to reveal his knowledge of such forbidden magic.
“I have to do this,” she muttered to herself, surprised at her resolve. Now she just had to figure out how.
“Soraya?”
She jumped at the voice, but saw with relief that it was Azad emerging from the stairway. How long had it been since Nog Roz? Three weeks at least. She had been so occupied with demons and feathers and sorcerers that she had barely spared a thought for the young man who had helped her so much that day. He was tanner than when she had last seen him, his arms more defined—he had probably been spending time out on the training grounds, sparring with his fellow soldiers. She wondered if they had fully accepted him, or if they thought of him as a villager who had risen above his station. Perhaps he didn’t fit neatly into Golvahar’s structured world, either.
“You always know where to find me,” she said as he came toward her.
“Because I always look,” he answered with a grin. “Whenever I come or go from the training grounds, I look up and see you here, staring out into the distance. I came to see what you’ve been looking at.” He looked over her shoulder, and Soraya felt a flare of panic, as if he would somehow know it was the dakhmeh that occupied her.
“How has my brother been treating you?” she blurted to distract him. “Well, I hope? I asked him not to blame you for what happened on Nog Roz.”
“I haven’t seen much of him,” Azad answered. “I imagine he’s busy preparing for the wedding tomorrow.”
The wedding—Soraya had nearly forgotten about the wedding, let alone realized it was tomorrow. She had forgotten about everything other than her hopeless quest. But even now, the grounds below were bustling with people preparing for the wedding, setting out long trestle tables and rugs and tying crystal birds to the tree branches.
“Besides,” Azad continued, his eyes locking on hers, “I think I prefer the company of his sister. I’ve thought of you often since Nog Roz.”
A shiver went down her spine, not only because of the way his voice lowered into a caress, but also from the spiteful pleasure of knowing that someone preferred being with her over Sorush. Nothing can come of this, an insistent inner voice whispered. Even so, the novelty of Azad’s attention was thrilling enough on its own. She still remembered the feeling of his arm around her from when he had helped her on Nog Roz.
The memory sparked an idea in her mind—if he had helped her navigate one crowd, couldn’t he do so again? But could she ask this of him? He had already put his position at risk by helping her once.
“You’re thinking about something else,” Azad said. “I can see it in your eyes.”
“I was thinking about Nog Roz,” she said. “About what you did for me then.”
“The div? Did she tell you what you wanted to hear?”
She took a breath, wondering how much to tell him, how much he deserved to know. But she remembered Parvaneh’s warning not to tell anyone—including a certain handsome soldier. “No,” she said. “I didn’t like what she had to say. But I think there may be another way.”
“What is it?”
Soraya hesitated again, but the pull to the dakhmeh was as strong as the pull to the dungeon. She hadn’t spared Azad then, and she knew she wouldn’t now, either—especially not when it provided such a perfect excuse to keep him close to her. “I have to go to the dakhmeh,” she answered. “I’m hoping to find a yatu there who might have the answers I’m looking for.”
She expected him to argue or stare at her in disbelief, but in the silence that followed, he only frowned in thought. Finally, he said, “I don’t want you to go alone. Would you let me come with you?”
She almost laughed in relief. “I do need help getting out of the palace and through the city. I wouldn’t ask you to come inside the dakhmeh—”
“You don’t have to ask,” he said. He took a step toward her, closing the already short distance between them, and clasped one of her gloved hands. “This is what I always wanted—to save you.” Slowly, never taking his eyes off her, he brought her hand to his lips.
His courtly action should have moved or thrilled her, but the dulled feeling of his lips on her gloved hand only sharpened the reality of their situation. He still thinks this is a story, and I’m letting him do so for my own sake. He was saying all the right words, making all the right gestures, almost as if he had practiced them in his head a hundred times—which he probably had. And even though Soraya knew better, she hadn’t stopped him, letting him play the hero despite the risk to his safety and position in court.
“This was a mistake,” she said, as much to herself as to him. She pulled her hand away.
He shook his head, a flicker of worry in his eye. “What do you mean? Have I offended you?”
“Not at all,” she said. “But you can’t save me, Azad. And I shouldn’t ask it of you, either. I think we both see each other as something a little less than real.” She looked down at her gloved hands, at the loose threads of her sleeves, picked apart during moments of thwarted anger. “I can’t promise that I’ll be what you want me to be at the end of this,” she said quietly.
He started to disagree, but then he stopped and looked at her, and he sighed. “You may be right,” he said. “I suppose I wanted to remember what it was like—to live in a palace, to be a part of a court, to feel like a hero again.”
“Again?”
He ran a hand through his curls, his shoulders tensing, and Soraya felt like she was seeing him for the first time—not as a brave hero or her dashing rescuer, but as a young man with burdens of his own.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve moved up or down in society,” he said, bitterness lacing his words. “I told you, I think, that my father was a merchant. He was a very successful one, and he was often a guest in the palaces of satraps and the estates of the bozorgan. Sometimes he would take me with him, and I suppose I began to feel like I was one of them, like I belonged there. But then my father made some bad investments and fell out of favor. We were cast out. I lost everything I had, everything I believed I was.”
“Your father,” she said, “is he…”
“Dead?” He looked her in the eye, not flinching from the word. “Yes. He died shortly after our disgrace. I lived on my own in the village we ran to until the divs came and slaughtered half the villagers.” He paused, his eyes flickering to the ground. “It seems wrong, but sometimes I still feel such anger toward him, for all the things he couldn’t be. For the ways he failed me.”
His fists clenched at his sides, and Soraya saw the veins on his knuckles stand out as he fought down his anger. She wanted to trace them with her fingers, to feel the shape of someone else’s anger, someone else’s pain. She thought of the look they had shared after he had struck Ramin, the sense of connection between them. It was when they let each other see their harsh edges that they both felt real.
Azad shook his head, breaking himself out of his reverie. “That first time I saw you on the roof, I felt like that young man again. I suppose I wanted to regain what I had lost through you. I’m sorry for that.” He reached forward, slowly enough not to startle her, and carefully—so carefully—brushed his knuckles against Soraya’s hair. “But I’d still like to help you, if you’d let me,” he said. “I like the person I am when I’m with you. And I’d like to help you be whoever you want to be.”
He had touched her hair before, but this time felt different. She had hardly breathed last time, certain that he’d fade away or disappear under the weight of a single breath. But now, after what he had told her, after seeing the veins in his hands and hearing the harsh edge in his voice, Azad seemed … touchable. A bolt of heat went through her at the thought, like a spark suddenly ignited. That was how she felt—like she was transforming from smoke to flame under his gaze, his touch. She could have echoed his words and meant it: I like the person I am when I’m with you.
She leaned away, letting her hair slowly unwind from his finger. “Tonight, then?”
His lips curved into a smile that was both fond and a little sly. “Tonight,” he agreed.