There was a loose thread on the edge of Soraya’s sleeve. She took it between her finger and her thumb and pulled, watching the fabric slowly unravel. Her pulse was quickening with emotions she didn’t want to have or name. Soraya took some slow breaths, the loose thread now wrapped several times around her gloved fingers. She wouldn’t let bitterness or resentment overtake her. She wouldn’t let them show on her face. Soraya took a breath, unwound the thread from her fingers, and looked up at her mother with a smile.
“They’re a good match,” Soraya said.
Her mother’s smile was warm and genuine—and relieved. “I think so too,” she said softly. Her smile faltered, her eyes flitting downward. “I may not have as much time to spend with you until after the wedding. It will be a busy time.”
Soraya swallowed down the lump in her throat. “I understand,” she said. The world would move on without her, as it always had.
“You know I love you.”
Soraya nodded. “I love you too, Maman.”
They continued to share pleasantries and bits of court gossip, but it was a mostly one-sided conversation. Soraya was too occupied with trying to control her emotions, sneaking glances down to make sure the light brown skin of her wrists was unmarred. By the time Tahmineh left, Soraya was exhausted from the effort.
Alone again, Soraya returned to the golestan to plant the rose her mother had given her. She ripped off her gloves, ignoring the lines of green that were spreading down her arms, and tried to let the sight of her roses soothe her. She cupped one of them in her palms and brought her face close to it, inhaling the scent as she let the edge of the petals brush along her cheek. So soft, as soft as a kiss—or so she imagined. She let her hands drift down to the stem, pressing the tip of her finger against one of the thorns, and that too was a comfort—knowing that something dangerous could also be beautiful and cherished.
But now she couldn’t help looking down at her hands, at the insides of her wrists, where her veins had become a dark shade of green. She knew the veins running down her face and neck would be turning the same color, spreading out over her cheeks into a green web until she calmed and contained the tempest of her emotions.
They had all been inseparable once: Sorush and Laleh and Soraya, with Ramin often hovering over them. Laleh and Ramin were the only two outside of Soraya’s family to know of her curse—an accident, but one that Soraya had been grateful for. She might never have had a friend otherwise. It had all seemed so easy when they were children. Tahmineh had been worried, but Soraya proved that she could be very careful not to touch anyone, and Laleh had always been well-behaved. Sorush had been there to make sure nothing went wrong. And for a time, nothing did.
But then the shah died, and even though his widow acted as regent, Sorush was suddenly under more scrutiny than before. Their mother kindly explained to her that he had less time for play, but over the years, Soraya figured out the real reason she never saw her brother anymore. Their family had a reputation to protect, and poisonous creatures belonged to the Destroyer. If Soraya’s curse became public knowledge, the bozorgan might think the Destroyer had laid his hands on their family line. They would lose their confidence in the shah and his dynasty, and they would depose him.
And Laleh—how long had it been since she’d spoken to Laleh? Was it three years or four? They had tried to keep in touch even after losing Sorush, but while two children could find time and space to play games or share candied almonds, it was much harder for two young women—especially when one of them was swiftly entering the world of the court that the other was forever barred from. Every year, they grew more distant, their time together shorter—and more awkward, both of them old enough now to understand how different their lives were and would always be. The spring Soraya turned fifteen was the first year she didn’t see Laleh at all, and she hadn’t been surprised. Laleh belonged to the same world as Sorush—a world of light, not shadow. Of open air, not narrow, hidden passageways.
Soraya bent down, digging with her hands into the soil to create a home for her new rose. From the corner of her eye, she saw the beetle still making its laborious way across the garden. Soraya watched it, this intruder to her sanctuary. And then she reached out and brushed one fingertip along its smooth back.
The beetle stopped moving, and Soraya went back to her work.
2
Five days after her family’s return, Soraya was on the roof again. It was the night of Suri, the last night of winter, and Soraya was staring deeply into the heart of the bonfire, trying to feel some kind of connection with her ancestors. It was difficult in her case, though, because her ancestor was a bird.
That was the story, anyway. The first shah in her family’s dynastic line, the shah who overthrew the wicked Shahmar and ascended to the throne more than two hundred years ago, had been a foundling child. His parents had cast him out, leaving him at the base of a mountain for the divs to take. But instead of divs, the simorgh—the legendary bird who served as the symbol and protector of Atashar—had found him and taken him in, adopting him as her son. Years later, after the Shahmar’s defeat, the simorgh gave her newly coronated son one of her own feathers, which would keep him—and every reigning shah or shahbanu descended from him—safe from the Destroyer’s forces. Though the simorgh’s protection had no power over natural deaths, like that of Soraya’s father, it protected the current shah from divs and the human sorcerers known as yatu.
The simorgh’s protection had to be freely given by the simorgh herself, not won or taken by conquest, and so it was a great point of pride for her family, even though the simorgh had gone missing during the reign of Soraya’s great-grandfather. Her family’s supporters claimed the simorgh left because she wasn’t needed anymore, while detractors argued that the simorgh abandoned the royal family in disapproval after Soraya’s great-grandfather had entered a truce to end years of war with Hellea. Others believed the Shahmar still lived and had hunted and killed the simorgh out of revenge for his defeat. Whatever had happened to her, fewer and fewer people had lived long enough to remember ever seeing her.
And that was the ancestral origin Soraya was supposed to be honoring tonight. Tomorrow, on Nog Roz, the entire palace would celebrate life, but Suri was a night dedicated to the spirits of the dead. The bonfire blazing on the roof in front of her burned to welcome her ancestors, the guardian spirits who protected her family.
Every year, Soraya tried to feel her ancestors returning—some sense of continuity between this long line of shahs and her, the cursed shahzadeh standing alone in the dark. Or between her and the people of Atashar, who were all currently burning bonfires on their own roofs, welcoming their own ancestors. Her ancestors, her people, her country—these were a person’s roots, the forces that bound someone to a time and a place, a feeling of belonging. Soraya felt none of it. Sometimes she thought she could easily float away from this life, like a tendril of smoke, and begin again, far away, without any regret.
Soraya turned away from the fire and wandered to the edge of the roof. Below, scattered throughout the garden, were several smaller fires in coal pits. Members of the court gathered around them, trying to seem solemn and respectful but probably gossiping over wine. If any of them looked in her direction, she would only appear as a dark, sulking outline against the fire.