“I think not.” Shiva’s mouth crooked into a melancholy smile. “After all, you were not looking for me when you first arrived. You were looking for him.” It was not an accusation. Merely an observation. Shiva had always been like that—incapable of withholding the truth but incapable of cruelty. A rare kind of person. The best kind of friend.
Shahrzad averted her gaze. “I—don’t know that I can ever look for him again. Not with the curse—”
“Then you must break it,” Shiva interrupted. “That is beyond question. What remains is how you intend to go about doing so. Have you made a plan?”
Though Shahrzad had intended to seek Musa Zaragoza soon for this exact purpose, she could not answer Shiva. She wasn’t yet sure how to proceed. Even as a child, she’d gone through much of life on instinct. That and sheer nerve.
It was Shiva who had been the planner. Shiva who had always thought ahead of what was to come.
“See?” Shiva said, her forehead smoothing. “This is why I came to you tonight, my dearest love. You’re lost. And it simply will not do.”
Shahrzad watched as the fog spread toward the ceiling, wrapping its wraithlike arms around the platform and curling about the single taper above. “I don’t know where to begin,” she admitted, her voice fading into the fog.
“Why don’t you start by saying aloud what it is you wish for?”
Could she even dare to say such a thing? After all the death and bloodshed and senseless destruction, it seemed like the worst kind of selfishness.
To build her world upon a bower of bones.
“So tiresome.” Shiva nudged her in jest. “This is your dream, you goose! If you cannot say what it is you desire in your own dream, then where can you dare to say it?”
Shahrzad saw herself reflected in Shiva’s gaze.
It was a shell of the girl she knew. A girl hunched forward, reticent. A girl absent—from life, and of life.
She squared her shoulders. “I want to be with Khalid. I want my father to be well. And . . . I want the curse to be broken.”
“There she is,” Shiva said, amusement leavening her tones.
“But are such things possible?” Shahrzad countered. “For they do not seem so.”
“Then how does one go about making the impossible, possible?”
Shahrzad shrugged, her expression morose. “You’d have better luck asking me how to make a goat fly.”
“Very well, then.” Shiva nodded, an air of solemnity about her. “How does one make a goat fly?”
“Tie it to a very large kite.”
“It wouldn’t get far, as it’s tied to a string.”
“Be serious.”
“I’m very serious!” Shiva laughed, letting the sound carry beyond the encroaching fog and past the silent sentinel above. “What if you were to put the goat on your floating carpet? Perhaps it would fly then?” Her eyes shone with a suspicious light.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“It was just a thought.” Shiva waved a hand through a whorl of white smoke. “But, if you ask me, the best way to go about flying is to cut the strings tying you down . . .” Her words began to sound muffled, as though she were underwater, yet her smile continued to burn bright.
“Cut the strings, Shazi. Fly.”
Shahrzad woke with a start.
Their tent was awash in black. Her sister’s breaths had long ago lapsed into the rhythm of a deep sleep, and the sound of a lulling desert wind buffeted the stitched walls.
Her throat was dry, but her heart was full.
She waited for the crushing emptiness to follow when she realized her dream had ended with so many things left unsaid.
It never came.
For the first time since she’d fled the city of Rey nearly a week ago, she didn’t feel lost and quite so alone. She had found a means to achieve her purpose. And her purpose had a weight she could bear.
Something she could truly fight for.
“Cut the strings, Shazi. Fly.”
Thank you, Shiva.
Careful not to disturb Irsa, Shahrzad stepped into her sandals to take in some air. She stole her sister’s shahmina and draped the long triangle of cloth over her head to shield herself from a chilly desert night. Then she made her way to the entrance of the tent, securing its flap shut behind her—
Before sprawling across the body lying in wait outside.
“Uff!” Shahrzad rolled into the sand.
Strong hands grabbed her, pinning her down. A vision of a hooded soldier flashed through her mind. An angry soldier with a scarab brand and a weapon meant for war.
She struck out against a wall of muscle. Slapped at a face hewn from stone. Stared back into eyes the silver of sharp knives.
Tariq’s heart pounded over hers.
“Get off me!” she said, dismayed to feel her cheeks flush.
He pushed to his feet, taking her with him in one lithe movement.
“What are you—”
“What the hell—”
She shoved away from him, crossing her arms.
He knocked the sand from his hair with a vicious swipe of a hand.
“You first,” Tariq said in a sullen voice that brought to mind a much younger version of himself. One with a lazy smile and a penchant for pranks.
One Shahrzad much preferred at that moment.
“That’s quite gallant of you. After you’ve ignored me for the better part of a week, like a boy half your age with twice your charm.”