Copyright © 2026 by Tanaz Bhathena

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2026000545

ISBNs: 9781538780862 (hardcover), 9781538780886 (ebook)

E3-20260723-JV-NF-ORI

For my mother

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PROLOGUE

AM I A WOMAN OR a haunting?

I think about this as I float among the living and the dead—in a world that is controlled neither by the great god of wisdom nor his evil twin, a world where neither angels nor demons rule. In this strange, liminal space that is not paradise nor the underworld, I am no longer Tahmineh, princess of Samangan, but simply a soul untouched, unable to move on.

Not that my death will matter in the long run.

The royal minstrels rarely mourn me—if they mourn me at all—their stories, songs, and laments largely dedicated to the two men from my life. Immortalized by story and song, men who have inspired the names of countless newborns—as if a name itself can imbue a child with that same incandescent glory.

Husband and son. Rostam and Sohrab. Destined to meet first at Sohrab’s birth and then, years later, on the battlefield.

The minstrels are divided on the reasons for this. Some call it destiny: a godly writ no human act could have undone. And then there are those who blame me for everything. Who continue to add to the list of names I was called when I was still alive.

Temptress. Conniver. Lover. Liar.

Now, I don’t deny that I am these things. What woman isn’t? For that matter, what man—what hero worth his salt—does not tempt, connive, love, and lie during his lifetime?

And yet no one will sing of the other times in my life. When I was more than a list of names compiled by unknown men.

When I was Tahmineh and Tahmineh alone.

Daughter. Sister. Wife. Mother. Princess regent of the kingdom of Samangan—a woman descended from the bloodline of great warrior kings.

A woman with magic brimming in her veins.

Now, the minstrels do not like to sing about a witch unless she’s being slaughtered for her misdeeds. Certainly not if she ends up marrying a great hero and then gives birth to another. In the years to come, I suspect they will change this particular part of my history. Cleanse me, as the priests like to say, for the consumption of coming generations.

Indeed, most men prefer me as I am now. Nebulous and insubstantial. A woman they can weave stories about, one who is little more than a passing dream. To erase someone is to forget them and, though this angers me, I admit there are days I do wish to be forgotten.

When I float over plains scorched by fire and littered with shells of houses and old bones. When I slip into the shadows of an alleyway and see a boy stroking a horse’s mane. When screams of pain ring the air. When the clouds grow damp with rain and an old grief rolls over me again like a boulder over a dried leaf.

I relive all that happened—the things I did in the name of power. In the name of love.

Am I a woman, I ask myself again, or a haunting?

It’s impossible to tell.

For even when alive, I did not always know that answer.

FIRST SIGHT

1.

“DO YOU LIKE YOUR HAIR, Your Highness?”

The maid who’d asked the question was a slip of a girl, her body still in that awkward adolescent stage of transitioning from angles to curves, her limbs trembling with uncertainty.

I examined my reflection in the bronze mirror she held up, taking in the loose black curls artfully framing my face, the thick braid woven all the way to my hips. Delicate brass butterflies had been pinned across the length of my hair at regular intervals, metal wings fiery in the lamplight.

“Why, Binaifer.” I raised a hand to my chest in mock astonishment. “You’ve outdone yourself tonight. You’ve made me look beautiful.”

This was not a real surprise. For all her nervous energy, Binaifer was the cleverest among the palace maids when it came to arranging hair, knowing exactly what styles suited my angular face. Garbed in my favorite green silk dress, the corset embroidered with red roses and the sleeves embellished with pearls, tonight I looked more like a forest spirit than the witch I was reputed to be.

“You are beautiful, Your Highness!” Binaifer’s round face beamed. “Everyone says so!”

“Really? I thought they were calling me an old hag by now.”

Binaifer instantly began protesting this statement, brown eyes widening with alarm.

“Oh, don’t fret,” I said, gently squeezing her shoulder. “I am not fishing for more compliments.”

Certainly, by now, on the eve of my thirtieth birthday, I no longer held illusions about who I was nor how I appeared to my father’s court. King Arshak’s only daughter: the princess no man wanted to marry. The princess many called demon-born behind her back.

Under my touch, Binaifer slowly began to relax. She would be easier to soothe if asleep. Then I could slip past the barrier between wakefulness and slumber and walk into her dreams, unseen, assuring her that she was safe with me.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness.” Binaifer’s smile held the slightest hint of a tremor. “I know you are not like the other ladies of the palace. If not for you, I would not be here today.”

“You must not say such things,” I chided gently. “You are loyal and good. Any lady would be lucky to have you attending her.”

Yet there was truth to Binaifer’s words. I had seen the way ladies at court treated their maids—their withering rebukes, their backhanded slaps for the smallest mistakes. Once, years ago, when I’d tried to defend a maid from being unfairly reprimanded by a courtier’s wife, the maid herself had turned me away. “No need for you to step in, Shahdoxt,” she’d said, her voice polite but firm. “My mistress is right. I should have known better.”

The maid did not say it aloud, but I understood what she meant: She did not wish to be saved by a witch.

With Binaifer, however, things were different. I’d first encountered her over a year ago outside the queen’s quarters: a small, scrawny thing being beaten within an inch of her life by my stepmother’s favorite lady-in-waiting, Banu Azad. Bruises bloomed across the young girl’s face and blood had begun to seep from her nostrils. I did not have to think twice. I stepped into the dimly lit corridor and shoved Banu Azad aside.

“Leave this girl alone,” I told the woman, my voice cold. “If you don’t, I will find out. And there will be consequences.”

What those consequences would be, I did not say. I did not need to. Banu Azad had erupted in outraged squeaks of protest, fear mingling with the hatred in her beady eyes. That day, I did not mind the rumors that constantly swirled around me—including the mistaken belief among the palace women that I could transform them into lizards or burn them to ash with the force of my gaze.

Leaving the queen’s lady to sputter unintelligibly, I had turned to a stunned Binaifer. “From now on, you work only for me, understand?” I had said. “I will speak to the king about it.” Neither Banu Azad nor my stepmother would dare kick up a fuss once I had Father’s approval—especially not over an ordinary maid.

“Y-yes. Yes, Your Highness!” the girl had sputtered in response.

No one dared touch Binaifer now. Not while she was under my protection.

Of course, my protection worked only because no one at court really knew what my powers were, their imaginations always conjuring worse things than what my own magic would ever be capable of.

Our world was divided into three realms: the celestial realm ruled by the yazata or angels, the human realm where we lived, and the underworld where the daeva or demons reigned. There were times, of course, when the inhabitants of these realms crossed paths. Most times in war, but a few times in love as well, the way my father and mother had. A human king and a pairika—an immortal witch from the underworld—their love resulting in the birth of a child who could cross over into the realm of human dreams.

My parents’ marriage did not last, my mother leaving the palace shortly after I was born for reasons no one really knew, my father remarrying a few years later. My stepmother hated me on sight, repeatedly trying to send me away. Father, however, protected me, brushing aside her protests about bad omens and my “vile daeva blood.”

“I do not abandon my children,” he’d said sternly.

King Arshak was a man of his word and he’d remained steadfast as the years passed, even as the whispers about me grew at court. Even as princes, knights, and noblemen refused my hand in marriage, unwilling to have a witch’s daughter for a wife.

But my father was growing old now. There was no saying how long his protection would last.

“You look perfect for the feast.” Binaifer’s voice distracted me from my thoughts. A wide smile revealed the gap between her front teeth. The sight jarred me for a moment, reminding me of another young face. Another smile.

Noshir.

My ribs tightened. No. I could not grieve my little brother’s death tonight. Tonight, I would need all my wits about me—as was usually the case with family celebrations. I rose to my feet and clipped a small dagger onto my leather belt, its gold sheath pebbled like the feathers of a bird. Father had gifted the dagger to me when I’d come of age at fifteen, and it never failed to comfort me during these gatherings—a reminder that I always had the king’s protection. That I could use it to protect myself, if needed.

Pinching color into my cheeks, I determinedly stepped outside. The corridors were bustling with servants, most of whom ignored my presence. But Binaifer’s ministrations seemed to have an impact, for a few of the queen’s maids stopped to stare as I approached and bowed. I smiled, hoping my nerves did not show.

At least tonight’s feast would not be in the palace’s stuffy banquet hall. It was the eve of Nowruz, the spring festival that marked the end of winter. Several bonfires had been set up in the lawn outside, along with a long wooden pavilion, its pillars festooned with red ribbons and garlands of roses and the gold and ochre saman wildflowers that bloomed fragrant across our pastures, giving our kingdom its name.

Tonight, people would sing songs, make wishes, and pray to Ahura Mazda, hoping to leave behind their illnesses and misfortunes in the previous year. Already, minstrels had begun playing a lively tune on flutes, while a group of children took turns leaping over one of the smaller bonfires.

“Let your redness be mine!” the children chanted. “And my paleness be yours!”

I paused to watch. I, too, had been like these children once. Had joyfully chanted these phrases while leaping over the fire, imagining that my arms were wings. This was in the years before Father had married my stepmother. The years when the court saw me as only the king’s daughter—or so I thought at the time.

As I stood there, a small boy raced past and nearly tripped over his own feet.

“Careful!” I cried out, righting him with a hand. My smile faded when I saw the downward curve of his rosy lips, the stark terror in those big brown eyes as they locked on mine.

“P-please!” he cried out. “Please don’t hurt me!”

The words of reassurance caught in my throat. I stepped back, watching him run back to his friends, who were shooting me horrified glances. Demon, they mouthed to each other. Witch.

Had the boy simply run away instead of saying anything, I might have been able to retreat to the palace and lock myself in my room. But now I had drawn the attention of the adults as well.

Laughing women in gowns of jeweled silk and almond blossoms in their hair. Boisterous men in embroidered tunics and large woolen cloaks wrapped around one shoulder. They all turned to look at me, growing hushed as I approached the great bonfire at the center of the festivities. A few feet away, a gray-haired woman snapped her fingers thrice: a sign to ward off the devil.

It was Binaifer’s former tormenter, Banu Azad.

“Shameless creature,” Banu Azad told the women standing next to her, even as she stared at me all the while. “Sullying this auspicious day with her presence. Walking around the palace as if she owns it! Her mother was the same. I still remember her, you know, with her strange, inhuman eyes.”

I was grateful that no one could witness the stuttering of my heart. Few here at the palace knew my mother well. Father certainly never spoke of her in public—not after she left us. His silence fueled the speculations further, rumors flying wild: “She had an affair with a palace guard!” Or “She stole gold from the king’s treasury and ran away with it!” Or “She was a witch! A daeva who revealed herself only after marriage!”

It wasn’t until my stepmother, Sussan, came to the palace that the final rumor settled into an accepted truth, casting a shadow over my future like a shroud. It did not help that the only consistent thing I had heard about my mother was mentions of her strange eyes: one as black as midnight, one as gold and glowing as the ingots mined in the Hindu Kush mountains. People said that I took after my mother in my looks, but I was grateful not to have inherited her eyes, my own irises an ordinary dark brown.

As it was, I drew too much attention at gatherings like these, the back of my neck prickling constantly with the sensation of being watched. My gaze flicked over to a group of young women whispering and giggling among themselves, no older than nineteen or twenty. Two of the women caught me looking and turned away, their pale cheeks growing pink. Laleh and Gul, they were called, a courtier’s daughters whose dreams I’d walked into a couple of years earlier, persuading them I wasn’t bad company. My magic had worked. The sisters, who hadn’t any firm opinions about me like the other women at court, had begun growing friendly, even accompanying me on walks along the river.

That was until my stepmother had intervened.

“Shahbanu Sussan said that being friends with you is not good for our reputation,” Laleh had confessed to me. “She said that people will call us witches, too, and it will be difficult to find us good men to marry. I’m sorry, Shahdoxt. But I wish to have children someday. So does my sister.”

Angry as I was, I could not blame them. It did not bode well for any young lady at court to have the queen as her enemy. I was the greatest example of that.

My jaw hardened at the memory. I turned away, looking once more into the bonfire’s dancing gold flames. As much as I hated being here, I could not leave the feast now. If I did, everyone at court would know I was uneasy or worse—afraid. A witch could do a myriad of outlandish things. But on no account could she show fear.

Warming myself by the flames, I breathed in the sweet scents of woodsmoke, cedar, and rue. Though winter had come to an end, the early-spring air still held a chill.

“Shahdoxt Tahmineh?” a voice called out. “Is that you?”

I turned, smiling with relief when I saw who it was. “Oh. Good evening, Zende Razm.”

Zende Razm smiled back. At thirty-five, he was the oldest of my male cousins and the only one who talked to me without rancor, refusing to engage in the whispers that so often erupted behind my back. For a time, I had been suspicious of his kindness, had wondered if by treating me well, he wished to ingratiate himself with the king and earn a higher position at court. Over the years, though, I’d realized that this was how Zende Razm treated everyone he encountered—royalty or not.

As unexpected, I thought now, as a dove in a nest of vultures.

“You look well,” I said warmly. Zende Razm looked handsome in his white tunic and deep lapis cloak, his dark hair and beard freshly groomed. His complexion appeared healthy as well, not as sallow as it had been a year ago when his wife had passed away. “How are you feeling?”

“Better than I was last year.” He released a sharp exhale and smiled. “You, my lady, look especially well tonight. Green suits you.”

“Thank you.” I laughed. “I’m glad I don’t look like a tree!”

He said nothing, his gaze turning intense in a way that unsettled me. I glanced around the lawn, now growing more crowded with people. Stars glittered in the sky above and the scents of roast meat and vegetables began filling the air as servants brought out platters of food and silver wine jars from the kitchen.

“Have you seen the shah?” I asked. The king and the queen should have made an appearance by now, the herald at the door announcing their arrival.

“Did you not hear?” A small frown pinched the smooth skin of his forehead. “Shah Arshak isn’t feeling well. He will not be attending the feast tonight.”

“What do you mean?” My skin prickled with dread. “What’s happened to him?” It was true that Father was growing old, but as king, he always made it a point to come to state banquets and the feasts surrounding Nowruz. Always.

“I doubt it’s serious,” Zende Razm replied, his voice soothing. “We had a long and strenuous day at court and he must simply be tired. Tahmineh, I’ve been meaning to ask you—”

His voice began fading from my ears, the panic that had been building ever since I’d arrived at the feast now surging under my ribs.

“I need to see him,” I cut in. “I’m sorry, Zende Razm, but can we talk later?”

I did not wait to hear his response. I swept back toward the palace—through the bustling kitchen and a maze of corridors, flames dancing in sconces across the frescoed stone walls. The lights grew dimmer the closer I got to the king’s chambers, scents of sandalwood and myrtle thickening the air outside his door. As I approached, a pair of spears crossed before me, the guards blocking my way.

“What is the meaning of this?” I demanded. While my relationship with my father’s court may have been cold at best, the servants had always been respectful of me, none ever preventing me from going where I wished. These guards, in particular, had known me since I was a little girl. “I am here to see the shah.”

“I’m sorry, Your Highness,” one of the guards said, glancing nervously at his companion. “But the shah is asleep. The shahbanu ordered that he must not be disturbed by anyone.”

Anyone. As if I weren’t the king’s daughter, but common riffraff.

“Merwan Agha, Yazdan Agha,” I said softly, addressing the guards by their names. “You know I will not disturb Father if he’s sleeping. I just want to see him—to make sure he’s all right.”

Merwan hesitated. From visiting his dreams, I knew he had a daughter, whose health he worried about quite often. Yazdan’s kind face, however, had grown studiously blank, his gaze focused somewhere behind me.

“I believe they already told you, Shahdoxt.” The voice that spoke had the soft malevolence of a snake’s hiss. “The shah is asleep.”

I turned. Queen Sussan stood in the hallway, torchlight flickering across her delicate oval face. In her fifties now, Sussan appeared as lovely as she had been since the day my father brought her to the palace as a new bride—moon-touched, the minstrels called her, with her creamy, unwrinkled skin, coal-black hair untouched by silver, and deep brown eyes that kissed at the corners. Even her distaste for me did not detract from her beauty; if anything, it gave Sussan the appearance of regal discontent.

“Shahbanu,” I said, dropping into a curt bow. “I only wish to see my father and ensure his well-being.”

“Are you insinuating that I, his wife, do not ensure his well-being?” she asked, stepping closer. Her perfect rosebud lips shaped into a snarl. “Or are you planning to leech the life from him the way you did with my innocent son?”

I loved Noshir, I wanted to remind her. I would have never hurt him.

But it did not matter. I was the last person who had seen Noshir alive twelve years ago. The only person who’d seen him die. In Sussan’s books, this was enough reason to doubt me, her suspicions compounded by her distaste for my daeva blood.

“Please,” I said, doing my best to hold my temper in check. “Shahbanu. I’m worried for Father. I promise I won’t stay lo—”

The word cut off, my head snapping sideways. A second later, the burn on my cheek registered, air piercing my nostrils, sliding down my throat like shards of glass. The last time my stepmother had hit me was when I was seventeen—on the day Noshir had died. She’d slapped my face over and over, one hand fisted in my hair until Father had caught hold of her by the arms and wrenched us apart.

But Father wasn’t here now.

I turned away from the horrified guards and forced myself to face the smirking queen.

“You forget yourself, Tahmineh,” Sussan said. “You forget who I am.”

A queen who, without Father or a chosen heir, was the next most powerful person in the kingdom. One who could declare that I was not an ordinary woman but the sort who changed shape by moonlight and turned into a flying snake. The sort whose presence brought endless drought, pestilence, and long winters until banished or executed. It did not matter that I could do none of these things. It only mattered what people believed.

“You will not see the shah until I permit it.” A lovely smile brightened Sussan’s face. “Understand?”

“Yes.” I bit my cheek, swallowing back the taste of blood. “Your Majesty.”

Under her watchful gaze, I retreated from the royal corridor and past the throne room. Back through the kitchen, steaming with cauldrons of bubbling stews, and out onto the lawn. In the distance, minstrels were singing to a lively tune on lyres and flutes, while men leaped over the bonfires, women laughing and shouting encouragement for them to jump higher, higher.

A fiery red haze burned from my chest, all the way to my eyelids. I could no longer feel the cold, my face hottest at the cheekbone, where I was certain a bruise had begun to bloom. Overhead, a full moon had made an appearance, casting a luminous glow over the festivities. I couldn’t bear it. I slid away, skirting the perimeter of the palace, from which domed shadows loomed and melded in with the trees of the surrounding cedar woods.

2.

CLOAKED IN DARKNESS, I FINALLY grew calm. The woods soothed me as they always did, wet mud and grass clinging to my silk slippers, the air rich with the smell of loam. Insects chirped in the trees overhead, while mice and other small animals rustled through the undergrowth. I might not have noticed the owl but for the slight shift in the air above: a soundless ghost on speckled wings.

A bulbul for love, an owl for death.

I’d never paid the old adage much heed in the past. But tonight, a delicate chill rose along my arms and nape. I quickened my pace, trees blurring past me, until I finally spotted the moon reflecting pale gold on the river.

I knelt in the grass by the bank, uncaring of the dew that soaked through my skirt. This river was where I’d last seen Noshir. The place where he had died. There was no trace of my brother here now. Not a dent in the earth nor a speck of blood on the rocks. I inhaled, deep and slow, the air smelling of sour musk and wet earth, of grass and water lilies.

Why did you die, Noshir? I thought. Why did you leave me here, all alone?

There was no answer, of course. There hadn’t been one for the past twelve years. But I’d not come here for Noshir tonight. I slid a hand into the water and closed my eyes.

“Zari?” I whispered. “Are you there?”

The water shifted, tiny fish within tickling my palm. For long moments, there was only silence. Then a splash. I opened my eyes and an arm rose from the river’s depths, pale blue and slender, followed by a wave of green, weedlike hair. A pair of eyes glowed in the dark, floating above the surface between two lily pads.

My heartbeat, dulled to a hollow thud, quickened at the sight of her webbed hands navigating the water, the scales on her skin gleaming with the iridescence of a fish. Her face was the only thing about her that appeared remotely human, though the older I’d grown, the more I’d started seeing myself in her. The line of her jaw, the tiny dimple creasing her right cheek, the slight tilt of her head whenever she was in deep thought.

“You came,” I said, relief surging through my veins as my mother waded close.

“You always seem surprised by this.” Her voice had the quality of wind rustling through the reeds, her smile a wide expanse of small, fishlike fangs between bruise-black lips. “Have I not proven myself to you yet, daughter?”

My pairika mother had first approached me here at the river, when I was seventeen years old and grieving in the months after Noshir’s death. I did not understand why she’d chosen that particular moment to reveal herself, nor why she’d made no effort to reach out to me before. Initially, I thought it might have been because of my father—that he might have somehow prevented her from seeing me. But Zari had denied such was the case. “It was my decision. One I’ve always regretted,” she had said. A strange sadness had filled the air even though her face had shown no change in expression.

The same emotion lingered between us now, mingling with a resentment that I’d never been able to bury, though it had never lessened my longing for a mother.

Back then, Zari had invited me to come see her whenever I felt like it, and for that first year, I did, going to see her twice every month. During that time, she asked me questions about my life at the palace and mostly listened as I told her my stories. I did not mind her silence initially; her emotions coloring the air around us told me more than words could have. Or so I thought until she began saying things like: “You should try being nicer to your stepmother.” Or: “Does all of this really matter, daughter? Why do you care what the courtiers think of you?”

I had been shocked at first and then upset. My mother, the one person who I’d thought would understand me better than anyone else, did not. She certainly didn’t act like the other mothers I knew, never fretting about things like unkempt hair, ripped clothing, or scraped knuckles. Never asking why my visits to her river had eventually declined—to the point that I now only came to see her when I couldn’t bear her absence.

A part of me wondered if I, too, was to blame for the distance between us. One time, when Zari had taken my hands in hers to comfort me, I had winced, startled by the feel of the wet, wrinkled skin. Perhaps she’d sensed my distaste, for she had not voluntarily touched me again after that, much to my relief—and my shame.

Yet while Zari knew everything about my life, she remained secretive about her own, rarely ever speaking of her pairika family and many sisters, speaking even less about the prophecy magic she possessed. She was reluctant about revealing my future, refusing whenever I asked her for it.

“No good comes from knowing the future, daughter,” she’d always said, a finality to her words I’d never been able to refute.

It was not until my twenty-fifth birthday, after years of persistent effort, that Zari finally relented and cast a prophecy for me. It was a vision I knew she’d regretted revealing. A vision I desperately needed to see again.

“I need your help,” I said. “Father is very ill. My stepmother won’t let me see him.”

“Ah,” Zari said, though she didn’t seem surprised. The sadness in the air deepened. “I’m sorry, Tahmineh. As you know, this lies beyond my powers. Humans do have tragically short lives.”

Is that why you left him? Left me?

I bit back the words. “I need to see the prophecy from my twenty-fifth birthday again,” I said. “The one about the man in these woods.”

A warrior wrapped in shadows, his arms holding me close. Someone whose very presence had filled me with a deep longing—even though I couldn’t see his face.

“If you didn’t see his face, it doesn’t matter,” Zari had said at the time. “He could be anyone. Don’t pay the vision too much heed. Sometimes prophecy magic can prey on our greatest desires, revealing futures that do not exist.”

I sensed this wasn’t the truth—that Zari was hiding something from me. But when I’d pushed further, she’d only grown angry.

“Why are you so insistent?” she’d demanded. “You have told me about how terribly you’ve been hurt and betrayed by men in the past. Why do you believe that this man will be any different? No, Tahmineh, I refuse to speak any more on this matter.”

She’d abruptly vanished into the river, the first time she’d ever done so before our meeting had ended—the first time we had ever quarreled.

It was the same the next month and the month after that, my mother disappearing each time I asked her about the vision or the man. Eventually, I’d tired of fighting her, worried that I would drive her away with my curiosity.

Tonight, though, everything had changed.

“I know you have refused me in the past,” I went on stubbornly despite the hard set of her mouth. “But I need to see this man. After what happened tonight, I need to know who he is—to see if there is any possibility I can marry him.”

“Tahmineh, I don’t understand why you’re overreacti—”

“Sussan slapped me!” I burst out. “She slapped me tonight in front of Father’s guards and they could do nothing about it. Tomorrow, if Father dies or becomes incapacitated, she could hit me again before the whole court—and no one there will stop her, either. No one will be willing to!”

Loath as I was to admit this, if anything happened to Father, I would need another protector. A powerful one to stand up to the queen and the daeva-hating Samangani court.

Zari was silent for a long moment. Around me, I could feel her emotions swirling, stormlike and turbulent. “I do not control the shape of a prophecy, daughter,” she said at last.

“But you do control what humans can see!” I snapped, reaching the end of my patience. “I know you manipulated the vision I saw and hid that man’s face from me!”

The daeva were, by nature, tricksters and masters of deception. Though Zari could not hide the prophecy itself once she’d cast her magic, she could meddle in various ways, revealing only the aspects of the future she wanted to.

“Who told you this?” she asked, her voice cold. “Your grandmother?”

My maternal grandmother, a powerful daeva in her own right, had indeed mentioned this in passing. But I would not admit this to Zari.

When I did not reply, my mother sighed. “The future changes based on the choices we make in the present. Not all that you see in a vision will come to pass—nor should it. I learned that lesson the hard way with your father.”

“What do you mean?” Over all these years, she had rarely spoken about my father or the past, always evading my questions about the same.

“I was a young daeva when I first saw your father in a prophecy,” Zari said. “A beautiful human king who seemed unperturbed by my scales and fins. A man who wanted to know me even though, to his kind, I appeared monstrous. My sisters warned me against seeing him. Little good had ever come to a daeva from meddling with humankind. But I was bored with my life back then, and enamored by the idea of finding happiness in the mortal world. So I went and met your father as was fated in the prophecy. Right here, in fact.”

She pointed to a spot on the riverbank not far from where I knelt.

“To my delight, he was as drawn to me as I was to him, and soon we began meeting every day. It wasn’t long before we fell in love—or so I thought at the time.” She looked up at me with those limpid eyes. “When Arshak asked me to be his queen, my joy knew no bounds. I accepted his proposal and glamoured myself to appear like a human at his request.”

As she spoke, her features morphed and briefly, I glimpsed the face my father must have seen: young and beautiful, with gleaming copper skin and lustrous midnight curls. She looked so much like me when I was younger that I started, taken aback. Only her eyes were different from mine: one as black as ebony, the other a radiant gold.

“For a while, all was well,” my mother said. “But things began changing as I grew heavy with child. I began to crave raw fish—a thing many humans consider odd. I missed my sisters, whom I had not seen in months. I missed my home in the river and the underworld. My body began to change, too. We pairika are strongest at conjuring storms in the water, at fighting with most immortals, and occasionally at other kinds of magic, depending on who our parents were. My prophecy magic, for instance, comes from my father, a great yellow dragon who lives in the depths of an endless primordial sea.

“But pairika are not like freptar—daeva who are true shapeshifters and can live as humans for centuries. All I could manage was a weak glamour magic that left behind imperfections like the color of my eyes. And, after my pregnancy, that magic was no longer holding firm. I would accidentally shift to reveal parts of my real form, scales appearing where skin ought to be, my flat human teeth sharpening to fangs whenever I ate meat.

“Your father grew worried and impatient. He feared that I would reveal my true identity to his court. Already rumors had begun about me thanks to my strange eyes, though your father had explained that away as an accident of birth. He said that eyes like mine were unusual but not unheard of in the mortal realm. With time, however, I grew angry. Arshak began restraining me more and more, confining me to my rooms if I showed even a hint of my true form. I did not understand why he married me if he’d wanted a human bride all along.”

“The court,” I said softly. “They call you—your kind—witches.”

“They do,” Zari agreed. “And I knew this before I agreed to marry your father. But I did not truly understand, you see. Not until I saw their revulsion reflected in his face.”

My insides twisted at her words. Though Father had never looked at me thus, I knew exactly what she meant.

“I couldn’t bear to live in the palace much longer,” my mother said. “But my pregnancy had weakened me. I also worried I would lose you if I ventured out too soon. So I stayed until you were born. Wholly human, with no trace of the river in your breath or on your skin. I rejoiced even as I grieved this. How much easier would it have been if you had gills! I could have fled then and there, taking you into the river with me. I even considered turning you at one point. Giving you gills so that you could breathe underwater with ease.”

“I…” My mouth went dry. “You didn’t…?”

“No.” Her sadness weighed upon me, nearly crushing the breath from my lungs. “I had my doubts, you see. Was it selfish of me to take you—a wholly human girl—into the river and the unseen world? A realm where you would not truly belong—even if my magic helped you breathe underwater? A place where you would face danger even with magic of your own? There are many among the pairika who like to toy with mortals—even eat them alive. And so I made the most difficult decision a mother ever could. I left you—my precious child—even though doing so broke my heart.”

Ice crept up my veins. Perhaps she was telling the truth. And yet…

“You could have tried to come and see me again,” I said, my voice sharp. “Instead, you left me to the wolves! To spend seventeen long years alone at a viperous court with a hateful stepmother. Even when you returned, it was at your own convenience—to assuage your own guilt.”

“Tahmineh, it was not like that!”

“Wasn’t it?” I demanded. “You say that Father restricted you when you lived at the palace, but aren’t you doing the same to me? Even now, after we are reunited, your love comes with restrictions on my choices—with questions you refuse to answer though the future you’ve seen is supposed to be mine!”

“Tahmineh, you don’t understand.” Her words cut through the air like stones. “This man you seek is not right for you. He will cause you much pain.”

“I am already in pain! Adrift at a court where everyone but Father hates me. A court that would automatically side with my stepmother if he dies. Already the courtiers tell stories of the wicked things they think I’m capable of doing. With the king gone, it will get only worse and Sussan will use these rumors as ammunition to call for my banishment—or even my execution—for practicing witchcraft. Know this: If I am dead within the year, you will only have yourself to blame!”

My mother grew very still. So much so that I wondered if she’d turned into stone. Her eyes were like gems, hard and unblinking, and I felt a frisson of fear. I had forgotten that she wasn’t only my mother but also an immortal being with the power to rip me limb from limb.

“Wait here,” she said. Then, without further explanation, she plunged underwater, the movement releasing small currents throughout the river.

In the solitude, my mind began to spin: Was she angry? Had she gone to fetch her sisters—the pairika aunts I’d never met—so that they could punish me together? Or would she change her mind and leave me waiting here, never to return at all?

Despite my anger, the last thought made me feel far worse than expected.

Minutes passed, feeling like hours to my fraying nerves. But eventually, my mother returned with a cluster of herbs, red bulbs protruding from them, each tip glowing an unearthly blue.

“What are these?” I asked, both drawn to and revolted by the plants pulsating in her hands.

“These waterweeds grow in the unseen world between the threads of time and fate,” she explained. “They will help you see your future.”

“I didn’t need them before.”

The last time she’d revealed her prophecy, she’d only waved a hand over the river and I had seen my future unfurling over its surface.

“That’s because you saw the prophecy through the shield of my magic,” Zari said. Though her voice was calm, the air around us filled with bitterness. “I know you are angry with me, daughter. But humans are not built to tolerate the entirety of daeva prophecies. Many go mad or forget what they have seen. I cannot guarantee that you will see the vision as fully as I can. But eating these herbs will keep your mind intact. And they will help you remember what you saw.”

I stared at the herbs. All these years, I’d longed to know what lay ahead of me. If my life would get any better. But now that I was so close to discovering the same, I remained rooted in place, paralyzed by terror. My mother reached out a hand. Up close, she smelled of brine, lilies, and moss. A deep, metallic scent that might have been blood.

I twitched as her fingers brushed my palm: cold, slippery, and troutlike. But the waterweeds were strangely warm to the touch and had the texture of velvet. Their centers began pulsing the moment my fingers closed around them. My skin crawled.

“Don’t be afraid,” Zari said softly. “I will be here with you.”

“I’m not afraid,” I lied.

Sucking in a breath, I bit off a single red bulb and chewed. The taste transitioned from sweet to sour, sour to bitter, bitter to sweet, again and again, but never quite in the same sequence. It disintegrated to a liquid in my mouth, which I swallowed before looking once more into the river.

Where there had been only flowing water overlaid with broad lily pads lay a flat, mirrored surface, ripples emerging from its center, turning hues like a gem held up to the sun. Within the ripples, images appeared and I stood once more in the woods as I had in previous visions. With me was the man, no longer a creature of smoke and shadow, but fully fleshed, life brimming from him like fire in a grate.

I was tall for a woman, towering over many of the men at my father’s court. But this man was at least a head taller than I was and heavily built, his body like stone against my fingertips. His face was stern yet handsome with a hooked nose that might have been broken more than once. He appeared a few years older than I was, streaks of gray visible along his temples and within the depths of his coppery beard. A silvery glow surrounded us, humming along his skin, sending shivers down my spine.

Though I had never seen this man before, something about him seemed familiar—from the odd helmet he wore, crowned with the face of a horned daeva, to the tiger skin slung over his broad shoulders.

He was a warrior. And no ordinary one.

The knowledge was dizzying, as was the name that hovered in my mind just out of reach. Before I could grasp it and finally know the man for who he was, he pressed his lips to mine. A knife’s edge seared my belly all the way to my womb.

Wrenched free of the vision, I fell to the ground, gasping for air. “Mother… Mother…”

I had never called for Zari in this manner before. Not when I had my first blood. Not when I’d fallen sick and had spent the whole night throwing up. Not when Noshir had died. Even in the years after we finally met, I’d stubbornly refused to call her anything other than her given name. Yet now, as the darkness began receding from my vision, I felt the cool touch of a hand on my forehead.

My mother sat next to me in her human form, her smooth brown hands dry and soothing against my skin.

“It’s all right,” she whispered. “It’s all right, my love.”

“I saw him.” The words spilled out of me, an unexpected mix of shock and joy flooding my veins. “He… he was with me. Here in the woods.”

“Yes. I know.” Zari’s voice was flat. “So was the child.”

Pinpricks erupted over my fingers and spine. “What? No, there was no child! I didn’t see a child!”

“No. But you felt him in your womb. The boy who will come.”

Another spasm of pain in my abdomen. “A boy?”

The pairika sighed. Carefully, she helped me sit. Then she cupped my face in her hands. Though her grip was delicate, the eyes that looked into mine were hard, fragments of gold glinting behind the veneer of her single black iris.

“Do you know who this man is, Tahmineh?”

My head pounded, but I forced myself to recall the man’s face. Once more, his name hovered in my mind, slightly out of reach.

“It is Rostam,” my mother said, her voice grim. “General Rostam of Iran.”

As she spoke, both the knowledge of the name and the man began to unfurl, pieced together by recollections of stories of men in battle, of minstrels’ songs about a boy born under a fated star, blessed by Ahura Mazda and the yazata themselves. Rostam, the current general of the Iranian army and governor of the province of Zabul. Rostam, known for his mammoth build and brute strength—the greatest warrior on the continent. His accomplishments were not limited to the human realm alone. Unlike other mortal men, Rostam was famous for having killed daeva—including a dragon and a witch.

The last thought sent a shiver through me. What kind of power must this man possess to be able to kill an immortal being? What would he do to me—a mere mortal—if he found out I was a witch?

“Do you now understand why I kept him away from you?” Zari said. “This man is dangerous! I don’t understand why you can’t marry someone else.”

“Because there is no one else.” I caught hold of Zari’s wrists, gently disengaging from her grip. “I’ve tried to find someone. Many times over the years. But no honorable man wants to marry a daeva princess. Many are too scared to look me in the eye. Those who aren’t… well, they only want one thing and it’s not marriage.” The reminder curdled in the pit of my belly. “If I have the slimmest chance with Rostam, then I must take it. My life depends on it.”

“You don’t understand.” Despair colored my mother’s words. “If Rostam enters your life, he may very well give you a son. A child blessed with farr! Do you even understand what farr means, Tahmineh?”

“Of course I do.” I said, unable to suppress my irritation. “Farr is a magic of sorts—a blessing bestowed upon kings by the yazata or, sometimes, by the daeva, allowing them to access the powers of the celestial realm or the underworld.”

These days, though, farr was generally associated with yazata and not daeva in most parts of the mortal realm. Yazata-gifted farr was a magic legitimized by the Iranian emperors as a blessing from God and, as an adherent of the Mazdayasna faith, Samangan, too, followed Iran in this belief. Any magic that did not come from the yazata was viewed as an abhorration—a sign of the devil, Ahriman.

“You are right to some degree,” Zari said. “Long ago, farr could give a human complete access to the celestial realm or the underworld. Yet as time went on, humans not only grew more powerful, but they also turned greedy. Yazata and daeva blessed them less frequently—and even if they did, they chose to diminish the magic they blessed them with. Now, farr no longer allows any human unfettered access to the other worlds. It does, however, bless a human with certain skills or abilities more powerful than the rest of their kind. The Turanian emperor, for instance, has the gifts of unnatural foresight and great cunning. Two traits treasured by the daeva.”

I nodded. I knew this about Emperor Afrasyab, having seen him at the Samangani court a few times over the years, crowned by a halo of shifting shadows and moonlight. Afrasyab was the only ruler I knew who openly displayed his affiliation to the daeva.

He’s also a powerful man with a massive army, I noted with some bitterness. Not a woman clinging to her future by the tips of her fingernails.

“Rostam,” I said, recalling my vision. “There was a silver glow around him. Was that his farr?”

“Yes.”

“He is no king, though.”

“No, but in some ways, he is more powerful than a king or even an emperor. Rostam’s farr gives him supernatural strength and the power to command large armies. If you give Rostam a son, it is likely that the child, too, will be blessed with similar powers. Nothing good can come from such a thing.”

“What do you mean by that? Have you seen something else in the prophecy?”

A flash of heat simmered in the air between us: anger. But then, the pairika’s shoulders sagged. “No. I have not.”

The tightness in my chest eased. “Children are not always blessed by farr. Nor are all kings,” I said, more gently. I thought of my own father, who had no farr whatsoever and had still managed to keep Samangan safe. “You do not know for certain that anything bad will come of me bearing Rostam’s child. Besides, he’s a powerful and influential man. A war hero whose legends are known even here in Samangan. If I marry Rostam, no one—not even Queen Sussan—will be able to touch me.”

“Why do you even think he will marry you?” my mother argued. “He is already married to a sister of the Iranian emperor.”

I flushed. I had not known about Rostam’s marriage. Then again, the minstrels rarely ever sang of heroes’ wives.

“Men of Rostam’s stature are allowed to take more than one wife,” I said. “It’s true that this is more common among kings, but even here in Samangan, there are nobles who keep more than one wife.”

“I see there is no point in reasoning with you. Already you defend this man as if he’s yours. Well, I cannot stop you from doing what you wish, daughter. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

I did not speak, not even when she touched my face in farewell. She slid back into the river: a rush of streaming limbs and hair, her body changing until it was once more in its iridescent, blue-faced glory, the ropes of her seaweed hair disappearing under the lily pads.

I stayed there afterward for a long time, thinking through what she had said. Was she right? Was I better off looking for another man?

I thought once more of my father, asleep in his bed, exhausted by long illness. Tonight Queen Sussan had merely kept me from seeing him. What would happen if his condition worsened? If she took on the true, unchecked powers of a monarch? No. I no longer had the time to look for another husband.

Deep down, I knew my mother thought Rostam would not marry me. That even if attracted to me, he would discard me once he’d satisfied his lust. I expected to feel angry at this assessment. Even sad. But all I sensed was a hollow beneath my ribs, where my heart was supposed to be.

“I will prove you wrong, Mother,” I whispered.

I would marry Rostam. No matter the cost.

3.

“YOUR HIGHNESS, ARE YOU ALL right?” Binaifer asked when I entered my bedchamber. Her small face was pinched with worry. “I didn’t see you at the feast—oh my lord! Your dress!”

I glanced down, noting for the first time the mud and grass staining the silk, and worse: a horizontal tear at the hem.

“Is it ruined?” I asked. “Can you fix it?”

“I don’t know,” Binaifer fretted, examining the material. She sighed. “I suppose I can try.”

“It’s only a dress,” I said, unsure if I was reassuring the maid or myself. I swapped it for a white muslin nightgown and allowed Binaifer to brush out my hair, the strokes so soothing that I nearly fell asleep.

Once she left, however, my mind grew alert once more. Perhaps I had ruined my dress. But maybe I could still salvage my future.

I lay in bed and closed my eyes, trying to empty my mind of the hundred thoughts rushing through it, as disjointed and wayward as rowboats on a stormy river. It took a long time, but eventually, my breaths grew slower, deeper, a liquid heat pulsing at the back of my throat. Stars bloomed behind my darkened lids, and when I opened my eyes, I was no longer in my bedroom, but in a forest in the underworld, the grass under my feet cool and blue, skeletal trees spindling toward a sky that was dark and streaked with waves of pale green and pink light.

My skin prickled, the fine hairs at the back of my neck rising.

“Bushyasta?” I called out. “Are you there?”

In response, shadows began sloughing off the trees, coalescing into a crablike shape, no bigger than a cat at first, but then growing larger and larger until it was nearly as tall as me. A woman—or rather, a daeva with the face and features of a woman—her skin as iridescent as the lights in the sky, the black horns rising from her head casting shadows across her green-gold carapace. Several long, spindly arms splayed out from her like tentacles, each ending in a claw. One of them reached out toward me, its cool edge brushing my hair.

“Good evening, granddaughter,” Bushyasta said. “I see you’ve finally learned the prophecy your mother was trying to hide from you.”

The tip of Bushyasta’s claw grazed the back of my neck, lightly piercing the skin there. I winced but did not pull away. I knew how far those arms could reach. How deep those claws could cut if I wasn’t careful. Bushyasta was the daeva who ruled over dreams and nightmares, the first daeva I’d ever seen at age six, when I’d walked into the underworld during a dream instead of the mind of one of my cousins.

“Who are you?” I had asked, once I had realized that this terrifying creature wasn’t planning to eat me alive.

“I’m your grandmother on your mother’s side,” she had replied. “I’m the one you get your magic from.”

I didn’t dare contradict her about the first statement. But the mention of magic made me frown. “It’s not possible,” I protested. “I can’t do magic. I can’t fly or change people into snakes!”

“But you can see other people’s dreams, can you not?”

I went very still. I could see dreams, of course. I’d discovered this gift by accident several months earlier, when I’d slipped into a palace maid’s mind and saw her being chased about by a giant wasp.

But how did this creature know that?

“You’re a dreamwalker, little one.” Bushyasta’s smile had been all teeth. “It is why you were able to come here today to my realm.”

I was never sure if I had wandered into Bushyasta’s realm by accident or if the daeva herself had led me here. But ever since that night, each time I dreamwalked, I found myself in this twilit meadow with its dark trees and blue grass, Bushyasta’s pincers clicking softly in the background.

“Grandmother,” I said now, my mouth drying in her presence exactly the way it had twenty-three years ago. “I need your help.”

“With that daeva butcher, Rostam?” Bushyasta sneered. “What will happen when he discovers what you are, granddaughter?”

I was not surprised that she knew the details of the prophecy already. As the daeva of dreams, Bushyasta was aware of every thought that flitted through my head when asleep. When she touched me a moment earlier, she must have sifted through my memories and seen the one freshest in my mind.

“I’ll take my chances,” I said. I might still survive Rostam and live to tell the tale. With Queen Sussan, my chances of survival would be next to none.

Bushyasta was silent for a while. “It will be interesting,” she said. “You seducing Rostam. After all he has done to our kind, it might be sweet revenge to have him marry you.”

“I’m not seeking revenge,” I said, grateful that my voice remained firm, unwavering. “I don’t want him harmed!”

“Oh, no harm will come to him. At least not by my hand!” Bushyasta cackled, the sound echoing in the trees above, where it was taken up by her many sisters, their foreclaws tapping rhythmically.

Stay calm, I told myself. Thus far, none of my grandmother’s teachings had led to any harm. The minds of the people whose dreams I visited remained unscarred and intact. None of them even knew I was the one who’d visited them in sleep. I needed to trust her. At least for now.

“Will you show me the path to Rostam’s dreams?” I asked. I could potentially discover the path myself, but it would take far longer and would involve a lot of trial and error.

In answer, Bushyasta raised her many arms in a circle. Infinite threads appeared all around us—the paths between waking and dreaming, connecting the underworld to every living soul in the human realm.

“Look for the thread that flashes like lightning,” Bushyasta said. “That scalds like hot iron to the touch.”

I studied the threads, focusing on the image of Rostam I’d seen in my vision. As I did so, a long glistening thread appeared in the midst of a million others, so bright that looking at it directly hurt my eyes. With care, I tugged on it, gasping as a series of blisters appeared on my hands. But the pain was short-lived and soon enough I was merging with the thread and flowing, pouring out from the underworld into the slumbering mind of a warrior I did not know.

4.

THE MAN I WANTED TO marry was dreaming of regicide.

In his dream, Rostam stood at the foot of a large four-poster bed, his hand curled around an iron mace, its head shaped like a snarling bull. On the bed lay Emperor Kavus of Iran, a man I’d never seen in person, but one whose features and name were etched into Rostam’s mind—and thus clearly reflected in my own. Kavus had a broad and handsome face, a neatly trimmed beard, and thick brown curls streaked gold from the sun. I could see the farr emanating from him—a dim golden halo that lit his slumbering face.

Rostam’s grip tightened and I knew he was thinking it over. Considering how quick he must be to crush the emperor’s head in a single blow. Rostam, too, emanated farr, which was silver and brighter than Kavus’s. I could feel it radiating around him and it prickled my skin the closer I approached. Rostam could not see me in his dreams—I was little more than a ghost to him here—but he would be able to sense my presence if I wasn’t careful.

“It is the first rule of dreamwalking,” Bushyasta always warned me. “You must never be caught.”

Usually, I never was. It was easy enough to enter most dreams without being noticed, to render myself invisible in the dreamscape. But I could not always escape detection. The first time this had happened was when I was nine and Bushyasta had made me practice dreamwalking into a kitchen maid’s mind. The maid, a meek little thing when awake, had a particularly strong mind when asleep. She sensed my presence almost at once and threw me out, resulting in a dizzy spell that had lasted for hours afterward.

My grandmother was unperturbed by this. “Some mortal minds are strong and can conjure barriers against us,” she’d said. “You must learn to remove them, granddaughter. It is difficult, but it can be done.”

It was difficult. The first few times I tried to remove the barrier, it did not work and my head hurt all of the next day. It did not help that the maid seemed to be avoiding me when awake, rapidly leaving the room or turning away whenever she saw me—as if a subconscious part of her knew what I’d done. What I was trying to do now.

“Be like the spider, quiet and clever,” Bushyasta had advised. “Not the elephant who charges through the forest without thought.”

I learned to focus on small parts of the barrier, dissolving one and regaining my strength again before attempting another. A year later, I was finally able to reenter the maid’s dreams—and remain there for as long as I wanted. The morning after, when I ran into the girl in the corridor outside my bedroom, she bowed and murmured a polite “Your Highness,” as if she was utterly unaware of what had happened the night before.

It had been a lesson of sorts: that the magic of dreams was not so easily wielded, requiring a spinner’s delicacy over a warrior’s brute strength.

In Rostam’s case, I needed to be even more careful. Unlike most humans, this man had encountered the daeva before and was familiar with their powers. Thus far, I was lucky his own thoughts troubled him so much that he’d not yet sensed my presence.

The dreamscape shifted with his thoughts, new figures appearing in the royal bedroom. Emperor Kavus was dead, his farr gone, his blood soaking the sheets. The others, I understood, were Rostam’s companions. The azadan, they were called, six men descended from Iran’s most powerful families.

“At last it is done,” one of them said. “The foolish king is dead.”

“At least he did not suffer,” added another. “Which we must be thankful for.”

Rostam, for his part, did not speak. He watched each of them, wondering who had dealt Kavus the final killing blow.

Was it Gudarz with his quick wit and knowledge of secret poisons? Tus with his gentle eyes and lethal skill with a blade? Gorgin, who never flinched from unpleasant truths or battles? Or had it been one of Gudarz’s headstrong sons? Roham with his quick temper? Gev with his good-natured laugh and iron fist? Bahram, who was so quiet, you did not know he had slit your throat until it was too late?

Or, Rostam wondered, the thought so clear he might have spoken it aloud, was it me?

I glanced down at his hands—at the fresh blood coating his mace and splattered across his shaking fingers—and felt my heart squeeze. I did not know this man. Had not met him outside the realm of prophecy and this dream. Yet I could tell that for all his power and strength, he did not enjoy killing.

Perhaps he had in the past. No man would continue doing what Rostam did if he didn’t gain some form of satisfaction from battle. But right now, I sensed a weariness in him. An ever-increasing sense of rage and frustration.

I wasn’t sure why the Iranian emperor angered Rostam so much. Yet, I did know that if Rostam hadn’t killed Kavus before, he would certainly do so now—perhaps even in the moments after he woke.

And that would do me no good.

My fingers settled on Rostam’s arm, as delicately as a butterfly. “Don’t be rash in your actions,” I whispered, my breath caressing his ear. “Leave this place and ride north to the marshes of the Amu Darya river. There is plenty of game to be found there. A hunt will make you feel better.”

I don’t know how much of what I said entered his consciousness. Certainly Rostam didn’t flinch at my touch, nor did his face reveal any change in expression. But I had risked enough detection for the night. I needed to withdraw and leave him be.

I needed to wait.

The trouble with trying to influence someone in a dream was the uncertainty such magic wrought. Most people needed more than a single visit to be persuaded to do something that fell outside the realm of their normal lives—and Rostam of Zabul was more bullheaded than most. It would be a wonder if he even heard me, let alone decided to act upon my outlandish suggestion and ride to the marshes, not only bringing him closer to Samangan but also to his enemies at the Turanian border.

Despite Iran and Turan’s most recent declaration of peace, no one believed it would last long. “The blood feud between Iran and Turan has lasted for over a century,” my father had remarked once to his courtiers. “Such old wounds are not so easily healed.”

Though Samangan had never participated in these wars and had maintained cordial relations with both Iran and Turan, our kingdom’s proximity to them made us vulnerable. Thus far, we had been lucky—even when a battle between the two empires had skirted our borders—and spared any damage greater than a few stolen horses by knights from either side.

I glanced at the water clock next to my bed and groaned, my head aching even more than it did after a long night of wielding magic. Normally, I would go down to the kitchen and request a tea infused with haoma leaves to numb the pain. But this morning I didn’t even have the time to do that.

Today was Nowruz, the first day of spring and the new year, and the palace would be abuzz with activity. Thanks to my long night, I’d already missed the morning prayers at the temple. If I didn’t make haste, I would also miss Father’s address in the throne room.

If he came to the throne room at all.

A soft knock sounded on the door.

“Your Highness?” Binaifer gazed at me with concern. “Are you all right? You didn’t come down to the kitchen for your tea.”

“I overslept,” I admitted. “Am I terribly late for court?”

“No, Your Highness.” Binaifer stepped in, a large dish of warm, rose-scented water in her hands. “But I don’t think you will have time for a proper bath this morning.”

After gratefully using the water to wash my face, neck, underarms, and privates, I slipped on my underskirt and a fresh sudreh over my torso. With a scarf holding back my hair, I quickly went through the motions of my morning prayers and tied the sacred girdle twice around my waist.

I marveled how I could still pray to Ahura Mazda when demon blood ran through my veins. There were times I wondered if I would be struck by lightning for this. Or perhaps clawed to death when I visited the underworld. Neither had happened yet—and I wasn’t sure whether it was a blessing or simply a curse biding its time.

Once I finished my prayers, I turned to Binaifer, who was holding out my green silk dress from the night before—cleaned and mended, looking none too worse for wear.

“How…” I began.

“I stayed up all night to get the stains out,” she said. “You can’t even see the stitches on the tear unless you look really close.”

I looked into her beaming face and swallowed the lump in my throat. What had I done to earn this girl’s loyalty? Worse: What would happen to her if I was gone?

“Thank you, Binaifer.” I forced a smile. “Why don’t you help me into it?”

“Are you sure, Your Highness?” Confusion mingled with the pleasure on the maid’s face. “You already wore it last night.”

“And I was hardly at the feast. It would be a shame to let your hard work go to waste.”

In reality, I did not care much about what I wore. But this dress was indeed a favorite of mine and, as Binaifer carefully laced up the back, I found myself soothed, my mind beginning to work again.

“Any news of the shah?” I asked. “Is he better this morning? Will he be at court?”

“I’m not sure, Your Highness.” Binaifer hesitated before adding, “I could ask one of Her Majesty’s maids, if you wish.”

“No, it’s all right.” That would only draw Sussan’s ire and I did not want Binaifer getting into trouble because of me. “I will know soon enough.”

Binaifer nodded, twisting my hair into a simple bun and securing it to the back of my head with several pins. As a final touch, she added a gold and carnelian hair ornament and the small gold crown I wore on state occasions. I tucked my dagger into my belt and glanced at my reflection in the bowl of water. The forest spirit from last night was long gone.

“And Your Highness?” Binaifer said.

“Yes, Binaifer?”

“Happy birthday!”

I paused, startled. My birthday had remained a forgotten thing for many years now, usually overshadowed by the Nowruz celebrations as I’d grown older, even more so after it became clear that I was a spinster with no marriage prospects. I was surprised that Binaifer knew about my birthday—or that she’d cared to find out.

Does she know about my magic, too? I wondered uneasily. Has she guessed?

“Good young ladies do not celebrate a witch’s birthday,” I said, my voice low, careful. “Didn’t you know this, Binaifer? The priests would be angry with you if they found out.”

“The priests say many things, Your Highness,” Binaifer said, a serious expression on her little face. “But they aren’t always right. They weren’t there for me when I was in trouble with Banu Azad. You were. Even if you are a witch, I would celebrate your birthday. I would pray to Ahura Mazda himself for your long life.”

The back of my throat burned, a sign that I was dangerously close to tears. I swallowed hard, pushing them back, along with my dark thoughts and the terrible uncertainty over whether I would live to see another year.

“Thank you, Binaifer.”

I touched the girl’s cheek and she beamed. “You’re welcome, Your Highness!”

The corridors were quiet when I stepped outside.

As far as royal residences went, Samangan’s palace was not very large. Certainly, it wasn’t as heavily fortified as the Turanian emperor’s castle in Kangdez, nor did it sprawl across a whole parasang of land like the royal Iranian city of Estakhr with its palaces, temples, and apadana—a magnificent hundred-columned throne room atop a terraced hill.

But my home was strong. Built from kiln-fired mudbricks and rocks cut from the Hindu Kush mountains, Samangan’s royal palace was over a hundred years old and had sheltered my family against countless monsoons and snow storms. While newer homes in our kingdom were often decorated with carefully sculpted stucco ornaments, the palace remained blessedly unchanged, old frescoes and tapestries decorating the walls with scenes from ancient battles—a time when my people were still tribal nomads belonging to no kingdom, herding animals, fighting wars, riding ceaselessly across the mountains and the steppes.

Down the narrow staircase, the scenes shifted to hunting expeditions and banquets, the faces of old kings and queens luminous in the flickering lanterns hanging from overhead sconces. Their painted eyes watched me now and I could almost feel their disapproval.

Well, they wouldn’t be the first, would they?

I slowed my pace as I approached the royal hall, hoping I appeared more sedate than harried. Thankfully, the room was nearly full and crowded enough to enter unnoticed.

Or so I thought.

“Tahmineh?” Zende Razm broke off the conversation he was having with another man and turned toward me. “What happened to you last night? You left so suddenly—and then you didn’t return to the feast. I was worried.”

“I’m all right.” I smiled, slightly embarrassed by the looks we were drawing. “I just didn’t feel like celebrating when Father was so ill.”

“I can understand that.” His gaze slid over my form. “You really like that dress, don’t you?”

If it were anyone else, I would consider this a taunt. But Zende Razm’s brown eyes were, as always, kind and without malice.

“What can I say?” I shrugged, lowering my voice to a whisper. “I overslept and put on the first thing I could find.”

“I’m not complaining.” A dimple creased his cheek. “As I said last night, green suits you.”

I laughed. “Looking at you, though, I wish I’d made more of an effort.”

Zende Razm was dressed in his finest for Nowruz: a long, narrow-waisted tunic in midnight blue, embroidered with gold thread and matching trousers that tapered at the ankles. This morning, he’d swapped out his usual bow and arrows for a ceremonial sword at one hip and a jeweled dagger at the other.

“Green suits you,” a courtier mocked in a low, carrying voice as I walked toward the throne. “How many times do you think he’s fucked her?”

“Zende Razm?” his companion replied. “I doubt it. He’d be too scared to fuck a witch. I wouldn’t be. In fact, I wouldn’t mind lifting up those skirts right now.”

They both laughed uproariously at this statement.

My body tensed. I had overheard such lewd comments in the past. Had trained myself to ignore them, angry as they made me. Today, however, my cheek still smarted under the layer of rice powder that barely hid my bruise. Today, I wished I could do the sort of magic that would quake the earth under their boots. That would bring them crashing to the ground and knock their teeth out in a pool of saliva and blood.

I kept walking toward the front of the room, where a massive cedar throne stood on a platform, its limbs inlaid with gold, turquoise, and lapis lazuli. The wall beyond bore a brilliant mural of warriors standing proud before the Samangani coat of arms: a pair of horses rearing before the rising sun.

Sussan was seated on the smaller throne at the king’s right, her face impassive. I took my place beside my stepmother on a short, cushioned stool. Neither of us looked at or greeted the other. I scanned the room, noting the frenetic last-minute movements among the servants, the courtiers settling into a quiet, buzzing chatter. My pulse quickened with anticipation. All these signs meant only one thing: The king was about to arrive.

I folded my hands in my lap, ignoring the rabid gazes scouring my face and form.

“All rise for Arshak the peacemaker,” the sentry cried, “lion among lions, scion of the Amu Darya and the Hindu Kush, the great king of the city-state of Samangan!”

As one, we rose to our feet.

In the past, Father would have walked in quickly, his very presence making him seem taller than every man in the room. Time and prolonged illness, however, had taken their toll on the lion of Samangan, curving his once-proud shoulders inward, slowing his movements so that he was forced to take one measured step at a time. Though Father smiled at each of his courtiers as he passed by, the cosmetics on his face did little to hide his ashen complexion. I knew that only sheer stubbornness prevented him from taking the aid of a cane or from leaning on one of his men.

The unease in my belly hardened to stone. I knew my father was ill, of course. Had known it for a long time. Yet somehow, he seemed to have aged even further in the two days since I saw him. Never had he appeared this thin or frail, as if he could be blown away by a single strong wind. Our eyes met and though Father’s smile did not change, his face seemed to brighten.

I kept my own smile in place, hoping my nerves did not show. While Father did not mind being fretted over in private, I knew it would be a mistake to reveal any concerns about his health in front of the court.

Slowly, yet surely, he climbed the final steps to the throne. “Sit, please,” he said. We all did.

“Today marks twelve years and one day since we lost our beloved crown prince Noshirwan. May his immortal soul rest forever in the House of Song,” Father began. Silence fell over the gathering for a moment.

The king continued: “Today, however, is Nowruz, and the new year calls for a celebration of new life. Today, in honor of my beloved son, and after much deliberation, I have finally decided upon a new heir for Samangan’s throne.”

Murmurs rippled through the crowd. I did my best not to look shocked. Over a decade had passed since Noshir’s death. Yet in all this time, Father had not shown any interest in appointing a new heir. The courtiers who had been examining me so closely earlier were now shooting not-so-subtle glances at the queen. It was well known that my stepmother had nearly died giving birth to Noshir. The palace healers had warned my father that he would not have additional heirs by her—though that had never seemed to bother him. I wondered if he even knew of the whispers that followed Sussan behind her back:

Sad, barren thing… Lucky she’s still here in the palace…

If I were His Majesty, I’d have replaced her with a healthy new wife…

I was sure that Sussan herself was fully aware of the whispers. She was far too politically astute not to be. But apart from her cheeks, which looked paler than usual, her face revealed no emotion. Surprisingly, I felt a twinge of sympathy. I did not like this woman. After the steps she’d taken to isolate and shun me at court, I wasn’t sure if I ever would. But I, too, had loved Noshir, and it hurt that he was not with us today. That he would never be with us again.

So lost was I in thought that I completely missed my father’s next statement. Only the loud cheers and applause made me look up—and see Zende Razm walking toward the throne. He knelt before my father, who stepped down from the dais and drew him into his arms for a hug.

That was when I understood.

Father had chosen Zende Razm as his heir—as the next king of Samangan.

Something curled deep in my chest. Not anger. Not joy either. It was, oddly enough, a sense of relief. I was glad Father had not chosen someone atrocious—like one of the two men who had been leering at me earlier. Zende Razm, though an unexpected choice, was a kind man and a proficient warrior. He was also well liked at court. He would, as far as I could tell, be a good king.

Will he be good for you, though? a voice in my head needled. Will he protect you from the queen and the court if they accuse you of witchcraft?

It was a question for which I had no answer, my belly twisting as Zende Razm asked for my father’s blessings. Zende Razm had never ignored or jeered at me like the other courtiers, but he had never publicly defended me either.

Court ended early that day, servants pooling into the throne room with jugs of cool sharbat and trays of nuts, fruit, and sweetmeats. People began chattering and mingling, most of them eager to speak to the new crown prince.

“Father?” I said softly.

The king turned to me. “My precious daughter,” he said, his voice so warm and full of love that for a brief moment, I could pretend all was well. That I was the little girl he carried around on his shoulders, making her giggle with bad impressions of horses and lions.

“What happened to you last night?” I asked, careful not to crush him with my embrace. “The shahbanu wouldn’t even let me see you!”

“I was tired and fell asleep, that’s all. I’m not as young as I used to be. But I feel much better this morning.” He cupped my cheek with a leathery hand. “Oh, my daughter, don’t look so scared. Your old father has a lot of life left in him yet. Now go on. Enjoy the celebrations!”

He turned away before I could protest and began speaking to one of his ministers. With a sigh, I decided to go and pay my respects to Zende Razm, who was surrounded by a large crowd. I waited my turn patiently and bowed once I was in his presence.

“Congratulations, Viso Puthra,” I said, addressing him by his new title. A genuine smile curved my lips. “It will be an honor to have you as our shah.”

To my surprise, Zende Razm took my hands in his and kissed them. “Tahmineh,” he said quietly. “I wanted to tell you about this last night. In fact, I had something else I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.” He glanced up at the people still waiting to see him and sighed. “Not here, though. Can we speak later? After tonight’s Nowruz feast?”

I nodded, somehow managing to keep my smile in place as I walked out of the throne room. Once outside, I sagged against the wall. It was exhausting being around these people. Even more frustrating that my magic itself could do little to change their prejudices about me or the daeva—no matter how hard I’d tried.

Princess Tahmineh is a good person, I would whisper to them in their dreams. She will not hurt you.

In some cases, this worked well enough. The palace guards, for instance, and the kitchen staff. Though perhaps, the latter also had the added benefit of listening to Binaifer constantly singing my praises. In other cases—such as with the courtiers—it worked only for a short period, if at all. Most were eager to curry favor with the queen, who had the power not only to give them expensive gifts but also to recommend them for better positions at court. Better a queen, I thought, than a princess with little power or influence over the king.

Father may have loved and protected me, but in political matters, he paid greater heed to Sussan, often taking her counsel alongside that of his ministers.

A pair of figures emerged from the throne room—servants, I expected—until I saw the way they were watching me. They were the two men from before, eyeing me like a slab of meat at the bazaar.

Once, years earlier, I’d walked into the dreams of these men, hoping to turn them in my favor. What I’d seen instead were visions of various women from the palace—including myself—tied to their beds or pleasuring them, our naked bodies on full display, our skin scored by their nails or teeth. I had been fifteen at the time and had fled the dreamscapes, horrified by what I’d seen.

Was this how they saw me? I had wondered. Was this what they would do if they found me alone?

Now, outside the throne room, fear slid down my belly. Next to it, however, rose another emotion. Rage.

Normally, I would have retreated to my room, not wanting a confrontation. But today, I threw my shoulders back and pretended that iron and not bone formed the ridges of my spine. I began walking toward the men, who watched me disbelievingly, laughter animating their bearded faces. But a hint of unease entered their expressions when I continued to approach, my lips curving into a sly smile.

“Would you like to know,” I began conversationally, “what a witch does to a man who does not please her in bed?”

I expected them to laugh again. To utter words even fouler than what they’d whispered at court. But something in my expression must have warned them against it. Their smiles faded and they watched me in silence, their mouths slightly agape.

“She enters his dreams,” I said, walking closer. “She bends him over with a hand and forces his thighs apart. And then…”

The men jumped back at the slick sound of my dagger leaving its sheath.

My smile sharpened. “You can imagine what happens, can’t you? I will not go into vulgar detail, but… let’s say that once this wretched man wakes, he will remember to never displease a witch again.”

“D-demon!” one of the men sputtered. “Begone, begone!” In unison, they began chanting a refrain to ward off the devil: “Shekasté, shekasté shaitan! Shekasté, shekasté shaitan!”

As if I—or any demon—would crumble to a pile of ash with mere words.

Yet whatever they thought me capable of in this moment, I knew the illusion of my power would not last. I raised my dagger high and pretended to lunge. It was enough. They fled from me—two middle-aged men yowling like cats caught in a downpour, their screams echoing through the palace corridor.

A few heads peered out of the throne room to see what all the commotion was about. This time, I did not care that they were staring at me.

This time, I was the one who laughed.

5.

MY ADRENALINE RUSH FROM TAUNTING the two courtiers wore off once I escaped to my quarters. Though small, my room had always been a refuge against the world, with its carved wooden bed and mattress of hay and down, my father’s thick woolen blanket draped over a bench in one corner, its clawed feet lovingly varnished and enameled with wildflowers. Now, though, it felt hot in here despite the wood in the fireplace having long turned to ash, the walls closing in on me, stifling every indrawn breath.

Hastily, I washed my face at a carved basin in the corner and swapped my fine silk dress for one of sturdy gray linen. While braiding my hair, I finally spotted the wooden tray atop the bench: loaded with flatbread, sweet samanu pudding garnished with pistachios, a large bowl of ripened brown Dilmuni dates, a sachet of haoma leaves, and a silver cup of grape sharbat.

My unease dissipated. By now, Binaifer knew well my distaste for tedious court gatherings.

I feasted on the flatbread and dates, savoring the sweet, honeyed flesh that split with the ease of butter under my teeth, and stuffed a few more into the front pocket of my dress. A headache still flirted with the edges of my skull—annoying, but not intolerable. Resisting the urge to chew on a haoma leaf, I slipped the sachet into my pocket as well. I could always eat the herb later if I needed to.

It was still too early to try and visit Rostam in his dreams, so I slipped out into the woods again. It was a beautiful spring day, flowers blooming in the almond orchards, the sky an endless, cloudless blue. Life buzzed all around me: squirrels and ladybugs crawling up the barks of the cedars, mynahs trilling in the branches above.

I chose a tree that shaded my face from the sun, closed my eyes, and began counting backward from ten. No one else roamed the woods now; the palace was far too busy celebrating. The nearest settlement, a Buddhist monastery, was a quarter parasang away, and other farmsteads and homes even farther still.

When I opened my eyes again, I was both within my body and without—able to simultaneously register the twigs and leaves digging into my flesh and see myself lying on the ground from several feet overhead, the leaves forming a lattice of shadows over my face and neck. Bushyasta called this aspect of my magic astral dreaming—the ability to detach oneself from the body when awake and see what was happening at great distances.

It wasn’t the strongest of my powers. While the realm of dreams in the underworld gave me access to both dreamwalking and astral dreaming, I hadn’t been able to fully master the latter. I could not, for instance, influence anyone in an astral dream, even though by now I could leave my body to travel anywhere within the kingdom of Samangan. Occasionally, I even traveled beyond the Amu Darya river into Turan—all the way to Emperor Afrasyab’s court.

Bushyasta was unsurprised by this. “You, the dreamwalker, are at your strongest when both you and the person you’re influencing are asleep,” she’d explained. “It is easier to enter their mind then, to make them more malleable to your wishes. Astral dreams, conversely, occupy a more nebulous space. You, the dreamwalker, are in a state that is neither true wakefulness nor true slumber. Further, the people you’re observing are generally awake and therefore difficult to influence. This magic is challenging for us daeva as well. To my recollection, no mortal has ever influenced another in an astral dream—and I have a long memory, granddaughter.”

While this had frustrated me initially, over the years I’d come to accept my limitations—to enjoy the unexpected freedom astral dreaming gave me over travel without ever having to physically leave Samangan. The only time astral dreaming had failed me completely was when I’d attempted to venture into Iran—blocked by a searing barrier that held me back like an invisible sun.

“That would be the yazata Meher,” Bushyasta had said. “Iran was the first nation in the mortal realm to worship Ahura Mazda, and the place where the yazata first gifted the power of farr to a mortal king. It has been a stronghold of the yazata for centuries and they protect its boundaries against any external magic. You must be careful, granddaughter. Few daeva have recovered from challenging the angel of war. You are but human.”

I cast my gaze toward the sun. Could Meher see me now? Did he know I had visited Rostam—a man he’d blessed with farr—in his dreams?

Though the day was warm, sticky even, the thought made my blood run cold.

Idly I began floating upward, farther and farther, until I could see the whole of Samangan laid out in a perfect circle, the palace at its center and the various districts surrounding it in quadrants. Roads formed intricate mazes, carving through forests and farmland, the vast Amu Darya glistening to the north like a silvery blue ribbon.

I contemplated flying to the market district that lay east of the palace. Floating invisibly among happy Samangani citizens also celebrating Nowruz with candied fruits, sweet puddings, meat, cheese, and wine in each other’s homes. There, at least, I would not be considered unwelcome. There, I could pretend to be a part of the celebrations as well. I was about to leave when a roiling cloud of dust from the south caught my attention. At first, I thought it had been caused by the strong winds that sometimes blew in from the Iranian plateau, bringing heat and the sting of desert sand with them.

But then I noticed the shadows moving within the cloud. The distinct shape of a horse and a rider churning the earth, leaving deep furrows in their wake.

On the ground below, my body twitched. Overhead, though, I was utterly calm as I watched the pair make their way across the dry plain and down a grassy knoll, past small farms, apple and pistachio orchards, past the silent Buddhist monastery and toward the Turanian marshes.

I allowed myself a smile. A single rapid skip of the heart.

Ride north to the marshes of the Amu Darya river, I had told Rostam in his dream.

And he had. Or at least I thought it was him riding here at a speed that defied imagination. A speed most certainly propelled by the silver glow crowning his head and shoulders.

I swooped downward, a hawk that had finally spotted its prey, the sky, the mountains, and the trees blurring past me in a jumble of blues and greens.

And there, next to the wide expanse of the river, rode the tallest, broadest warrior I’d ever seen, eyes narrowed in concentration, his muscled arms and thighs bunching, looking like they might have been carved from rock itself.

He was garbed in a cuirass of tiger skin and leather, the skinned face of a horned white daeva crowning his helmet. A familiar bull-headed mace gleamed against his back, but I would have recognized Rostam anyway for his handsome face and red beard—for the farr that emanated from his shoulders, turning his surroundings luminous. The stallion he rode was equally massive, his dark mane flying black in the wind, his coat saffron-bright in the afternoon sun. Rakhsh.

They now slowed to a canter, both panting with exertion, and Rostam let out a laugh, the silver light fading from his body.

He had a nice laugh, rich and deep, the sort that resonated in the air and settled deep in one’s bones. The sort expected from a man who regularly experienced pleasure instead of one whose most recent dream was filled with blood and death.

“Didn’t expect to come this far, did you, old friend?” Rostam told the horse. “I didn’t either. I’m not even sure why we rode here all the way from Zabul—and that, too, on Nowruz! Mother won’t be pleased, that’s for certain. Neither will Father.” Curiously, Rostam did not mention his wife, but instead looked across the river at the towering cypresses that marked the beginnings of Turan. “We should be all right as long as we don’t cross the river. Even Afrasyab cannot fault us if we keep to this side of the border.”

He directed Rakhsh toward a dry, scrubby plain by the marshes, thick with a herd of golden-brown onagers. The animals, smelling the danger of man and horse, began to disperse almost at once, scattering in many directions.

But Rostam had spotted the one he wanted—a lusty jack with swordlike ears and plump hindquarters. Urging Rakhsh on, he let loose a few arrows in rapid succession. The shots were clean and impressively so, killing the onager almost instantly. Rostam expertly skinned and cleaned it before dressing the carcass for a fire spit. Once he’d eaten his fill and tossed aside bones sucked clean of their marrow, he promptly fell asleep in a bed of sweet-smelling grass.

My mind raced. It was rare for any person to respond to my magic the way Rostam had, and certainly not on my first visit into their dreams. Was my mother’s prophecy playing a role?

The thought did not sit well with me, but there was no time to second-guess. While my powers had worked on Rostam last night, there was no guarantee they’d work this well on him a second time.

I retreated, my body in the grove gasping awake. My temples pounded with the simultaneous effects of lying in the heat and my magic. I made myself stand.

There was no time to lose.

The meadow Rostam slept in wasn’t very far from the grove where my body had lain. From a gap between two trees, I scanned the area and spotted him, his helmet tossed aside on the grass, his body in repose. A few feet away, Rakhsh grazed leisurely by the river, his thick black tail flicking away gnats.

I inhaled deeply and then, without further ado, stepped out into the open.

Rakhsh looked up, black-tipped ears on high alert, and whickered. Noting that the sound had not woken Rostam, I continued walking by the river, pretending not to have noticed either of them. A couple of yards away, I paused and knelt in the grass. I dipped a hand into the water, allowing the current to tickle my fingers.

Soon enough, I felt the shift in the air, caught the muffled sound of hooves. Rakhsh snorted next to me and then, with utmost caution, began sniffing my hair. I held utterly still, breathing in the scent of new hay, the slightly pungent odor of horse sweat. It would not do to make any sudden moves and startle the animal. I’d learned this over years of observing the palace’s grooms. Taming a horse required a steady hand. More so, it required patience.

Slowly, I turned to meet a pair of large, liquid eyes fringed by thick lashes.

“It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?” I said, noting the way Rakhsh’s sensitive ears flicked. He sniffed me again and I tried not to cringe at the wet brush of his nose and mouth against my cheek. I risked touching his face with my hand and stroking the bridge of his nose. To my relief, he allowed it.

With utter care, I reached into the pocket of my dress and withdrew the ball I’d made from the dates I’d been carrying. I held out the offering, watching Rakhsh sniff at it and then take it into his mouth, entirely unaware that the dates were laced with crushed haoma leaves.

A single haoma leaf, when chewed raw, was potent enough to slow down your movements slightly, to balm over any minor aches and pains, making them disappear. Horses, however, were larger than I was, and Rakhsh was larger than most horses. I had no idea if the dose I’d given would put him to sleep or simply make him docile enough to be led away without alerting his master.

I was hoping for the latter. Carefully, I rose, taking hold of the lead.

“Come on,” I whispered. “Come with me, Rakhsh.”

The stallion blinked at the sound of his name. He grunted as I tugged on the rope, followed by a rumbling exhale that blew locks of my hair across my face.

Blood pounded in my ears. But Rakhsh did not pull away. Nor did he attempt to kick me in the head.

Come on, I thought, not daring to glance in Rostam’s direction. Come on, Rakhsh.

I tugged again, ever so gently. Relief pierced me, lightning sharp, when the stallion finally began to move. I was not sure what had made him trust me. Perhaps he didn’t trust me at all and it was simply the haoma that made him too tired to fight.

I led him through the woods, covering our tracks with fallen branches and leaves, and up a small green hill where wild horses occasionally roamed. At the base of the hill was a farmstead—a modest mudbrick house bordered on one side by almond and pistachio trees, and on another by a field of wheat and barley.

An elderly man was tending to a pair of bleating goats in the small yard, his homespun tunic sticking to his back, the ridges of his spine visible through the cloth. Despite his slender frame, Farid still appeared as strong as he used to be when he was the palace stable master, catching hold of one unruly goat and then another before tying each to a massive oak tree.

I’d first met Farid when I was four years old. Father had wanted me to learn how to ride and Farid had, with an encouraging smile, led me to a pony he thought suitable for my size. He never seemed to care about my daeva heritage, focusing only on my riding and correcting my posture on horseback—and this was the case even after Father married Sussan. In a palace where allegiances shifted with the course of the wind, the old stable master had remained unfailingly kind, always ready with a story for me about the horses he tended to, or sometimes about a great steed of yore. When Farid had retired a few years ago to care for his ailing wife, I had made a point to visit him at least a few times a year. Despite his own troubles, he had never turned me away.

A pang of guilt went through me. It had been months since I’d visited Farid, having last come here when his wife had passed away the previous winter. Yet when the wooden gate creaked open, the frown on his bearded face melted into a smile.

“Your Highness!” Farid said. “I did not expect to see you here on Nowruz of all days!”

I smiled back nervously. “Sorry to bother you today, Farid Agha, but I needed your help. With him.” I gestured to Rakhsh at the end of my lead—and watched the old man’s smile slowly fade.

“Is that…” he sputtered. “Is that Ra—”

“Please, Agha,” I begged. “Ask me no questions. I don’t want to lie to you. I only want to know if you can keep him hidden for a few days. All you need to do is feed him dates with crushed haoma leaves from time to time. They will keep him calm and easy to manage. I will pay you ten silver coins for your trouble.”

Farid did not answer for a long moment. He was staring at the horse at my side, his expression a mix of fear and awe. “Do you remember the story I told you years ago? About this very horse?”

“Yes.” It was harder to smile this time, though the memory itself was sweet: Noshir and I at the stables, watching the horses; Farid Agha telling us about how Rostam came to Samangan as a young man and claimed Rakhsh for his own. Back then I never imagined I would see the fabled Rostam, let alone make schemes to marry him.

“Is…” Farid smacked his chapped lips together as if trying to moisten them. “Is this horse’s master here as well?”

I nodded.

“He will be angry, you know.” A tremor went through Farid’s strong, calloused hands. “He will set the whole kingdom on fire if he does not find him.”

“He will find him,” I said firmly. “I will ensure it—but not before I get what I need. Please, Agha. Trust me on this.”

Farid sighed. “I do trust you, Your Highness. You are good, no matter what people say. Seven realms! They would say all sorts of things about your mother and they were wrong about her, too, weren’t they?”

I was temporarily at a loss for words. My mother?

“Do you know”—he continued speaking into the silence—“that your mother is the reason I became the palace stable master?”

Next to me Rakhsh grunted, his breath hot against my wrist. But I barely noticed, unable to look away from Farid. “You knew my mother?”

“I did. She was very like you, Your Highness. But much younger than you are now. She always used to come and see the horses; they made her curious. I don’t think she had them, where she came from.” He smiled, eyes gazing elsewhere to a time I did not know. “Back then, we had another stable master named Behrouz. He did not like your mother. He said she asked him too many questions. But I think he was afraid of her. Of her eyes.”

I tried not to wince. “You weren’t afraid?”

“She didn’t harm the horses or anyone there,” Farid said with a shrug. “I could see she was shy, more afraid of us than we were of her. I liked talking about horses and so I did that, telling her stories about them. Then one day, about a month later, the king accompanied her to the stables. His Majesty told me that Behrouz was no longer stable master and that I would take his place. It was the greatest surprise of my life. I didn’t think His Majesty even knew my name! But then I looked at your mother’s smiling face and I knew she was behind the whole thing.”

“I didn’t know.” My voice sounded raw to my own ears. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about her?”

“I’m sorry, Your Highness. But after she left, we weren’t allowed to mention her in the palace.” Sorrow edged the lines on Farid’s worn face. “The only thing I could do was ensure that you—her daughter—remained happy whenever you were in my care.”

The air in my lungs thinned. I didn’t blame Farid for his silence. Zari, of course, had never mentioned the stable master.

“I may be an old man, an illiterate man,” Farid continued. “But I’ve known you since you were a child, Shahdoxt. You were a young girl who barely understood what was happening around you. Certainly you weren’t responsible for the terrible tragedy that befell your brother.”

I blinked the tears from my eyes. Of all the people I knew, Farid was one of the few I’d never had to influence with my magic. Who, despite us sharing no blood ties, had more faith in me than my own family.

“Please do not give this horse away,” I pleaded, transferring Rakhsh’s lead to the old stable master and handing him the last of my dates and haoma leaves. “Not even if the shah’s guards come looking.”

“I will hide him well,” Farid promised. “But, Your Highness. Please be careful. This horse’s master… he’s rumored to have a temper.”

I nodded. “I will be back again in a day or two with your coin.”

“I don’t need coin, Your Highness!”

“I insist. You are doing me a great favor. And I never did thank you for telling me and Noshir that story when we were young.”

The story of a man who tamed a wild horse. A story that I now hoped would allow me to tame the man in turn.

“Your Highness, please,” Farid began—likely another attempt to dissuade me from paying him.

But I was already turning on my heel and racing back toward the palace.

6.

WORD OF ROSTAM’S ARRIVAL RODE in with the setting sun, the sky a brilliant pink behind dark, gold-limned clouds. The messenger—one of the guards at the city gates—relayed the news, his face so pale he might have seen a ghost, not a man.

“He says he’s Rostam, Your Majesty! General Rostam from Iran! And he says his horse, Rakhsh, was stolen! I didn’t believe him at first. But then this light burst from him and he grew into the size of a giant! I was sure he could break me in two if he wanted.”

The guard went on for a while, a rambling speech that my father cut short by rising to his feet and stepping down from his throne. Several advisors followed the king out into the hallway, talking all the while:

“Could it be him…?”

“Impossible! Why would Iran’s champion come this close to the Turanian border when there is no war?”

“Also, how could someone steal Rostam’s horse? That beast is supposed to be a terror on four legs!”

“Is the guard sure? He seems a little simple to me…”

No one had noticed my absence from the festivities earlier that day, and no one noticed my presence now as I quietly trailed them into the grand lobby—a circular entry hall at the front of the palace overset by an oblong dome, its concave interior embedded with glass-cut stars in a lapis-painted sky. As a child, I would often come here to lie on the floor and look up at the stars, thrilling every time the door opened and they caught the light to reflect rainbow bursts on the surrounding white walls.

Today, however, I hid behind a thick marble pillar and watched Father order the guards to unbolt the round, moon-shaped door. A tall figure stood at the entrance, backlit by the setting sun. He was larger than the man I’d visited in a dream. Larger than when I’d seen him earlier this morning chasing after an onager. Perhaps it was his farr that made him appear such—like a giant towering over my father and all the other men.

Rostam did not bow before the king. Indeed, the only concession he made was to remove his helmet, revealing a cropped head of copper hair haloed in the light of his farr. Even from this distance, I could see the dried blood staining his cuirass, could feel the restless energy he exuded—the powerful yazata magic that urged him to destroy everything and everyone in sight.

“I am Rostam, son of Zal,” he told my father. “Warden of the province of Zabul and general of the Iranian army.”

Awe struck the faces of my father’s courtiers and I knew they were thinking of Rostam’s other titles. Undefeated. Kingmaker. Champion of champions.

“I am looking for my horse, Rakhsh.” Rostam’s tone hardened. “I believe he has been stolen by someone from your kingdom. I have tracked his prints down the river to your borders.”

Any other king might have been angered by the accusation—might have ordered Rostam imprisoned for his lack of respect. King Arshak of Samangan, however, came from a line of monarchs who had held on to this land for over a century without war or bloodshed.

“General Rostam,” my father greeted him, his voice warm, welcoming. “It is an honor to see you in our little kingdom, though unfortunate it could not be under better circumstances. We have been informed of the loss of your beloved horse, Rakhsh, and have already endeavored to send out our men to look for him. We are certain that he will be found in no time. Until then, may we offer you a place to stay here in the palace as our guest?”

A jolt went through me as Rostam looked up, his gaze finding mine. We watched each other for a moment and I wondered if he had somehow recognized me. But then he broke his stare to study my father again.

Samangan, unlike Iran—and unlike Rostam’s province of Zabul—was not endowed in wealth. This was reflected in my father’s attire, his white silk tunic and trousers fine, yet unadorned with gold or jewels. The only indications of King Arshak’s status were the jeweled circlet around his silver hair and the richly woven purple cloak that he wore wrapped around one shoulder.

My father was no soldier. Yet he did not flinch before Rostam’s burning farr, nor did he shrink back from the general like the men of his court.

“Please, General Rostam.” King Arshak raised a heavily veined hand and placed it on Rostam’s arm. To my relief, it did not tremble. “I know what it is like to lose a beloved horse. Rest assured that I will leave no stone unturned to find your Rakhsh for you. Indeed, he comes from this very land, does he not? We have all heard the stories.”

Rostam did not speak for a long moment. But his anger was ebbing. His bright silver halo retreated, leaving behind a sudden darkness, his figure illuminated only by what was left by the fading sunlight.

“You are most generous to help me, Majesty.” Rostam gave a brief bow and I saw that, while large for a man, he was certainly no giant. “Yes, it is true that I found my Rakhsh here in Samangan. I will be most grateful for your help in locating him again.”

I flattened myself against the pillar, holding my breath as Father and his courtiers escorted Rostam inside. When they were gone, I exhaled slowly, feeling at once nauseous and lightheaded. Was this it? Would this be the man who would decide my fate?

I had not considered asking my mother for a second prophecy. I had not dared, having pinned all my hopes onto the broad back of the warrior who’d just entered my father’s palace as an honored guest. What if Rostam rejected me? What if he wasn’t attracted to me at all?

You will ensorcell him, then. Like the witch you are reputed to be.

The matter-of-fact voice in my head might have been my grandmother’s. It might have been my own. There was power in beauty, I knew, and annoying as it could be to judge a person by such fickle measures, I was lucky to have it in my arsenal.

If the stories were true, then luck would be the least of what I would need to seduce the Iranian general.

7.

THE OUTFIT I CHOSE FOR the Nowruz feast consisted of a white silk tunic and skirt that clung to my form, every inch of the cloth embroidered with an intricate design of pink roses and wildflowers. Binaifer dabbed my face lightly with rice powder, painted my lips with carmine, and then arranged my hair into a braided coronet through which she wove real apple blossoms.

“He won’t be able to take his eyes off you,” Binaifer declared with a flourish.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I examined my face in the mirror, grateful that the bruise on my cheek had all but disappeared. “Who won’t?”

“The Iranian general, of course.” She grinned when I raised my eyebrows at her. “Surely you’ve noticed him, Your Highness! All the palace ladies are talking about him.”

“I suppose,” I replied, affecting an air of nonchalance. “Though one man is much like another.”

“No, Your Highness! He’s different. The other maids attended to General Rostam earlier during his bath and they all said how very nice and polite he was for a highborn lord. He refused to undress fully in front of the women while bathing and did not complain once about the tunic they brought him despite it being a little too tight around his shoulders. He’s good.” She gave me a meaningful look. “Honorable.”

“If you say so.”

Inwardly, though, I was intrigued. I had heard many stories about Rostam and his sense of honor. Now I would see for myself if they were true.

The banquet hall next to the throne room was brightly lit, scents of roast meat and wine, bread and cheese, a multitude of sweet and savory stews filling the space. Musicians plucked at strings in a corner, their songs nearly drowned by the chatter within. Rostam stood out in the crowd for his height alone, his hair and full beard gleaming like fire under the lanterns, a tasseled emerald cloak draped around one shoulder.

For someone who should have been used to large, fawning groups of admirers, Rostam looked oddly ill at ease. His right hand moved repeatedly to his hip, as if reaching for a sword, his left hand upward, as if adjusting an invisible helmet. His unsmiling face grew even more strained when someone called him a great hero and reached out to touch him—as if he weren’t a man but a minor deity.

I was debating on whether to approach him directly—despite the stares this might attract—when Rostam looked up and met my gaze. He studied my face, a furrow indenting his forehead. Had someone already described me to him in less than charitable terms? Warned him to stay away?

Swallowing back nerves, I gave him a warm smile. Luck seemed to be on my side, for a faint half smile tugged at his lips in return.

It was time.

I tilted my head sideways toward the door and then, without a second glance, walked out of the hall.

I did not know if he would follow. Or if I had made any impression whatsoever. I slipped deeper into the darkened corridor, which was empty, save for a pair of palace guards outside the banquet hall’s entrance. It was the guards who clued me in to Rostam’s presence, their quiet chatter falling silent as he stepped outside.

For a large man, Rostam’s tread was surprisingly light. I did not hear him approach, though when I turned, he was standing only a couple of feet away, watching me contemplatively. A shaft of light from the room cut across his face lighting his pale brown irises.

“May I help you, General?” I asked.

The guards were staring at us.

Rostam nodded to the men and turned to face me again. “My lady,” he said politely. “We have not yet been introduced.” His deep voice was pleasant, quiet enough that our conversation remained private. “I do not wish to leave the feast without knowing who you are. Especially since you seem to know who I am.”

From the calculating way he watched me, I bet he knew exactly who I was. But it was true. We’d had no formal introduction.

“I am Tahmineh. Shah Arshak’s only daughter.”

Rostam bowed. “It is my honor to meet you, Shahdoxt Tahmineh. I hope you will forgive my boldness in approaching you without a chaperone.”

“I am thirty years old, General. By most standards, I no longer need a chaperone.”

“It is still not proper. You are unmarried from what I’ve heard.”

For a man not yet forty, Rostam acted like one who was much older—or perhaps a man who came from an older time, when chivalry and honor were considered more important than life itself. I, for my part, might have simply attributed this response to a lack of interest if not for the way his gaze lingered on my curves.

“Well,” I said after a beat. “Why don’t you marry me, then?”

He startled, clearly not expecting the question. “My lady—Your Highness. I am already married.”

“And yet you left a feast in your honor to follow me out here.” I gestured to the empty hallway. “Why?”

“It wasn’t like that,” he protested, a flush coloring his cheekbones. “I… This is going to sound foolish. But something about you felt familiar to me, my lady. It was as if I’d seen you somewhere before. Perhaps in a dream?”

My smile did not slip, even though a sudden cold began spreading through my limbs. No. He couldn’t have possibly seen me. The very nature of dreamwalking prevented such things. Bushyasta had said so herself.

What if she’s wrong? a voice in my head needled.

Rostam was no ordinary man. He had farr—a magic I knew very little about, apart from the fact that it gave him preternatural strength and speed. Had his farr revealed me in a way my grandmother had not foreseen?

“Tell me something, General,” I said, changing the subject. “Do men in Iran take only one wife?”

“Not always.” He frowned. “But my parents had a love match. My father never took another wife. Nor a concubine.”

“Do you have a love match as well, General?”

Rostam did not answer. But his lips hardened under his beard and I guessed that it was not the case.

“There is nothing wrong with a political alliance,” I said, carefully weighing my words. “And yet, in this matter, you are unlike your father. You’re a man named after a raging river, a man who tames wild horses and slays dragons and daeva. It is true that you are your father’s son and his pride. But you are not Zal Dastan, are you? Indeed, by most accounts, you are more than what he will ever be.”

“You dare insult my father?” He moved closer, forcing me backward until my spine was pressed to the wall. “You, whom your own people call a witch?”

His breath against my cheek was warm. Spiced faintly with wine. Blood bloomed hot in my veins when he raised a calloused finger to my cheek and slid it all the way to the hollow of my throat. My pulse raced. I was not fooled by the delicacy of his touch. Even without farr, this man could snap my neck with his bare hands.

“All I did was speak the truth.” I raised my hand to cover his. “Are you so afraid of hearing the truth, General?”

He inhaled once, a sharp rise and fall of the chest. “I am only here for my horse.” His voice was flat. Wary.

“What if I led you to him? I could do it now.”

I expected him to pull back in shock. To demand I tell him at once where Rakhsh was. But Rostam’s frown only deepened. “You could be lying to me,” he said. “It is in the nature of daeva to lie.”

“Legends say that it is also in the nature of daeva to be repelled by Ahura Mazda.” Before I could second-guess myself, I raised the hem of my blouse, revealing the white cotton undershirt and braided woolen girdle I wore underneath. “Would a daeva pray to Ahura Mazda? Would she let his sacred sudreh and kusti touch her skin in the manner of a true believer?”

Rostam’s eyes narrowed. “What sort of trickery is this?”

“There is no trickery. Touch me for yourself and see how mortal I am.”

“If you have hurt my Rakhsh in any way—”

“Your Rakhsh is perfectly safe.” My blouse dropped back in place. “The world may call me a witch, General, but I, too, have a sense of honor. How about this: Stay a week in Samangan. Spend time with me. If by the end, you think me worthy of marriage, then I will happily reunite you with your horse. If you do not… well, I will not be as happy, but I will still reunite you with your horse.”

It was a huge gamble—one that Bushyasta would certainly rebuke me for. But I had not come this far without taking risks.

Rostam frowned again, even as he continued to absently trace the line of my throat, sending shivers down my spine. “One week,” he said after a pause. “If I don’t find my horse by then, I will kill you, Tahmineh of Samangan.”

“Is that a promise?”

I might have been afraid if his touch didn’t feel so good. If his lips hadn’t briefly quirked in a smile that made him look younger. Almost boyish.

“Meet me after breakfast tomorrow,” I said. “I will wait for you at the edge of the woods outside the palace.”

Rostam’s hand dropped to his side. He stepped away and turned, not bothering with a response.

And yet, as I memorized the planes and angles of his departing back, I knew that I’d piqued his interest.

I knew that he would come.

8.

THE NEXT MORNING, I CHOSE my outfit with care: not from among the fine silks reserved for state occasions, but also not the patched, ordinary dresses I normally wore to the woods. My skirt was long and wide, the blue of the Samangani sky, and my high-necked blouse as white as snow on the Hindu Kush. I tied my hair in a simple braid and, after a pause, put on my belt and dagger as well.

After a quick meal of flatbread, honey, pistachios, and sliced apples, I slipped outside. A tall figure waited by the woods, his red hair outlined by the sun. Rostam was dressed in loose green trousers patterned with yellow zigzags, a style commonly worn by Iranian warriors, a white tunic, and his tiger skin cuirass. There was a dagger sheathed at his belt and he might have been wearing other weapons under his clothes. But his helmet and mace were nowhere to be seen.

He turned at the sound of my footsteps. Unlike his vivid hair, his eyebrows were paler, so fine that they appeared almost invisible unless one stood really close to him.

“Good morning, General Rostam,” I said.

“Good morning, Shahdoxt,” he replied. “I didn’t see you in the dining hall at breakfast.”

“I don’t normally eat with the others.” I smiled innocently. “Most of the court have an aversion to horse liver and lamprey stew.”

Rostam frowned, unable to respond for several seconds. Then, ever so slowly, a smile cracked across his stern features. “By Ahura Mazda. I nearly believed you.”

“Nearly? I must be losing my touch.”

He laughed. “You are a strange woman, Tahmineh of Samangan,” he said, curiosity having replaced the suspicion in his gaze. “Most of your courtiers—including your stepmother, the queen—have told me to stay away from you. That you are of demon blood. Yet you clearly pray to Ahura Mazda and wear his sacred garments under your clothes. I don’t understand it. Why do you let people believe you’re a witch?”

I had an answer ready for this. Had prepared exactly what I needed to say to garner his sympathies. And yet, for some reason, I hesitated. What would happen if I told him the truth? If I revealed myself to him in a way I hadn’t to anyone else—not even my father?

It’s true that I’m a witch. My powers can infiltrate dreams and influence behavior. I was the reason you came here, my lord.

I examined Rostam again—from the keen interest in his brown eyes to the lack of his usual weapons. Clearly he did not see me as a threat. He did not think I was a witch at all—merely a woman pretending to be one.

“When people think you’re a witch, they leave you alone,” I said at last, offering a half-truth. “They may think of hurting you, but most are too terrified to act.”

Rostam nodded. “I understand. My mother did the same. She, too, is of daeva heritage.”

“She is?”

He smirked, as if amused by my shock. “Yes. My maternal grandfather’s family can trace back its roots to the dragon king, Zahhak. Until she met my father, my mother, too, was much feared among her people. She told me once that it was both a blessing and a curse. But pretending to be a witch was one way she protected herself from the attentions of unwanted men.”

“Ah, yes.” I sighed. “Though it also seems to keep away men whose attentions I do seek.”

My words lingered in the silence between us.

“Enough about me,” I said, beginning to walk into the woods. “Tell me about yourself. How did you first come across your horse, Rakhsh?”

Rostam followed, navigating low-hanging branches and jutting roots with an ease that spoke of long hours spent outdoors. “Don’t you already know the story? Famed as my horse is in your kingdom?”

“I assume you know that story best, my lord.” I turned to face him and continued to walk backward without hesitation, noting the way his eyes roved over my form. “Since you’re the one who lived it.”

His mouth curved in a small smile—an act that nearly made me trip over my own feet. Rostam caught me before I fell, his warm hands curling around my arms, holding on long after I’d been righted. Unlike the dream I’d visited, he did not smell of blood and sweat, but of clean bathwater and salt, of sandalwood laced with strong mint tea. His gaze traveled from my eyes to my lips.

My mouth grew dry. It would not take much to close the gap between us. To tilt my head up and let him kiss me. To make once more the sort of mistake I had when I was too young to know any better. A mistake I’d never been allowed to forget.

“The story?” I prompted gently.

Rostam blinked. “Uh. Yes. The story.”

His hands slid down my arms, reluctantly letting go as we fell back into step together.

“I was thirteen when my father realized I needed a horse to train on,” he said. “I was large for my age and heavier than most grown men.” A flush crept up his cheekbones. “My mother gave me the most embarrassing nickname. Piltan.”

Piltan. Mammoth-bodied.

“Mammoths are immensely strong,” I pointed out. “Terrifying, too.”

“Perhaps,” he said, a wry note entering his voice. “But I was only a boy then and did not appreciate being told I was so heavy that no horse in my father’s stables could take my weight. Eventually, my father spread word across the land that I needed a stronger horse and we received news of a massive colt at the Turanian border.

“I scoffed at the story initially. Grown war stallions had their spines curve inward when I merely pressed my hand to their backs. How could a colt take my weight? But I was curious, so I went. And I came… here, I think,” he said, pausing with surprise. “Why, I do believe it was here!”

We were at the crest of a green hill overlooking the river where my mother lived. Hooves sounded in the distance—wild, sturdy Samangani horses who often roamed the plains, their dappled gray and brown coats gleaming in the sunlight.

“I noticed the colt at once,” Rostam went on. “He was faster than all the others in the herd, about fifteen or sixteen hands in height already. When he rode across the plain, his hooves thundered the earth, kicked up clumps of grass and dirt. His eyes were like black coals, his body as bright as a living flame. When I approached, a few herders came over, refusing to let me pass. When I asked them why, they said, ‘We call this horse Rakhsh for his vivid coloring. No one but Rostam, the great warrior from Iran, will be able to claim him.’

“I asked them why this was the case. Surely, there must have been other warriors who had been drawn to a fine steed like this and made attempts to capture him. But I soon discovered that Rakhsh’s mother was the real barrier. She was a fierce gray mare who guarded her colt like a lioness, driving away anyone who so much as looked his way.”

“What did you do then?” I asked, unable to help myself, even though I’d heard various versions of this tale. Rostam had a knack for storytelling, his voice carrying a minstrel’s lilt that effortlessly drew the listener in.

Rostam’s smile widened. “I told the men that I was indeed Rostam and that I would capture the colt—for Iran. I undid my lariat and swung it high in the air, lassoing the colt. As expected, Rakhsh’s mother charged. I quickly tied Rakhsh to a nearby tree and then began grappling with the gray mare.”

I glanced between Rostam and the wild horses at the river, imagining the struggle between the boy who wanted Rakhsh and the mother who would not let her colt go. I pictured the gray mare charging at Rostam, the young man leaping out of the way or pushing her aside whenever she tried to bite him.

“She must have been angry with you,” I said.

“She was. She reared high in the air, her hooves poised to come down and crush my head. I prayed to Ahura Mazda and Meher Yazad and thrust out my hands. It was only due to their blessings that I was able to catch the mare’s hooves and hold her back, forcing her to retreat on her hindquarters until she stopped snorting and frothing at the mouth. When her body turned limp, I lowered her hooves into the grass and said, ‘Well, Rakhsh’s mother, will you let me have your son?’ In answer, she turned and walked away, no longer looking at me or her colt, knowing she was beaten at last.”

“You did not kill her?” I asked skeptically. “Any other man would have.”

Indeed, some of the tales about Rostam suggested that he’d done exactly this—though no one had been able to reach a clear consensus in this regard.

“She was protecting her child,” Rostam said simply. “How could I fault her for it? If she had defeated me, I would have tried again, yes. But I had no intention of taking her life.”

I was tempted to call him a liar. Great storytellers often were.

And yet when I looked at Rostam, I could detect no sign of calculation or subterfuge. There was an openness in his expression as he talked of Rakhsh. A stark honesty that reminded me of the river and the mountains. I found myself admiring and envying him for it—this man, who had chosen not to kill a wild mare but instead calm her with the sheer strength of his body and will.

So why does he dream of killing his emperor now? I wondered. What has changed over the years?

“You appear troubled,” Rostam said, as if he could sense my thoughts.

I shook my head and laughed. “I can see now why you love Rakhsh so much. I almost feel guilty for keeping him from you.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Almost?”

“How else would I have seen you or had this conversation?”

I expected him to be annoyed by the comment, but he only appeared amused. “Turanian horses are indeed some of the best,” he said grudgingly.

“Not Turanian,” I corrected. “Samangani. We are an independent kingdom, General.”

“Even though your father is a cousin of Emperor Afrasyab?”

“Distant cousin.” I turned to face him fully, the lightness evaporating from my tone. “Though I don’t see why that should matter. Weren’t Iran and Turan, too, once ruled by men who were brothers by blood?”

The conflict between Iran and Turan had begun over a century earlier, when the Iranian emperor Faredun’s sons killed their brother, the new king of Iran, in a succession war. The grandson of the dead Iranian king avenged him by killing his murderers—one of them being Tur, the eponymous king of Turan. Tur’s descendants, including Afrasyab, had never forgotten this, swearing vengeance against Iran for as long as they lived.

“I am aware of the many bloody wars that have been fought between Iran and Turan, my lord,” I went on while Rostam stared at me with surprise. “I also understand that the peace treaty your empire struck with Turan last year is tenuous. Contingent on your armies remaining on their respective sides of the Amu Darya river.”

“Iran will not be the first to break that treaty,” Rostam scoffed.

This was likely true. From what I’d heard, Afrasyab had always coveted the throne of Iran and had made several attempts over the past twenty years to capture it. That did not matter, though.

“Samangan has never involved itself in these wars,” I pointed out. “We have always offered aid to anyone who asked for it—Iranian or Turanian. It is how we’ve remained independent for over a century—by maintaining strict neutrality.”

“I admire the way you defend your kingdom,” he said, and I could tell that he meant the words. “And yet, marrying me would impact Samangan’s neutrality. Have you considered that, my lady?”

I had. Though I did not like to think much of it. What use was thinking about the future when my very present was uncertain?

Before I could answer, a pair of voices called out from the distance:

“General Rostam! General Rostam!”

We turned to find two young men racing toward us, long hair windswept, faces flushed under their scraggly beards.

“Good morning, Your Highness.” One of them addressed me bashfully with a bow. “We have come here to invite the general to the royal zoorkhaneh.”

Polite as he was, I did not miss the distinction. The invitation was for Rostam alone. “Are you in the mood for wrestling, General?” I asked, striving to sound pleasant.

“And perhaps engaging in a few bouts yourself?” said the other young man eagerly.

Rostam’s face revealed no expression. But I was growing better at detecting his thoughts, at catching the flashes of emotion reflected in his eyes. He was intrigued—perhaps even curious about how pahlevani, a sport he excelled in, had developed here in a kingdom beyond his own. He assessed the two young men standing before him, their broad bodies and calves outlined by form-fitting tunics and patterned knee-length loincloths common to the zoorkhaneh.

“I will come,” he said at last. “But only if the princess joins me.”

My insides tightened. The two young courtiers exchanged an uneasy glance. While women often watched matches in the zoorkhaneh, I was a woman whose very reputation preceded her—a woman often blamed for calamities outside her control.

“I am not sure if this is a good idea,” I murmured so that only Rostam could hear. “People will be uncomfortable in my presence. I would only spoil the gathering.”

I expected Rostam to nod in acceptance. To, at most, give me a disappointed glare. Instead, he took my hand and gently tucked it in the crook of his arm.

“Let them be uncomfortable, then.” His voice was low. As warm as the large hand that covered mine. “Perhaps they will dwell on their discomfort and realize how foolish they are.”

“But—”

“Surely the woman who boldly proposed marriage to me last night isn’t afraid of a few scandalized looks?”

I wondered if he was mocking me. Yet underneath the challenge in his eyes, there was something else. Compassion. An assurance that no matter what happened at the zoorkhaneh, he would be there. At my side.

A breath left my lips in a soft huff. “I suppose I could tolerate a few hours of men rolling around in the dirt for our honored guest.”

Rostam’s smile was so bright that I wondered if it was the effect of his farr. But it was only the sun lighting his face, its warmth seeping into my back as we followed the young men down the hill to a squat stone edifice at the back of the palace. In the nature of most gymnasiums, the royal zoorkhaneh was built to surround a massive circular pit filled with sand, wooden benches for spectators rising overhead, while natural light poured in from the open ceiling above.

Rostam and I chose a seat at the front, facing a makeshift throne on the other side of the pit, where my father and Zende Razm were already seated. King Arshak smiled and waved at me and the Iranian general. Zende Razm, however, was frowning and did not bother to greet us.

Seeing Zende Razm triggered another memory—one that made me instantly curse myself. I was supposed to have met him last night after the feast. But I’d been so distracted by Rostam that I completely forgot.

I’m sorry, I mouthed when Zende Razm’s eyes met mine. Can we talk later?

Zende Razm’s gaze fell on my hand, still tucked into Rostam’s arm, and his expression darkened. He turned away from me to watch the wrestlers filing into the arena—all having removed their tunics so that they were clad only in their loincloths, their muscled torsos glistening with oil.

On a high platform in one corner, a pair of musicians began drumming a rhythm. Dust rose in the air as the wrestlers began warming up with exercises, the air thick with the smell of cedar and frankincense burning in a small atashdan. As the drumming increased in pace, Rostam noticed my confusion and explained what each exercise signified.

“Those are mīl.” He pointed to the heavy wooden clubs that the older, more experienced men were swinging around their shoulders. “They are meant to represent maces in battle. And that is a kamān,” he said, gesturing to a man holding up a massive iron bow-shaped device strung with circular weights. “Pulling it helps strengthen your arm for shooting arrows. Pahlevani is more than wrestling, my lady. It’s about building strength and stamina. It’s about training men for war.”

Novices no older than ten years in age appeared, tossing small clubs into the air and catching them to show off their reflexes. Older boys followed, spinning at dizzying speeds at the center of the pit, their arms splayed wide, clutching a wooden sword in each hand.

Then came the wrestling match itself, two bulky warriors from my father’s army grappling with each other at the center of the pit.

“Who do you think will win?” Rostam asked.

I studied the two wrestlers, noting the way the taller man had the shorter one in a headlock. “The tall man. What do you think?”

Rostam smiled. “He’s good. But the shorter man has better technique. I think he will win.”

He was right. Despite his reddening face, it was eventually the shorter wrestler who managed to overcome his opponent, swinging the larger man bodily in the air before slamming him to the ground. A bell rang, ending the match, followed by raucous cheering by the audience.

The winner smiled and turned to Rostam with a bow.

“General,” he called out, his voice echoing in the enclosed space. “Will you not spar with us?”

Rostam turned to me. “Do you think it’s a good idea? Will it not offend the shah if I defeat one of his men?”

I glanced at my father, who was beaming in a way I hadn’t seen in years. “I think the shah will enjoy it,” I said, smiling.

However, it was my breath that caught when Rostam emerged from the changing room, clad only in a loincloth, a statue of smooth golden skin and muscles lightly peppered with dark red hair, a tattoo curving over his right pectoral. I squinted, making out the serpentine body of a dragon wound around a horse.

Rostam bowed before the throne. From the array of weapons surrounding the pit, he chose two of the largest clubs, each roughly weighing as much as a grown man, though you would not have known it by the way Rostam gripped their short handles and tossed them in the air, one after another, higher and higher, his hands moving so rapidly they might’ve weighed no more than apples.

Gasps and cheers rose from the audience, many shouting praises to Ahura Mazda. The drumming, which had been sedate at first, increased in pace, its vibrations thrumming in my belly. Rostam, for his part, did not seem to notice. He’d switched to alternatively swinging the clubs around his shoulders and head, his muscles bunching, his pace so rapid that soon enough his movements were little more than a blur.

“It must be magic,” someone behind me muttered. “He’s using his farr!”

But there was no silver glow about Rostam nor the crackle of energy that accompanied the same. Even without farr, Rostam’s pace was matchless, his brow untouched by strain or sweat. His every movement was practiced and precise—from the way he lifted the iron kamān and pulled at its weighted string to his dizzying spins at the center of the arena, balanced on one leg, a sword in one hand, a massive wooden shield in the other.

I had never enjoyed the mock battles my father’s knights occasionally engaged in, equating them to little more than bodies crashing and grunting across the field. But Rostam did not seem to move as much as he seemed to dance, a grace and power to every lift and spin, holding the entire zoorkhaneh spellbound.

It was beautiful, what he did, I realized. He was beautiful.

When the time came to spar with the wrestlers, Rostam said, “I would like to fight two of your best men at once, Your Majesty.”

“Why so?” my father asked, curious.

“It would not be a fair fight otherwise.”

Rostam’s comment elicited murmurs and several raised eyebrows within the audience. My father was speaking quietly to Zende Razm. After a moment, Zende Razm nodded and turned to Rostam.

“Are you sure, General?” he asked. “Two against one is not usually a fair fight.”

“I am sure,” Rostam said without hesitation.

“Very well, then,” King Arshak said. “Let the fight begin!”

I leaned forward, rapt, as two of our best wrestlers began circling Rostam, who stood at the center of the pit. Rostam, for his part, appeared calm. Relaxed in a way that told me he’d done this not once but many times before. The men lunged and I nearly cried out when their three bodies crashed together in a tangle of heads and limbs.

Yet the fight was over before it had a chance to truly begin, Rostam slamming his opponents’ faces into the ground and holding them there, until each man grew limp with exhaustion.

“One!” the referee cried. “Two! Three!” The bell rang, ending the match in Rostam’s favor. The audience rose to their feet, their cheers resounding in the dome. Rostam helped his defeated opponents to their feet and bowed to my father, who was applauding, a delighted smile on his face.

“I dedicate my win to Shahdoxt Tahmineh.” Rostam bowed low before me. “Will the lady do me the honor of awarding me my prize?”

My pulse skittered in my throat. Whispers rustled through the crowd. I looked up at my father, who simply nodded, unperturbed.

“I would be happy to, General,” I said, hoping my voice did not shake. “You fought magnificently.”

Taking the wide green and gold ribbon from the referee, I walked to the edge of the pit, where Rostam stood, and tied it around his wrist. Behind me, the whispering increased in fervor when Rostam took my hand.

“Have I offended you, my lady?” he asked quietly.

Heat pooled in my cheeks. It was true that Rostam had drawn attention to us in a way that would cause talk—the sort of attention I’d always done my best to avoid. I wasn’t even sure if his actions were motivated by real interest—or merely a ploy to lure me in until he found Rakhsh again.

So what if it is a ploy? my heart demanded quietly, rebelliously. He still treats you better than anyone else ever has.

This was true. Few men, apart from my father, had ever treated me thus, fewer still publicly demonstrating I was a woman worthy of honor and respect.

It might be a trick for all I knew. A game to counter my own seduction. But in this moment, I was more grateful to Rostam of Zabul than he realized.

“No,” I replied. “You did not offend me.”

“I’m glad.” He gave me a wry smile. “If I did offend you, you might decide to never reunite me with my horse!”

“Don’t be so sure,” I said lightly. “We witches are a temperamental lot. I may change my mind tomorrow and you may be reunited with an ass instead.”

Rostam roared with laughter, the sound so infectious that it had me and several others laughing along as well. It was only later, when the laughter faded, that I noticed the empty seat next to my father’s throne.

Zende Razm was gone.

9.

ROSTAM’S VICTORY IN THE ZOORKHANEH meant that he would be surrounded by men demanding stories about old battles and Iran for the rest of the morning. I took this opportunity to slip away and seek out the crown prince. I’d rarely seen Zende Razm angry or upset, even as a young boy. Yet when he did get angry, I’d discovered that there was one place he liked to frequent more than any other—an old archery practice grove at the edge of the woods.

It was where I found him that morning, a lone figure shooting arrows at a tree painted over with small birds, his breath emerging in pants, his embroidered tunic outlining the muscles of his back and arms. I’d seen Zende Razm over here before, during sessions of astral dreaming. But I’d never seen him up close, in person. Had not realized how good he was, his aim rapid and true.

Though the ground was soft and had cushioned my footfalls, Zende Razm sensed my presence and stiffened, his arms lowering to his sides. I noted the stiff, chiseled line of his jaw and his pink-tipped ears—a clear sign that he was enraged.

“Shahdoxt,” he said coldly. “What brings you here?”

“Zende Razm, I’m so sorry!” I said. “I know we were supposed to talk after the feast last night, but it completely slipped my mind!”

“I can see why. Anyone could see by the way you were throwing yourself at our honored guest.”

I blinked, stunned by the venom in his words. “I was not—”

“Tahmineh, have you gone mad?” he interrupted. “Did you learn nothing from what happened with that asinine Lakhmid prince?”

Silence filled the space between us, as thick as honey in a jar.

“I was seventeen.” My voice was tight. “And Mundhir wasn’t just anyone. He was my betrothed.”

A boy I thought I loved. A boy I thought loved me back regardless of my daeva blood.

We, Banu Lakhm, worship different gods, Mundhir had assured me. No one in my land will care about your Samangani superstitions.

I could still recall Mundhir’s hands stroking my cheeks. Undoing my dress, uncovering every bit of skin. His face lingered in my mind, so full of love—until it was gone, replaced by a ruthless ambassador, who informed my father that our engagement was broken. The ambassador had said that the Lakhmid king did not want Mundhir’s rule tainted by a demon princess. The king’s words, in themselves, had not surprised me. He had never been in favor of our engagement—had relented only when Mundhir, his favorite son and heir, had declared he would marry no one else. But now that Mundhir’s interest in me had waned—the novelty of bedding a witch gone—I had been left alone again to face the wolves at my father’s court.

Zende Razm’s expression softened. “Tahmineh,” he said, more quietly than before. “I just don’t want you getting hurt again. General Rostam is a married man. And people have already started talking. Calling you all sorts of names.”

A sound left my lips—though I wasn’t sure if it was a laugh or a cry. “And you believe them, don’t you?”

“I never said that!”

“No, but that’s what you meant. You don’t need to mince words with me. You can say clearly that the people who were calling me a witch for years are once more calling me a whore.”

“Tahmineh—”

“You know what, though?” I went on, speaking past the strange buzzing in my ears. “I thought you were different. I thought you, at least, were my friend.”

“Tahmineh, please!” Zende Razm’s face had grown ashen. “You know I’ve always cared for you!”

“Don’t!” I cried out, pushing away his hands. “Don’t you dare touch me!”

“My lady?”

Rostam’s deep voice had the effect of an axe, slicing through the rising fury in my chest. I turned to find him standing a few feet away, a wary look on his handsome face. He was dressed in his clothes again, though they clung to his body, which was damp with sweat.

“General,” I said, trying and failing to smile. “I didn’t know you were looking for me.”

“A servant told me you were headed this way. I was hoping you could show me the royal stables,” Rostam said. Though he continued to address me, his cold gaze was focused on Zende Razm. “Who knows? Perhaps my Rakhsh may have found his way there trying to return to me.”

How much did he hear? I wondered. Does he think I’m a whore, too?

“Perhaps the crown prince of Samangan can chaperone us,” Rostam went on. Anger pulsed from him, a silvery glow that limned his shoulders and hair. “I would not want the lady’s reputation tainted. Even though, to me, she is above all reproach.”

I did not know why Rostam was defending me. Why didn’t he tell Zende Razm about how I’d shamelessly proposed marriage last night in exchange for returning Rakhsh? Only a wicked woman would steal a horse in this manner and keep him from his rightful owner. Everyone else would agree.

It’s because Rostam is an honorable man. And he believes you are an honorable woman.

The last thought made my pulse quicken.

I did not trust many people. Yet, somehow, I trusted this man who wore his anger and emotions as openly as he did his armor and weapons. A man who treated me with more respect than I probably deserved.

“There won’t be need for a chaperone,” I said when Zende Razm remained silent. “There are plenty of people in the stables right now. And I am sure the crown prince has other things to do.”

At my words, Rostam’s farr subsided so quickly, it might have never been there. But the air still lingered with it, sending a tingle up my spine when I took his proffered hand. I could feel Zende Razm’s gaze boring into the side of my face. Imagine the warning he did not utter aloud.

I did not look back.

Over the next two days, Rostam and I fell into a routine of sorts. Meeting each morning after breakfast. Going on long walks through the woods and by the river. There were rumors about us, of course—most of them scandalous. And yet all we did during those hours was talk. It was as if our near kiss had never happened, Rostam always keeping me at arms’ length, even asking me to bring a pair of maids to accompany us on these excursions. I took along Binaifer and another kitchen maid. Both were well liked among the servants and would stanch any untoward gossip about my character.

“Why did you decide to come hunting here—so close to the Turanian border?” I asked Rostam after ensuring that the maids were out of earshot.

The question was risky, for it would make Rostam think of his dream again. But I did not know how much of the dream he actually remembered. Few people, in my experience, vividly recalled details from a dreamscape. Would he sense that magic was involved in bringing him here? Worse: Would he guess the true reason I had looked so familiar to him on his first night in Samangan?

“I want to say that I had a nightmare,” he said after a pause. “But if I’m being honest, it was not the only reason. I had returned home after a long campaign in Rome and found the emperor’s Nowruz invitation waiting for me at home.”

“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” I asked, puzzled. “Being invited to a feast at Estakhr?”

“Not if your emperor is Kavus.” Rostam sighed. “He always has another agenda in mind, a new land for us to battle and conquer—even though these days, his plans are little more than folly. I am not sure if you know what happened in Mazandaran.”

“I don’t,” I admitted. Mazandaran was a kingdom that lay west of Iran, several months’ journey from Samangan. “I only know that years earlier—before Iran conquered it—Mazandaran had been a daeva stronghold.”

“That’s right.” Rostam paused, shifting aside a patch of leaves on the ground to discover a harmless grass snake. His scowl deepened, but he sidestepped the creature and continued moving forward. “Kavus heard about Mazandaran from a traveling minstrel—its sweet, temperate climate and timber rich valleys, its mountain streams that tasted like rosewater, the Mazandarani king’s fair-faced serving girls, who adorned their ears with rings of gold. Kavus was entranced by the descriptions at first and then grew angry that such a beautiful land was ruled by a king descended from the daeva.

“‘My throne is greater than that of Jamshid or Zahhak or my own father, Qobad!’ he declared to his court. ‘My accomplishments should be greater than theirs as well!’

“He paid no heed to the warnings the minstrel had given about Mazandaran’s general—an immortal white daeva, who had spent years shielding the land from not only human invaders, but also the yazata.”

I recalled the skinned face of the daeva adorning Rostam’s helmet and suppressed a shudder.

“My father, Zal, who was warden of Zabul at the time, did his best to dissuade Kavus,” Rostam said, his jaw tightening. “But Kavus would not listen. He called Zal an old fool and told him he could return to Zabul if he was too afraid to fight. Gathering the remaining armies, he marched to Mazandaran and laid waste to the land, looting homes, taking Mazandarani women as slaves.”

My stomach turned. Rostam, too, was grimacing, as if he found their actions distasteful.

“Naturally, the king of Mazandaran called upon his immortal commander for aid. The white daeva arrived with a mighty army at night, piercing the Iranians through their eyes and blinding them with sorcery. Many men perished. Those left alive were furious with Kavus, who was now deeply regretting his decision.

“Somehow, a warrior escaped the daeva cordon and came to Zabul, begging my father for aid. Zal was frustrated and saddened. This was no ordinary campaign. It was a fight against the daeva and Zal did not have the farr to combat them. Only I did. My father urged me to take up arms and go rescue the emperor.

“I did not understand my father at first. I asked, ‘Why, Father? Isn’t Kavus at fault here? All Mazandaran has done is defend itself. That’s what we would have done if someone else attacked Iran!’

“But my father was insistent. ‘Centuries ago, the wardens of Zabul had taken an oath to protect Iran and its throne,’ he told me. ‘It is our duty to defend the emperor—even when he has lost his way. Besides, think of what will happen when Kavus dies. Iran will be left without a monarch and there will only be anarchy! Thousands of innocents will lose their lives. We cannot let that happen—not even if it means that a foolish emperor will get his comeuppance.’

“I would like to think that I only agreed with him out of reluctance, but in truth, I did not,” Rostam said. “I was twenty-three years old and had fought in a few battles already. But they’d never challenged me enough. I was itching for more.”

“A lone man against a host of immortals,” I murmured. “How did you do it?”

“It wasn’t easy. My father told me there were two ways to Mazandaran. The route Kavus and his armies took, which would take me two months. Or another, quicker route through the underworld that could very well kill me.

“My farr would not give me access to the underworld, so I reached out to the yazata for their help and guidance. They told me that they would bring me into the underworld, but from then onward, I was on my own. I would need to retrieve two objects on my journey: the shadow of a dragon who lived in a cave surrounded by fire, and the femur of a witch who lived in the primordial sea. Without these, I would have no chance of defeating the white daeva or his immortal army.”

Rostam talked about fighting the dragon with Rakhsh’s help and cutting its shadow from its corpse. Of stabbing the witch in the sea and severing her leg, of shaping her thigh bone into a spear. I should have been disgusted—and perhaps I would have been had Rostam found any enjoyment in the tale. But, unlike the story about Rakhsh, which he’d spoken of with excitement and enthusiasm, his tone here sounded clipped. Weary.

“I threw the dragon’s shadow over the daeva guard, immobilizing them while I fought off the Mazandarani king’s mortal commandants,” Rostam said. “Then I entered the lair of the white daeva and fought him for hours. At one point, though, he finally began growing tired and I managed to plunge the witch’s bone deep in his chest.”

“Did he die?” I asked, my heart pounding. Could an immortal be killed?

“Not quite,” Rostam said. “You cannot kill an immortal, but you can cause irreparable damage, ensuring that they lose their ability to resurrect. The witch’s bone had powerful magic that paralyzed the white daeva, allowing me to dismember him and drain his blood. Once he was defeated, I brought the blood back to restore the eyesight of Emperor Kavus and the other Iranians. The other daeva fled when they realized their leader was vanquished. Without their aid, the Mazandarani king was left weakened and was killed in a few days. Kavus annexed the kingdom and made me the general of all Iran’s armies.”

Several beats passed in silence. My stomach was churning at the thought of all the bloodshed that had been caused—the lives that had been lost.

The daeva butcher, my grandmother had called Rostam. And yet…

“The dragon and the witch. They were immortal, too, weren’t they?” I said, finally asking the question that had been bothering me all this while. “So how did you kill them?”

“The yazata told me that dragons are creatures of the underworld made by Ahriman for his use. They have long lives but are not immortal,” Rostam explained. “Witches, too, can be mortal at times. But the witch I encountered in the underworld was an immortal and I could not kill her. I only managed to render her unconscious for a few moments while I severed her leg and fled.”

“But in the stories, they call you a demonhunter. A witchslayer, too!”

“They also call me a kingmaker because of my farr.” Rostam shrugged. “But my family is only one among the seven azadan who collectively decide on a ruler for Iran’s throne.”

I said nothing, suspecting that Rostam had more influence over the azadan than he wanted to admit. But the story about the dragon and the witch made sense. How else did you make a man into a legend if you did not skew the truth a little?

Besides, he did not kill the witch, I reminded myself. He wouldn’t have hurt her at all—if not for Emperor Kavus and his folly.

“It must have been a moment of great pride for you,” I said. “Being made general.”

“It was at the time. I thought Kavus had learned a lesson. That he’d be more cautious in the future. But his attack on Mazandaran only emboldened him. He waged wars on Arabia, on Turan, and on Rome. He has realized by now that if he ever gets into trouble, it won’t matter. He has a magic weapon.” Rostam’s mouth curled bitterly. “Me.”

“Why do you stay in his service if he makes you so unhappy?”

“Where else would I go? What else would I do?”

“You could place another emperor on the throne. Or take it for yourself.” I hesitated and, a beat later, wove my fingers through his. “It seems that you would be a far better ruler than Kavus.”

“I am a warden of Iran, my lady. What am I known for if not my honor, my sacred duty to the crown? If those are lost, no one would trust me. I would scarcely trust myself.”

I wanted to argue. To point out that there was no wisdom in heedlessly following a leader who was often in the wrong. Yet I also knew what it was like to be trapped by circumstance. To see no other path forward than the one you were thrust into.

“I had a brother once,” I said. I could feel Rostam looking at me, but I continued to speak and walk toward the river. “His name was Noshirwan. He was several years younger than me, a boy too sweet for his own good. I knew this would not serve him as crown prince. It would serve him even less when he became king. So I urged him to spar with the other boys. To compete with me in little games that we would make up. When I was seventeen, I challenged him to a race.”

I stopped a few feet away from the water, watching a pair of swans float beyond the lily pads. Rostam stopped next to me. “What happened?” he asked, his voice eerily quiet.

“I was angry,” I admitted. “My stepmother had scolded me about something—I can’t even remember what. But all I could think of was how she would have never treated Noshir—her own child—like that. So I made things difficult for him during our race. I chose a long, challenging route through the woods. I was older and faster and knew I would reach the river sooner than Noshir—and I did.” I swallowed. “Noshir was upset. He began to cry. I laughed at him. Was unimaginably cruel. ‘A baby like you does not deserve to be the crown prince,’ I said.

“I thought Noshir would get angry with me. Would try and push me into the river as he once had in the past. I did not think he would foolishly try to prove me wrong by trying to mount a wild mare grazing nearby.”

I still remembered Noshir running. His small hands fisting around the mare’s dark mane.

“I remember screaming,” I said, my voice hoarse. “Running faster than I ever had before.”

The air had smelled the way it did today: of wet earth and the musty odor of old leaves and rotting wood. It had burned my nostrils, had cut a cold line to my belly as my brother swung himself over the mare’s back, not seeing the way her ears flattened to her skull like daggers.

“The mare was furious,” I said. “She reared and bucked, flinging Noshir off as if he were no more than a puppet made of straw. He fell… over here.” I pointed to a nearby rock. “Broke his skull. I wasn’t able to catch him. It was possibly the first—and only—time I lost a race to him.”

In my dreams, I ran exactly the way I had that day. A stitch piercing my side, every breath an ache in my lungs. Sometimes I ran faster. So fast that I bypassed the insects and the birds. So fast that I was not able to separate my own body from the wind. And yet, even then, Noshir always fell before I could catch him, his bones cracking against the rock, his blood splattering dark against the grass.

I did not realize how cold my hands had grown until I felt Rostam take them, his warm mouth pressing a kiss to each palm.

“It was not your fault, Tahmineh,” he said. “It was a terrible accident.”

“My stepmother did not believe that. She already despised me for my daeva blood. Now she was certain I was to blame for her son’s death. Honestly, I couldn’t fault her for it. So many days, I still blame myself, wondering if Noshir would still be alive if I’d been kinder and less spiteful.”

A wild laugh bubbled in my throat, emerging from my mouth as a sob. Rostam wrapped his arms around me, hard and as unrelenting as stone. His hands, however, were gentle, and rubbed soothing circles into my back as I clung to him, my nails digging into his tunic, my cries muffling against his chest.

After I finally grew calm, I spoke again. “A few months later, the prince I was betrothed to broke our engagement. Other men who came after him refused me altogether, afraid of a woman whose own people called her a witch.”

“Don’t you have family elsewhere?” Rostam spoke into my hair. “A place where you’re not as well known?”

“I had an aunt in Anatolia. But she was ill and died before she could take me in, and my father did not want me to live alone at a foreign court. If I’m being honest, neither did I.”

I finally looked up into Rostam’s eyes. I had not spoken like this to anyone before. Not Zari. Not Father. Not even Binaifer.

“Samangan is my home,” I explained. “As difficult as things are for me, I am still better off here than I would have been in Anatolia without a husband or my father’s protection.”

“But your father is unwell now.” Rostam’s fingers traced the shell of my ear, the touch sending a pleasant tingle down my skin. “And that man—the one who was quarreling with you—is set to take the throne.”

I did not tell Rostam that Zende Razm and I rarely fought. That the quarrel in itself was because he was worried for me. The truth wouldn’t have served me well with a man whose protective instincts I’d just aroused. A man I still intended to marry.

“So,” Rostam said, tucking a curl of hair behind my ear. “Do you really intend to keep me from my horse all week?”

Only a couple of days ago, this question would have held an undercurrent of danger. An unspoken threat. But something had changed after our conversation today—as if the storm seething between us had softened to a gentle breeze.

“I still have four days to woo you. Don’t I get that?” I kissed Rostam’s palm the way he had mine, my breath hot against his skin. I noted his darkened eyes, the gentle undulation of his throat as he swallowed.

“I am a dangerous man, Tahmineh.” But there was a hitch in his voice as he said it.

“If so,” I said, “why do I feel safer with you than any other man I have known?”

“You’re jesting.”

“I’m not.”

I did feel safe with this man. Safe in ways I never had before except with my father. Zende Razm’s face flashed briefly, painfully through my mind. I shoved it aside. Perhaps Rostam sensed the truth in my words because he did not move away from me. His large hands gripped my waist and lifted me to the tips of my toes, allowing me to wrap my arms around his neck. I expected him to crush his mouth against mine, but his kiss was gentle, his tongue lightly grazing the bottom curve of my lip.

A slow heat unfurled deep in my belly. I had kissed and been kissed in the past. But no one had aroused the deep sense of surety I got from simply being held in Rostam’s arms.

“Your Highness?” a voice said.

Rostam and I jerked apart, both flushing like naughty children. Binaifer, to her credit, looked equally embarrassed.

“Sorry my lady. My lord.” My maid bowed to Rostam. “But it is nearly time for the afternoon meal.”

“We wouldn’t want to miss that,” I grumbled under my breath.

Rostam chuckled, the sound warming me despite the brisk spring air.

“Well, my lady,” he said, eyes twinkling as he took my hand. “It seems I am not so easily seduced.”

10.

THE NEXT DAY PASSED. AND the next. Each time, Rostam ended our walk with a kiss, longer and deeper than the last. Once, he went even as far as to mark my neck with his lips—a bruise I managed to hide behind my long hair. But he did not go further even though the maids had now learned to make themselves scarce—nor did he accept my proposal for marriage.

“I am still unsure,” he always said, refusing to answer when I asked him why.

On the fifth night after his arrival in Samangan, I paced the stone floor of my bedchamber in frustration. I could not understand it. I knew Rostam and I had grown close. He spoke to me more freely than he did anyone else, could not stop touching my hand or arm when we were together—even in public.

“So what holds him back?” I muttered. “What more must I do to gain his trust?”

The answer, I realized, would only come to me in sleep. I lay down and closed my eyes, once more entering the twilight of the unseen world, black trees looming above me, their branches creaking like old bones. This time, I did not need Bushyasta’s help. I located the lightning thread that would connect me to Rostam’s mind with ease, though I still winced against the burns it left on my skin.

Rostam was dreaming of the cedar woods outside our palace, a thick mist surrounding him as he stood barefoot in the grass. At first I thought he was alone. But then I saw the other figure materialize. A tall woman with braided black hair, her blue dress billowing behind her even though there was no wind.

It was me, I realized with a jolt. Or Rostam’s vision of me—as rendered by his dreams.

“Marry me, my lord.” Dream Tahmineh’s voice was low and husky and sounded far more seductive than my own. “Marry me and you will want for nothing.”

She has scales on her skin and poison in her heart, my father’s courtiers whispered, an echoing chorus that rustled through Rostam’s mind like leaves. Touch her body and see for yourself.

Entranced, I watched Rostam reach for Dream Tahmineh and kiss her deeply. In dreams, he readily ventured where he wouldn’t in reality—his nimble fingers undoing her laces, allowing her dress to fall. He moaned, growing hard at the sight of her naked body, and then jerked back, a strangled cry leaving his bloodied lips.

Dream Tahmineh smiled at him, fangs bared over her mouth. Her skin turned gray before his eyes and bubbled over with blisters, her long hair transforming into squidlike tentacles.

“Foolish man.” Thick, slimy ropes shot up from the ground and wrapped themselves around Rostam’s large form. “Did you think you could escape me?”

Rostam rolled against the ground in an explosion of silvery farr. But the ropes would not break apart.

“Witch!” he bellowed. “You tricked me!”

I had seen enough. With a swift snap of my fingers, I dispersed Dream Tahmineh back into the fog and then, as Rostam tumbled forward, retreated from his dream.

That night, the corridors within the palace were dark and empty of bodies. Two guards would be posted outside the king’s chambers downstairs, but apart from that, there was no chance of running into anyone else.

I held out a small clay oil lamp, curving a hand around the flame until it grew steady. Rostam’s chamber was in a different wing of the palace, where important guests were housed. I made my way there, cloaked and hooded, my slippers making little to no sound on the stone floors.

My hands were slick with sweat. Blood pulsed in my ears. What if this was a mistake? What if this plan—half-baked as it was—blew up in my face?

Do you have another choice?

I paused outside the room that I knew must be Rostam’s and pressed a hand to the carved wooden door. It gave way easily. It was clear that outside his dreams, the great hero of Iran feared no one.

Rostam’s room was bigger than mine and so was his bed, with its polished wooden posts and headboard carved with the face of a Samangani lion. His large body lay tangled in sheets, his nightshirt riding up the torso to reveal a hard, muscular belly and a line of dark red hair that disappeared into drawstring trousers.

I stepped in, swallowing my nerves. Behind me, the door shut with a click.

The sound woke Rostam at once and he sat up, reaching for the mace at his bedside. His hand stilled when he saw it was me—though it did not move away from the weapon.

“Lady Tahmineh.” His voice was hoarse from sleep. “What are you doing here?”

Moonlight poured in from the open window, over the planes and angles of his face, casting a pale, marblelike perfection over his skin. Had I not witnessed his most recent dream, I might have been stirred by the sight.

As it was, I was terrified. This man could marry me tonight. Or he could kill me. The choice would depend utterly on what I said and did next.

“I’m here,” I said, “because of a bad dream.”

Rostam’s fingers twitched, dangerously close to gripping his mace. But I could tell that he was listening, his whole body tuned in to my words.

I placed the lamp carefully on a side table and undid my cloak, letting it fall to the floor. I stepped forward slowly until I stood fully illuminated by the moonlight, noting the way Rostam’s eyes widened at the sight of my body, visible through the translucent nightgown.

“I have begun to understand why you are so hesitant to accept my proposal.”

His head snapped up at my words, frown lines appearing over his brow. “What do you mean?” he asked, more cautiously than I’d ever heard before.

“You’ve been talking to the courtiers,” I said simply. “Listening to their stories about me. About what they believe I can do. Those stories have now taken root. Have begun to make you suspect me. To believe I am not the innocent woman I say I am.”

Rostam did not reply, but his silence was answer enough.

I breathed deeply. I was not surprised by what the court had said nor by Rostam’s response to the same. I was surprised by my ability to feel hurt. To feel betrayed—as if Rostam had already, in some way, promised fealty to me during the few days we’d spent together.

Don’t be foolish, I told myself. You are not here to earn this man’s love.

All I needed was Rostam’s name. A way to restore my tarnished reputation at court. I was only here to use the general—and it was time I reminded myself of that.

“East of the river by which we often walk, there is a small farmstead belonging to an old stable master named Farid,” I said. “Your horse, Rakhsh, is hidden there, and he is quite safe. I have visited Farid this past week and have paid enough coin to ensure that Rakhsh is well fed and taken care of.”

Rostam’s frown deepened. “Why are you telling me this now?”

“Because I want you to trust me.”

Hands trembling slightly, I undid the ribbons at the front of my gown and pulled it off, tossing it atop the cloak. My sudreh and kusti followed suit and I stepped even closer, clad in nothing except my silk slippers.

“Touch me.” I echoed the words I’d spoken the night we first met. “See for yourself how mortal I am.”

Rostam’s pupils narrowed and then swelled. Slowly, ever so slowly, his hand left the mace. With a finger he traced my cheek, my throat, my shoulder, the hollow between my breasts and my belly, pausing at the dark curls at the apex of my thighs. I gasped, my skin erupting in gooseflesh. His eyes narrowed.

“Turn,” he rasped.

I did, shivering as I heard him rise from the bed. His large hand swept aside my thick hair and rubbed through the strands as if testing their resilience. Once more, a rough finger lightly traced my spine, all the way to the curve of my buttocks. I could hear his breaths, harsh and rapid, as uneven as mine.

For long moments, we simply stood there, uncertain of what would happen next. Then, Rostam withdrew, no part of his body touching me.

“I cannot do this,” he said.

I turned around. His face was flushed and sweat beaded his brow. Despite the loose cut of his tunic and trousers, I could see he was aroused.

“I must speak to your father.” His tone was brusque. “Dress quickly and come with me.”

Terror climbed up my throat, needle-sharp. Would he complain to Father about me? Accuse me of seduction and ask the court to lash me as such women often were?

“I didn’t mean to…” I began. “I’m sor—”

“Shhhh.” He pressed a finger to my lips. Then gently brushed a kiss to my forehead. “You must be a sorceress, Tahmineh of Samangan.” He released a harsh breath. “For you have bewitched me. Heart, body, and soul. Be as it may, I cannot take you like this. I must do the honorable thing and marry you first.”

I stared at him, too stunned to react.

“I cannot take you with me to Iran,” he warned. “Not right now, at least. I must go back alone and talk to my wife. She will not be happy with me. But then, she rarely is.” His mouth hardened briefly. “You must remain in Samangan a while longer. Will that be a problem?”

“N-no.” I forced the word out. “It will be fine.”

A public marriage to Rostam would solve most of my problems, fear of the Iranian general keeping Queen Sussan and the court at bay.

“Good.” Rostam smiled, and this time I blushed as his gaze traveled over my form. “I hope to God there’s a priest awake at this hour.”

“There will be,” I assured him. There always was a priest awake to tend to the everlasting fire at the palace temple and make offerings of wood, frankincense, and herbs.

My father, to his credit, seemed unperturbed by Rostam’s proposal after his initial surprise at seeing us outside his door. He simply nodded and said, “I give you my permission to marry my daughter, Rostam of Zabul.”

He turned to me, smiling in a way that made him look years younger, dimples creasing his cheeks, laugh lines at the corners of his eyes. “I suppose you wish to be married at once?” he asked.

I nodded, trying not to squirm as Father’s gaze drifted over us, still dressed in our nightclothes.

“Very well,” the king said. “Get dressed and be at the palace temple within the hour. I will have the servants wake the others.”

“Father, the priests… We will need more than one for the ceremony.”

“That will be taken care of, my daughter.” Gently, he touched my cheek. His hand, though frail, still pulsed with warmth. Life. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

My marriage to Rostam took place in the palace temple, witnessed by the king, the queen, the crown prince, and all the priests. Despite the late hour, a few courtiers were there as well, along with Binaifer and a few servants who had been loyal to me for years. Father stood at the very front, beaming, next to a dour Sussan. Zende Razm stood behind Father, his face pale, his expression blank. There were whispers, of course. Speculation over why the wedding was taking place at this hour and in such haste.

“Probably so that the groom doesn’t have a change of heart,” one of the queen’s ladies quipped.

“Don’t be so cynical,” a familiar voice chided. It was Laleh, the young woman I’d once tried to befriend. A woman who now gave me a wide smile. “Perhaps the groom simply cannot wait any longer,” Laleh said. “And why should he? When our shahdoxt looks like she has descended from the celestial realm itself?”

I wore my green silk dress and my crown, a thick necklace of rubies gleaming around my neck. In the years to come, I would only remember the ceremony in fragments. Rostam and I seated in chairs facing each other before Ahura Mazda’s holy fire, our faces separated by a thin white curtain. My hand clasped in his, tied together with reels of sacred thread, the priests chanting verses that would bind us together for life. The smells of frankincense and sandalwood encircled us, along with Father, Queen Sussan, and her ladies, all of whom threw grains of rice and rose petals over our heads. The curtain lifted as we finally completed our marriage vows and I saw Rostam for the first time—no longer as a stranger, but as a husband.

My husband.

Sounds blurred, fading from my ears as I looked into his pale brown eyes. There was desire there, of course, and joy. But something else, as well. Something I dared not put a name to, as he cupped my cheeks and tilted my chin upward, kissing my lips for all to see.

11.

WORD WAS SENT TO FARID, who brought Rakhsh to the palace after our wedding ceremony. Rostam raced to meet his horse, throwing his arms around the stallion’s thick neck and mane. Rakhsh, in turn, whinnied and nuzzled Rostam, and for a moment I watched, both amused by the sight and concerned that Rostam would leave us then and there to gallop back to Iran.

But seconds later, he turned and looked at me. There was a teasing glint in his eyes—one that said he knew exactly what I was thinking. The maids around me giggled. And, for once, I reacted exactly the way I was meant to on this day: by blushing to the roots of my hair.

The wedding feast felt at once too short and too long, each toast to our union growing louder and bawdier than the last. Eventually, Rostam tired of them, his hand restlessly stroking my thigh under the table.

“Shall we leave, my lady?” His deep voice carried down the banquet hall and the men laughed and applauded, many roaring in approval.

But I was not embarrassed by their antics. I was no longer only Tahmineh, the much-maligned princess of Samangan. Now I was also Lady Tahmineh of Zabul, wife to the most powerful warrior on the continent.

I looked at my stepmother, who lowered her furious gaze, and then at the people who had disparaged me in the past. One after another, they bowed their heads: tulips wilting in the heat.

“Your Highness,” they murmured. “May your union be strong and last many lifetimes.”

I turned to Rostam and smiled. “Yes, my lord. I think it is time to leave.”

We were taken to the guest bedchamber, which had been adorned with flowers upon fragrant flowers in jars and vases. Myrtle and sandalwood burned in a small brazier at the foot of the bed, its sheets strewn with rose petals.

After the door closed, I twirled my finger around a curling ribbon adorning one of the posts. Now that we were alone, I was suddenly unsure of what to do. Rostam tilted my chin up, forcing me to meet his gaze.

“Do I frighten you, my lady?”

“A little,” I admitted. “It’s… I’m not a virgin. But I don’t have much experience in…” I gestured to the bed. Mundhir had bedded me only once and the experience, while mostly pleasurable, had also been rather painful.

Rostam did not seem perturbed by my lack of virginity. “So it has been awhile for you.” He curled a scarred hand around mine, his fingers long, surprisingly elegant despite their many calluses. “We will manage it. I’ve been told it is much like riding a horse. Once you learn, you never forget.”

The analogy was so unexpected, so ridiculous, that whatever nerves I’d been experiencing dissolved into laughter. Rostam grinned—and once more I could see the boy he must have been. One who now tilted his head toward the bed and asked, “Shall we?”

The comment made me think our consummation would be quick and lusty, mostly over before it had even begun. But, surprisingly, Rostam took his time undoing the laces of my dress and removing it, along with my sudreh and kusti, and draping the clothes carefully over a chair. He then tapped at his chest, indicating he wanted me to undress him in turn.

I had seen Rostam bare-chested before in the zoorkhaneh. But there was an unexpected pleasure in uncovering him myself. In pausing to trace the fading gray lines of his tattoo with my fingers. In pressing my lips and then my tongue over his puckered nipples so that he sucked in a sharp breath. Once fully undressed, he swept me off the floor, holding me in his arms as if I weighed no more than feathers. Grinning at my surprised expression, he laid me on the bed and nudged my knees apart, holding each in one hard hand.

“You must let me know when you are ready,” he said. And then, without warning, he buried his face between my thighs.

A scream caught in my throat. I’d heard women whisper about such acts in the bedchamber. Had wondered, then, if they were jesting or if they’d simply lost their minds. Yet I was the one who was lost now. To a pleasure so intense that all sense of time and place faded, stars expanding and collapsing before my eyes. I barely had a moment to come down from my high before Rostam began to urge me there again—this time with his fingers instead of his tongue.

“Please,” I gasped out. “Now, Rostam! I’m ready.”

Slowly, he slid into me, stretching me to a point that was somewhere between pleasure and pain. Our sweat-slicked bodies pulsed together, our words fading to gasps before we erupted as one.

“Did it hurt?” Rostam asked once the stars had faded from my eyes.

“No.” In a single afternoon, I had experienced more highs than I ever had in my lifetime, a delirious sort of joy that would have terrified me if I’d allowed myself to think clearly.

He will cause you much pain.

But the words of my mother’s prophecy faded in the light of Rostam kissing me again, trailing a line from my neck to the tip of my breast, and sucking it deep into his mouth.

Later, much later, when sunlight poured in through the open window, Rostam opened the door to the bedchamber and found a tray of food waiting outside. We feasted on carved slices of lamb, grapes and hard cheese, dribbled honey and wine over each other’s lips before kissing it off.

Rostam turned to our clothes and ornaments, which were piled on the chair, and plucked out a gold armlet embedded with a single onyx jewel.

“If you have a girl,” he said, his eyes shining, “then tie this in her hair. If it’s a boy, tie it around his arm. When he comes of age at fifteen, he will serve Iran the way I did.”

The food in my mouth turned to ash. I swallowed. “You want our son to fight for Iran? Despite your misgivings about Emperor Kavus?”

Rostam shrugged. “It is what sons do. It is my duty as his father to train him in my profession, to ensure that the line of Sam and Zal carries on.”

What about me? As his mother, don’t I get a say in his future?

Yet something in Rostam’s expression warned me against saying this aloud.

I forced myself to breathe. To slow my racing thoughts. Why was I panicking? There was no guarantee I would conceive after tonight nor that I would have a son. And if it was a son, how bad could it be? With Rostam’s lineage, he was likely to be strong. More powerful than most living men. If anything, he would be the sort of son a mother would be proud of.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, the prophecy lingered like a dark cloud.

“Very well, my lord,” I said, ignoring it. I took the jewel from Rostam and kissed the frown from his lips. “I will do as you wish.”

Rostam and Rakhsh left Samangan the following day to many farewells and tears. I, for my part, did not cry. Even though a small part of me broke at the sight of my new husband climbing the stallion’s magnificent red back, at the final lingering gaze he sent my way.

I stood there on the lawn, long after everyone had disappeared, tempted to use my magic to track Rostam and Rakhsh all the way to Iran.

Don’t be foolish, I told myself. He has made many journeys before—more treacherous than this. He and Rakhsh will be fine.

I turned, ready to go back inside, when I spotted a figure on the lawn.

“Zende Razm?” I asked, surprised. How long had he been standing there? Was he watching me all this time?

We had not spoken after our fight at the archery grove. Nor had Zende Razm looked at me once during my wedding to Rostam, keeping his gaze slightly averted while congratulating us.

Now, as he stepped forward, I noted the dark circles around his eyes. Clearly, he had not been sleeping well.

“Tahmineh,” he said before moistening his dry lips. “I am sorry for my harsh words to you. I had been meaning to apologize for a few days. But I never got the chance.”

“It’s all right,” I said honestly. I did not like quarreling with my oldest friend in the palace. “You were only worried for me.”

Zende Razm nodded, though his gaze was flat. Distant. “Did you know that many years ago, Shah Arshak called me to his study and asked me to marry you?”

I grew very, very still.

“This was shortly after that Lakhmid prince broke your betrothal,” Zende Razm said. “I told the shah I would ask my mother for permission. But she said no. She liked you but she worried about your reputation. How would it appear if I married a girl everyone called a witch—even if she was my cousin? I did not agree with her. But I did not have the strength to stand up to her back then. I refused the proposal.”

I did not understand why I was so shaken by this revelation. It was not uncommon for cousins to marry in Samangan. More so if they were within the royal family. Yet I had never seen Zende Razm—or considered him—in this manner before.

“Why are you telling me this now?” I asked sharply.

“Isn’t it obvious?” His lips curved into a smile that did not reach his eyes. “It’s because I’ve always regretted it, Tahmineh. Always. Even after I got married and had children of my own. After my wife passed away last year, I thought I might have another chance. But the timing wasn’t right. I needed to allow an appropriate mourning period to pass by. In fact, I was going to propose to you earlier this week at the bonfire. But… it never happened.”

My mind raced. I recalled Zende Razm’s compliments about my dress, his strangely intent gaze. Then there was his anger when I began pursuing Rostam—not caused by worry as I had first assumed, but jealousy.

“And now it’s too late,” he said. “Now you are a married woman.”

“Yes,” I said, unsure of what else to say.

Would things have been different if he’d proposed to me a month or even a fortnight earlier? Perhaps.

But that was before I saw Rostam in the prophecy. Before we kissed and lay together, more deeply bound than I ever had been to any other person.

Now that I had him, I did not want anyone else.

Perhaps he could see this written on my face, for Zende Razm’s mouth hardened. “Does Rostam know you can see other people’s dreams?” he asked.

The hair on the back of my neck rose, my skin crawling at the sensation. “What are you talking about? I can’t do anything like that!”

“You probably don’t remember. We were children then. You were probably only five or six years old. You sat next to me right here on this lawn one morning and said, ‘Cousin, I know what you dreamed last night!’ And then you went on to relay my exact dream in great detail, laughing at my shock and awe, telling me you could do it all over again.”

Under the hot sun, I experienced a sudden chill. Yes, now that he mentioned it, I did remember this incident. I had been innocent back then. Utterly unaware of the people watching and listening to me, making their own deductions about what I had said.

“I saw you go from an openhearted, friendly girl to one who began to shrink in on herself,” Zende Razm continued. “Growing more and more subdued as the courtiers began calling you a demon or a witch. When I asked you about being able to see my dreams again, you would clam up, terrified. I didn’t want you to stop talking to me, so I pretended it never happened. I pretended to forget.”

My face burned, but not with shame. Not quite.

“I worry for you.” Zende Razm sounded tired. “Worry what will happen when your new husband finds out what you can do.”

“He will never find out.” My words were clipped, precise. “I will not let him.”

He let out a huff that might have been a laugh. “What kind of marriage is that? One where a wife must hide her true self from her husband?”

“Wives keep secrets from their husbands all the time,” I said. “So do husbands from their wives.” I doubted that Zende Razm had confessed his feelings for me to his wife when she was alive. Or at least I hoped he hadn’t. For her sake. “Besides, it does not matter, I did not marry Rostam for love.”

“Oh, Tahmineh.” Zende Razm gave me a sad smile. “Lie to me all you want. But at least don’t lie to yourself.”

I opened my mouth to retort—to insist I was not lying at all.

But the words would not come. Even afterward, in the long hours after Zende Razm had gone, leaving me alone with my restless thoughts.

A RIVER OF RUBIES AND BLOOD

12.

I DREAMED OF THE CHILD around two weeks after Rostam left. A boy, who came racing up a green hill near the river by our palace, his face round, his cheeks as red as new plums. His dark eyes sparkled as he called me Mother; his laughter lingered in my ears long after I woke.

Was it Zari’s prophecy that made me believe that my child would be a boy? Or some long-dormant maternal instinct? I wasn’t sure. I did know that it wasn’t Bushyasta who had given me the vision. The daeva of dreams might be able to slip into other minds undetected, but my magic would have alerted me to her presence at once.

“It was a dream,” I told myself aloud. “Only a dream.”

Even though deep down, I knew it was not.

My son made his presence known during my next cycle: in the absence of blood between my thighs, in the sudden, unexpected bouts of nausea. Eventually, my morning sickness subsided and I began growing used to his presence, uncertainty warring with a secret, quiet joy I dared not give voice to.

Surprisingly, my pregnancy drew the palace women to me. Aunts and cousins I hadn’t spoken to in years approached with advice on food, exercise, and rest, their faces bright with excitement, their hands reaching out to pat my arms and cheeks. Male courtiers who had leered at me in the past now averted their eyes or simply bowed, asking after my well-being.

Only Queen Sussan remained aloof, her cold disapproval palpable, though it seemed to have little impact on anyone else.

“Oh, you must eat more!” an aunt cried out one morning in the solar, when I claimed a full belly. “Remember that you are no longer eating for one, but two, niece! The boy will certainly take after his father in height, build, and stamina.”

She raised her brows at me in a way that made my unwed cousins blush and the married women laugh. I allowed myself to bask in their unexpected warmth and friendliness, though I never forgot the reason they were talking to me right now.

Rostam. A man whose judgment about me dictated their own. A man so revered in our kingdom that he might have erased my daeva blood altogether.

“Has General Rostam written to you again, Your Highness?”

Binaifer’s bright brown eyes peered at me over the scroll I was reading days later in my room—the third letter I’d received from Rostam that month.

“He has,” I said, a smile playing on my lips. When Binaifer continued to wait, a hopeful gleam in her eyes, I laughed. “He is well,” I said. “The rest is for my eyes only.”

My maid grinned but asked no more.

I might have been resentful, even bitter over the way everyone fawned over my absent husband, had it not been for these weekly letters. Rostam had begun writing them to me shortly after he’d left Samangan. For a man who was no poet or minstrel, my new husband wrote well, his hand firm and steady, his words thoughtful, often passionate.

Eram is not pleased with me, he had written of his first wife. She thinks I have betrayed her by marrying another woman. Which, I suppose, I have in a way. I know I should feel bad about hurting her feelings. But tell me, Tahmineh, is it wrong to be happy? To act as if the weight that was burdening me all these years is finally gone?

From his letters, I’d learned that Rostam had married Eram to prove his loyalty to Emperor Kavus. She’d been only sixteen when they’d wed and though Rostam was fond of her, he did not love her in the way she desired. Despite what I’d done to draw Rostam to me, I could not help but sympathize with this unknown woman.

Give her time, I wrote back. I know I would have been shocked if my husband came home bearing news of another wife. But I hope that one day I can meet Eram and speak to her. Perhaps we might be friends.

I sealed the letter and handed it to the Zabuli messenger. Once he departed, I sighed, resting my aching back against the cushions of my chair. The solar was blessedly empty of women that afternoon, a mynah chirping at the window. I’d nearly dozed off when I first felt it: the slightest flutter rippling through my abdomen.

My eyes snapped open. Tentatively, I placed a hand on the curve of my belly, wondering if I’d only dreamed of it. But no—there it was again, far stronger this time, as if the child growing in me had sensed my touch. My body had transformed over the past five months, a map of new aches and pains, my gums bleeding, my bowels slow, my breasts swollen, tender to the touch. And yet, despite the changes that had crept up on me day by day, my fascination with my child continued to bloom, holding fast like a tree with roots that went far deeper than I’d realized.

Stroking my belly, I laughed a little. “There you are,” I whispered. “There you are, making your presence known.”

My love for Rostam followed a similar trajectory. I did not recognize it at first—not until the seventh month of my pregnancy, by which time several weeks had passed without a single letter from him. Wild with fear and worry, I shouted at Binaifer one morning for asking after Rostam before realizing that I did have a way to check on my husband without the aid of letters.

Dreamwalking.

“It’s all right, Your Highness,” Binaifer said cheerfully, when I apologized. “It’s only because of the baby.”

“No, it’s not!” I laughed—a sound that turned into a burp. “Now this? This is because of the baby.”

For a while, I worried that pregnancy would weaken my magic. Certainly I tired more easily when I attempted astral dreaming for long periods of time. But once I was asleep, dreamwalking came easily to me and again I found the lightning thread connecting me to Rostam. This time, I did not even feel the burn as I slid into his dreams.

He was lying on a blanket in a lush green meadow, not unlike the one I’d first lured him to. And he was snoring. Snoring! What man dreamed about sleeping while he actually slept? And why hadn’t he written to me? I stood there, staring at him, tempted to kick his knee and make my presence known. Then his hands shifted, revealing a small figure lying on his chest. A toddler, fast asleep, a thumb in his mouth, black hair curling over his pale brown cheeks and forehead.

“Tahmineh,” Rostam murmured.

A shiver went through me. Did he know I was here? A part of me was terrified to find out. Yet I could not stop myself from inching forward, step by step. From lying next to them—the man I’d married and the son who would soon be here.

“Write to Tahmineh,” I whispered to him. “Write to your wife, who worries for you.”

A week later, the letter came, profuse with apologies and enclosed with a package of three precious rubies from a land that lay east of the Indus valley. They spilled onto my lap: the first as bright as sunset, the second as pale as a rose at first blush, the third as dark as congealed blood.

Forgive my tardy reply to your last letter, my love, he wrote. I have been busy securing Iran’s boundary with Turan, while also resolving disputes in my province—sometimes over a plot of land, sometimes over a horse! I have missed you terribly. I hope this gift will go far into calming your anger with me.

I sighed. “I don’t want rubies,” I told the letter. “Only you.”

Yet writing something like that would be foolish. Love-addled as I might have been, the rubies might one day be of use to my unborn child. I thanked Rostam for the gift, only adding the gentlest of reprimands for worrying a pregnant woman.

A week later came yet another letter, enclosed with another, even larger package. This contained gifts for only me: gold bangles, a gold necklace with a matching pendant shaped into the winged faravahar, the symbol of Ahura Mazda, and an exquisite crown embellished with tiny flowers and leaves of hammered gold—so delicately crafted that I was afraid to touch it, let alone put it on. Father was thrilled by these gifts, as were the courtiers, now wholly convinced that my marriage to Rostam was legitimate and would benefit Samangan long into the future.

Yet despite the clear affection displayed by Rostam’s letter and his gifts, unease crept up my spine. Pregnancy had changed the shape of my dreamwalking magic in ways I had not expected, heightening my awareness to every minute change in a dreamer’s thoughts and desires. Some nights, I was subsumed so fully with their terrors that when the morning came, I shuddered from memories that were not my own.

My own dreams grew more vivid as well, and at times it was difficult to tell if I was truly asleep or awake—the way it was tonight.

In my dream, I walked through a meadow not unlike the one in the unseen world, the sky above lit with waves of translucent pink and green light, the grass beneath my feet a deep indigo. I raised my arms, calling on the magic connecting me to every dreamer’s mind in the mortal realm. Instead of the usual glimmering threads, however, shadows appeared, long and sinuous, curling around me like ivy, sinking into my flesh one sleek claw at a time. A sharp pain seized my abdomen and when I looked down, blood stained the front of my dress, trickling down my legs.

I woke with a start, heart pounding in my chest, sweat souring the air around me. I reached down to check between my thighs, but my hands came up clean. My breaths released in the air, loud and ragged. Slowly I covered my belly with my hands, nearly whimpered with relief when I felt the movement.

He was safe. My son was safe. What I’d seen was only a nightmare.

And yet, despite this assurance, my head continued to spin. While my dreamwalking magic did not make me immune to having nightmares myself, none of my dreams had ever been prophetic in nature. I did not have prophecy magic in me—my mother had told me this herself, many years ago.

So why did this dream feel different? a nagging voice in my head demanded. Why did this one feel less like a nightmare and more like a premonition?

Outside, dawn had broken, light spreading pale pink fingers across the sky. The air still held a chill, but I didn’t care. I tossed aside my sheets and swapped my sticky bedtime tunic for a loose dress and a cloak. A walk to the woods would help me clear my head and slow down my racing pulse.

“A dream,” I whispered to myself as I stepped out onto the lawn. “Only a dream.”

Lost though I was in thought, my senses were alert and I picked out a familiar sound in the distance: the thunk, thunk, thunk of arrows sinking into wood.

I hesitated. I did not need an astral dream to know that it would be Zende Razm practicing archery at this hour. Though we had resumed civilities, I had not spoken to the crown prince at length since the day Rostam had left Samangan. Zende Razm remained busy with his duties and I had never felt comfortable seeking him out.

Today, however, my feet moved of their own accord and I found myself in the archery grove, facing the man I’d done my best to avoid over these past seven months.

“Shahdoxt?” Zende Razm lowered his bow. “What brings you here? Are you unwell?”

Relieved to hear nothing but kindness in his tone, I shook my head. “I… had a bad dream.”

He frowned. If he could see the protective way I clutched my belly, he said nothing. I nodded at the target, already embedded with dozens of arrows. “Are you readying for a war I’m not aware of, Viso Puthra?”

He did not smile at my feeble joke. “Of a sort. I hadn’t planned on telling you this until later this morning, but I suppose now is as good a time as any.”

My spine lengthened, my body growing taut. “Is it Father?”

“No. The king is well. But we received a missive late last night. There will be an unexpected guest at your seismooney ceremony this week.”

Fresh sweat broke out in the hollow between my breasts. Held during the seventh month of a woman’s pregnancy, the seismooney was a celebration where her family showered her with gifts for her unborn child. On any other day, I would have been excited at the prospect. But my nightmare had drained me and the look on Zende Razm’s face only increased my trepidation.

“Who is it?” I asked when Zende Razm did not speak for a long time. “Someone important?”

I knew it would not be Rostam. My husband had been sent to Armenia by his emperor for a new mission and would remain there for several months.

“You could say that.” Zende Razm’s jaw tightened briefly. “It is the Emperor Afrasyab.”

13.

THE TURANIAN EMPEROR ARRIVED ON the afternoon of my seismooney—not with his wives and children as was the custom, but with a small troop of elite cavalry, their pale blue cloaks fluttering behind them: a piece of sky fallen into the mountains, which were blazing with autumn leaves.

I watched them approach from my bedroom window, freshly bathed and dressed, having thrown off the embroidered woolen shawl Binaifer had wrapped around me despite the cold. Behind me, my maid was speaking softly to someone at my door.

“Yes, yes. Her Highness is very nearly ready.”

The door closed again. “That was one of the queen’s maids, Shahdoxt,” Binaifer said. “They say that the banquet hall is ready for your presence.”

I did not reply, my gaze fixed on the forty armed Turanian horsemen charging up to the palace entrance, where Zende Razm waited for them on horseback with a small group of Samangani knights. Emperor Afrasyab rode at the front of the cavalry, his frame compact yet sturdy, his head nearly obscured by his farr—a midnight halo that seemed to lengthen the shadows of the trees and accentuate the chill in the air.

Binaifer joined me at the window. “Why are there so many soldiers with him?” she asked nervously. “What do they think they will find here?”

Not what, I thought with a grimace. But whom. As much as I longed for my husband’s presence, I was grateful Rostam wasn’t here today. Who knew what manner of chaos might erupt if he and Afrasyab were to meet—even on neutral ground?

“It is the nature of Turanians to travel as such,” I told Binaifer. “You never know if they ride into a celebration or a war.”

Besides, I should have known this day would come. I had not given much thought to the Turanian emperor over the past few months. In fact, as the weeks had passed without Afrasyab making inquiries about my marriage to Rostam—a bit of news he’d surely been made aware of—I’d allowed myself to heave a sigh of relief. To believe that perhaps—just this once—he did not care whom the princess of Samangan aligned herself with.

What a fool I was.

I turned from the window, my gaze falling on the bronze mirror lying across my bed. My gown that morning was a deep rose, unadorned except for the gilded stars studding its loose, billowing skirt. I was wearing the gold bangles and necklace Rostam had gifted me, and my hair hung long and loose around my face in a mass of rippling black waves. Binaifer had also urged me to wear the gold crown, but I had refused, thinking it much too extravagant for the occasion.

Now, however, all I could think of was the man entering our palace this very instant. Of the strange, piercing shadows from my nightmare—eerily similar to his farr. My mouth grew hard.

“Binaifer,” I said. “I’ve changed my mind. I believe I will wear that crown.”

If I could not hide myself from the Turanian emperor’s gaze, I would ensure that I remained resplendent in it. I would remind him not only whom I’d married, but who I was. A princess of human and daeva blood. A witch who would do everything in her power to protect her child.

I glided from my room to the banquet hall, Binaifer and another maid in tow.

“The Shahdoxt Tahmineh of Samangan, Lady of Zabul!” The sentry’s call cut through the chatter in the already crowded banquet hall.

Ululations rose in the room, accompanied by the sound of drums. I smiled—a reflex born of years at court. After years of being ignored or mocked for my presence, it was strange to be celebrated, even stranger to be embraced by my aunts and cousin sisters, their breathless compliments whispered in my ears.

“You look so beautiful, Your Highness! Glowing with health!”

“That crown makes you look like a queen!”

“If only he weren’t here,” one of my aunts muttered. Several of the women exchanged dark glances; no one needed to ask whom she was referring to. “That man only draws demons to him wherever he goes. You must shield yourself and your child as much as you can from his black farr, Tahmineh.”

There were murmurs of agreement. They seemed to have forgotten that I, too, was daeva-born, their ire entirely focused on the Turanian emperor, who had yet to make an appearance.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Queen Sussan’s cool voice cut through the tense whispers. “We have always extended hospitality to our guests, whoever they may be. This is the Samangani way. Unfortunately, the past cannot be changed. We must now deal with the consequences.”

It was the closest she’d come to criticizing my marriage to Rostam in public—something she’d refrained from over these past seven months.

“You are correct, of course, Shahbanu,” I said, my voice as sweet as honey despite the tension curling in my bones. “We must look to you as an example of how to behave in such politically delicate times.”

Sussan’s indifferent expression sparked into a glare. Were I still unmarried, she would have slapped me for my mockery. But even Sussan didn’t dare lay a hand on Rostam’s wife.

“Come,” she said brusquely. “You have dallied long enough. It is time for the seismooney to begin.”

The long tables that dominated the center of the banquet hall had been pushed to the sides, replaced instead by a large silver throne draped with sheepskin and pillows. Garlands of purple crocuses and green and silver ribbons festooned the pillars, while in a corner, a trio of musicians played a lively tune on flutes and lyres. Within moments of sitting on the throne, I was surrounded by relatives, each wanting to speak to me, kiss my hand or cheek, and shower me with gifts for my child.

Thrilled though I was by the attention initially, soon I could barely keep up with the multitude of greetings and faces, my cheeks aching from holding on to my smile. I might have forgotten about Afrasyab altogether if not for the midnight swirls that slipped in through the door midway through our celebration: a black farr that filigreed across the walls, its presence a cold draft in the otherwise warm room.

The Turanian emperor was in his midforties, a man with a narrow face and even narrower brown eyes. Like my father, he wasn’t particularly tall, yet he somehow seemed to command the room with his presence. I scarcely noticed Zende Razm, who walked in a little behind them, though the crown prince towered over both.

“What a lovely little gathering you have here, Cousin Arshak.” A smirk appeared on Afrasyab’s face. “Your daughter married to the famous Rostam. Now a mother to his child. You must be thrilled.”

“It is only due to Ahura Mazda’s blessings,” Father demurred, as smooth and polite as always.

Afrasyab laughed and though the sound was soft, it carried, reaching the farthest corners of the hall. “Ahura Mazda? Surely you do not believe it was merely the great god of wisdom who aided in your daughter’s ascent?”

My stomach tightened. Did Afrasyab know I used magic to draw Rostam to Samangan? Or had he simply guessed based on the rumors he’d heard of my witchcraft?

I straightened and fixed a dazzling smile on my face. “Father!” I cried out, pretending I hadn’t heard a thing Afrasyab had said. “Will you not bring our honored guest to meet us?”

“My daughter grows anxious, Cousin Afrasyab,” the king said, gesturing to me. “We must not keep her waiting much longer.”

“Indeed.” The midnight farr around Afrasyab’s head deepened, lending youth to his graying hair and beard, and vigor to his otherwise saturnine expression. “I must give the new mother my gift.”

No servants followed bearing chests of clothes and toys, nor did Afrasyab appear to be carrying anything on his person. His heavy cloak had been eschewed to reveal a bright blue knee-length tunic embroidered with silver wolf heads, a cuirass of black leather panels and matching tassets over his thighs, his narrow trousers tucked into a pair of sturdy leather boots. A dagger gleamed at his hip—certainly not the ceremonial kind. I glanced at Zende Razm, wondering if there was a trap involved. But the crown prince’s face remained studiously blank.

“Shahdoxt Tahmineh.” Afrasyab knelt before me and clasped my hand. His grip was firm and scarred, his voice as smooth as dragon’s blood. “My gift to you on this auspicious occasion is to make your child Turanian whenever he or she comes of age.”

14.

I COULD NOT SPEAK. COULD not breathe. The smile remained fixed on my face as Afrasyab rose, a cruel twist to his shapely mouth.

“We are, of course, incredibly flattered and honored, Your Majesty,” my father said, years of diplomacy forming an answer that was neither acceptance nor denial. “But we must discuss the nature of this tremendous gift in private. Please, will you not join us in my study? Shahdoxt Tahmineh’s ladies will bring her there.”

I did not know what Afrasyab said in response. I felt little beyond the steady press of Binaifer’s arm at my side. I turned, noting the terror on her face. Did mine, too, appear as such? As the thought occurred, a pair of hands reached out to grasp me by the shoulders.

“Come on,” Sussan whispered. “Don’t just sit there. Move!”

“I won’t let him take my child.” My voice was low, furious.

Sussan’s mouth flattened. I wondered if I saw empathy in her eyes or an understanding that only another mother could have. Whatever it was, it was gone in a blink.

“He is the Turanian emperor, Tahmineh,” she said. “He can kill you—can rip your child from your womb if he wishes. Be foolish and you will cost us not only yourself but this whole kingdom as well.”

I hated her then. Hated how with a few words she could reduce me once more to a foolish, sniveling girl. But I held my tongue. I knew she was right.

“Do nothing to anger Afrasyab even if he tries to provoke you,” Sussan said. “And don’t mistake me, he will try to provoke you, Tahmineh. It is in his nature—as it is in yours.”

Her arms dropped to her sides, but I still stood there for a while, my shoulders as tense as they had been in her grip. Try as I might, I could not ease them as I followed my maids to the king’s study—a chamber next to the royal wing of the palace, where Arshak spoke with important guests and emissaries.

The study was small on the best of days and exceedingly claustrophobic. But its walls were thick, letting no sound in or out. Father, Afrasyab, and Zende Razm were seated inside when I arrived, and rose to their feet to greet me.

“Come, my daughter,” Father said, his tone so loving I could almost forget what I was here for. “Sit. You look pale.”

“It is the pregnancy,” I said, hating the way my voice shook. “It tires me out.”

“You have a rather delicate constitution, don’t you?” Afrasyab mused. “That’s unusual for women of your kind.”

It was a provocation, of course. Sussan had warned me against it. And yet, even as I bit my tongue, my gaze flicked up to Afrasyab’s farr, which pervaded the room with a chill despite the fire burning in the grate. As I sat in the chair, it slunk closer to me, black shadows brushing my wrists, my neck, and my mouth like fingers.

I did my best not to gag.

Afrasyab sneered. “Come now, Shahdoxt. Speak your mind. I’ve heard you aren’t particularly shy. Even before strange men.”

Quiet. I could hear Sussan’s voice in my head. Be quiet.

But the black farr continued to probe my skin, to tickle my earlobe, to curl around my skull. He’s testing me, I realized. Trying to see if I have any powers of my own.

Dangerous as it was for me to speak my mind, I knew it would be more dangerous if Afrasyab discovered anything about my dreamwalking magic. Men like him had fought over kingdoms for far less.

I rose to my feet. “I am not shy about kicking strange men in the balls, if that’s what you mean,” I said, looking Afrasyab directly in the eye. “Now I would request you to stop harassing me with your foul shadows, Your Majesty—unless you wish to feel the same.”

A slight hesitation before the black farr subsided from my presence.

“Tahmineh!” Zende Razm visibly paled before my eyes. “Sit down!”

“You must forgive my Tahmineh’s outspokenness, cousin.” King Arshak’s voice was mild, but I heard the rebuke in it. “I have but one child and have spoiled her.”

But Afrasyab only laughed. “Oh, there is nothing to forgive.” His dark gaze lingered on me—still discomfiting, but less disturbing than his farr. “A woman who speaks her mind is a rare thing to see indeed. Refreshing as well. Oh, there’s no need for that.” He waved a hand at Zende Razm, who had begun to apologize. “I would like to speak to the shahdoxt alone.”

It wasn’t a request. Zende Razm looked furious—though I couldn’t tell if his anger was directed toward Afrasyab or me.

My father nodded. “Yes. Of course.”

The men exited the study, leaving the door slightly open. My stomach dropped when Afrasyab delicately nudged it closed.

“At last,” he said, “we can speak freely. As I have long wished.”

Despite the rage swirling through me, the comment made me curious. “What do you mean?” I asked. How long had he wished to speak to me?

Afrasyab walked around the table and settled into the king’s chair. Idly, he picked up a marble paperweight shaped like a bird and twirled it between his fingers.

“When I first heard the rumors that Arshak had married a daeva and had a child with her, I’d been mildly curious. Arshak is far older than I am. As cousins, we aren’t particularly close. But when I heard that his daughter had been jilted by an Arab prince for suspicions of witchcraft, I was intrigued. I asked my father to make Arshak an offer—a proposal to form an alliance between Turan and Samangan with a marriage between you and me.”

Ice slid down my spine. I held still, not wanting to reveal even a hint of shock.

“Imagine my surprise when Arshak refused our proposal,” Afrasyab went on, eyeing me over the spinning bird. “When he said that it would hurt Samangan’s neutrality for him to wed his daughter to a Turanian, I was so angry. I wanted to burn your pathetic little kingdom to the ground. But my father advised me against it. We had bigger things to do. The entire Iranian empire to conquer. What would conquering Samangan offer Turan save a temporary balm for our injured pride?”

The marble fell to the floor and its wings snapped under Afrasyab’s booted heel. “I married, had children, and forgot you existed. But now… Now I begin to reconsider everything from the past. Wonder if you, my lady, are wiser than your father.”

“You don’t want me,” I said firmly. “You did not care I existed until you found out I married Rostam.”

He smirked and sat back in the chair. “Yes. This is true. And yet, I’ve always wondered about you, Shahdoxt. Wondered what powers you hold in that seemingly delicate body of yours.”

“I have no power. Nor do I desire any.”

“Everyone wants power, Lady Tahmineh.” His gaze drifted from my golden crown to the faravahar pendant at my throat. “It is why you chose Rostam for a husband. To elevate your own status at this court, where you were once reviled. I don’t blame you for it. I can understand your reasons. It is why the child you bear in a few months will become even more important.”

“If you try to hurt my baby—”

“Don’t be foolish. Did I not offer to make your child a Turanian?” He raised an eyebrow. “Yet you would refuse this honor.”

“It is no honor to be associated with the daeva here in Samangan,” I said coldly. “Surely you know this better than anyone else, Majesty.”

Afrasyab’s smile did not falter. But his eyes hardened.

“Yes,” he said. “Yet you and I are similar in this sense, Lady Tahmineh, even though my daeva blood has been diluted over the generations. Unlike you, however, I am not despised for my powers in Turan. Would you not like that for yourself? Would you not like to live in an empire where the daeva are not only respected but also worshipped?”

I did my best not to shift under his gaze. Many people had speculated about my magic in the past and had been wrong about the same. But Afrasyab was no ordinary mortal. He was daeva-touched—had powers I did not fully comprehend. Had those powers allowed him to see my magic—the truth I worked so hard to conceal from others?

“My farr allows me to see magic on people,” he said softly, as if hearing my thoughts. “I do not sense the magic of water, land, fire, or air on you. And yet there is magic all the same. A hidden magic of the unseen world, perhaps?”

I said nothing, hoping he hadn’t seen the tremor that just went through me.

His smile sharpened. “Did you know, Lady Tahmineh, that those touched by the unseen world can always sense its presence on another?”

I thought back to Rostam—how he’d seemed to sense my presence in his dreams, how he might have recognized me the first time we met. “I don’t understand,” I said, feigning ignorance. “What do you mean by the unseen world?”

“Ah yes.” He chuckled. “I forget that here in Samangan, your priests call it the underworld. A place of damnation and hellfire, when it is little more than a place hidden from mortal eyes. Well, most of them, at least.”

“I do not know what you have heard of me, Your Majesty. But I am no daeva.”

“No,” he agreed. “But you are daeva-born. We are cut from the same cloth, you and I. I can see it even if your oaf of a husband cannot.”

“And yet, whatever you may think of him, my husband has defeated you every time you’ve fought,” I said. “I do not fear you. Nor will I sacrifice my child to Turan. Do anything to me and Rostam will hear of it. And he will leave your entire empire in ashes.”

Afrasyab’s fingers twitched. I wondered if he was imagining them around my neck.

“What if I sweetened the deal?” he asked. “Not only will I make your child Turanian, but I will make you, Tahmineh, my chief consort. Marry me and you will be powerful beyond measure.”

“I am already married!”

“So was Rostam when you pursued him. But it does not matter. Marriages can be broken, too. Your priests will allow it.” Once more Afrasyab leaned forward. “Think about it, Tahmineh. Think about all that you can gain. You’ll be an empress. Together you and I and your child will rule not only Turan but all of the seven realms.”

I took in the hard lines of his face, the cruel mouth, the probing, reptilian eyes, and abruptly understood why my father had refused to marry me to this man—even when we were at our most desperate.

“I think I’d have far more to lose,” I said.

Afrasyab rose from his chair and stepped out from behind the table. I stiffened, bracing myself for his farr. His fists.

But the emperor of Turan merely gave me a cold smile.

“A single sheath cannot hold two swords,” he said. “Nor can two warriors with the same farr survive in our world. Perhaps I may not have you, but one day I will have Rostam’s child. And that, my lady, is a promise.”

15.

AFRASYAB LEFT THE PALACE SHORTLY after our meeting, though the taint of his presence lingered in the halls for days afterward. Both Father and Zende Razm questioned me thoroughly about what had happened in the study, their mouths flattening with distaste when I mentioned the marriage proposal.

“I need to inform Rostam about this!” I declared, my face hot.

Father shook his head. “You will not say a word!”

“But Father—”

“If you tell Rostam about this meeting or any of its details, your husband will lose his temper and there will be a war.” Father’s firm tone brooked no argument. “Think, daughter. It is likely why Afrasyab proposed marriage to you in the first place—because he hoped you would tell Rostam about it. He has been itching for another reason to go to war with Iran.”

He will try to provoke you, Sussan had warned me.

And I had been provoked, hadn’t I? I shuddered. I had fallen headfirst into his trap.

“What if he comes for my baby?” I asked, voice shaking. “What will I do then?”

“Nothing will happen to you or your child,” Zende Razm said firmly. “I promise you, Tahmineh. Not while I still live.”

A turbulent mix of emotions passed through me as I looked at him. Relief. Reassurance. Guilt. I turned to my father again. “I’m sorry I lost my temper, Father. I should have said nothing.”

Father sighed. Then smiled. “You held on to it better than I would have at your age.”

It was probably a lie. But his words made me feel better and I returned to my quarters, trying to put aside the chaos of the past week.

By the ninth month of my pregnancy, my bedroom had been turned into a birthing chamber, bricks laid out next to my bed, the fire stoked at all times, my ladies and maids beginning to fret the moment I let out even a gasp of pain.

“I’m all right,” I assured them. “It isn’t time yet.”

“Child, perhaps you should ask your husband to send that priest from Zabul,” an aunt fretted. “Just in case.”

“There won’t be need,” I said, shaking my head. The priest, also an accomplished surgeon, had helped with many a tricky birth, including Rostam’s own. “I’ve been meeting with the palace midwife regularly and she assures me that I should have an easy delivery.”

I’d not had any more nightmares about losing my child again, but after Afrasyab’s visit and his talk of the unseen world, I took extra precautions when I slept, careful to raise shields against anyone invading my mind.

My son was born on a winter night, snow falling thick and fast outside the palace, layering clouds of white across the cedar woods. Flakes floated in from the open window, delicate and crystalline, melting onto my hot brow and sweaty face as I sat naked on the birthing bricks, Binaifer and the midwife’s assistant supporting my back, the midwife herself in the front, poised to catch the child.

“That’s it,” the midwife encouraged, her strong hands massaging my thighs and belly with oil. “That’s it, Your Highness. You are doing so well.”

If I am doing so well, I wondered distantly, why does it feel like my body is being broken in two?

An hour later, the midwife peered between my legs and nodded, a smile appearing on her face. “Nearly there. I can see the baby’s head. Now, push, Your Highness. Push.”

I pushed, my throat already raw from screaming. The pain was a blade piercing my womb, continuing as the baby’s head, then his shoulders and then the rest of him burst through, along with the cord and, minutes later, the afterbirth.

Happy cheers rose through the room, though I hardly registered them through my exhaustion. The midwife wiped the baby’s face clean of blood and then lightly smacked his bottom to make him wail. But it wasn’t until she put him on my breast that I finally realized what had happened.

A mother. I was a mother.

The baby, too, seemed to sense this, quieting against my breast, his tiny body growing slack against my sweat-slicked skin. My ribs swelled with something akin to an ache.

Was this what love felt like?

“He’s a big boy, isn’t he?” the midwife said approvingly. “He’ll grow into a fine, strong man like his father.”

Outside my window, the sun had begun to rise. As the soft morning light brushed my child, I noticed the first glimmerings of a sapphire glow emanating from his skin.

Fear rattled my ribs. No. It wasn’t farr. It couldn’t be. It was only the long hours of labor and exhaustion that made me think thus.

Soon enough, it was time to feed the baby, his mouth latching greedily to my breast, and I forgot all about the strange glow I’d seen around his body. A missive was dispatched to Zabul, informing my husband of the birth.

“You will not be able to see General Rostam,” the midwife reminded me gently. “Not until your purification is complete.”

“I know,” I said, unable to hold back a sigh. After the birth, I would be confined to my room for forty-one days, a time when I was considered temporarily impure and not allowed to interact with anyone except for the midwife and one or two servants, all of whom had to ritually purify themselves whenever they touched me.

“It will be all right, Your Highness,” the midwife said cheerfully. “Remember that your body needs to heal after the birth. You will be grateful for the rest.”

Rostam’s letter arrived two days later, the messenger having ridden to Samangan at breakneck speed.

My love, I cannot wait to see you and our son, Rostam wrote. I do not have a preference for a name. Feel free to name him as you find him.

I looked into my son’s radiant face and knew at once what his name must be.

“Sohrab,” I whispered, and pressed a kiss to his soft cheek. “I will call you Sohrab for your brilliance.”

I informed Rostam of my decision and, as a final touch, added Sohrab’s tiny, saffron-inked handprint to the very bottom of the letter.

I bled for a few days more after the pregnancy. Sohrab’s feedings took up most of my time, the baby needing milk every few hours, and by the time my seclusion period had ended, I was both sleep-deprived and stir-crazy.

“No, Your Highness,” the palace nurse said, blocking my attempt to pick up Sohrab. “You are not going out with the baby in this frigid weather. He could fall ill!”

“I can’t just leave him, Dayeh!” I cried out. “What if he needs me?”

The nurse let out a long-suffering sigh and I wondered if she wanted to throttle me. “Babies always need their mothers, Your Highness. But mothers, too, need time away from their children—especially after the first forty-one days. You need to go out and get some fresh air. I promise I will watch over the young prince—as I have every child that has been born in this palace over the past ten years.”

I was still unconvinced. But the nurse was persistent, and eventually she coaxed me to exchange my nightdress for a gown and a fur-lined cloak.

“Go,” she ordered. “Your son will still be here, waiting for you.”

Outside, the frigid winter air numbed my mouth and stung my cheeks. I glanced back at the palace, toward my shuttered window.

Sohrab is safe with the nurse, I reminded myself. Safe and warm.

My boots sank into the snow, the toes cold despite being protected by the fur lining. But I, unlike my baby, was used to Samangani winters, and so I trudged farther into the cedar woods. I realized that it was the first time in months that I was truly alone. Free from servants and inquisitive gazes. Free from even the sun, which remained hidden behind a thick layer of clouds. Instinctively, I made my way through the familiar openings between the trees, carving a path through the snow to the river, now covered with a thin sheet of ice.

I had not seen my mother in a little over ten months—had not really wanted to after our last conversation. But now, all of a sudden, I began to crave her presence. Pressing a gloved hand to the frozen surface, I whispered her name.

It took a long time before Zari answered. But I kept my hand steady, unflinching even as it grew numb with cold.

My mother burst through the ice, her mane flinging out in ropes of wild green.

“You took your time in coming here, daughter.” She gazed up at me with eyes that seemed far too bright. Too knowing. “And I assume it is because of the child whose scent surrounds you like a milky cloud.”

Her words made me shiver. But I nodded. “Yes. My son, Sohrab, was born on the first day of winter. He is healthy. Strong.”

My mother did not smile. But her joy was evident in the air around us, mingling with my own. “My child. Now a mother herself.” She sighed. “I wish you had brought him here to see me.”

“I wanted to. But it is too cold. The nurse worried that he would fall ill.”

A sound emerged from my mother’s throat, startling me before I realized it was a laugh. “Cold does not affect a boy who burns with the farr of the sun, daughter.”

My stomach lurched. I thought back to the trace of sapphire light I’d seen around his body after birth—though it had not reappeared since then.

“There is something you aren’t telling me.” My mother’s gold gaze was keen. “Isn’t there?”

“You simply assume he has inherited his father’s powers. You do not know for certain.”

“No,” she agreed. “I do not.”

Yet you could know now, a voice in my head said slyly. You could know now with a new prophecy.

I released a cloudy breath. “Could we… could we see what lies in store for Sohrab’s future?”

The air around us shifted, Zari’s joy dimming. “He is much too young, Tahmineh. Besides, you are happy, are you not? Why try and change that?”

“What do you mean?” I asked at once. “Why do you think things will change after I see the prophecy?”

“I did not say that they will. But they could. Sometimes it is wiser to remain ignorant. To live your life without the weight of the future hanging overhead.”

“Ignorance isn’t a gift. It is a curse.”

Zari’s fangs unsheathed over her black lips. “Your father liked to say that. But Arshak is not always right, Tahmineh. You should know that better than anyone else.”

“If there are any dangers in Sohrab’s future, then it’s best that I, as his mother, prepare for them,” I said stubbornly. “Why would you deny me this? Sohrab is your grandson. Don’t you want him protected?”

“You cannot protect your child from the world, Tahmineh. Doing so may cost you more than you imagine.”

“I would do anything for him.” This much, I knew, was true.

My mother’s anger and sadness warmed and chilled the air simultaneously. “Very well,” she said at last. “Don’t say that I did nothing for you, my daughter.”

There was a warning in that statement. One I did not heed as she plunged into the river’s frozen depths and returned with the waterweed. This time, I didn’t hesitate. I bit off a stalk and chewed, the plant liquefying in my mouth.

My mother waved a hand over the river and it shifted again, ice sheets melting to water. Thickening to blood that soaked the earth in the vision before me: a battlefield of soldiers, both living and dead.

In the center of the field lay two bodies, one belonging to a tall, broad soldier, his armor coated over with blood. His handsome face was pale, oddly young.

“No,” I whispered, spotting the jewel tied to his arm: a single black onyx. “No!”

As I spoke, the vision shifted, bringing me closer to the man that lay next to him. His beard was more gray than red, his face etched with new, unfamiliar lines. But I would have recognized Rostam anywhere.

Screams rang in my ears, not fading until the river iced over again and my mother grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me hard.

“Tahmineh! Tahmineh!”

Was I screaming? Or was it someone else on the battlefield? I could not tell. My throat burned from the cold and I could hardly speak.

“I… I saw them,” I whispered. “Rostam and Sohrab. They were dead!”

“I know.” Zari’s distress wrapped around me like a shroud. “I saw them, too.”

“I need to stop the battle from happening! Tell me what I must do to fix it!”

“You cannot fix it, daughter.” A deep sorrow unfurled around us. “Neither you nor I can know when this battle will happen—if it will happen at all.”

“But they were fighting for Iran, weren’t they?” I asked. I forced myself to think, to recall every bit of the vision. “Yes, I remember seeing Rostam’s banners with the dragon on them. They were both fighting for Emperor Kavus. I need to stop it! I need to stop Sohrab from going to fight for Iran!”

“You will not be able to. Soldiers consider martyrdom a great honor.”

It was true. Yet I couldn’t accept it. I wouldn’t accept it. “I will forbid Rostam from taking Sohrab with him to Iran!” I declared.

Surely if I changed this, I could change the outcome of the vision, couldn’t I?

“Rostam is the boy’s father,” my mother pointed out. “He will be able to take your child away by force, if he so wishes. Unlike the daeva, humans do not think much of mothers once they give birth to their young.”

“Stop!” I cried out. “Stop saying such things!”

“I cannot shield you from the truth.” Zari’s voice was cold. “As much as I have failed you in the past, my daughter, I will not fail you in this. You want my help? My advice? Well, here it is: If you truly want to protect Sohrab and Rostam, you must separate the two now. Keep them apart so that they never meet, and raise Sohrab here in Samangan, away from Iran and Turan and their many wars. More so, you must poison your son’s ears with tales against his father so that he will never want to see Rostam’s face.”

“You’re mad! I cannot do that!”

“And yet if you wish for your child to have even a chance of surviving, it is exactly what you must do. It is a choice you must make as a mother—the way I made my choice to leave you, knowing full well that you would suffer even more in the daeva world than you have here in the mortal realm.”

I did not remember what she said next nor my dazed journey back to the palace. My mind brimmed over with the vision I’d seen.

Sohrab and Rostam. Rostam and Sohrab. Destined to die on the battlefield.

Unless I did something about it.

16.

MY HUSBAND CAME IN THE coldest month of the year, when parts of the river had frozen over completely and snow fell thick and heavy over the mountains. Despite the trepidation I’d felt since witnessing the new prophecy a week earlier, I couldn’t help but launch myself into Rostam’s arms, relief rushing through me as they tightened around my waist.

“I told you I’d be here,” he whispered, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. “Didn’t I?”

“Yes.” I held on a little longer before releasing him to get a good look. Despite the punishing cold of the day, Rostam glowed with health, his cheeks only slightly flushed, his mouth and nose showing no signs of being chapped. I wondered if it was because of his farr.

“Where is he?” he asked. “Where is my son?”

I experienced a brief surge of annoyance at his words: my son. As if I had nothing to do with Sohrab at all. I pushed it aside. “Inside with the nurse,” I said, smiling. “I would have brought him out with me, but we worried he might catch a chill.”

Rostam grinned. “Do you really think he would—with this?” Heat radiated from him, along with the silver light of his farr.

“He’s still a baby, husband,” I chided. “He may not even have farr.”

Rostam ignored the words, holding my chilled hands in his and blowing warmth into them. Pleasure raced up my spine. I’d nearly forgotten how much I’d missed being close to him. How much I’d ached for his touch these past ten months.

“Come.” He tucked my hand into his elbow. “Let’s go inside. I must pay my respects to your father first.”

Protocol required that he meet Zende Razm as well, but Rostam didn’t mention the crown prince and I simply nodded, allowing him to lead me to the palace.

King Arshak was thrilled to see his son-in-law. “Sohrab is strong. A big, healthy boy,” he said with pride. “Tahmineh, why did you bring Rostam to me? He must be longing to see his son.”

“It isn’t her fault,” Rostam said. “I asked to see you first, Your Majesty. We will go see Sohrab now.”

I led the two men to my room, which had been ritually cleansed and purified by the priests for Rostam’s arrival. The baby was asleep when we entered, and the nurse fell into a low bow.

“Your Majesty, Your Highness.” She bowed with the formality my father’s presence always evoked. “I just put him to sleep. If you wish, I can wake him.”

“No, don’t,” Rostam said quietly. Catlike, he crept closer to my bed and looked at Sohrab’s sleeping face. I knew Rostam had other children—a son and two daughters by his first wife. He should have been used to babies by now. But when he watched Sohrab, there was awe in his expression. A wonder that made my heart swell with joy. I knew what he was experiencing in this moment. The same unconditional love that had overtaken me when I’d glimpsed our boy for the very first time. I would have thought us both the luckiest parents in the world—if not for the prophecy that hung over my head, swaying like a noose.

Perhaps sensing a shift in the room, Sohrab woke and let out a loud, piercing cry. Unlike my father, who began backing away toward the wall, Rostam leaned close, picking up the tiny infant with an ease that belied his large hands. Then he began to sing in his low, deep voice:

Once there was a tired pigeon sitting on a tree,

Its wings were soaked, its beak was crying, “Help me, Almighty!”

The nurse pressed a hand to her mouth, muffling a laugh. Father and I exchanged amused glances. It was a silly song—likely made up by Rostam himself. Sohrab, however, had fallen silent. His shining brown eyes had locked with his father’s, not moving even when Rostam switched over to another, even sillier song.

Seven realms, how could I possibly separate these two?

I looked at my delighted nurse. At Father, who was beaming so wide, he might have been given the moon itself.

As Sohrab fell asleep again, I realized I needed to tell Rostam everything, even if it meant revealing the truth about my mother and my powers. Even if it meant confessing my role in bringing him here to Samangan, and the prophecy that haunted our newborn child. I did not know how he would take any of it. If the love that now shone in his eyes for Sohrab and for me would shift instantly to hatred.

Dread curdled in my belly. I forced myself to answer Rostam’s questions and laugh at my father’s jokes. The king did not stay for long. He dismissed the nurse and then turned to me and Rostam one last time.

“I will let you two have some privacy,” he said, eyes twinkling.

As the door closed, I took a deep breath to steady myself. “Rostam. I need—”

My words broke off at the touch of his lips, his strong hands curving around my waist.

“I need you, too, wife,” he murmured. “Oh, how I’ve ached for you all these months!”

“Rostam…” I gasped. “I need to talk…”

Later, my traitorous mind insisted as my husband traced a line of kisses down my neck. Later, my knees buckling at the feel of his hands under my skirt, warm and calloused on my thighs.

Afterward, as we lay in my bed, sweat-ridden and spent, I tried again.

“Rostam.” I traced the faded dragon tattooed on his chest. “I need to tell you something. There is a prophecy—”

“Please, my love.” He cut me off with a groan. “No prophecies. I spent the past few months hunting down an enormous black boar in Armenia just because that fool Kavus was foretold he’d be gored to death by it. The poor beast likely didn’t deserve to be killed, but I had to bring back its head to the emperor. They’re all charlatans, these astrologers. You shouldn’t believe a word they say.”

I frowned, annoyed by his dismissal. “But what of the prophecies of old?” I asked. “The ones that foretold the coming of the great kings and queens of the land?”

“Those are different. Those were made by the yazata themselves.” He raised a pale red eyebrow. “Did a yazata make this prophecy of yours?”

I should have said yes. Made up a story about how I’d been visited by a yazata in a dream. But I could not lie to Rostam about this. Nor could I tell him the truth. What would have I said? That my daeva mother was the one who gave me the prophecy? Rostam didn’t even know I still talked to Zari. Nor did he know I was a witch.

What kind of marriage is that? One where a wife must hide her true self from her husband?

I had pushed aside Zende Razm’s questions before, but now they settled like stones in my belly.

“I want to take you to Iran with me,” Rostam said, changing the subject when I did not speak. “You and Sohrab. It is about time.”

Despite the warmth enveloping me, my body went cold. My fingers curled into a fist against his chest. A tear began snaking its way down my cheek just as the baby began to wail in his crib.

Rostam chuckled. “Looks like the little man wants feeding.”

“It seems so,” I choked out. Rostam yawned as I rose from the bed, his eyes fluttering shut.

A flicker of irritation went through me. But Sohrab was demanding my attention and so I wrapped myself in a robe and quickly picked him up.

Rostam was fast asleep. He had not noticed the shift in my voice, nor the tears that were now drying on my face. But then, why would he?

Men like Rostam had it easy when it came to children. They were never there for the first few years—when the responsibility for raising the child fell entirely on the mother. If Sohrab and I went to Iran, we would be in a strange land with no friends except for Rostam. Not only would I have to raise Sohrab alone there, once he turned five, he would be separated from me and taken into his father’s world. The world of horses and battle and powerful men—no mothers needed anymore.

Bile rose to my mouth, thick and sour.

I had often felt powerless in Samangan. Yet I had autonomy here and some degree of influence, even at my worst. In Iran, I would have no power at all. Nor would I have allies if I rebelled against my husband. If I tried to prevent Rostam from taking Sohrab to war, I would only be called mad or worse, a traitor to Iran.

If you truly want to protect Sohrab and Rostam, you must separate the two now, my mother had said. Keep them apart so that they never meet.

I looked down at my son, his mouth latched to my breast, the suction painful. But I scarcely felt the discomfort. I would raise him. Spend all this time caring for his needs—only so that an unknown emperor could send him to slaughter.

I will not let that happen to you. I will not let anything happen to you.

It was a promise I made my child as I laid him back in his crib. A promise I would upend my entire life for, if needed.

17.

“ARE YOU MAD?” ZENDE RAZM’S voice rose to an alarming pitch. “How could I… how could we possibly…?”

“Please, Zende Razm, not so loud!” I glanced around the banquet hall, which was mostly empty save for a few servants laying out bowls and cups for our breakfast. “If you don’t help me, Sohrab will die. Rostam, too. I saw…” My voice broke and I struggled to compose myself. “I saw their bodies in the vision.”

“Your vision might be wrong.”

“I don’t think so. I first saw Rostam in a prophecy cast for me five years ago. I saw him again before Nowruz and knew I would have his child. I don’t want to see the same prophecy about him and Sohrab five years from now and then be trapped—unable to do a thing to save them! Please, Zende Razm.” He started as I caught hold of his hands. “I cannot do this alone.”

He stared down at my white-knuckled grip. His mouth was in a thin line. “Even if I… do what you suggest,” he said at last, “Rostam could still take Sohrab away with him. As the boy’s father, he has every right.”

“I have a plan for that.”

It was risky. Would depend wholly on the sort of man I thought my husband was and why I’d married him. I swallowed hard, waiting as conflicting emotions scattered the usual calm on Zende Razm’s face.

“Fine,” he said, his voice curt. “I’ll help you. When do you plan on… doing this?”

“This evening. Come to my room. And arm yourself.”

He gave me a single sharp nod and extricated his hands from my grip. For the rest of our meal, he did not talk to me nor look once in my direction.

That morning and afternoon passed in a daze. Even Sohrab’s constant demands for feeding could not keep me distracted. My throat closed each time I looked into Rostam’s smiling eyes, utterly unaware of the terrible plan I’d hatched.

That evening, I dismissed Binaifer and the nurse early and paced my room, my nerves as taut as harp strings. For once, Sohrab wasn’t crying. He gazed up at me from his wooden crib, brown eyes curious. Many had predicted that my son would be a spitting image of his father, with Rostam’s red hair and pale skin. But Sohrab took after me, his skin a burnished gold, his curls black, his eyes dark, where Rostam’s were light.

“I am sorry,” I told him. “I hope I can tell you the truth one day. That you will forgive me for it.”

I kissed his forehead and Sohrab yawned, lashes fluttering against the soft curve of his cheeks.

A clatter at the door drew my attention.

Zende Razm gave me a sheepish look and gestured to the sword hanging from his belt. “I’m not used to arming myself indoors.”

The laugh stuck in my throat. Zende Razm was staring at me with a deep frown. “Are you sure about this, Tahmineh? It is still not too late to back out.”

I released a sharp breath and walked toward him. He stilled as I placed my hands on his chest. “I thought that you wanted this,” I said. “Wanted me.”

I moved closer so that no space remained between our bodies, my curves fitting against his hard muscles, the hilt of his sword pressing into my hip bone.

Zende Razm said nothing, his heart throbbing under my touch. In the distance, I heard a pair of voices talking. Rostam’s unmistakable laugh outside my door.

“You don’t need to worry,” I said. I stroked the curls at the nape of Zende Razm’s neck, hoping to soothe him. Trying to calm my own racing heart. “What we are about to do is not real.”

His warm breath caressed my cheek. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

I did not have the chance to parse his words. I faintly registered the brush of his lips against my own when the door swung open, revealing my husband framed within.

Zende Razm and I broke apart. My face flushed, cheeks burning with a shame I did not entirely understand. He, on the other hand, was ashen, his hand trembling on the hilt of his sword.

Rostam was staring at us. I’d expected anger from him. The sort of outrage that would have him scorching us both with the heat of his farr. But right now, I felt nothing. It was as if the shock of seeing us together had turned him numb.

When he spoke, his voice was deathly quiet. “Tell me, wife. Was this man forcing himself on you?”

A vein in Zende Razm’s cheek pulsed. He did not look at me. Nor did he protest the accusation like any other man would have. He was giving me another chance to back out, I understood. Even if it meant he would have to fight Rostam and die in the process.

“No, husband,” I forced myself to say. “He was not. I was with him willingly.”

Rostam closed his eyes. The pain on his face nearly undid me.

“Please,” he said, and somehow, I knew that his comment was not directed at me. “I would like to speak to Shahdoxt Tahmineh alone.”

Zende Razm shot me a wary glance. I nodded firmly. Yes, I thought. Leave while you still can.

Rostam moved sideways, allowing Zende Razm to exit the room. Then he turned back to me. I stood still, sweat beading the back of my neck. I did not allow myself to reach for the dagger on my hip. Nor inch backward as Rostam moved close, pausing a handsbreadth away.

“Why?” he asked, voice hoarse. His shock had faded and anger was returning—evidenced by his clenched fists, by the smoky wisps of silver farr hovering around his shoulders and hair.

I bit the inside of my cheek. I couldn’t show him my fear. “I was alone. I have needs.” Neither statement was untrue.

Rostam’s skin mottled red. “You are a wife! A mother!”

“So? Don’t wives and mothers have needs? You, yourself, were a husband and a father when you first came to Samangan. As I recall, you were very needy indeed.”

“How dare you!”

It was hard to look at him now, his farr so brilliantly silver that it obscured his face. I could feel his magic, the deadly heat of it simmering against my skin.

“So, is it one set of rules for you and another for me?” I asked, managing to sound cold, even a little disdainful.

His nostrils flared. “Whore!” he spat out.

I tasted acid on my tongue. Was it from anger? Heartbreak? Even in the years to come, I was never quite sure. Yet his insult broke my fear. Spurred me onward like a moth to a flame.

“You were married when you first kissed me,” I said, voice low and husky. “You did not think me a whore then. Nor when we became husband and wife.”

His eyes darkened. “Witch,” he growled. “Do what you wish. I will take my son and leave this place.”

I moved sideways, blocking his path. “You will not,” I said, steel seeping into my voice. “You will not take our son from his own mother when he is hardly over a month old. Tell me, Rostam. Will you have Sohrab nurse from a strange woman’s breast? Or will you give him to your first wife, who will never think of him as her own—who will treat Sohrab like a bastard even though he is your legitimate son? What will happen when she disowns him? Will you do to him what Sam did to Zal?”

The story of Rostam’s father, Zal, was known throughout the seven realms—a boy born with pale skin, pink eyes, and a shock of snow-white hair. Deemed a daeva for his unusual appearance, Zal was disinherited by Rostam’s grandfather, Sam, as a babe and left to die on a mountain. How Zal survived was perhaps the greatest miracle of all, his cries drawing the attention of the simurgh—a magical bird cherished by the yazata, a bird who raised Zal to boyhood. Racked with guilt over what he had done, Sam had eventually returned to look for his son and, on finding Zal, made him the rightful heir to Zabul.

Rostam’s farr flared so bright that, for a second, it nearly blinded me. Then, just as quickly, it subsided.

“You disgust me.” His voice was hoarse. “I should kill you now and be done with it. But doing so would only harm my son when he’s at his most vulnerable.”

His son. For once, I was grateful for this distinction—this separation of Sohrab from me. As the starbursts faded from my vision, I found Rostam staring at me, the worst of his rage subsided, a mix of emotions warring on his face. Heartbreak. Disgust. Desire.

Yes, Rostam still desired me, despite what I’d done, his darkened gaze roaming my body—as if debating whether to take me then and there against the wall. A part of me would have welcomed it. Would have embraced all his anger and hatred. Perhaps Rostam sensed this, for he breathed deeply and stepped back. He would not touch me again.

“You will keep me informed of Sohrab’s progress,” he said coldly. “When he is of age, I will take him with me to Iran. And neither you nor that bastard crown prince will be able to stop me.”

He walked out, not looking back. Not seeing the way I collapsed against the stone wall, shivers raking my whole body, tears burning my eyes and throat. I had done it. By acting like the worst version of myself, I had successfully separated my son from his father and shattered whatever was left of my reputation and heart.

I splashed water on my face and wiped it clean with rough strokes of a cloth.

Voices rose outside my window. I watched my father hobble out of the palace doors, calling after Rostam as he rode off in a storm cloud of dirt and powdery snow.

I had not yet thought about what I would tell Father. Nor considered what would be in store for me next. What if this was only the beginning? The first in a series of trials necessary to keep Sohrab safe over the years?

I gritted my teeth, pinching my arm hard enough to bruise.

It doesn’t matter anymore, I told myself. I had made my choice—taking the first step away from Rostam and what might have been a comfortable married life.

I needed to walk the rest of the way forward now. No matter where it led.

5 YEARS LATER: SON OF A HERO

18.

THE TURANIAN CAPITAL OF KANGDEZ rose within a dusty valley surrounded by jagged blue mountains, Emperor Afrasyab’s fortress built at the very center. Unlike the Iranians, who were famous for their palaces embedded with gold and jewels, the Turanians expressed their might with a well-trained army and unbreachable stone walls. The inside of the fortress was nearly as utilitarian as the outside, the carpets and tapestries expensive, but not ostentatious, the bright murals on the walls depicting more battles than banquets. Father once told me that the Iranian emperor wore a crown so heavy that its weight had to be supported by chains suspended from the ceiling. Afrasyab, on the other hand, wore a plain gold diadem, pearlescent wings rising outward from each side, and the sun from its center, nestled within a crescent moon. Even here, in his castle, surrounded by guards, the Turanian emperor was dressed as he had been during my seismooney—in simple clothing, leather armor and boots, his long fingers methodically tapping the armrest of his throne.

“Enough!” he snapped, cutting through the long-winded explanation of the courtier before him. “Get to the point. Did Kavus survive?”

I drifted along the painted ceiling of the throne room, invisible to the men below, my gaze fixed on Afrasyab. His farr traced the boundaries of the room with black fingers, probed the spaces between the walls and the people within, as if seeking out an unknown enemy. For now, I was safe, my physical body ensconced in Samangan, the shadows utterly ignorant of my presence here in this astral dream.

While I did not have the powers my daeva grandmother did—the ability to force a daydream or nightmare on someone, nor the ability to lull them into a deathlike stupor—I did have years of experience slipping into places undetected. My skills were proving useful ever since Afrasyab’s visit to our kingdom five years ago, allowing me to spy on him and gather information I would otherwise not be privy to.

“That’s it?” Afrasyab sneered at the sputtering man. “That’s all you have to say? That he was miraculously saved?”

“But it was a miracle, Your Majesty! Our trap for Kavus was perfectly laid out. He should not have survived at all!”

From what I could gather, the trap had been fairly decent. Around four years ago, a daeva, at Afrasyab’s request, had shapeshifted into a human priest and entered Kavus’s court in Iran, where he’d displayed invention after remarkable invention—including a machine that would allow any human to fly.

Kavus, in the nature of one who perpetually coveted more power, had instantly offered an extravagant sum of gold for the machine. The daeva had resisted at first, then slyly given in, presenting the emperor with the machine: a throne on a square platform with four lances fixed to the corners.

“Find four eagle hatchlings,” the daeva had said. “Raise them so that they are tame and eat only the meat you provide. Once they are grown, tie them to these lances and suspend meat from the tips—just out of reach. The eagles will fly up to get to the food and you will be able to observe your kingdom from the sky—like the great Iranian emperors of old!”

Despite the misgivings of his advisors, Kavus sent men to rob eagle nests for their young and raised four eaglets as the daeva had instructed. When the birds grew large and strong, they were tied to the lances of the throne the daeva had provided and Kavus sat below, eager to take his first flight. Initially, the invention seemed to work. The hungry birds frantically beat their wings, trying to get to the meat, and Kavus’s throne rose high above the trees, heading toward the clouds.

But then the eagles began to tire. One by one, they began pecking on the ropes that bound them to the lances and freed themselves from captivity, leaving the Iranian emperor to plummet to his death.

“It was a sheer miracle that he fell into a tree—and somehow managed to hang on to a branch,” the Turanian courtier told Afrasyab. “And even then, he was severely injured. He would have most certainly not survived if not for Rostam, who went looking for him!”

Despite my not having seen him once in the past five years, a shiver went through me at the sound of my husband’s name.

It affected the Turanian emperor, too, his farr looming over the hushed crowd, dimming the candles flickering in their sconces.

“I do not care what happened.” Afrasyab’s words made the courtier flinch. “You were the one who suggested this trap, Garsivaz. Who assured me time and again that it was foolproof. You have failed. Turan’s greatest enemy is still alive.”

“Only because of Rostam!” Garsivaz insisted. “If we wish to conquer Iran, we need to take care of him first. How about we use his son?”

I froze, heart thudding in my chest.

“Lord Faramarz?” another courtier asked, bemused.

“Not that one!” Garsivaz said irritably. “The Samangani boy, Sohrab. I hear he has some daeva blood in him. Surely, we can use him to trap and kill Rostam.”

Slowly the darkness in the room subsided. A smile crossed Afrasyab’s hard face. “For the first time today, you’ve spoken some sense, Garsivaz,” he said. “Yes. I’ve been thinking of young Sohrab quite a bit. When I last saw his mother, she was still pregnant with him. There was a glow about her—one reminiscent of a yazata’s magic. I wasn’t certain about it until I tested her with my farr.” He glanced upward and for a wild second I wondered if he could see me. I held my breath, readying to disappear. But then Afrasyab turned to look at Garsivaz again, shadows curling lazily at his sides. “I agree with you,” he told the courtier. “Sohrab may prove useful to us. He might be the only way we rid ourselves of Rostam for good.”

Shahdoxt! a distant voice sounded in my head. Shahdoxt, please. Wake up! It’s Sohrab!

Blood roared in my ears. With a snap I flew backward, through stone walls, mountains, and clouds, my soul fitting itself back into my body as I jerked awake from my daydream.

“What is it?” I asked Binaifer, my voice hoarse. “What happened to Sohrab?”

My maid flushed a bright pink and for a second, she looked thirteen again and not the tall young woman she’d grown into. “He… he’s lifted a courtier’s son off the ground by his ears! And he refuses to put the boy down!”

“Seven realms,” I muttered. I rose from the bench where I’d dozed off while pretending to read a scroll of poetry. “Where are they?”

“The lawn. They—”

I did not wait to hear what she said next. I flew from the room and down the stairs, past startled servants who leaped out of my way.

It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon in spring. A slow, indolent time when most of the palace’s residents had retired to their rooms, leaving the children in charge of the nurses and the maids. I squinted against the wide expanse of green, spotting a small circle of bodies huddled in the distance.

They were all boys, the sons of courtiers, their eyes fixed on the ten-year-old at the center—a boy named Gustad, his face red with exertion, his feet thrashing above the ground as another boy held him fast by the ears, a sapphire halo about his head.

Sohrab. My son, who was half Gustad’s age but nearly as tall as him and his peers, his cheeks flushed, his dark curls glowing with farr. I noted the cuts and bruises on his arms and legs—likely from the kicks Gustad still aimed at them. Yet Sohrab did not move—and I wondered if he felt them at all.

“Please!” Tears ran down Gustad’s face. “I’m sorry, Sohrab. Please let me go!”

“Sohrab!” I called out. “Put him down!”

The boys parted before me and winced as I firmly caught hold of Sohrab’s arm, which was hard as new-forged iron and almost as scalding. My son looked up at me, his brown eyes wild, nearly inhuman. For a brief second, I was petrified. Would Sohrab hear me if I called? Could he hear me at all?

“Let him go,” I ordered. “Now, Sohrab. I mean it!”

Something in my tone must have sunk in. Seeped through the layers of rage and magic to find the child I’d held in my womb for nine months. The sweet boy I knew. Sohrab’s farr faded to wisps and he allowed Gustad to collapse on the grass in a heap of limbs and suppressed sobs.

“What is wrong with you?” I growled, as the others helped a whimpering Gustad to his feet. “This is not a game, Sohrab. You could have seriously hurt him!”

Sohrab’s face, having grown pale from using his magic, flushed again. “He doesn’t care about hurting people. He called you a witch, Mother. And he said I was the child of a demon. He wouldn’t stop—even when I told him to!”

I could feel the gazes of the other boys on my back, assessing how I would react to this information.

“Come,” I said quietly.

“But, Mother—”

“Come with me.”

I steered Sohrab across the lawn, away from the boys and the watchful gazes of the servants. When we reached the edge of the cedar woods, I looked at my son again, studying him as if anew.

Sohrab had always been big and agile for his age, walking on his feet by the time he was four months old, riding a pony within three summers of his birth. He had his father’s broad chest and shoulders and the sort of keen accuracy with a spear that had grown men already talking about his skills. It should not have surprised me that his head reached my shoulders by now nor that he could successfully spar with boys much older than he was.

Here, however, in the cooling shade of the cedars, I saw the boy again. The child, his big brown eyes brimming with hurt and humiliation, the bruises on his arms and legs turning an angry red. I saw the tender, vulnerable curve of his neck and thought of the hundred ways in which he could still be broken or killed—farr or no farr.

“You cannot beat up anyone who insults me,” I said at last. “It is not princely behavior.”

“I am not a prince,” he said stubbornly. “Besides, Father would not stand for anyone insulting you. Why should I?”

I struggled to hold on to my temper. “Your father isn’t here. You don’t know what he would do.”

“I do know!” he insisted. “I’ve heard all the stories about him. He killed the white demon of Mazandaran and rescued Emperor Kavus. He always defeats Iran’s enemies. I also know that my powers come from him. Everyone says so!”

“That does not mean you can use those powers unchecked whenever you get angry. You must go and apologize to Gustad.”

“I will not. He called you bad names, Mother.”

“And he said he was sorry!” My voice rose despite my best efforts. “He apologized for his mistake and now you must apologize for yours.”

“I will not!” Sohrab’s farr burst forth again: a blue nimbus casting an otherworldly glow across his features. “I made no mistake!”

He began running across the lawn with preternatural speed, his sandaled feet throwing up clumps of soft dirt and grass. Gritting my teeth, I readied myself to follow, when a voice spoke behind me: “Don’t. Let him be.”

It was Zende Razm, a simple white tunic stretched over his shoulders, a bow slung over one arm. “He’ll come back,” he told me reassuringly. “He won’t stay angry for long. Trust me. My Kaizad was the same at this age.”

“I’m sure your son, at least, graced you with a week of calm between tantrums,” I said dryly. “With Sohrab, it’s something new every day.”

Another fight. Another outburst. Yet another mention of his famous father. His questions about Rostam were growing more frequent, along with demands for an explanation about why his father never came to visit us in Samangan. My heart twisted, aching with an emotion I refused to acknowledge.

“I don’t know how I’ll manage when he gets older,” I confessed. “The other women say I’m too lenient with him. They think I should whip him when he gets out of control.”

Zende Razm made a sound of disgust. “What use is beating a child? He will not understand what he did wrong. He will only understand fear of the whip.”

“I agree. That’s why I don’t listen to them.” After all I’d done to protect my son, the thought of using my own hands to leave marks on his skin made me sick. I was about to say this when I noted Zende Razm’s face, the sudden, unexpected pallor of his lips.

“What is it?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

A beat passed before he replied. “My father would hit me when I was a boy. He thought I was too soft. Not manly enough. When I made him especially angry, he’d slam me headfirst into the wall. Sometimes he would not stop until he saw me bleed. I promised myself that if I had children someday, I would not beat them. No matter how angry they made me.”

Fury, hot and sudden, spiked through my chest. Without pausing to think, I took his hand in mine and squeezed reassuringly. “He cannot hurt you anymore,” I said. His father, after all, had been dead many years.

“No.” Zende Razm’s gaze met mine. “He cannot.”

In the dappled sunlight filtering through the trees, I could see the fine lines of his irises, the shades of gold and honey encircling the deep brown. This close, I could feel the warmth of his breath, smell the wild thyme fragrance of his skin.

Too close, my mind warned. People will see. Will get the wrong impression.

A flush climbed my cheeks. I stepped back, releasing his hand.

Zende Razm was the first to break the silence that followed. “You will manage as all mothers do,” he said easily, picking up the thread of our earlier conversation about Sohrab. “And you’re a good one, Tahmineh.”

I released a breath, grateful for the change in subject. I also marveled at his patience. Zende Razm never tired of me talking about my son and worrying about him, though I was sure we’d had similar conversations many times over the past five years.

“You speak too well of me,” I said. “I am not as good a mother as you think.”

I thought of what I’d written to Rostam only yesterday—a regular update about Sohrab:

Sohrab is better now. The fever has subsided. But he is still feeble. The palace healer recommends oxtail broth and staying indoors until he grows stronger again.

Sohrab, who had not faced a single day of illness in his life and would sleep out under the stars every day if I let him. Sohrab, who was undoubtedly Rostam’s son no matter how much he resembled me.

Gooseflesh prickled across my skin. “What mother,” I told Zende Razm, “lies constantly about her child? What mother strives to keep both father and son apart?”

“You’re only trying to keep Sohrab safe. If his father knew how strong he is, he would wish to train him for battle and take him to war.”

I studied Zende Razm, wondering if he was just saying the words to console me. But his brown eyes were sincere. A flutter emerged, birdlike, under my ribs, and my gaze floated to his lips. Over the past year or so, I’d been noting them more and more: pressed together in thought, shaped into a laugh or a smile. I had begun wondering, late at night, if they would feel as soft and full as they looked.

Three months ago, I’d nearly given in to the temptation to find out. Zende Razm and I had been walking by the river, conversing about the goings-on at the palace and our children.

Then he had turned to me, his gaze serious. “Tahmineh, you will tell me, won’t you—if you ever feel unsafe in Samangan again?”

The question had frozen me in my tracks. “Of course,” I’d replied. “What brought this on, Zende Razm?”

“I have been thinking a lot recently,” he said. “About your marriage to Rostam. How determined you were to pursue him back then. I knew that the courtiers talked of you often behind your back. But you always appeared so poised, so detached from everyone else. I did not realize how much they were affecting you—how unsafe you felt around them. I should have known. By Ahura Mazda, you wore a dagger all the time! I see that you don’t wear it anymore.”

I said nothing. I was stunned by his confession—and that he’d made a note of my dagger’s recent absence. It was true. I did not feel the need to wear a weapon these days. No one knew why Rostam no longer came to visit me, but his absence was attributed to his position as Iran’s general and his efforts at keeping its borders secure. There was also a perpetual fear of rousing my husband’s famous temper—and no one would do that by harming me or Sohrab.

“It was my fault,” Zende Razm said, his gaze keen on mine. “Even after I became the crown prince, I did nothing to assure you of your safety. To let you know that I would have done everything in my power to protect you.”

“You could not have stopped people from accusing me of witchcraft,” I pointed out.

“Yes. But it wouldn’t have really mattered. No matter what people say about you, Tahmineh, they have no evidence to prove that you have done anything bad or that you possess an ounce of dark magic. No sane ruler would ever condemn you based on a courtier’s—or even a queen’s—wild imagination. I certainly won’t be the first.”

“I…” My mouth went suddenly, inexplicably dry. “I didn’t realize.”

“How could you, when I never gave you a reason to trust me?” A soft laugh, tinged with bitterness. “It’s no wonder you married Rostam. Any woman would have.”

For long moments, we stared at each other. I was aware of him in a way I had never been before, noting acutely the brush of his gaze on my lips and throat, my skin tingling with sensation even though we hadn’t touched. His hand rose, hovered tentatively in the air beside my cheek. Perhaps he’d intended to push a lock of hair away from my face. Or perhaps to draw me close, indulging in the sort of embrace we’d never allowed ourselves before.

I had not waited to find out. I had taken two steps back, turning away from him as if scorched.

Today, just like that afternoon, my heart began to race. I hoped the heat creeping up my neck wasn’t evident on my skin. But Zende Razm’s expression remained innocent and so I released a quiet breath.

“I need to find Sohrab,” I said. “Talk to him again.”

“Let me do it,” Zende Razm offered. “I know where he likes to go when he’s angry.”

I frowned, annoyed by this statement. I was Sohrab’s mother. Surely I knew him best. But Sohrab was not in the palace kitchen nor the zoorkhaneh, nor had he sneaked back into the woods without anyone noticing. It was in the stables that I finally spotted him—along with Zende Razm, whose arm was wrapped around my son’s smaller shoulders. As if they sensed my presence, their gazes locked with mine.

Not for the first time, I noted how alike they were in their hair and coloring. Any stranger who looked at them now would only imagine they were father and son.

“Mother!” Sohrab’s cry broke the spell. He raced toward me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “Mother, I’m sorry I lost my temper with Gustad! I should have let him go after he apologized.”

He looked up at me, eyes shining with unshed tears. The tightness in my ribs uncoiled. This was the boy I loved. The kind, good-hearted child whose hot temper subsided with the swiftness of a gust of wind. I hugged him back tightly and stroked his curly black hair. “It’s all right, little one.”

With dirty fingers, Sohrab wiped the tears from his eyes. “Uncle Zende Razm says that a strong man knows when to fight. But a stronger man knows when he is wrong.”

“He’s right.” I looked up at the man watching us both and felt that strange flutter again. “As always, Uncle Zende Razm is right.”

“I’m going to go say sorry to Gustad now,” Sohrab said. “All right, Mother?”

Without waiting for a reply, Sohrab ran to the kitchen garden, where the boys were gathered, engaged in another game. I watched him speak to Gustad. A moment later, the boys were hugging and my shoulders collapsed with relief.

“See?” Zende Razm came up next to me. “I told you it would be sorted out.”

I said nothing. The sun shone down on Zende Razm’s strong, handsome face, the deep laugh lines carving the corners of his eyes. Heat unspooled somewhere deep within me—slow and pleasurable—the kind I hadn’t felt in the past five years.

It’s foolish, I told myself as I walked back to the palace. A feeling merely induced by loneliness.

Yet the strange warmth I felt in Zende Razm’s presence did not diminish. If anything, it grew stronger over the next few weeks as I quietly observed him from a distance, noting the ways in which he interacted with people—from the lowliest of servants to his three teenage sons, from arrogant palace courtiers to their shy young daughters.

At first, I thought they simply admired him or appreciated his kindness. But soon I realized it was more than that. They loved him as they did my father. Turning his way like flowers seeking the sun.

One morning, I rose early and slipped out, well before the rest of the palace was awake. Zende Razm was in the archery grove—a place he’d turned to more and more over the years, ever since he’d been made crown prince.

As I cleared my throat, he turned to face me and smiled. “You’re up early.”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

He placed his bow and quiver on a tree stump and walked toward me.

“What is it?” he asked, eyes twinkling. “Have the princess of Samangan and her son quarreled again? Don’t tell me your truce was even shorter-lived than the one between Iran and Turan.”

My heart skipped a beat. My mouth flirted with a smile. “Don’t you dare say such inauspicious things.”

His grin widened. “And what will you do to me if I say them? I am your crown prince, remember?”

I stepped closer, pausing until we were only breaths apart. “I will deal with you most severely,” I said in a low, breathy voice. “Crown prince or not.”

Zende Razm’s eyes widened, but he said nothing. His breath smelled of mint and strong tea. His parted lips were pale, perfectly shaped. Despite frequent trimmings, the beard he wore wasn’t prickly, but soft. I could feel it now as I cupped his cheeks and pulled him close, fitting our mouths together in a kiss that felt as natural as breathing, as inevitable as the change of a season. A small sound caught in his throat. But he didn’t pull away or demand to know what I was doing.

He simply let me kiss him, my tongue tracing over the perfect bow of his upper lip, learning the tastes and textures of his mouth.

“Tahmineh,” he said, when the kiss ended, a dozen questions embedded in that single word.

“I cannot promise you love,” I said. “Nor marriage. If that isn’t what you want, I understand. We will pretend that this kiss never happened.”

For a long while, he remained silent. Shame rose up my chest, heating my face. I began to pull away, when he gently caught my wrists. His eyes, already a deep brown, were even darker now. Rich with emotions I didn’t dare put a name to.

“I will only take what you freely give,” he replied.

Later that night, when everyone was abed, he paused in the doorway to my bedchamber.

“Come in,” I said. “I invited you here, didn’t I?”

He didn’t. He waited there, hesitation coloring his expression. Despite the late hour, Zende Razm was fully dressed in the silk tunic and trousers he’d worn to court earlier that day.

I, on the other hand, was not.

He took in my long black hair, loosened from its usual braid, his gaze pausing at the bronzed skin of my shoulders peeking out from under the sheets.

He swallowed, the sound audible in the silence. “Are you sure of this?”

I could say no. He would not begrudge me for having second thoughts or for changing my mind.

My skin prickled, mind flashing with the memory of pale skin and copper hair. A wide, unexpected smile, made even more brilliant by the glow of his silvery farr. I pushed it aside, ignoring the ache in my chest.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m sure.”

Zende Razm released a breath. And then, gently and carefully, he closed the door.

9 YEARS LATER: GOLDEN WARRIOR

19.

“MORE WINE!” KING ARSHAK DEMANDED of the servant.

“Your Majesty, the healer said—”

“Is the healer your king, or am I?”

“Father.” I smoothed the neckline of his tunic back in place from where it had slipped over one frail shoulder. “You’ve already had a cup. You know too much wine makes you ill.”

“Who cares? I’ve been ill for a good part of the past twenty years!” He took a sip of the brew I held out to him and spat it back in the cup. “You call this tea? It tastes like dog piss!”

For years, I had worried over my father’s declining health and ability to protect me, the palace healers unable to ascertain how long he would live. Miraculously, though, King Arshak had continued to live year after year. He had turned eighty last winter, his silver beard now the white of spun sugar, his once smooth skin a rough riverbed of lines. Most of his hair had fallen out as well, leaving behind a scalp constellated with liver spots. The greatest change, however, had been in his disposition, our once calm and collected king turning seemingly overnight into someone who remained consistently bad-tempered—who snapped at everyone over the smallest of things.

With a sigh, I handed the cup back to the harried servant. “It’s all right, Parvez Agha. We’ll try again later.”

When the servant left the room, I spoke to my father again. “That was uncalled for, Father. That tea is one of your favorites.”

“Hmmph.” His rheumy gaze narrowed. I expected him to reprimand me, but instead he changed the subject. “Where is my grandson? Why hasn’t he been here to see me?”

“Sohrab is in training, Father,” I reminded. “It’s the last day of the month.”

“It’s training day?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

A pang went through me at the confusion on his face.

It won’t be long, the courtiers whispered among themselves. Not long until the crown prince takes the throne.

Not that it mattered much. Zende Razm was our king in all but name, having spent the past decade administering the land, resolving disputes among our people, and ensuring our borders were secure—in essence, doing everything my father no longer could.

On the nights that he visited my bedchamber, Zende Razm discussed these matters of court with me, often asking for my opinion. This was a first as no one had ever cared about what I thought before, not even Father.

“I care,” Zende Razm had said once, his dark gaze piercing me in a way that was both warm and discomfiting. “I’ve always cared, Tahmineh.”

“You should marry again.” My father’s comment pulled me out of my reverie. “No sense in waiting for a husband who will not come.”

I flushed. I had tried to keep my affair with Zende Razm quiet. My lover did not visit me more than a couple of times each month, nor did he stay for the whole night. I, for my part, never entered his chambers in the royal wing. Though I was certain that the servants had guessed about it by now and so had some of the courtiers. But no one spoke of it in front of me or Sohrab, not even in the form of sly comments and taunts. I had ensured it by walking into their dreams at night. By morphing their memories and their certainties, casting doubts about whether they had seen the crown prince near my bedchamber at all.

Father, however, was the one exception to that rule. He gazed at me now, clear-eyed, his fingers lightly brushing mine. “I know what it’s like to be abandoned by the one you love,” he said, his voice gentler than it had been the whole morning. “And you deserve to be happy, my daughter.”

I said nothing. I wondered what he would say if he knew the true reason behind Rostam leaving me. If he would ever look upon me with such kindness again.

A knock sounded on the door. A tall figure ducked under the frame, still barefoot and dressed in the patterned blue, knee-length loincloth common to wrestlers at the zoorkhaneh, his short brown tunic clinging to his broad chest.

My father’s face broke into its first real smile of the day. “Sohrab! You came!”

“I missed seeing you, Grandfather.” My son grinned widely, revealing a chipped front tooth. Warmth flooded my chest at the sight of him—so tall and strong—a boy, who was already parasangs ahead of his peers when it came to wrestling and other forms of close combat, regardless of his farr.

The magic flashed around his shoulders now, blue light glimmering through the dimly lit room. “Why are you both sitting here in the dark?” Sohrab said, gently taking Father’s hand in his own. “You should be outside. The day is glorious and not too hot either.”

“Tell your mother,” Father grumbled. “She’s my jailer these days.”

I rolled my eyes. “If you want to go out, you’ll have to let the guards carry you in your chair. I won’t have you falling down again and breaking more bones.” It had been hard enough healing his fractured ankle the last time.

Father scowled at me but did not argue.

“I can help carry him, Mother,” Sohrab said confidently. “I’m strong enough, aren’t I?”

He certainly was. When he was younger, I’d briefly nurtured the foolish hope that Sohrab would take to learning and scholarship and perhaps become a physician or a priest. But my son despised sitting in one place for hours at a time and often looked for ways to escape his lessons, driving his tutors mad with exasperation. Eventually I gave up, forced to accept that he would make a better paladin than he ever would a scholar. Indeed, the older Sohrab grew, the harder it was not to see flashes of another man in him. A man I’d never been able to forget, no matter how hard I’d tried.

I nodded. “Yes, all right. But you must be careful. And you will be accompanied by the guards while you carry the chair.”

“I don’t need a chair,” Sohrab said. And then, before I could protest, he lifted Father up in his arms, cradling him to his chest. “See?”

For once, even the king was startled into silence.

I wanted to rebuke Sohrab—to say that it wasn’t seemly for a monarch to be carried around in public like an infirm child.

But the king is infirm, I reminded myself. And this method, unconventional as it was, was practical, Sohrab’s steady arms and sure feet making quick work of transporting his grandfather to the lawn, where a comfortable chair had been set up by the servants, along with a parasol for shade and a small table of refreshments.

“Ahhh, the sun.” My father sighed with pleasure, soaking it in. “How I’ve missed it.”

It wasn’t long before he fell into a doze and I gestured to the servants to hold up the parasol.

I expected Sohrab to leave as he usually did once the king fell asleep—more interested these days in riding his horse or spending time with his cousins over his mother. But instead, he plopped onto the grass next to my chair and leaned an elbow on my armrest. “See?” he said, grinning as Father snored in the background. “I told you I could do it.”

“You were right.”

“Mother!” he exclaimed, cringing as I ruffled his hair. “Please. I’m not a small child anymore!”

In response, I took his face in my hands and smacked a loud kiss to his forehead. “To me, you will always be a baby.”

Sohrab rolled his eyes, but for once, he did not move away. Instead, he sighed and gave in to my touch, allowing me to breathe in the soap-and-sandalwood scent of his hair, to stroke his curls the way I used to when he was small, and still not old enough to be embarrassed by his mother.

“Mother,” he said softly, “can we go and see my father in Zabul this Nowruz?”

My hands stilled. I took a sip of grape sharbat from a cup, bracing myself for the answer that had been growing more and more common over the past nine years. “I don’t think it’s wise, Sohrab. It’s much too soon.”

He raised his head from where it was resting on his arm. “Too soon for what?” he demanded. “How much longer must we wait?”

I glared at Sohrab and shot a glance at my father. Thankfully the king was still fast asleep.

Sohrab glared right back at me—another thing that had become more common—but he did lower his voice. “It’s been fourteen years since Father last came to Samangan,” he said. “I don’t understand. If he can’t visit us, why can’t we go to meet him?”

“He has forbidden it for the sake of his first wife. She does not approve of me and I don’t want you humiliated before his court.” I’d given this excuse so many times by now that I’d begun to believe it myself. Certainly, it still seemed more plausible than a prophecy about Sohrab’s possible death in battle.

“But Father knows about me, doesn’t he?” Sohrab persisted. “You told him, didn’t you, about how good I am in the zoorkhaneh? How I’m to be made a knight soon at our court?”

“Of course he does.”

I should have gotten used to the lying. To continually making promises I would never keep. But my gut twisted at the sight of my son’s face—at the hope and desperation entwined there.

Sohrab is a good boy, I’d last written to Rostam. Though he is much better with scrolls and books than training for battle. I worry for his health all the time. He gets so easily bruised and wounded. The generals here in Samangan think he may be better suited for priesthood.

So many lies—and for so long. It was a wonder that Rostam believed in them. And yet he had never come to check on Sohrab for himself, nor had he called his son back to Iran. As relieved as this made me, a part of me was also furious. Was Sohrab only of value to Rostam if he was strong? What if there had been no prophecy and our son really had been infirm? Would Rostam have cared about him at all? Or would he have cast him aside for other healthier children?

“Is Father angry with me?” Sohrab asked, his voice so small that it broke me to hear it. “Have I done something wrong, Mother?”

“You have not,” I said firmly. “Your father is proud of you.”

Or he would be—if he knew the truth.

It might’ve been easier if I had used these years to poison my son against his father—as Zari had advised. If I’d simply told Sohrab that Rostam was a cruel, indifferent man who hurt me and did not care about his son. Yet the lie stilled on my tongue whenever I’d looked at Sohrab’s young, innocent face.

Was it really bad, I’d wondered, to give my child this small measure of the truth?

“Your father is a powerful man,” I told Sohrab. “This means that many people are fighting for his attention and time. But it does not mean that he doesn’t love you.”

Sohrab shrugged, moving away when I attempted to lay a hand on his arm. A stone formed in my throat. It had been easier to console him when he was younger. Easier to pretend I could fulfill the needs of both mother and father in his life.

“Son,” I said, struck by sudden inspiration, “did I tell you about the first gift your father ever gave me?”

“I know. The three rubies,” Sohrab said in a dull voice.

“No. Not the rubies.”

My son looked up, exasperated. “Your necklace, then. Or that crown.”

“Neither.”

This time, a hint of curiosity. “What did he give you, then?”

“Come with me.”

After ensuring that my father was still asleep, I led Sohrab back to my room, where I withdrew an old onyx armlet from my wooden jewelry box.

“This,” I said, “belonged to your father. On our marriage night, he gave it to me and told me to give it to our first child.”

Sohrab stared at the jewel, glistening at the center of my palm like an eye. “That’s Father’s? Why didn’t you give it to me before?”

Because it was too painful, I wanted to say. Because every time I looked at it, I remembered the woman I once was. The one who believed that anything was possible.

“I was going to give it to you next year, when you came of age,” I said, instead—the truth. “But you are old enough now, I think. Would you like me to help you wear it?”

He nodded so hard that I couldn’t help but smile at his eagerness.

“There.” I tied it securely around his right arm. “It fits you as it did him.”

Sohrab’s face flushed with genuine pleasure. “Thank you, Mother,” he whispered, wrapping me in a hug. “Thank you!”

“It was always yours.” I burrowed my nose in his chest, no longer scented like milk and honey, but iron and sandalwood, lingering in a shared closeness that was growing rarer and rarer as the years passed.

All too soon, Sohrab wriggled free from my grip. “I need to show this to everyone!”

I followed him out the door and watched as he displayed a muscled arm to the maids in the corridor. “Look at what Mother gave me! This armlet belonged to my father, Rostam, and now it’s mine!”

As the women gushed over the armlet, I grew aware of someone else watching us. A small, familiar figure from farther down the hall, the jeweled rings on her hands catching sunlight from a nearby window. Queen Sussan had rarely spoken to me after my encounter with Afrasyab fourteen years ago. Over the years, her taunts and rebukes had grown few and far between—or at least it seemed that way to me, busy as I was raising my son.

“Age slows down everyone,” Father had told me once in reference to my stepmother—though I had never quite believed him.

But today, as Sohrab rushed over to show Sussan his armlet, I saw her give him a rare smile, along with a pat on the cheek. The smile remained as she turned to face me—one that I hesitantly returned. I stayed where I was, waiting as the queen glided over to me.

“He is handsome,” she said. “Your son.”

“He reminds me of Noshir.” The words slipped out—a truth I’d never spoken aloud. “I mean… the way he smiles. His innocence.”

Did Sussan’s perfect mouth harden ever so slightly? Or was I imagining things—prone as I was to thinking the worst of my stepmother?

To my surprise, Sussan took hold of my hand. “Will you show me the place you last saw Noshir? I…” Her fingers trembled in my palm. “I… have never been able to go there. But I think I should. If only once.”

On instinct, I wanted to shrink back. To make up some excuse and turn her away. It was hard enough for me to go to the place where Noshir died. I did not know if I wanted to take Sussan there at all. Yet even as I had the thought, it struck me as remarkably selfish. Sussan may have been cruel to me, yes. But that was years ago. And she was still Noshir’s mother. As a mother myself now, I could understand her grief and anger with me in ways I hadn’t before.

“All right,” I said. “I can take you tomorrow.”

“No! Now.” She shook her head, her eyes glinting with unshed tears. “If I don’t do it now, I don’t know when I’ll have the courage to do so again.”

It was strange to walk out of the palace and into the woods, to lead Sussan to my mother’s river—the rock where I had last seen Noshir. Sussan stood by the rock for a long time, her gaze focused inward as if on an old memory, her hand repeatedly stroking the craggy surface.

“I need to bring flowers. No, not these,” she said, when I gestured to the pale pink anemones blooming by the river. “I need flowers that have been blessed by the priests.”

“I’ll take you—”

“There is no need.” She squeezed my hands. “I… I need some time to myself. I won’t be long. Will you wait for me here?”

“All right.”

I watched her go, almost feeling like I was in an astral dream, removed from my own body, gazing at the scene below. Eventually I came to myself again and turned to the rock. I had not looked at it during my visits to the river, had actively avoided even glancing in its direction. Today, though…

I reached out a hand and placed it where my little brother had once lain, his head turned sideways, eyes closed as if in slumber. I could not see him here anymore. Nor remember what his face looked like. Pain bloomed through my chest. I was so lost in thought that I barely registered the sound of quiet feet against the grass, the scent of wild thyme infusing the air.

Strong arms encircled my waist and a warm mouth brushed my ear. “Missed me, did you?” a voice murmured. “Mmm, I see you wore your green dress today. I always did love seeing you in it.”

My body recognized his touch before my mind did, melting into it despite my shock. “Zende Razm!” I stifled a gasp of pleasure as he began to kiss the curve of my neck. “What are you doing here?”

“Don’t tease me, my lady.” His large hands rose up my rib cage and grazed the underside of my breasts. “You called me here, remember?”

“What do you mean? I didn’t… I was here with…” My voice trailed off.

I thought of the way Sussan had acted in my presence, her odd friendliness, the tears in her eyes that never seemed to fall.

“Zende Razm,” I said sharply. “Let go of me!”

“Mother?” a voice cried out. “What are you doing?”

I broke free of Zende Razm’s grip, my breath catching at the sight of Sohrab standing a few feet away from us, his face ashen. Next to Sohrab was Sussan, looking like a cat who had chanced upon a wounded bird.

“Now do you believe me, Sohrab?” my stepmother said in a voice that was simultaneously tender and cruel. “This is why your father never comes to see you.” Sussan finally looked at me, her mouth curving in contempt. “Because of your faithless mother.”

20.

“SOHRAB, NO!” I CRIED OUT. “It isn’t like that!”

“Then what is it like?” Sohrab demanded. “Because it seems pretty obvious to me!”

“Sohrab,” Zende Razm said. “Listen to me, son—”

The air rippled with a crack, followed by a burst of blue farr. I raised my arms, shielding my face from the sparks that emerged, one nearly singeing my skin. Even Sussan’s face lost its previous glee, and she began backing away from us.

Zende Razm was the only one who did not move. Who stood calm in the face of Sohrab’s rage, seemingly impervious to the burn mark on his sleeve. “Sohrab—” he began again. “Please, listen—”

“Don’t call me son.” Pain was etched across Sohrab’s features. “You are not my father. You will never be my father!” His gaze cut toward me, the look filled with such hate and disgust that I nearly recoiled.

What have I done? Panic swirled wildly within me before I forced myself to slow down and think.

Objectively, Sussan had laid a clever trap. Earlier today, she had fooled me into believing that the venom in her blood had finally cooled. But it was clear now that my stepmother had never accepted Noshir’s death for the accident it was. Sussan had lost her son. And now she had sown the seeds to ensure I would lose mine—unless I spun this whole sorry situation to my advantage.

“Sohrab, listen,” I said. “What you saw today wasn’t something I or Zende Razm planned. It pains me to say this, but your father lost interest in me after our marriage. It became more evident as the years went by and he did not return to visit, always making some excuse or another.” I allowed my lower lip to tremble. “I was heartbroken. You were so small and always asking me about Rostam. I did not know what to tell you! But then Zende Razm stepped in. He played with you, took you riding and hunting, and enrolled you in the zoorkhaneh, so that you could become a mighty warrior—the best in Samangan. As time went by, I couldn’t help but be drawn to him myself.”

I could feel both Zende Razm and Sussan staring at me. Wondering how much of what I just said was true. But they did not matter right now.

“Mother.” Sohrab flinched. “Please stop talking.”

I watched the blue halo around his head and shuddered with relief to see it slowly fade, the heat in the air receding to a cool breeze once more.

“Nonsense!” Sussan let out a snort. “A man has every right to leave behind his wife—especially if he’s a warrior. A good woman will remain loyal to her husband—no matter the circumstances.”

I ignored her. “I never meant to hurt you, son,” I whispered, taking Sohrab’s hand. “Please. Believe me.”

“I can’t do this,” he said, his voice raw. “Not now.”

He withdrew from me, his tall body disappearing into the woods, his tread soft, his gait painfully like his father’s.

Sussan did not follow. She watched me instead, seething. “You’ve always thought yourself so clever, haven’t you? Always so used to getting your way. Perhaps now, you will begin to think twice. To learn humility the way you should have long ago.”

Anger spiked through me at her words. “Humility?” I let out a harsh laugh. “Why should I learn humility when you’ve never understood the meaning of the word, Shahbanu? You were Noshir’s mother. He loved you and would have done anything for you. But you weren’t satisfied with that. You wanted him all to yourself. You discouraged him from playing with me because I was born with daeva blood. You couldn’t bear the thought of him calling me his sister. Noshir hated you for it, did you know? He told me that the day before he died.”

I’d never spoken of this before. Noshir likely didn’t mean the words—young as he was—and so I’d let go of the memory, knowing that it would only hurt a mother grieving her child. But today, I no longer cared. Today, I experienced only cold, bitter satisfaction on seeing Sussan’s face crumple like old parchment.

“Witch!” she choked out. “You don’t have the right to say Noshir’s name!”

As she fled into the woods, Zende Razm came to stand beside me. “She set a trap for us,” he said tightly. “I should have known something was wrong when that servant—her servant—came to give me a message from you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, weary all of a sudden. The damage was already done.

Whenever I tried to approach Sohrab or talk to him, he would abruptly get up and walk away, or worse, completely ignore my presence. He snubbed Zende Razm in equal measure and began spending more time with his grandfather or the men at the zoorkhaneh. Once he left without warning on a weeklong hunting expedition with his cousins to the forests bordering Turan.

“The hunting will greatly improve his mood,” Father reassured me. “Come, Tahmineh, let the boy be. He will return to you when he is ready.”

I could have, of course, spied on Sohrab and his companions in an astral dream. Or I could have tugged on the glittering blue thread that allowed me to walk into his dreams from the underworld, carefully working my magic to remind my son how much he loved me. He would not forget what he’d seen that afternoon. But he might begin acknowledging my presence again. Perhaps he might even forgive me.

Ultimately, though, I decided to take my father’s advice. Over the years, I had invaded many dreams, manipulated many minds—always for selfish reasons, always to my advantage. Tempted as I was, I couldn’t do the same to Sohrab now. I couldn’t bear to betray him more than I already had.

A month later, when the weather had warmed and the lawn was strewn with pink almond blossoms, I finally saw Sohrab again. He was waiting for me in my room, his hair browned by the sun, his sharp profile outlined against my window.

My heart, dulled by the long weeks of our separation, quickened to life. “Sohrab?”

“Good morning, Mother. I would like to discuss something with you.” He spoke with care, a stilted formality to his words.

“I’ll send for refreshments,” I said.

“There’s no need. I won’t be staying long.”

The words gave me pause and I looked more closely at him, noting the shadows under his eyes, the hard, determined set to his jaw.

“Will you sit, at least?” I asked. “Surely you can do that much for your old mother.”

He scowled at my words but didn’t argue, settling on my wooden bench, which creaked under his weight. I sat across from him on my bed, noting the way he twisted his velvet riding cap in his hands—a thing he always did when struggling to find words.

“Grandfather said I should speak to you,” Sohrab said after a pause. “Get your permission first.”

“My permission?” I frowned. “For what?”

“To conquer Iran,” he said calmly—as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “I plan to raise an army and take the throne for my father. He will be a much better ruler than that imbecile emperor Kavus.”

I stared at him, wondering if this was a joke—part of some wild prank he’d concocted with his friends to get back at me for what I’d done.

But Sohrab had never been good at lying, and his expression remained dead serious.

“Are you mad?” I said. “You cannot possibly think you’ll conquer Iran!”

“I can do it with my farr. Grandfather said that if you agree, I will have the backing of Samangan’s army and enough gold to recruit mercenaries on the way.”

“I do not believe he said that to you.” Besotted as King Arshak was with his grandson, he wouldn’t send Sohrab to his own death.

“He did!” Sohrab said, but his words were too forceful, too insistent. When I continued to glare at him, he shrugged. “Well, he said that if I did the impossible and convinced you, then I could go, but—”

“That’s right,” I interrupted. “I am not convinced. You are not going anywhere!”

His hands fisted around his knees, knuckles turning pale. “You’re not even listening to me, Mother. I have a plan. A real strategy to conquer Iran!”

“You are fourteen years old,” I pointed out. “If you think your so-called strategy will work against experienced generals hardened by years of war, you are sadly mistaken.”

“But Grandfather said—”

“I am your mother! I carried you in my womb for nine months. My body nearly broke bringing you into this world. I have cared for you, have seen to your every need in ways you can’t even imagine! So don’t you dare act like I’ll let you gladly march off to your own death.”

Sohrab looked mutinous. “I do not deny that you have performed your duty admirably, Mother. But I, too, have a duty to my father. I must prove myself worthy as Rostam’s son.”

I wanted to shake him. To point out that I had not cared for him out of mere duty. But then his last sentence began to sink in.

I must prove myself worthy as Rostam’s son.

I understood the enormity of that statement—noted the way it made Sohrab soar with pride while simultaneously weighing him down. There were expectations of being Rostam’s son. Trials to overcome if Sohrab had any hope of gaining his father’s attention—or love.

My anger began to fade in the face of overwhelming guilt. I was the one who had caused this. The reason my son now thought his father did not love him.

“Listen,” I said with utmost gentleness. “Your father already loves you. There is no need to make such a grand gesture to earn his affection.”

Sohrab’s throat bobbed. “If that were true, he would have come to visit or called me to Zabul. But he hasn’t. He clearly thinks I’m not worthy.”

“You are worthy! But drastic measures like these will not earn you Rostam’s approval. Even with your farr, you do not have the army or resources needed to fight with Iran. Their cavalry alone is ten times the size of Samangan’s. You might win a battle or two, but you will have no chance in a siege or a years-long war. You will be crushed and so will our kingdom!”

“Not if I ally with Turan.”

A cold sweat broke out over my brow. “Turan? What do you mean?”

Sohrab hesitated for a brief moment. “I hadn’t been planning to tell you this, but a few months ago, I received a letter from Emperor Afrasyab along with an invitation to visit him in Kangdez. I ignored it at first because I knew you and Grandfather didn’t like him. But last month, I decided to write back to him, asking what he thought of my plan to conquer Iran.”

My fingers curled into my palms, my nails digging crescents into the flesh. “What did Afrasyab say?”

“He was happy to hear from me, Mother. He said Turan would gladly supplement our army with twelve thousand of their own soldiers. Not only that, he also said he would give me a rank higher than that of his generals. I would be in charge of the whole campaign!”

Strangers who met Sohrab often thought he was older than fourteen, his tall, muscular frame and chiseled face giving the impression of a young man of eighteen, even twenty. But I only saw his inexperience—a boy still too innocent for the world he was about to enter.

“You must not trust Afrasyab,” I warned. “He is wily and cruel and motivated by his own selfish purposes. He has always hated your father. Trust me when I say that he has no intention of letting Rostam sit on Iran’s throne. He only wishes to use you, Sohrab!”

“So?” Sohrab shrugged, utterly unfazed by my words. “I’m planning to use him, too. When Father and I reunite, we will take both Iran and Turan. Afrasyab does not stand a chance against the combined farr of Rostam and his son.”

“Your father doesn’t even know what you look like!” My voice rose in frustration. “Do you think he will recognize you when you fight under his enemy’s banner? Do you think he will stop midbattle to ask, ‘Are you my son?’”

Sohrab’s face flushed a deep red, sparks of blue farr flaming his hairline. “Why must you doubt me, Mother? Have I not proven my strength time and time again?”

“It is not your strength I doubt!”

Briefly, I considered telling Sohrab about Zari’s prophecy—the utter certainty with which I could now predict that either he or Rostam would die at the other’s hand. But doing so would only lead to more questions. Sohrab might be naïve, but he was no fool. Eventually he would understand the truth behind his father’s absence and my role in it, along with Zende Razm. My son would not speak to me again, let alone trust me.

“What is it, then?” Sohrab pressed when I remained silent. “Is it my father? Are you jealous that I love him more than you?”

The question was meant to hurt me, of course. But far from doing so, it struck me as the most ridiculous thing I’d heard. Laughter burst out of me before I could hold it back, resulting in Sohrab angrily storming from my room.

A part of me was tempted to follow, to call him back and apologize. But that would only make him think he was right. No. I exhaled sharply. Now wasn’t the time to go after him. He would be easier to talk to after he’d worked off his temper at the zoorkhaneh or riding his horse by the river.

I will control myself, too, I vowed. Be more considerate about his feelings.

As the day bled into night, however, a maid came to inform me that Sohrab had not yet returned to the palace.

“What do you mean he’s not in his room?” I asked sharply. “Is he still in the zoorkhaneh?”

“No, Your Highness. He was last seen this afternoon by the stable hand who saddled his horse.”

“Impossible,” I muttered, rising to my feet. “He must be back. You just haven’t seen him.”

But Sohrab wasn’t back. And no one had seen him since that afternoon apart from the stable hand who confirmed the maid’s story.

Panic clawed at my insides. I checked the zoorkhaneh again and the archery grove. I combed through the cedar woods, hoping, praying that Sohrab had hidden there again—the way he had once when he was still a small child.

“Sohrab!” I shouted, my voice causing a flock of birds to abruptly take flight from a tree. “Sohrab! Where are you?”

There was no answer. I felt his absence deep in my bones as I combed every pathway that led to the river and craned my neck to look up every tree.

An hour later, a search party was arranged, and Zende Razm and a few men rode out into the city on horseback, calling Sohrab’s name.

“You should try and sleep, Your Highness,” Binaifer told me quietly as we watched them leave. “The crown prince will surely find Sohrab.”

I said nothing in response. Sleep was impossible and—to my irritation—so was astral dreaming. Every time I attempted to float outside my physical body, my soul slipped back as if it were made of water, my magic exhausting itself before I could reach the palace gates.

You are tired, my mind warned. Your body needs rest for the magic to work.

This hadn’t been a problem when I was younger, my ability to magically travel rarely ever affected by lack of sleep or exhaustion. Now, though, I needed to sleep. To rest and recover so that I could find Sohrab. The reminder edged me into a fitful slumber. At dawn, I woke again and this time, my magic worked.

I floated out of my body, scanning the area outside the palace, thinking hard about where Sohrab could have gone. He had friends among the noblemen, some of whom had houses in the city. But Zende Razm and his men must have already searched those places. No. Sohrab must have gone elsewhere.

Zabul?

It was logical that Sohrab would try to go and see his father. After our quarrel yesterday, it seemed likely he might head there. But when I tried to press forth into Iran, I felt the crackle of an invisible barrier—the angel Meher promising retribution if I tried to venture any farther.

Frustrated, I was about to try again, when I noted a cluster of horsemen riding across the dusty plains wearing the familiar russet cloaks of Samangani warriors. I flew downward, hovering close as they crossed into our border and paused to set up camp. Zende Razm looked exhausted—as if he’d been riding all night.

“What will you tell the shahdoxt?” one of the men asked as a squire poured them cups of wine.

“The truth.” Zende Razm sighed. “That we rode to Zabul looking for Sohrab and that he wasn’t there.”

“Rostam’s first wife didn’t seem too happy to see us.”

Zende Razm shrugged. “She did make it clear that no young man had come their way. I doubt she would have wanted Sohrab to meet Rostam.”

My mind raced. Had Sohrab gone to Zabul and been turned away before he even saw his father? Or had he never gone to Zabul at all?

Ice crept up my limbs. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Not after I’d warned him.

Yet there seemed to be no other explanation.

With effort, I forced myself to move, to resolutely fly in the direction opposite the one Zende Razm and his men had come from. Over the gleaming river and gray-blue mountains, over canyons blooming green with juniper forests and peaked clusters of cypress trees.

Northward into the capital of Turan.

21.

WHEN SOHRAB WAS TEN, HE asked me for a horse of immense strength and speed—one that would not tire no matter how hard and fast he drove it, or worse, try to buck him off when he began using his farr.

“What I really want is a horse like Rakhsh,” he’d said, sounding wistful. “But that would be impossible, wouldn’t it, Mother?”

“Why would it?” I’d replied. “Rakhsh, after all, was found right here in Samangan.”

Farid, the old stable master, had still been alive back then. He was the one who told us about the horses—wild stallions and mares that rode across the Samangani plains to drink from the river once every few months during the summer, when the sun rose high and bright in the afternoon sky. “Be careful with them, Your Highness,” he’d warned. “Wild things do not like to be tamed.”

But by then, I was determined to perform the miraculous. To have my son look at me with the same awe that overcame him while listening to stories about his father.

I took Sohrab with me to the river, alongside our strongest stable hands. Not that my son needed them. He shortly spotted the horse he wanted: a pale golden colt with a broad forehead, thin nose, and long slender legs. A sunbeam in a storm cloud of dappled grays and chestnuts. As beautiful as the sleek mount looked, I was uncertain if he would be able to carry my son, let alone handle Sohrab’s favored speed.

But then I saw the colt run—his hard hooves driving holes into the sunbaked earth as he evaded Sohrab’s lariat over and over, so swift and sure that my son was ultimately forced to use his farr to run and give chase himself. He leaped onto the colt’s back and held on for dear life with his knees. Heart in throat, I watched Sohrab wrap his arms around the horse’s strong, slender neck and whisper something in his ear.

I never learned what Sohrab had told the horse or if there was any magic to his words. But they had the miraculous effect of calming the colt down and accepting the weight of the rider on his back.

“I shall call him Tez for his speed!” Sohrab had told me, his face radiant with joy. “Thank you for helping me find him, Mother!”

It was the happiest I’d seen him—the happiest we had ever been together as mother and son.

Now, as I flew toward the fortress at Kangdez, I could see the telltale signs of Sohrab’s presence: scorch marks against the trees and rocks, along with Tez’s familiar prints denting the earth. They had covered parasangs of distance with a speed that only I could match—and that, too, only in an astral dream.

Why hadn’t I thought of tracking Tez before? Why hadn’t Zende Razm or any of the others? Why had we all instantly assumed that Sohrab would go and seek out Rostam?

He clearly thinks I’m not worthy of him.

My heart splintered at the memory. I had done this. I had driven Sohrab and Rostam so far apart that my son now trusted the enemy more than he did his own father.

And the enemy took full advantage. Afrasyab stepped down from this throne, where Sohrab was kneeling in supplication, and raised the boy to his feet with his own hands.

“Come now, young man,” the Turanian emperor said in a voice so gentle it could almost be mistaken as fatherly. “There is no need for this. As I have said before, we Turanians have no hesitation in fully supporting one so strong and valiant as yourself. Is that not so?”

The last statement invoked a chorus of cheers, followed by a chant: “Sohrab! Sohrab! Sohrab!”

The emperor raised a hand and silence filled the room. His black shadows encircled Sohrab, as if in an embrace.

“As a token of my promise, let me present you with these gifts.” Afrasyab clapped his hands twice.

Servants emerged bearing a turquoise and ivory throne, a crown of amber tipped with pearls, and at the very back, a chest the length and size of a man, the lid uncovered to reveal shining gold armor within, its surface polished like mirrors.

Afrasyab picked up the gold helmet, plumed with eagle feathers, and held it out to a stunned Sohrab. “For you, Sohrab, the son and grandson of champions. From henceforth, you shall be known as Turan’s Golden Warrior—higher than any ranking general in the army, second only to the emperor himself.”

He turned to the court. “None of you will speak his name; you are not worthy. Instead, you will address him only by the title he bears: a title that will be written into history and into the blood of empires.”

Sohrab flushed with pleasure as the court roared: “GOL-DEN WAR-RIOR! GOL-DEN WAR-RIOR!”

A tremor went through me. I was not fooled by Afrasyab’s pretty words or his grand gesture. Nor did I miss the sly looks he exchanged with two hard-faced courtiers at the front. Afrasyab had not been wrong when he’d said that he and I were alike. Because now, even unspoken, the Turanian emperor’s plan was clear to me. Afrasyab had no intention of letting anyone in the Iranian army—let alone Rostam—know who Sohrab was. His generals would spur Sohrab onward, encouraging him to kill Rostam before Sohrab realized who his father was. And then, before my son grew wise to what had happened, they would kill him, too.

A shiver went through me, my control over my magic beginning to unravel. The tether to my astral dream snapped, forcing me back into my physical form. My mouth was dry as sandpaper, my body aching and limp, as if I’d been running for hours.

I forced myself to sit, to walk to the chest where I kept parchment for my letters.

Dear Rostam, I wrote, my script shaky, the tip of the stylus pressing too hard into the paper. I think it’s time I told you something about your son…

I wrote down everything. The prophecy after Sohrab’s birth. My lies and attempts to protect them both. My son’s misguided plans to conquer Iran, along with the moniker the Turanian emperor had anointed him with: Golden Warrior.

Kill me if you wish, I wrote at the end. But please, Rostam. Don’t hurt Sohrab. He is innocent in all this. A boy desperate for his father’s love.

I sealed the message and sent it off with our swiftest rider to Zabul, praying it would reach Rostam in time.

Two days passed. Then three. On the morning of the fourth day, the messenger finally returned—without a reply.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “He wrote nothing back? Nothing at all?”

“No, Your Highness,” the man said. “General Rostam’s steward said that he would be back with a reply, so I waited for two days. When the sun set on the third day, I was asked to leave. When I said that Princess Tahmineh was waiting for a reply, the guards threatened to throw me out. So I left.”

I frowned. “This does not make any sense. Why would he not reply? Was Rostam even there?”

“Yes, he was, Your Highness! I saw him ride in on Rakhsh shortly after I arrived.”

This is madness, I thought. Had Rostam truly changed so much in these fourteen years? Or had something else happened? Some mix-up that had prevented him from seeing my message altogether?

“Thank you, Darab,” I told the messenger. “I’ll have the kitchen send food and water for you in the stables.”

“Your Highness.” Darab bowed gratefully.

Once he’d left, I called for Binaifer. “Tell the stable hand to ready a horse for me. At once.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” the maid said, looking surprised. “But where are you going?”

“To my husband.” I gave her a thin smile. “Where else?”

In my forty-five years as a princess, I had not traveled anywhere outside Samangan except once with my father and stepmother to the emperor’s court in Turan, when I was a very small child. I was not like some of my other female cousins, who longed to leave our small kingdom and explore other realms. My magic had already allowed me to see far-flung places and people—and while I marveled at some of the sights, nothing had really tempted me to leave the place I called home.

Iran was the only empire I had not been able to see with my magic and had admittedly been curious about, especially during the first few months of my marriage to Rostam. If the stories were to be believed, my husband lived in a land of perfectly laid-out cities with tall date palms and polished stone roads, of painted houses with fountains in their courtyards, of grand bazaars and domed palaces, their marble archways studded with gold, silver, and precious gems.

Zabul, however, was anything but orderly—a province thick with forests and lakes, a land where villages and hamlets could unexpectedly materialize next to a river or the middle of a wide turquoise lagoon. The air was sticky, ripe with the scent of sweet dogwood and sour musk. I threw off my hood, regretting the light woolen cloak I’d chosen to wear—for simply assuming that the weather here would be similar to that in Samangan.

“It won’t be long, Your Highness,” said my guide, an elderly Samangani guard named Narseh, who was familiar with this region. “We will be at General Rostam’s castle soon.”

The castle was on a steep hill overlooking a valley and an enormous lake that shifted colors from turquoise to blue to an inky black, the sun growing hotter the farther we climbed. On any other day, I might have found the view breathtaking. But my gaze kept drifting to the castle—a fortification of pale limestone buildings and ivory watchtowers, tiny triangular slits carved into the walls for hidden archers. This wasn’t simply a home, but residence to the marzban—the warden of Zabul—a title that had been in Rostam’s family for generations, a title that I knew he took very seriously as a protector of Iran.

My pulse quickened. It had been over a decade since I’d last seen my estranged husband. What would he think of my visit? Would he recognize me? Would he agree to see me at all?

I suddenly grew very conscious of my hair, which was no longer black, but thickly streaked with gray, my sagging breasts, the soft curve of my belly, which had never quite gone away after my pregnancy.

Stop it, I scolded. You are not here for yourself. You are here for Sohrab.

Yet as Narseh and I were let in through the arched entryway by a pair of curious guards, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of anticipation and nerves—much as I had that day in Samangan when Rostam had first entered my father’s palace, utterly unaware of what awaited him inside.

This time, I was the one who remained in the dark. Narseh stayed back at the gate, while I was taken by a maid to a spacious courtyard bordered with palm trees, its white walls draped with bougainvillea. A fountain bubbled at the center, forming a perfectly round pool of clear blue water.

“Marzban Rostam will be informed about your arrival,” the maid said, her eyes directed somewhere around the region of my chin. “Would you like some refreshment?”

“No.” Despite the long day of traveling, I was not hungry, my stomach in knots over the thought of having to see Rostam again. “Thank you.”

The maid bowed, leaving me alone in the courtyard. I took off my cloak and draped it over a carved stone bench. The sun had begun to set, a pleasant breeze ruffling a few loose strands of my braided hair. I breathed in gratefully, catching a whiff of citrus and mint mingling with the flowers—perhaps plants from a nearby herb garden? I scanned the area, wondering if there was a passage hidden between two of the trees, but could not tell for certain in the quickly dimming light.

It had taken us nearly a whole day of nonstop riding to reach Rostam’s castle in Zabul—a distance my husband could cover in a third of the time with the aid of his farr. My skin prickled with the feeling of being watched. I glanced up at the window overlooking the courtyard, the latticed wood screen shadowed by a figure standing within. Unease crept up my spine.

Was it Rostam? Or was it—

“Tahmineh?”

The voice, though brusque, still had the effect of unspooling every coherent thought in my head.

“Husband,” I said, my voice catching on the word as I turned to face him. “Thank you for agreeing to see me.”

Rostam’s pale brown eyes narrowed. He was still taller and broader than most men I knew, except for my son, his muscled arms ridged with scars I did not recognize. His face was lined now, but still handsome, his wavy hair and beard no longer a coppery red but the color of rainclouds.

“Well, wife,” he said with a sneer. “What was so important that you came all the way here to see me?”

I shouldn’t have been surprised by his tone. But it stung all the same. “I sent you an important letter last week,” I said. “You never replied. I’m not sure if you received it.”

He rolled his eyes and sighed. “What is it this time? Do you want more gold? More jewels? Or something else in the name of that poor sickly boy you call our son?”

My hurt began giving way to anger. “What do you mean? I’ve never demanded anything from you. And Sohrab is not sickly! He’s—”

“Everyone always wants something from me!” The air crackled with silver heat, blistering my vision. I struggled to look at Rostam, his farr outlining his shoulders, casting the lines of his face in sharp relief. “My first wife, the emperor, you. Well, I don’t have time for this. My steward will make arrangements for anything you or the boy need.”

He turned, walking away at a rapid clip.

“Rostam!” I cried, breaking into a run. “Rostam, wait!”

I couldn’t catch him—not with his farr. By the time I reached the castle, a pair of spears had crossed my path, preventing me from following Rostam inside.

“Apologies, Shahdoxt,” a burly guard said, his tone polite, yet firm. “You cannot enter here. This is for the marzban and his family only.”

Overhead, I sensed that the figure behind the wooden screen was still watching the courtyard. Watching me. I said nothing, merely nodding at the guard.

“If you wish, you can stay at the castle tonight,” the guard added. There was an odd, pitying look on his face. “A maid can arrange a guest chamber for you.”

“There is no need.” A strange grittiness coated my tongue—as if I’d swallowed a mouthful of sand. “I’ve made arrangements for lodging in the nearby town.”

This, at least, was true. I returned to the courtyard, my back straight, and tucked my cloak under my arm. The servants and the guards watched me return to the gate, where Narseh was still waiting. I imagined their expressions, contemptuous and pitying, imagined the whispers that would erupt about how Rostam had finally cast out the witch he’d married.

They, after all, had known the truth. One that my mind had known deep down even though my heart had refused to accept it—that I was no longer Rostam’s family.

22.

TEN DAYS AFTER THE SEARCH party had left Samangan, Zende Razm and his men returned to me with news about Sohrab.

“He’s at the Turanian emperor’s court,” Zende Razm said, a wary look on his face. “I tried to bring him back. Told him that what he was doing was incredibly dangerous and foolish. But he wouldn’t listen to me. He’s still angry… about us.”

“I know.” My gaze drifted to the wall behind Zende Razm’s left ear. I could feel the soldiers staring at us, craning to hear every word.

“You also knew about Sohrab being in Turan, didn’t you?” he asked in a quiet voice.

I said nothing. Zende Razm and I had not spoken of my magic over these past fourteen years—apart from that one time after my marriage. He already knew I could walk into the dreams of other people. So I was not surprised that somehow, over the years, he had guessed I had another power as well—though he may not have known exactly what it was.

He sighed. “It’s all right, Tahmineh. You don’t need to tell me the details. I’m aware that you… sense things at times. As women do.”

I turned to look, really look at him—this man I’d known since childhood. The only man who knew me better than any other, except my father. Zende Razm, for his part, was gazing at me with a mixture of exasperation and fondness. A look that did not escape the notice of his soldiers.

Don’t look at me like that, I wanted to warn.

But it would not matter. Zende Razm would still look at me as he always did. Without guile or shame. With a clarity of mind and heart that I once envied and had now come to love.

My pulse quickened. “Can I talk to you? Alone?”

He nodded. We walked back to my bedchamber, side by side in broad daylight, not hiding ourselves from the servants, not caring about the whispers that would overtake the corridors once I shut the door.

Zende Razm draped his cloak and belt across my bench with practiced ease, and sat on my bed to take off his boots. Once he’d undone the strings of his tunic and pulled it off, I stepped close, letting him pull me between his thighs.

“Will you go?” I asked, as he made quick work of the laces on my dress, tugging it off so that I stood only in my thin sudreh, kusti, and underskirt. “With Sohrab?”

“Of course.” His fingers stilled against my skin. He looked up directly into my eyes. “I’m leaving tomorrow. I have given marching orders to our infantry and they have already left for Turan. Our cavalry will leave with me tomorrow. They have strict instructions to form a wall around your son on the battlefield and ensure he is protected at all times. I, myself, will do my best to always remain at Sohrab’s side.”

My throat narrowed, fear warring with relief. “It’s just… I don’t know what will happen to him in Turan. What Afrasyab might do.”

“He won’t hurt Sohrab, if that’s what worries you.” My underskirt fell, pooling around my feet. Zende Razm’s hands rested on my bare hips, his grip warm, steadying. “He would have already imprisoned him, otherwise.”

“You will need to show Sohrab who his father is.” I tugged on my kusti with frustration. “Even point Rostam out on the battlefield if needed. You will need to stop them both before the worst happens!”

Zende Razm gently caught hold of my hands. “Allow me,” he said, gesturing to my kusti.

I watched him undo the knots of the girdle and wrap it in a neat bundle before placing it on the bench next to his own. “You…” My mouth grew dry. “You do that so easily.”

“Undo you, you mean?” He smirked.

I rolled my eyes, a flush creeping up my neck. To hide my embarrassment, I tugged off my sudreh and climbed up on the bed, straddling his hips. His eyes darkened and, in that moment, I no longer worried about the stretch marks silvering my skin or my softening arms and belly. We came together in a practiced movement, our bodies wholly in sync as we fell into a rhythm that was both familiar and somehow entirely new. Zende Razm’s eyes were clenched shut, a groan forming on his lips that might have been a fragment of my name. I memorized the varying expressions on his face, an inexplicable tightness in my chest.

Afterward, when we both lay together in my bed, he said, “I meant to tell you this earlier before we… er, got distracted. You will be regent of Samangan when I’m gone. I’ve discussed it with King Arshak and the council already.”

For a long while, I simply lay there stunned. Then I sat up, ignoring the way his gaze locked onto my breasts. “What are you saying, Zende Razm? Me? Regent?”

He smiled a little. “You are the princess of Samangan and King Arshak’s only child. Who else would I choose to run the kingdom in my absence?”

“Your son,” I pointed out the obvious. “Kaizad is nearly twenty, isn’t he? Or any other man at court!”

“Why should I? You are stronger than any man I know.”

My mouth opened and closed. For once in my life, I was completely speechless.

Zende Razm tugged on my arm and reluctantly, I lay back down.

“I love Sohrab, too, you know,” he said after a pause. “I would die before I let anything happen to him.”

I smacked his chest. “Don’t say such things!”

Amusement flickered across his serious, handsome face. “Why, Tahmineh. I did not know you cared so much. Someone would think you’re in love with me.”

The comment was lighthearted, even mirthful—the sort he’d made before in the past without ever expecting an answer from me.

But the truth was… I did care for Zende Razm. Unlike Rostam, whom I’d fallen for in a way that was rapid, all-consuming, and fiery, my love for Zende Razm had crept up on me slowly. Day by day, hour by hour. With the gentleness of a river shaping a mountain, carving a path through the rocks that had never existed before.

“I am,” I said. “In love with you.”

His smile faded. “You… you love me?”

“I shouldn’t. Not really.” I laughed a little, heat rising to my face. “It’s so stupid—considering that you’re going to war now and might die, but—”

He cut me off midsentence with a kiss that was not the least bit gentle, but hard and ravenous. The sort I didn’t realize I’d been craving until he gave it to me—a kiss I returned with equal fervor as he climbed back over me, his mouth nipping kisses down my neck.

“I’m taking my time with you today,” he said, his low voice nearly a growl. “Making you mine.”

I let him, allowing myself to melt under his touch, to surrender to the sounds I’d always suppressed when we made love here in the dark, afraid that someone else would hear. Today, however, I feared nothing except for time itself, trickling away in the vessel of the water clock, in the passing shadows of the clouds and the sun.

“I wish I’d known sooner,” I whispered. “I wish I hadn’t—”

“Shhhh.” Tenderly Zende Razm brushed away the tear from my cheek. “No time for regrets, Shahdoxt. Unless”—he gave me a wicked grin—“there’s no better use you can put your mouth to.”

I narrowed my gaze. “Is that a challenge?”

“What do you think?”

In answer, I flipped him on his back and captured his laughter with my lips, imagining it encased within me for one glittering moment like a butterfly in amber.

23.

ZENDE RAZM LEFT AT DAWN, armored in chain mail and lamellar, a platoon of our kingdom’s best cavalry soldiers at his back. I watched them leave in orderly lines, my lips cold despite the last burning kiss he had pressed there. When the last horseman was gone, I turned to the courtiers whispering behind me.

“I want daily reports of the war,” I said. “Whatever information arrives—no matter how trivial. Do you understand?”

The men exchanged glances. I noted the doubt, the smirks on their faces, even as they bowed, demurring with a perfectly respectable “Yes, Your Highness.” Only two men looked at me with serious expressions—my father’s oldest advisor, Lord Bahman, who’d known me since I was a girl, and Zende Razm’s oldest son, Kaizad.

“Well?” I turned to the other men, my voice silencing their whispers. “Shall we head to court, gentlemen? Or do you plan to stand here for the rest of the day and gossip like the maids?”

My words, as cutting as Queen Sussan on her cruelest days, had the desired effect of sending embarrassed flushes through several of the courtiers.

“Your Highness, are you quite sure you wish to join us?” one dared to protest—a weak-chinned man named Shiamax. “Our days are often long and tedious. And court is not a place for women and their delicate sensibilities.”

“My dear Lord Shiamax.” I gave him a sweet smile. “There is nothing more long, tedious, or indelicate than the process of childbirth. So let me assure you I’m well up to the task.”

Shiamax’s mouth snapped shut, red patches appearing through his scraggly beard. But the other men were watching me more closely now, some with expressions of surprise on their faces, others with grudging admiration. Lord Bahman gave me an approving nod.

“Shall we, then?” I asked.

They bowed as one this time, and followed me into the palace without complaint.

“I hear you’ve been terrorizing my court?”

Father’s voice held a trace of censure as I came to see him later that week. I sat by his bed and fed him a spoonful of broth.

“Not any more than you,” I said truthfully. “After all that posturing by your men, I expected to be dealing with robbers and murderers, not a pair of farmers squabbling over cattle.”

Father croaked out a laugh that rapidly turned into a cough. I put aside the bowl of broth and dabbed the corners of his mouth with a clean cloth. Dark blood speckled the linen. I stared at it and said, “I’ll call the healer.”

“There’s no need.” Father gave me a weary look. “My time is coming, daughter.”

“You’ve been saying that for years.” I did my best to keep my voice even.

“It’s different this time. I feel it in my bones.” He looked at me, his gaze sharpening. “You are very like your mother, you know.”

I started, speechless for a few seconds. “I’ve guessed that I might look a little like her,” I said, trying to sound dismissive. “I’ve never seen her in person.”

“Not even at the river?”

I was ready to call his bluff. To deny any knowledge of or involvement with Zari. But somehow I couldn’t.

Father let out a sad little sigh. “It’s my fault, I suppose. I was the one who first poisoned you against her. Against those of her kind.”

“You didn’t poison me,” I protested, still a little stunned by this turn of conversation. “You never even mentioned her at court! Besides, Mother left me when I was a baby. She abandoned us both!”

“In her way, she did not. No, Tahmineh, let me finish,” he said, when I opened my mouth to argue. “I may not have spoken of Zari in public, but I said many bad things about her in private. To you and to Sussan. I did not want to accept that she was different. That she would always be different from the rest of us. Instead, I tried to make her into something she wasn’t. And when she rebelled, I took my hurt and turned it into a weapon against her.”

Was I the weapon? I wondered. I could not tell. Nor could I ask Father, who was tiring again, his eyelids beginning to droop.

“Father, you need rest. We can talk later.”

Snow-white lashes cast shadows against his wrinkled brown cheeks. But Father continued to speak. “Let go of your anger, my dear. Forgive your mother. Forgive me, too.”

“All right,” I whispered, stroking the fragile skin of his hand. “All right, Father.”

I waited until his chest began to rise and fall in slumber, then tucked the blanket around his body. They were the last words he would speak to me—or to anyone else.

King Arshak’s funeral took place at the mortuary half a parasang away from the palace. When I entered the building, the priests had already laid out Father’s body on a carved stone platform, his arms folded over his chest, his legs crossed at the ankles. In death, he no longer wore kingly garb, but a clean white sudreh and kusti, and matching trousers and prayer cap. His eyes were closed, mouth slightly open. If not for the utter stillness of his form, I could have imagined that he was sleeping.

“At least he’s no longer in pain,” Queen Sussan said quietly. Her red-rimmed eyes met mine. But there was no hatred there. Not even anger. Only a grief that mirrored my own.

Without thinking, I held out a hand. My stepmother stared at it for several beats. Then, with infinite slowness, she curled her fingers around mine. It was how we remained throughout the rest of the ceremony, our gazes trained on the faces of chanting priests, the cloying fumes of frankincense and cedar smoke filling our lungs. Sussan’s grip tightened, her nails digging into my flesh as the two corpse bearers entered the room and ritually transferred Father onto an iron bier—no longer a ruler, father, or husband, but a corpse, a mere pollutant as per the Mazdayasna faith.

A line of crows and vultures were perched on the wall outside, dark feathers glistening in the morning light. I shivered as they took flight, casting shadows over the corpse bearers who walked the short distance to the tall dakhma that had been built nearby for the next stage of the ceremony.

The odor of carrion wafted toward us the closer we got to the tower of the dead. I pressed a hand over my nose and mouth and many others did the same. Only the corpse bearers seemed unaffected, gazes calm over their white muslin veils, their feet keeping a steady rhythm as they trudged forward and then paused at the foot of the building.

“You cannot follow us here, Your Majesty,” one of them told Sussan gently.

“Yes.” Sussan grew still even though her hand twitched in mine, revealing her reluctance. “Yes. Of course.”

The dakhma was the domain of the corpse bearers and the nassesalar who would take Father’s body to the very top of the tower and expose it to the elements, to the birds now wheeling overhead, their cries echoing in my ears.

It was here that Sussan finally broke, her sob rippling through the air, the sound piercing me like a blade. I wrapped an arm around her, holding her close as she cried.

“Wasted…” she was saying. “Wasted so much time…”

Over what, I did not know. But I did not ask. Sussan and I had never been close; she wouldn’t confide in me about her regrets now. Eventually, her sobbing subsided and she shrugged free of my embrace.

“I’m all right,” she said stiffly, regal once more. “I shall head back to my carriage.”

It wasn’t an apology. Not even a thanks. But it was the closest we could ever come to reconciliation. I should have been relieved. Grateful for this small respite from all the years of hatred. But my body remained tense. As I headed back to my own carriage, I began to hear the whispers of the other women:

“Did you see the queen and princess regent together?” one said. “What a miracle to witness!”

“A miracle indeed,” her companion agreed. “It’s about time they put aside their differences. What a shame it had to be at the king’s funeral, though.”

“The crown prince should have been here. If not for young Sohrab…”

I quickened my pace, not waiting for the footman to arrive before climbing into the carriage. I did not want to hear more. I knew what else they would be saying. How Sohrab should have been here, too. How he was the reason Zende Razm was currently waging an unwanted war against Iran instead of grieving with us and taking the throne as our new king.

A part of me wanted to drag Sohrab back myself. To pretend a deathly illness so that he would come rushing home. Yet even as I had the thought, I knew it was a terrible idea. Sohrab might not return—even if I was truly ill.

Was this what Zari had felt like when she had tried to warn me away from Rostam? I wondered as the carriage took off in a rumble of hooves and wooden wheels. As if she were caught between a steep mountain and the edge of a cliff?

That night, I couldn’t sleep. My father’s words kept coming back to haunt me: Forgive your mother.

“This is ridiculous,” I muttered, tossing aside my sheets. I clearly wouldn’t get any sleep until I saw Zari. So I might as well do it. Whether I would be able to forgive her was another story.

The woods were dark that night, lit by the faintest glow of the stars. I did not expect my mother to come, but she did, her eyes shimmering in a way that made me think of tears.

“I heard about your father,” Zari said. “From the daeva who live in the river. I’m sorry, my daughter. I know you loved him.”

As a young woman, I might have wondered if she was merely being polite. But I could feel the heaviness in the damp air—the remnant of the love Zari had once felt for my father. A love she still carried somewhere deep within as I did for my own estranged husband.

You are very like your mother, you know. Perhaps Father had not been wrong, after all.

“I didn’t come here for Father,” I said. “Well, not just for him. I came to say I’m sorry. To you.”

Zari’s mouth parted, the soft hush of her breath my only indication of her surprise.

“Father said that I should forgive you,” I went on, forcing out the words. “That I shouldn’t resent you for simply wanting to live with your kin in the unseen world. But it isn’t that simple, is it? It never was. You told me so yourself.”

I thought again of Zari’s words all those years ago. About how she’d only wanted to protect me, her human child, as best as she could by letting me live in the mortal realm instead of taking me to the daeva world. I had not wanted to believe her then. I thought she was merely making excuses. But now that I was a mother myself, I suddenly understood with perfect clarity why Zari had left me behind.

“I’m sorry.” A tremor went through me. “I’m so sorry for being so awful to you. For not believing—” My voice broke and the tears I’d been holding back this whole day flowed out over my cheeks. I was crying for many things: Zari, my father, Rostam. My son, Sohrab, whom I’d so desperately tried and failed to protect.

Through my sobs, I heard the splashing of water. Felt the icy surge of my mother’s magic in the instant before her warm arms wrapped around me—human arms, I realized, when I finally looked up. Zari had glamoured herself so that she looked like the young nineteen-year-old queen Arshak had brought with him to his palace.

“There is no need to ask for my forgiveness,” she said, gently wiping away my tears. “I love you, Tahmineh. I will always love you, no matter how angry you are with me.”

I let her draw me close and stroke my hair. “I’m so worried about Sohrab,” I said at last. “He’s with the Turanian emperor. He plans to take Iran and give the throne to Rostam.”

Zari listened as the story poured out of me, her brow furrowed. “I see,” she said after I’d finished speaking. “Well. Then you need to find a way to travel to Iran.”

“I am the princess regent of Samangan,” I said in a tired voice. “I cannot just leave the throne and go riding into battle.”

Zari’s head tilted sideways. “My daughter,” she said, her voice holding only a trace of disapproval. “Have you forgotten how to do magic? Surely you can visit Sohrab in one of your astral dreams.”

I shook my head. “My astral dreams do not work in Iran. As you know, Iran is a yazata stronghold and Meher, the yazata of war and sunlight, guards its borders against all daeva magic. He has blocked me several times in the past.”

“My dear. You must not presume that Meher is the only yazata with control over Iran’s magical borders.”

I frowned, noting the sly smile on Zari’s perfect human lips. “What do you mean?”

Zari gestured to the river. “As a mortal, you are allowed to ask another yazata for aid. One who will sympathize with you and understand you as a mother.”

I knew at once which yazata she was referring to. “Anahita?” I whispered. “The lady of the waters?”

“The lady of the waters, the mother of all life,” Zari said. “She is the yazata every mortal woman prays to for the safe release of the children in her womb. You’ve prayed to Anahita, have you not? Made offerings to her each year during the month of Ava?”

I had—though this wasn’t something I’d given great thought to, merely performing the rituals by rote along with the priests and the other palace women.

“Do you really think she will come?” I asked. “I’ve never seen her before.”

“And you won’t see her at all if you offer her honey cakes and wine like every other mortal. You must offer the river a proper sacrifice. One made of your own blood.”

“But blood is a pollutant according to—”

“Yes, yes, I know what your priests say,” my mother interrupted. “These rituals you talk about are made by humans—changed to suit your people and your time. But no immortal forgets the old ways. Neither yazata nor daeva. We are older than you and are bound to this land by rituals that are even older. Prayers of salt and iron. Sacrifices of tears and blood.”

A chill went down my spine. What my mother had uttered would be considered blasphemy. And yet, deep down, I sensed the truth in her words. A truth no human would ever acknowledge.

“I cannot say if Anahita will accept your sacrifice,” Zari admitted. “Whatever happens, do not lie to her. It will be fatal if you do.”

“I understand.”

As my mother slid back into the river and disappeared from sight, I noticed something gleaming within the blades of grass. An ancient stone arrowhead, its surface encrusted with dirt, its tip still sharp. A gift she’d left behind.

Gratefully, I washed it clean in the river to prepare for the sacrifice and then, with a deep breath, scraped it against my palm. The skin split with surprising ease, blood gushing forth in a bright red trail.

I thrust my burning hand into the river, my eyes fixed on its surface, my lips shaping the first verse of Anahita’s hymn.

My blood unfurled in the river like smoke, the cold water like fire on my skin. I did not know exactly when the black surface of the water changed to gold. When the river itself rose in a mist, forming a woman’s face with eyes the color of lapis lazuli. The color, I suspected, of the deepest part of the sea.

“Princess of Samangan,” Anahita said in a voice that reminded me of a bubbling stream. “Why do you call upon me?”

I took a deep breath before speaking. “Lady Anahita, I beg you to allow me entry through Iran’s magical boundaries. I wish to see my son’s progress as he heads into war.”

“Sons head into wars all the time.” The stinging in my palm increased. I winced, but the water from the river swirled around my hand, holding it fast. “You expect me to flout every ancient law for this trivial matter and grant you a boon? To let you, a witch of daeva blood, enter a realm that is magically protected by me and my kin?”

“I will do nothing there. I swear, I only wish to see my son.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“Look into my mind,” I pleaded. “See my truth for what it is.”

The yazata’s beautiful eyes shifted in hue, turning a terrible, viperous green. Then, without warning, she dove forward and poured into me, my mouth and nostrils filling with what felt like the rushing river water and the dirt-caked roots of waterweeds. My chest swelled, the pain in my ribs turning my vision black.

There was a moment when I felt the familiar snap of my soul detaching from my body. A moment when I was certainly an inch from death. I floated overhead, watching the woman below thrash over the ground like a fish tossed ashore by the waves.

Would this be it? I wondered. Would this be the way I died?

That was when the river began to recede—as rapidly as it had surged. I coughed, throwing up bile, muddy water, and weeds, my body shuddering, feverish with a sudden cold. Slowly, light began seeping back in. I found myself facing the yazata, still somehow on my knees. Anahita watched me, her gaze as serene and golden as a pond at sunrise.

“It has been centuries since I saw a human so devoted to their child,” she said. “Centuries more since it was a human of daeva blood. But I have seen your mind, Princess. However many lies you have told in the past, I know that your sacrifice to me is true. It is perhaps the only honest thing you have ever willingly offered of yourself.”

My fingers sank into the earth. I gripped onto it, bracing myself for a refusal.

“For this sacrifice of your blood, Princess Tahmineh, I will give you a boon that will allow you to cross Iran’s magical borders,” Anahita said. “You will be able to follow your son, Sohrab, and see his progress on the battlefield. What I cannot do is protect you from my kin if they decide to attack. Each time you enter Iran through an astral dream, it will be at your own risk. Do you understand me?”

“Y-y-yes,” I stuttered, dizzy with relief. “Th-th-thank you, Lady Anahita.”

It didn’t matter what any other yazata did to me. I did not care about myself anymore. All I wanted was to see Sohrab safe. Even if he hated me now.

“Take care of yourself, Princess.” There was a strange note to Anahita’s voice. As if she felt sorry for me. As if there were something else she wanted to add. But she didn’t.

By the time I clambered back to my feet, she’d vanished, the river holding nary a ripple, its bank stained dark with water and blood.

24.

IT WASN’T DIFFICULT TO GAUGE the direction of the Turanian army led by Sohrab, a trail of burning villages and fields left in their wake across the border. I followed it—flames and ashes, bodies and blood—trying not to look too closely at the latter or gag when the stench of charred flesh rose from the ground, lingering in my memory for hours afterward.

The first time I used Anahita’s boon in an astral dream, I half expected a yazata ambush. An attack that would turn my body aflame the second I flew across the grassy plain and copse of cypress trees marking Samangan’s border with Iran. For a long time, nothing happened. The sun shone overhead in a clear blue sky, its warmth pleasant, pleasurable, even.

But as I moved closer to the lines of soldiers clad in silver armor and blue cloaks, it grew hot. Blisteringly so. I understood immediately that this wasn’t normal. Nor was the feeling of being watched, every bit of my skin prickling—even in this spectral form.

I am not afraid of you, I thought, wondering if the yazata Meher could hear me.

In answer, a scorching wind blew across my face, throwing me off course. My head shuddered with a sound that might have been laughter. When I woke again, I was back in my bed in Samangan, my face stinging as if doused in the hottest of water, red welts marking the sides of my left arm and leg.

“She’s awake!” a voice cried out. “Your Highness, your face—”

“Don’t worry, Binaifer.” I forced a smile for my terrified maid. “I’m sure it’s just a rash.”

“It doesn’t look like—”

“Fetch cold water from the well,” I interrupted. “Then make a salve of aloe and honey. Quickly!”

Binaifer, for all her fretting, was quick to act and soon my arm and leg were wrapped in bandages, a cold compress pressed to my face.

“There doesn’t appear to be much damage, does there?” I asked, looking into my bronze mirror. Nothing that cosmetics could not cover.

“N-no, Y-Your Highness.”

I sighed, finally turning to look at her. “I am all right, Binaifer. I promise.”

“You were shouting,” she whispered. “Shouting in pain.”

“I had a bad dream,” I said firmly. “That’s all.”

Binaifer said nothing more. But I could feel her concerned gaze following my every move that day, my limbs trembling, my body sluggish from my encounter with the yazata of war, his welts certain to leave scars on my skin.

By a small miracle, my dreamwalking magic remained unaffected by the attack. That night, I slid into the unseen world, grateful for the ease with which my body moved in this realm, as light as a dandelion in the air, as smooth and silent as a boat on a placid lake. The air prickled with sensation and the sounds of my grandmother and her kin clicking in the trees. But I wasn’t here to see Bushyasta tonight. I didn’t wish to see any daeva at all. I walked into the meadow and held out my arms, slowly unleashing the magic in me—a magic that connected me to every dreamscape in the human realm, each path appearing as a single shimmering thread.

As a child I’d worried about losing myself in these infinite threads, of never being able to find my way back to another person’s dreams. But the human mind left marks, as distinct to us dreamwalkers as the ridges on our own skin. It was how I found Zende Razm’s thread again after over three decades—a single white strand shimmering in the dark. I touched it, feeling the familiar burn against my fingers, and then was pulled along the path before I tumbled into a misty glade.

Zende Razm stood at the center of the glade, a bow and arrow in hand, aiming at a figure that kept changing shape, transforming from a lynx to a deer to a boar to a man. Each time he shot the arrow, it glanced off the figure, never making contact—even when the figure scratched him, bit him, or pierced him with a sword. Blood welled from his many scars, but Zende Razm did not make a sound. I only knew he was in pain by the pallor of his face, the tremor that went through his arms each time he pulled an arrow to shoot.

Stop. I raised a hand and the trees in the glade dissolved, the shifting figure along with them. Zende Razm’s broad shoulders sagged with relief. Then tightened once more.

“Tahmineh?” he asked, his voice quiet. “Is it you?”

I did not answer, wondering if he was expecting a dream version of me to arrive. But no woman materialized out of the air. Zende Razm spun in a circle, trying to see through the fog that had shadowed his dreamscape. I hesitated. I had never revealed myself to anyone in a dream before. Not to Rostam. Not even to Sohrab, when he was having a nightmare. Normally, I left before the dreamers detected my presence and, over the past decade or so, had rarely been ejected from any of their minds.

Zende Razm, however, did not wish me gone. He was looking for me. The real me.

After a pause, I stepped into the fog, closer and closer until my hand brushed his cheek. Zende Razm blinked, his gaze focusing on my face, seeing me for the first time.

“You’re here,” he whispered.

“I am.”

“You look different.” Fascination had overcome him, an awe that I imagined he bestowed only upon a yazata or a god. “I can only see your face—wait. What’s wrong with your face?”

Lightly, his fingers brushed the welt on my cheekbone, though here, in this place, I could not feel the sting of the wound.

“I ran afoul with the yazata of sunlight and war,” I said dryly.

“A yazata? What are you talking about?”

“It’s a long story and I don’t have time to explain.” Already I could feel my magic beginning to fade, exhaustion creeping up my bones. I did not know how long I would be able to stay here. “Tell me quickly. Is Sohrab all right? Where do you plan to go next?”

“Sohrab is well,” he said at once. “Tomorrow, we head for the White Fortress in Khorasan.” His frown deepened, his fingers gentle on my cheek. “Tahmineh, this wound looks serious. I’m worried for you.”

A part of me wanted to sink into his touch, to linger in it for as long as I could. But time was the one thing we did not have.

“It’s naught but a scratch,” I assured him. “I will be all right.”

“But—”

I cut off his protest with a kiss, my lips hot against his, my skin burning even though shivers raked through my body.

Your Highness. Your Highness, are you all right?

I opened my eyes to a pair of worried faces. Binaifer and the palace healer, their hands fluttering disembodied before me like clipped wings. One of these hands, long-fingered and delicate, retrieved a wet compress from my forehead. It was the last thing I remembered from that evening—Binaifer soaking the compress in a bowl of rosewater—just before I drifted off to sleep.

It took two days for my fever to subside, four days for my magic to begin working as usual, though I still felt the traces of exhaustion, even when in an astral dream.

From what I knew of Iran and its geography, the White Fortress was perched atop a terraced hill in Khorasan: a massive ivory castle of marble and limestone with twenty-five watchtowers, a thick outer wall, and a moat as wide as four men laid out from end to end. According to my advisors, a hundred soldiers marched along the ramparts at any given time, making it one of Iran’s most well-defended bastions.

“Capturing the White Fortress would be a strategic victory, Your Highness,” Lord Bahman had told me. “It would give Turan access to Khorasan, which is a large and important Iranian province.”

Now, as I flew overhead, keeping to the clouds to avoid the sun’s direct glare, I caught glimpses of the Turanian troops: the neat columns of infantry and cavalry marching through the green valley, headed by a golden knight on a golden horse. Sohrab.

Somewhere to my son’s right, I spotted a banner with the Samangani coat of arms fluttering in the breeze. Zende Razm wasn’t far behind—and thankfully so. The Iranians had noticed the approaching troops and arrows had begun flying from the turrets of the White Fortress, toppling several Turanian foot soldiers.

Sunlight flashed in Sohrab’s gold armor, nearly blinding me.

Laughter echoed in my head, and this time I knew for certain that it was the yazata Meher. Toying with me. Well, two could play that game. Meher was wrong if he thought I would just idly float in the sky, waiting for another attack.

My gaze fell on an island of fluffy cumulus clouds floating below. Clouds repelled the sun’s fire on earth, shielded me from its heat in my physical form. Could they possibly protect me in this form as well? There was only one way to find out.

When Meher sent a blast of heat my way, I ducked, navigating under the clouds that appeared thick and fibrous like cotton, yet were oddly wet to the touch. Almost instantly, the sun’s glare dimmed and the temperature around me cooled. I did not know how long my protection would last—if it would last at all. But for now, I turned my attention to the proceedings below: Sohrab charging forth, past Zende Razm and the protective boundary of Samangani warriors. He glowed blue with farr, arrows and spears bouncing off his armor, his lance cleaving through an Iranian guard’s neck, blood arcing the air as the man fell dead to the ground.

“Is that all?” Sohrab called out. “Is this the best the Iranian empire has to offer?”

With farr, his voice sounded deeper, older. It vibrated across the valley, sending a visible shiver down the line of archers watching from the White Fortress’s battlements. The drawbridge lowered and a small troop of soldiers appeared, headed by a man in heavy armor made of iron.

The castellan, I guessed, as he led the charge, meeting the Turanians lance for lance, spear for spear. But Sohrab wasn’t Rostam’s son for no reason. With his farr, my son fought with an energy that was unmatched, easily, brutally crushing through the blockade of elite cavalry knights, and unhorsing the castellan with such ease that he might have been a doll made of rags.

“Capture him!” someone shouted. Sohrab’s lariat tightened around the castellan, dragging him back to the Turanian side.

As this was happening, the clouds above me began to dissipate. Seconds later, I was dodging an arrow of light that came out of nowhere, scarlet fire glowing at its tip. I spun and swerved the projectile several times, dizzy with effort. At one point, I helplessly threw up my hands and shouted: Enough!

To my shock, the air before me thickened to translucent, shimmering clouds that glowed pink and green around the edges, echoing the twilight sky of the unseen world. A barrier formed, catching the arrow and turning it to ash. For the first time, through the clouds, I could look directly at the sun, that perfectly round, burning orb suspended in the sky. Within the sun, I saw a face made of what appeared to be molten gold and feathers, its burning eyes too bright, too ancient to be human.

Princess of Samangan, the angel Meher spoke in my head, his voice like logs crackling over a flame. We meet at last.

As if he’d been eager to see me all this while. As if he hadn’t just attempted to kill me seconds earlier. My cloud barrier began to curl and smoke around the edges.

Lord of sunlight and war. I forced myself to concentrate, struggling to hold the barrier in place. How may I help you?

Help me? A sneer. How would you help me, daeva princess? You, who have tricked and deceived your way into my realm. You, who convinced my poor sister into granting you a boon—making her believe that your only interest lies in protecting your son.

Lady Anahita tested me herself! I retorted. She saw my truth for what it was. Are you saying that she, a yazata with such great powers, can be so easily fooled by a mere mortal?

The air around me sizzled with Meher’s fury and my barrier dissolved into a smattering of raindrops. I fled another barrage of flaming arrows and somehow found cover behind another layer of clouds.

None of the mortal soldiers on the ground below seemed to notice the scattered rain shower or the other disturbances in the sky. For them, the storm had come to earth itself, coalescing in battle after failed battle, knights falling not in ones or twos, but in threes or fours at the thrust of Sohrab’s vicious lance.

My son was fighting another Iranian knight now, though this one was agile and quick, dodging the worst of Sohrab’s attacks and shooting arrows at him and his horse, one nearly catching Tez in the eye. Sohrab screamed with fury. He spurred Tez forward and caught up to the bronze figure with ease. He wrenched off the knight’s helmet—revealing braids of long black hair.

Not a man, but a woman. Still seated on her horse, bow in hand, her dark eyes flashing as Sohrab stilled in his tracks.

“You’re not a man!” Sohrab’s shock echoed mine.

“No,” the knight replied, her high voice as clear as a bell. “I am Godafarid, a knight of this castle. And I am worse than any man you will meet!”

She shot two more arrows in quick succession, narrowly affording Sohrab the time to dodge them. My son still glowed blue with farr, but he appeared hesitant now, not attacking Godafarid as vigorously as he would have another knight, but merely blocking her attacks or dodging them, as if fascinated by the very sight of her.

Don’t be foolish! I wanted to shout at him. She will kill you if you aren’t careful!

Yet a small part of me couldn’t blame Sohrab. I, too, was riveted by Godafarid, unable to curb the surge of admiration that came over me when she taunted Sohrab again and threw a ball that exploded to dust before his eyes. While he was temporarily blinded, she sped back to the fortress, giving the sentries enough time to close the drawbridge, well before my son could follow her across.

“Go back home, Turanian boy!” Godafarid shouted from the ramparts. “Go back home to your mother before General Rostam comes and skins you alive!”

Her words seemed to shift something in Sohrab.

He tugged off his helmet, cheeks flushed, his face glistening with sweat. “I will take your castle from you, Lady Godafarid!” he shouted, hysteria edging his voice. “I will take it and make you my prisoner! I will—”

Crack!

I was thrown backward, away from the fortress, a flaming arrow finding its way through a crack in the clouds and piercing my side. When I came to, I was lying on the stone floor next to my bed, fresh burns on my arms and the left side of my ribs. Bushyasta had told me once that yazata encounters rarely left one unscathed, and I was no exception to this.

Wave after wave of dizziness crashed through me. My thoughts came in fragments: memories of what I’d seen on the battlefield today, along with an estimation of what else could be expected.

Sohrab would capture the White Fortress. Despite Godafarid’s bravery, I could gauge that the Iranian troops had swiftly turned to disarray after the capture of their castellan. With Sohrab’s farr and the organized Turanian army, it would be days—or perhaps only hours—before the Iranians fell or were taken prisoner.

But Godafarid wasn’t wrong either. Rostam would come to the fortress. He would kill Sohrab, skinning him alive as he had the white daeva of Mazandaran. If he didn’t, then Sohrab would probably kill Rostam unless Zende Razm managed to stop him in time.

A sound left my lips: one that might have been my son’s name.

He did not hear me, of course. And even if he could, I was no longer sure he would listen.

25.

“I… I AM NOT SURE HOW they did it, Your Highness. They… they…”

The messenger who had arrived from Iran was little more than a boy of thirteen, long-limbed and nervous, shifting his weight from one foot to another as he stood before me in the throne room, his body covered with a thin layer of red dust.

“Don’t worry,” I said, my voice calm, even though I wanted to shake the news out of him. “You will not be harmed. I promise. Now tell me. What happened?”

“They escaped—that lady knight, her father, all of them! They slipped out of the fortress at night, when our soldiers and the Turanians were asleep.”

The news didn’t surprise me. Godafarid might not have been a man, but she was cleverer than most men. Overlooked and underestimated as women often were—and more dangerous because of it.

“What about General Rostam?” I asked. “Has he arrived yet?”

The boy’s throat moved awkwardly as if he’d forgotten how to swallow. “He wasn’t there when I left Iran four days ago, Your Highness. But he is expected to arrive soon. The Golden Warrior has refused to move an inch from the White Fortress until Rostam arrives.”

“Four days?” a courtier said incredulously. “Why did it take you four whole days to come here? The White Fortress is only two days away!”

“My horse was exhausted!” The messenger turned pleading eyes at me. “I couldn’t push him, Your Highness! Not at the risk of turning him lame!”

I said nothing. Four days. Anything could happen in four days. And here I was, with little to no news about my son, unable to do more than to wait for messengers, or to hobble from one room to the next as I went about my duties, my body in perpetual agony, my magic little more than flickers of light behind closed eyelids.

I sensed the men of my court watching me, trying to assess the expressions on my face. Would I reprimand the messenger? Punish him for his terrible delay?

“You may go,” I told the boy at last. “You will no longer deliver messages for the palace.”

I turned away from his crestfallen face, paying no attention to his pleas as a pair of guards escorted him from the throne room.

“Kaizad.” I addressed Zende Razm’s son, who stood up at once. “Arrange for more experienced messengers with faster horses. I want news from the White Fortress every day. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Your Highness.” The young man bowed. “Might I make a request?”

“About what?”

“Foulad, the messenger who just left the room.” Kaizad paused, as if considering his words. “I know he was greatly delayed in bringing us important news about the war. But I still think we can put him to good use. Foulad’s father used to be one of our best messengers. Unfortunately, his death has left Foulad as the only provider for his small brother and sister. They have no mother. Please Shahdoxt, I beg you to reconsider your decision to dismiss him. Inexperience can be remedied. But it is more difficult to find loyal men during a crisis.”

I stared into Kaizad’s young, earnest face, noting, not for the first time, how like Zende Razm he was. Calm. Kind. Always willing to see the best in others.

“There is wisdom in your words, Kaizad,” I said at last. “Very well. We will not dismiss Foulad from the palace. He will deliver messages locally within Samangan before he’s sent on longer missions. You can tell him this after court.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” Another deep bow and Kaizad took his seat again.

Shortly thereafter, a guard appeared at the door. “Your Highness,” he said. “May I enter?”

It was old Merwan, who had protected my father, standing guard outside his bedroom door until the very end.

“Of course, Merwan Agha,” I said at once, noting the pallor on his wrinkled face. “Please. Come in.”

Courtiers began whispering as Merwan made his way into the room with the support of a walking stick. I knew what they would be saying. That Merwan was too old. That he needed to be replaced by another, younger man. But Kaizad hadn’t been wrong. Loyalty was important. And I would not abandon a man who had protected my father his whole life. Who had always been kind to me despite the rumors about my witchcraft.

“Your Highness, I apologize for the intrusion,” Merwan said. “But a lady is here to see you.”

“We hold public court in the afternoons,” I reminded him gently. “Surely she can wait until then?”

“I’m afraid not.” Merwan appeared embarrassed. Yet, unlike the other guards, who could never look me in the eye, his gaze directly met mine. “This lady says she is married to General Rostam of Zabul.”

Breaths hushed around the room. As one, the court turned to face me. But by now I’d grown used to their stares. My smile merely widened.

“Well,” I said. “We cannot keep her waiting, can we?”

As I stood, everyone else rose to their feet. “Court is dismissed for the day,” I said, and stepped down from the dais to follow Merwan into the lobby, where Rostam’s first wife waited with two maids.

Lady Eram of Zabul was a small woman with light brown hair, her head no taller than my shoulders, her frame as delicate as the branches of a willow tree. For all her rumored beauty, her face was relatively plain with a small forehead and pointed chin. If not for her beautiful, thick eyebrows that curved to a point over her nose and her pale, almost silver eyes, she might have looked utterly unremarkable.

“Shahdoxt Tahmineh.” She inclined her head in the barest of bows, appearing more queenly with a single movement than I knew I ever could with years of training. “I apologize for intruding on your court. I am grateful you could see me on such short notice.”

“You are welcome here,” I said, courteous, but not overtly so. “Would you like to join us in the banquet hall?”

“I wish to speak to you alone, Shahdoxt. If that is convenient.” For the first time, I noted the minute signs of her stress: tightly clasped hands, her thin lips growing pale around the edges.

Curious, I nodded. “We can take refreshment in the solar.” It wasn’t soundproof like my father’s study, but that place had made me uneasy ever since Afrasyab’s last visit. I doubted a regal woman like Eram would appreciate its cold walls either. “Please follow me, Banu Eram.”

She blinked, as if surprised that I knew her name. But the expression was gone so quickly, I wouldn’t have caught it if I wasn’t studying her every move. “Yes,” she said. “That would be lovely.”

Behind her, one of my guards shuddered slightly—as if the temperature in the lobby had dropped by several degrees. The chill seemed to follow me as I led Eram to the solar, which had been emptied of women—thanks to my quick, clever Binaifer.

She now bowed before me, far lower than she normally did. “Refreshments have been laid out, Your Highness.” Binaifer gestured to the tray of dates, fruit, and nuts, and to the tall ewer of wine. “I will be outside if you need me.”

Eram said nothing, only watching with mild interest as Binaifer shut the door. Eram’s own maids had remained outside the room, likely having already been instructed to do so by their mistress.

Alone at last, we studied each other, Rostam’s first wife and his second, both suspicious, both uneasy at being thrust together in such close quarters, no matter the faces we presented to the world.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here,” Eram said at last. Her hands, folded perfectly in her lap, twitched. “Well, it has to do with a letter you sent my husband.”

I did not need to ask which letter she was talking about. I knew at once it was my last letter—the one in which I’d informed Rostam about Sohrab’s plans to conquer Iran. The letter he had never replied to.

“You intercepted the letter,” I said flatly, all attempts at courtesy gone. “You hid it from Rostam—even though the consequences would be dire. For what? Petty jealousy over a woman he no longer loves?”

“Did you even read what you had written?” Eram countered, her cheeks flushing like spring tulips. “A fourteen-year-old boy with the strength of ten men? A mere adolescent capable of defeating the Iranian army and Rostam himself? I thought you had gone mad! How was I to know any of it was true?”

My fingers itched to slap her. Instead I said, “What makes you think what I said is true now? I could be lying. Or a raving lunatic.”

Eram breathed in deeply. Then she spoke: “Our emperor, Kavus, got a letter a few days ago from my niece who lives—lived at the White Fortress. She informed him of a Turanian raid and a young knight with unearthly blue farr and deadly skill with a lance and lariat. No one knew who he was or which family he came from. The Turanians themselves simply called him the Golden Warrior. ‘To meet him is to court death,’ my niece had written. Though she, somehow, survived.”

“Your niece… is she Lady Godafarid?”

Her brows lifted with surprise. “Yes, but… how do you know about Godafarid?”

“A messenger told us about her today,” I said smoothly. It wasn’t a lie, though he’d never mentioned her by name. “Tell me, then. Does Rostam know of the raid?”

“He does. The emperor sent his men to fetch Rostam immediately after receiving Godafarid’s letter.”

“So Rostam’s there now—at the White Fortress?” My body went cold at the thought.

“Not yet.” Eram had a pinched look on her face. “There was an argument. Kavus is my brother and I love him. But he does have the tendency to overreact. To summon Rostam at short notice for a battle, a war, or even something as trivial as killing a wild animal that had been prophesied to kill him.”

A memory: a man. His dismissive wave at my talk of prophecy, reminding me that it lay solely in the realm of the yazata. I forced myself to forget, to turn my attention to the woman before me.

“Rostam did not go immediately,” Eram said. “He decided to go two whole days later, which infuriated my brother, of course. Kavus has always envied Rostam, has always worried that Rostam may usurp him someday. Kavus’s farr allows him to charm people, to draw others to him. But he cannot surpass the love and respect the other courtiers have for Rostam. A love that has only increased since my brother’s imprisonment years ago by the white daeva of Mazandaran.”

“But Rostam isn’t power hungry,” I pointed out. “He has never craved the throne.”

“No.” She looked me over, a spark of something that might have been respect flickering in her eyes. “It… it was why I loved him so much. Why I still love him.” A bitter smile curved her lips. “Rostam is a strong man. Blessed by the yazata, powerful beyond our imagining. But he has no time for court politics. He does not understand the lengths Kavus can and will go to in order to keep his throne. Naturally, whenever I tried to tell Rostam this, he would lose his temper. He would not speak to me or look at me for days. Sometimes even weeks.

“When Kavus’s letter came informing us about Turan’s Golden Warrior, I grew fearful. I know I should have shown Rostam your letter then, but I worried I would anger him for hiding it. So instead, I urged him to go to the capital and kept doing so until he tired of me. Once he got there, Rostam and Kavus got into a terrible argument. Rostam left the court, declaring he would not fight for anyone except himself.”

“So he’s gone, then?” I asked, shock suffusing me. “Just like that?”

Had I worried over a prophecy for no reason at all?

Eram shook her head. “The azadan at court urged Kavus to bring Rostam back and apologize. They warned Kavus that Iran had no chance in taking back Khorasan without Rostam and his farr. My brother reluctantly agreed and sent an envoy to have Rostam brought to him. They made amends and now Rostam is on his way to the White Fortress to see who this Golden Warrior is.”

“His own son,” I murmured, feeling sick to my stomach.

Eram looked equally sick. “I wrote to Rostam myself yesterday. Sent your letter along with mine by my swiftest messenger. I know it is my fault Rostam didn’t get your letter. I was envious, as you said. Foolish to think your son could never be strong enough to defeat Iran’s champion. But now I fear for Rostam’s life. And I am afraid that my own letter may not reach him in time.”

I stared at this woman and the tears streaming down her carefully powdered face. A part of me wanted to hit her. To scream at her for all that she’d done.

But who was I to judge another liar?

For all Eram’s faults, there was one truth I could be certain of: She loved Rostam as much as I did. And she did not want him to die.

“I don’t know what you expect me to do,” I said at last. My ribs, still sore from my last encounter with Meher, grew tight. “I am the princess regent of Samangan. With our king gone, it falls on me to protect my kingdom. I cannot leave it so easily.”

“You are a witch, aren’t you?”

At first, I wondered if she was serious or simply mocking me. But there was nothing except desperation in her gaze. A pure, naked hope directed entirely my way. I looked out the window—into a verdant lawn dappled with sunlight, wind rustling the cedar trees in the wood.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I said.

26.

IN HIS DREAM, ROSTAM LAY on the ground covered with blood. I hovered beside him, invisible, wondering if it was one of those dreams in which he had died, when his eyes opened and he sat up. A figure materialized before him: Emperor Kavus, the upper half of his long hair bound in a globe of jeweled blue silk atop his head, wings spreading out from the sides of his golden crown.

“You think you’re too good for the rest of us, don’t you?” Dream Kavus said. “Champion of the world. Iran’s greatest warrior. Now let’s see what the great Rostam can do against a Turanian stripling half his age.”

Kavus’s figure morphed into that of a warrior clad in gold armor, his face hidden behind his helmet, his gauntleted hands curved around the hilt of a sword aimed directly at Rostam’s chest.

No.

I wove my magic around the golden warrior and he lowered the sword, removing the helmet from his head with one hand.

“Father.” Sohrab’s dark eyes, so much like mine, pleaded with Rostam. “Father, don’t you recognize me?”

“Look at him,” I whispered, my voice seeping into Rostam’s consciousness. “Recognize him, Rostam.”

But Rostam didn’t. I could tell from his blank expression, the confusion that wove through his mind as he tried to put a name to Sohrab’s face.

Afrasyab. My husband’s unvoiced thought rang through my head. This is one of Afrasyab’s evil tricks—a daeva sent to me in a dream.

“It’s not a trick!” Dream Sohrab spoke the words I wanted him to, his panic reflecting mine. “I am your son by Shahdoxt Tahmineh, remember? My name is Sohrab!”

A laugh escaped Rostam’s lips and briefly he sounded mirthful. “My son is no Turanian warrior. His mother is greedy and wicked—perhaps even a witch. But Sohrab is a gentle, studious child. Too young for battle yet. Too sickly to even wield a sword. You cannot deceive me, you wretched creature!” An iron mace materialized in Rostam’s hands, the horns of the bull head gleaming like daggers. “You will regret the day you were born!”

I had heard enough. I fled the dream, my head throbbing from the encounter when I opened my eyes in the waking world. It was perhaps an hour past midnight, the moon a scythe in the sky. I rubbed my temples until my vision stopped blurring.

This is my fault, I thought dully. My fault that Rostam refuses to recognize his son.

Worse: Eram had failed in her endeavor to warn our husband. I had seen it myself, following the Zabuli messenger in an astral dream, watching Rostam take his first wife’s letter—enclosed with my own—and toss it in a pile of other unread scrolls without even opening the seal.

I winced, bracing against a wave of pain as I sat up in bed. These days, astral dreams left more and more wounds on my body, even during the days I successfully blocked most of Meher’s attacks. A scar now ran diagonally across my neck and chest, hidden by my long hair and clothes, healed only by strong doses of haoma and some of the waterweeds my mother had brought me from the unseen world.

“Meher will kill you if you’re not careful, daughter,” Zari warned. “Even my daeva magic cannot heal every wound.”

And yet there was nothing else I could do. No one I could turn to except for myself.

Even Zende Razm, whom I had trusted beyond belief, had failed me, his latest letter to me lying across my bench.

I told Sohrab about your mother’s prophecy, he’d written. About what you and I did in order to protect him. I begged him to order a retreat—told him that a battle with Iran’s full forces would only lead to disaster. But he grew angry with me. Now he’s more determined than ever to conquer Kavus’s throne. It does not help that Afrasyab’s generals keep encouraging him and calling him the greatest warrior that lives. I’m sorry, Tahmineh. I was hoping to change the course of fate. Perhaps that’s where I went wrong, didn’t I? Perhaps that’s where we both went wrong.

My hands curled into fists. I did not know if I was right or wrong to intervene with my son’s fate. All I knew was that thanks to Zende Razm’s so-called confession, I had been barred from Sohrab’s mind—thrown out of it the one and only time I’d managed to walk into his dreams.

“Leave!” Sohrab had shouted in his dream. “Leave me alone, witch!”

His words had hurt. But what had hurt more was the wound I could clearly feel etched across my son’s heart.

A tremor went through me. Bad as things were, I could not give up so easily. Could not simply let Sohrab ride to his own death.

You have sacrificed so much already. I thought of the upraised scars on my left arm, the ache in my ribs that would never really go away. What is a little more?

But it would not be possible tonight. Trying to influence Rostam had worn me out. I would try dreamwalking into Sohrab’s mind the following night. My son was hot-tempered, yes, but unlike his father, he did not like to hold on to his anger. Unlike Rostam, I still held out hope that my son loved me. Deep down.

A day passed, then another. By the end of the week, I had made multiple attempts to magically communicate with Sohrab and Rostam. My son had blocked me from his mind, his barriers holding strong despite my best attempts to breach them. As for my estranged husband—he utterly refused to correlate Sohrab with the Golden Warrior.

“Your lies to Rostam have worked far too well, granddaughter,” Bushyasta told me. I was in the meadow in the unseen world, surrounded by infinite threads of light. “It is a gift of the daeva, such deception—though, perhaps, in your case, a curse as well.”

“What must I do?” I asked, unable to keep the frustration from my voice. “Sohrab won’t let me in at all!” He would eventually soften toward me, I knew. I would find a way to dissolve the barrier between us. But that could take days, perhaps even months of persistent effort. And time was the one thing I did not have.

“I could help you if you wish.” Bushyasta’s long arms grew, spreading around us like a web. “I could break Sohrab’s boundaries and make him return to you. But there are risks, as you are aware. If he fights me, his mind might never be the same again.”

Yes. I did know. I had heard the stories of the mortals who had been damaged by my grandmother’s magic—mortals who had turned into shells of their former selves, unable to speak or recognize anyone once they woke. It was why I’d never asked Bushyasta for her aid—even with Queen Sussan, whom I’d despised.

Death would be better, I thought—a fact I would never admit aloud after all I’d done to save Sohrab. But Bushyasta knew, of course. She always knew my mind for its wretchedness and its failings, its utter inability to find a way out of the mess I’d created.

“Don’t fret, granddaughter.” A claw stroked my cheek, cold, almost soothing, despite the tip delicately marking my skin. “You have done far more than any mortal would have, challenging both daeva and yazata in ways that were until now unthinkable.”

“I did what any mother would.”

Bushyasta blinked, her dark eyes reflecting every shade of emerald and pink in the sky above. “Humans,” she said. “You surprise me every time.”

In the meadow of dreams behind her, a thread caught my attention. A white as crystalline as a diamond. As tender as moonlight on a river. The path that led to Zende Razm’s mind flared brightly in the twilight for one brief moment.

And then faded into mist.

I was eight years old when I first saw a thread vanish in the unseen world—a red, sparkling path into the mind of someone I did not know. It was more common than not, Bushyasta had told me, for threads to be as mortal as their owners.

“Only a mortal with daeva blood may cling to the unseen world in this manner after death,” my grandmother had said. “Those are few and far between.”

I stared at the space where Zende Razm’s thread had glowed not moments earlier, unable to speak or to scream. It was how I woke, gasping for air, panic an iron band around my ribs.

He wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be.

I kept telling myself this, over and over, repeating the words in my head and then aloud, tears streaming down my cheeks. I clung to the lie for as long as I could, pretending all was well during the day and spending the night seeking the white thread in the unseen world. Bushyasta and her kin watched me search for it, not speaking even when I screamed my frustration into the sky. Perhaps they feared the truth would set me off into madness. Or perhaps, in their own way, they were simply being kind.

The confirmation of Zende Razm’s death came two days after I saw his thread vanish, the messenger having ridden at breakneck speed without taking more than a single stop for rest. My head ached from my own sleepless nights. But my voice came out steady and my eyes were dry.

“How did it happen?” I asked.

“They say there was a man, Your Highness.” The messenger’s voice was dull, flattened by exhaustion. “An Iranian warrior who sneaked into the White Fortress in the middle of the night, when the Turanians were drinking and feasting. Emperor Afrasyab’s generals think he planned to kill their Golden Warrior. Shah Zende Razm must have seen the man and confronted him at some point.”

I glanced at Kaizad, who sat in a chair behind the messenger, his face drained of blood. His mouth trembled, but Zende Razm’s son did not cry. Not here at court where weeping—even over the death of a parent—would only be seen as a weakness.

“What happened next?” I asked.

“The Turanians weren’t sure. General Barman found the shah slumped in a dark corner of the palace the next morning, his head crushed by a mace. He doubts that Shah Zende Razm even saw the attacker’s face.”

He wouldn’t have, I thought grimly. Not if his attacker didn’t want to be seen.

I did not know for certain if it was Rostam who had killed Zende Razm. But no other warrior I knew was as cat-footed or as deadly with a mace. In the darkness, there was every likelihood Rostam hadn’t seen Zende Razm’s face either. If he had, wouldn’t he have hesitated? Or would he have landed the killing blow, at last able to punish the man a witch had betrayed him with all those years ago?

I wasn’t sure.

What I did know was that Zende Razm could have stayed safe here in Samangan and inherited the throne as my father had wanted him to. No one would have questioned it. Not even I would have been able to fault him for performing his duty. But instead Zende Razm had followed my son into a fruitless war and would now return home on a bier. Because I asked him to. Because he loved me more than I had ever deserved.

I rose to my feet, the movement swiftly copied by the rest of the court.

“In light of this recent news, I hereby step down as regent,” I said, my voice hoarse but clear. “The crown prince Kaizad will rule Samangan in my stead.”

At once, protests arose, voices competing to speak over the other:

“But, Your Highness, this is so sudden!”

“Shahdoxt, there’s a war going on! Please consider your and the kingdom’s safety—”

Their voices broke off abruptly as I raised my hand.

“I am considering the kingdom’s safety—which is the absolute necessity of having a king in place.” I looked directly at Zende Razm’s son, giving him a small smile. “Kaizad is Shah Zende Razm’s rightful heir. Surely you would not have me hold him back from his throne?”

Kaizad’s mouth opened as if in protest. But then he nodded. “I will do as you command, Shahdoxt,” he said. “Defend Samangan with my life if I need to.”

My heart twisted painfully as I looked into his young, handsome face. But now was not the time to remember his father. Without Zende Razm, Sohrab would be alone. Surrounded by enemies outside the White Fortress and within.

“Have the stables prepare my horse for me,” I ordered a guard. “And a posse of soldiers familiar with Iran.”

It was time I reunited my son with his father.

BATTLE FOR AN EMPIRE

27.

THE MORNING AFTER ZENDE RAZM died, Sohrab stood on the ramparts of the White Fortress and watched the Iranian horde that had filled the valley since yesterday: a sea of pavilions and tents in jeweled tones, banners with sigils that belonged to the emperor Kavus and his many lords, including the fabled azadan. Perhaps even Sohrab’s father.

The air smelled like rust and salt. Like the blood coating Zende Razm’s head and face, still not wholly dried when they’d found him an hour earlier. Like the armor that Sohrab wore each day as a second skin. Golden Warrior, they called him because of it, or my lord. Some called him Your Highness, though he was no prince. He wished they would simply call him by his name. But no one at camp—Turanian nor Samangani—dared disobey a direct order from Emperor Afrasyab. No one except for Zende Razm, the king of Samangan, who was no longer here.

Thoughts of the man he’d called Uncle as a small child brought a painful tightness to Sohrab’s chest. It wasn’t the same wrenching grief he’d felt upon hearing about Grandfather. The pain he felt for Zende Razm’s loss was muddied by anger—a feeling he couldn’t bear to examine closely at this moment.

Instead, Sohrab counted the number of banners in the valley and tried to ascertain which one belonged to the warden of Zabul. Would Rostam have chosen a lion for his standard or a wolf? Was he the sort of man who preferred a ferocious boar or perhaps the sun itself to symbolize the power of his farr?

“Rostam will not let you find him so easily,” Zende Razm had warned Sohrab only a week earlier. “He will think you are an upstart eager to make a name for yourself by killing Iran’s champion. Listen to me, Sohrab. Call for a retreat. There is no point in a war where you are forced to fight against your own father!”

But how could Sohrab retreat now without being called a failure—or worse, a coward?

Already, he could hear the whispers among Afrasyab’s men. The doubts they had begun to voice aloud after Godafarid had tricked Sohrab and then disappeared, leaving behind only a castle full of terrified servants.

Thinking about it still made his cheeks grow hot. Sohrab wasn’t sure what the men meant when they talked of Godafarid trapping him with her “feminine wiles.” He only knew that she’d surprised him that afternoon, a girl who must have been only a few years older than he was—and a knight no less! A girl who had, unlike the other Iranian knights, seen through Sohrab’s farr and bluster, identifying the hesitant boy underneath.

Had she known that Sohrab had been taught to never hit a girl or a woman? Or had she changed shape, like the witches in the stories his nurse liked to tell him—daeva women who went about in disguise until forced to reveal their true forms?

Though she had never admitted this to him, Sohrab knew that his mother, Tahmineh, was a witch. When he was small, he had taken comfort in Tahmineh’s magic, the warmth of her touch that turned his worst nightmares into glorious dreams of flying chariots and people with fishtails diving under a turquoise sea.

Not anymore, he thought, stomach churning. After learning about what Tahmineh had done—how she and Zende Razm had driven Rostam away—even the thought of looking at his mother repelled Sohrab. She would not touch him now. Even in his dreams.

It was likely that she already knew about Zende Razm’s death. Tahmineh always seemed to know about everything, including births or deaths that had happened in lands far away from Samangan—news that would normally not reach their kingdom until days or weeks later. Did his mother see the future in her dreams? Was she one of those seer women that the priests at the palace always condemned for blasphemy? Sohrab did not know and even if he did, he wouldn’t tell anyone. The world would only call his mother evil for her magic. A woman spawned by creatures of the underworld. A woman whose blood Sohrab shared.

Wind gusted across the valley, rich with the scents of grass and soil, warming with the ascent of the day. Sohrab often felt hot here in Iran, his metal armor stifling in the afternoon sun. But today, he felt very cold, as if a layer of ice had coated the skin under his tunic. He wondered, for perhaps the hundredth time, if his daeva blood was another reason his father had never visited Samangan. If he thought that Sohrab was like Tahmineh as well.

The thought sickened him. He turned back to the army amassed in the valley. He needed to know who these men were, the banners they fought under. He did not fully believe Zende Razm’s story about the prophecy. But the strange circumstances of his death had given Sohrab pause. Had made him wonder about who might have murdered the king of Samangan.

“There was no one but Turanians and Samangani in the castle last night, Golden Warrior!” the terrified guards had told him. “Surely, an Iranian soldier must have slipped in, disguised!”

Rostam? Sohrab wondered now. But if so, why was he disguised? Subterfuge wasn’t something his father was known for. Unless, of course, he’d wanted to see Sohrab in secret. Turan’s Golden Warrior. The greatest threat to Iran that ever lived.

Sohrab suppressed a shiver. He turned to the guard standing a few feet away. “You there! Bring the castellan up from the dungeon!”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“I’m not a prince,” Sohrab whispered under his breath. “I am Sohrab, son of Rostam.”

Rostam, the hero and the enemy. A man Sohrab had never seen except in crude illustration. A man he now had to pinpoint in an ocean of armed bodies—assuming Rostam was even here.

Moments later, the guard reappeared with the castellan, bound heavily in chains, blood encrusting his leather cuirass and striped trousers, his dark eyes hard in a weathered brown face.

“What is your name?” Sohrab asked the man.

The castellan said nothing for a long moment. Then, with reluctance: “I am Hajir, son of Gudarz.”

Gudarz. Sudden lightness bloomed in Sohrab’s chest. Gudarz was one of the seven azadan, advisor to Emperor Kavus and one of Rostam’s closest friends. Surely this man—this Hajir—would know Rostam on sight.

For once, Sohrab was grateful for the helmet he wore, the visor that shielded his excitement from the other man. “Tell me,” he said, doing his best to sound calm. “Who comes here from Iran today? Tell me now and you will be rewarded handsomely for your service.”

Hajir’s expression remained remote. Uninterested. When the silence continued a beat too long, Sohrab added carelessly, “Or I could kill you. That is always an option.”

Hate flashed in the man’s eyes. But Sohrab had fought Hajir yesterday and had noted how the man had allowed himself to be taken captive instead of fighting to his death. Hajir would not martyr himself—not for a few lords.

“Whom do you wish to know about?” Hajir said. “Point them out and I will tell you about them as best as I can.”

Sohrab pointed to a pavilion at the very back of the valley, where over a dozen war elephants were tethered. Silk walls enclosed numerous tents of leopard skin, the largest displaying a scarlet and purple standard emblazoned with four golden ellipses and precious gems, a gilded flower at their center. “Who is that? With the elephants?”

“That is Shahenshah Kavus’s pavilion,” Hajir said. “You must be proud of yourself, Golden Warrior. Having drawn the emperor himself here from his throne.”

Sohrab ignored the taunt. Good, he told himself. Good that Kavus is here. It would only make things easier when Sohrab had to finally kill him and take the throne for his father.

“There?” Sohrab pointed to a black pavilion where most of the infantry were gathered, a silk banner with an elephant fluttering overhead.

“Those are the forces of Tus, son of the late king Nozar.”

A red pavilion rose beside the black one, a golden lion on its purple banner—belonging to the azadan Gudarz. More pavilions and banners were identified: the standard of a black wolf on a red field, which belonged to the knight Gev; a white pavilion with an ivory throne, headed by Kavus’s son, Prince Fariborz; and then a banner with a wild boar topped with a golden moon owned by another one of Gudarz’s sons.

“What about that one?” Sohrab pointed to a green enclosure surrounded by cavalry in silver armor. At their center sat a large knight on an enormous horse, wearing chain mail and heavy lamellar. The knight’s face was shielded by an iron helmet. A black dragon rose serpentlike on his white banner. Sohrab’s pulse quickened at the sight. Could it be?

It was difficult to tell with all the armor. Even the horse was so thickly protected with it that Sohrab couldn’t say it was Rakhsh with his fabled red coat.

“That is a prince of the Tatars,” Hajir said as he squinted at the knight. “One of our emperor’s many allies.”

“That is not possible!” Sohrab raised his helm to glare at the man. “Tell me his name!”

“I do not know!” Hajir looked frightened now. “I swear on my life, Golden Warrior! I only recognize the banner, which is common among the Tatars and those who dwell farther east from here.”

He’s lying, Sohrab thought. He has to be.

But if he was… how was Sohrab to know? He had never paid attention to any of the statecraft lessons he’d been given in Samangan, often bored with the tutor’s droning monotone. Most days he’d slipped away from lessons to ride his horse or spar at the zoorkhaneh.

A pit opened up in the bottom of his stomach. Sohrab’s hands fisted, a familiar heat crawling up his spine and shoulders, emerging in wisps of glowing blue farr. “Where is Rostam, Iran’s champion of champions?” he demanded of the castellan. “Is he still to arrive? Look again and tell me!”

Hajir glanced warily somewhere above Sohrab’s head and looked back across the valley. “I do not see him here, Golden Warrior. Perhaps he will not come. Rostam is an old man now. He might decide to leave the fighting to younger men.”

Sohrab would have laughed if not for the acid burning a line down his throat.

“Your emperor himself is here, along with his best knights and what appears to be the whole Iranian army. And you tell me that Rostam, his greatest champion, is too old to come?”

“You should be grateful.” Spittle flecked Hajir’s graying lips. “Grateful that Rostam isn’t here yet. If he were, he would truss you up like the fawn that you are and string you over the fortress for all to see!”

A burning black haze clouded Sohrab’s vision—years of pain, anger, and fear exploding in a punch that sent Hajir flying headfirst over the wall.

28.

THE CASTELLAN’S LONG, HIGH SCREAM pierced the air, broken only by the crack of bone against ground over thirty feet below.

For a long time, there was no sound. It wasn’t new for Sohrab: killing a man. He had killed men before. Had been killing them ever since he’d ventured forth on this mission to conquer Iran, though it had always been during battle and then, too, only men who were armed and refused captivity, choosing instead to die at the end of his spear.

This was the first time he had killed a man out of anger. Not only that, it was a man who’d been captured and bound and could otherwise not defend himself. The thought made Sohrab gag. Resting his hands on the stone ledge, he sucked in several breaths.

Hajir was no innocent, he told himself.

Surely the man had been lying about Rostam. Or perhaps hiding the true time of his arrival. Armies often did that, keeping certain strategies secret to conquer their enemies. And Hajir, no matter his promises to Sohrab, had still retained loyalties to Iran.

Hadn’t he?

As his anger faded, doubts began to creep in. What if Sohrab was wrong? What if Rostam truly wasn’t here? He turned to the guards watching him, their faces pale with fright. “Bring me General Houman!” he ordered.

Moments later, Afrasyab’s senior-most general climbed up to the battlements, a man with a silken voice and a smile that never quite reached his eyes. He was smiling at Sohrab now, arm tucked around a helmet plumed with red feathers.

“I see that our Golden Warrior has dispatched the insolent castellan.” Houman nodded toward the ledge. “Did he shoot his mouth off again? Or was he trying to mislead you?”

Despite himself, Sohrab began to calm at the words. Surely, what he had done wasn’t so wrong. Certainly not a strategic error of any kind. Houman would have been sure to let him know otherwise.

“I’m pretty sure he was trying to mislead me,” Sohrab said. He turned and pointed to the green pavilion with the dragon banner again. “Tell me, General. To whom does this banner belong?”

Houman gazed out into the valley, his eyes narrowing on the large knight and his horse. “Does it belong to an Iranian lord? I’m not sure I recognize it.”

A stone lodged itself in Sohrab’s throat. “Hajir said it was some Tatary prince!” he forced out. “But it could be Rostam, couldn’t it? That knight is certainly tall and broad enough. His horse is large, too. And look at that light silver glow around him!”

Even from this distance, Sohrab could tell it was farr. It had to be.

Houman’s smooth face creased with an expression that suspiciously looked like pity. “There are many knights who are tall and broad like General Rostam—especially in the lands of the Tatar. Hajir said this man is a prince—this would explain his rich pavilion, his troops, and also his farr. The power of the immortals is not isolated to Iran alone.”

“So where is Rostam, then?” Sohrab cried out. “Why is he not here?”

But Houman had no answer, and eventually Sohrab turned away, an icy rage seeping into his skin. “I will not join the fight today,” he said.

“But, Your Highness, the troops are—”

“Do you wish to follow in Hajir’s footsteps?” Sohrab could hardly recognize his own voice; it was so cold.

Dead silence followed. He wondered if Houman would hit him for his insolence. If he would finally act on the anger that Sohrab sensed in him every time he flouted the general’s commands.

But here, Sohrab outranked Houman in every way and so the man did nothing. When Sohrab finally turned around to look at him, the general was gone, leaving behind no trace of his appearance except for a single red feather on the ground.

Sohrab did not fight that day. Instead, he stood on the battlements with the archers and watched the fighting that took place on a grassy plain between the valley and the fortress. The Iranians preferred heavy cavalry over infantry—knights with lances charging on horseback—a brute-force tactic that was only rarely countered by the Turanian foot soldiers, who rallied by locking their shields together to form a defensive barrier.

Arrows littered the blood-soaked ground courtesy of mounted archers, who feigned a retreat only to turn in their saddles and expertly shoot their pursuers through the eye. The Turanians were especially good at this, unburdened as they were by the heavy layers of armor their enemy preferred. But the Iranians outnumbered them two to one. Also, Kavus’s forces had not earned a reputation as the world’s most fearsome army for no reason. Soon it was impossible to see who was fighting whom. Flaming arrows rained down from the towers of the fortress, setting bodies on fire. Soldiers fell off their mounts only to be crushed underneath or speared through to their deaths.

From Sohrab’s vantage point, the loss on both sides appeared to be equal—so much so that by the end of the day, someone on each end of the plain began creating a mound of severed enemy heads. Now and then, his gaze drifted to the Iranian lords in the valley. But the Tatary prince remained where he was, long after Gudarz, Tus, and even Prince Fariborz had joined the fray. The large knight sat calmly on his caparisoned horse, his head moving from side to side as if he were looking for someone. Waiting.

On the second day of battle, a figure climbed up to the battlements, blood splattered across his trousers and boots, a film of red dust clouding the brilliance of his armor. It was Barman, Afrasyab’s other general, gray-haired and often red-faced with drink, a man known for his good humor across the camp. Barman wasn’t smiling that morning, though.

“Golden Warrior,” he said, bowing low before Sohrab. “Please. You must join the battle now. We Turanians are being decimated by those Iranian brutes. If you don’t help us, all will be lost.”

Sohrab examined the man, noting the defeated look in his eyes. Though yesterday’s battle had been the most brutal he had ever witnessed, Sohrab had obstinately refused any calls to join in. He had further ordered the army from Samangan to remain inside the fortress—a directive they could not refuse even in the face of Turanian orders or pleas.

“I am waiting for Rostam to arrive,” Sohrab told the general. “I want to see this famous champion of Iran. But it looks like he is not here.”

He watched Barman’s round face closely, looking for any change in expression. But the man only appeared tired. “I do not know where Rostam is, my lord,” he said. “Surely, that does not matter, does it? Your goal is to conquer Iran, whether Rostam arrives or not.”

Sohrab’s jaw tightened. Rostam was—and would be—the only reason why he was here. Why any of this even mattered. But he could not say that to a Turanian. Especially not to Afrasyab’s own general.

“Tell me.” Sohrab pointed to the large knight in the green pavilion. “Do you not think that knight with the standard of a black dragon could be Rostam? Or that his horse—larger than any I’ve seen before—could be the famous Rakhsh?”

Barman turned to gaze upon the knight. “I don’t know who the knight is, my lord. He does not look like Rostam to me.” Sohrab was about to snap at the man and say that he didn’t believe him, when Barman added, “That said… I could be wrong.”

He turned to face Sohrab, his deep brown eyes clear of deception. “The only way to find out is for you to go out into the field, my lord, and challenge the best of the Iranians to fight and defeat you in single combat. If this knight is Rostam, as you believe, then a duel will easily reveal him to you. Rostam has never been able to stay away from a fight that challenges Iran’s honor.”

For the first time in days, perhaps even weeks, hope began to flicker in Sohrab’s chest. Was it true? Could Rostam be here in disguise, simply waiting for his true match to appear? Sohrab studied the large knight once more, noting the sheen to his fine silver armor, the golden dragon emblazoned on his shield. Rostam had killed a dragon in the underworld, hadn’t he? Wasn’t that what all the stories said?

The sun climbed overhead, warming his gold armor. But for once, Sohrab didn’t notice the heat. His body prickled with a familiar blue glow and his heart beat with a steadiness he hadn’t felt in many years.

Your father, it seemed to be telling him. Your father could be here, right in front of you.

“All right,” Sohrab said at last. “Have the men bring out my horse, Tez. I will go out and join the fight.”

The other soldiers didn’t notice Sohrab at first. The Turanian heralds had remained silent at Sohrab’s instructions, not daring to beat the drums or sound the horns to announce his approach. They watched instead, breath held, as he rode out onto the plain, the Samangani war horde close behind. All around Sohrab, the world held a faint blue tint. Under his saddle, Tez’s muscles worked, his hooves churning the earth, uncaring of the flaming arrows that fell around them.

“Golden Warrior! Golden Warrior!”

Whispers rose to loud chants, every Turanian cheering at the sight of Sohrab, the sound of them little more than a dull hum in his ears. An Iranian knight cried out in challenge and thrust forth his lance. The man rode with immense precision and speed, carving a path through the crush of foot soldiers and trampling several underfoot. Without farr, Sohrab knew the knight would have been a tough opponent to beat.

With farr, however, everything shifted in Sohrab’s gaze, the knight’s movements slowing as if he were moving through syrup, every detail of his fine armor visible, including the boar engraved on his shield. Delicately, with a grace that appeared almost careless, Sohrab sidestepped the lance, spun sideways in his saddle, and swung out his mace.

The knight fell in a clatter of iron and steel, blood pouring from the sockets of his helmet, his skull already crushed within. The rest of the knights blinked, just beginning to register the death of their chieftain, when Sohrab dug his heels into Tez, urging him toward an Iranian pavilion closest to the field. With the tempered tip of his lance, he sliced through the ropes, uncaring of the shouts that rose as a large tent came tumbling to the ground.

As the soldiers around him scattered, their horses screaming with fright, Sohrab faced the valley, his voice booming across the sea of tents:

“Is this all you have, king of kings, emperor of the seven realms?” he sneered. “These men who you claim are the best warriors on the continent? These men who fall like puppets when I cut their strings?”

As he spoke, Sohrab withdrew a dagger from his belt and threw it behind one shoulder. A howl went up, the Iranian foot soldier trying to sneak up behind him clutching his bloody face. Silence fell, thick as pitch, broken only by the moans from the now one-eyed man.

“Is there a warrior in Iran who can truly fight?” Sohrab called out, turning his horse in a circle. “A man who will rise to the challenge of defeating me in single combat? Or has Kavus raised an army of lapdogs and cowards—capable only of fighting in hordes?”

“I will fight you!” said a man. He raised his visor, revealing a handsome, youthful face. “Wouldn’t want your esteemed Turanian emperor to think that a son of Gudarz couldn’t take on his pampered pup.”

A smattering of laughter followed by a few cheers.

Sohrab gave the warrior a cold smile. “Is this the same Gudarz whose son Hajir met his death at my hands yesterday?”

The laughter died abruptly. The young man glowered at Sohrab. “You will pay for my brother’s death, Turanian. You will pay for it with your own blood!”

He rushed forth, his lance aimed at Sohrab’s face. Unlike Sohrab’s previous opponent, this son of Gudarz was smarter and faster, the tip of his weapon managing to make contact with the pauldron at Sohrab’s shoulder. It made no difference. Sohrab caught hold of the lance in a fist and, with a single swift move, snapped the end right off. Caught off guard, Gudarz’s son rode straight into a nearby barricade made of spears, one of which pierced his neck. He didn’t even have the time to scream.

“Well?” Sohrab shouted at the silent, watchful crowd. “Is that truly the best you have to offer? Or will you watch as I capture your emperor with my bare hands and hang him by the noose?”

Sohrab’s gaze locked on the large warrior in the green pavilion. The Tatary prince did not move. Did nothing except watch Sohrab through the slits on his helmet with glittering eyes. From this distance, Sohrab could not make out their color.

A shout distracted him: another one of Gudarz’s many sons by the looks of his armor, his javelin inches from Sohrab’s helmet. Sohrab raised a forearm, his whole body shifting from sapphire to a dazzling ultramarine. The tip of the javelin sparked on contact with his gauntlet but did no further damage, falling harmlessly to the ground. The Iranian knight attacked again, this time with a special panjagan crossbow that could shoot five arrows at once. Sohrab caught the arrows midair, crushing them in his fist. They fought like this for a while, Sohrab doing little more than sidestepping or fending off the knight’s attacks. Eventually, tired of toying with the man, Sohrab charged, a roar escaping his lips as he decapitated him.

Somewhere on a distant rock, a pair of vultures perched, drawn by the odor of blood in the air. Sohrab hardly noticed. He dug his knees into Tez again and again, urging the horse forward, dispatching one Iranian warrior, then another.

As was custom in duels like this, none of the troops attacked either side, nor did they interfere in the fight. Sohrab suspected that this was less due to any ancient code of honor and more due to terror over what he’d done so far with his powers. What he could still do.

Crimson stained the sky; the sun had begun to set, marking the end of another day of battle. No Turanian lives had been lost. And no more Iranians came to challenge Sohrab—not even the great knights Gev, Tus, and Bahram—all of whom had fled the battlefield once they’d been unhorsed or disarmed, their armor dented by Sohrab’s blows, their bodies blistered by his farr.

At the back of the valley, Kavus’s royal standard snapped in the wind. Sohrab wondered if the emperor was still out there watching or if he was hiding like a coward in his great tent.

“I will be back tomorrow,” he promised. “Perhaps by then, Iran’s true champion, Rostam, will come forth to defend his emperor’s honor.”

Once more he looked toward the knight in the green pavilion. Again, the man did nothing except remain seated on his horse.

Am I wrong? Sohrab wondered, unease curling in his belly. Is this man not Rostam at all?

He tried to recall the only memory he had of his father—from a time when Sohrab was only an infant. A tall, shadowy figure outlined by the sun, humming a song Sohrab no longer remembered. It had been Rostam, he knew. His mother had said so herself.

Yet thoughts of Tahmineh no longer sat easily in Sohrab’s mind. She had lied to Sohrab so many times. She had driven Rostam away, leaving Sohrab bereft, uncertain and fatherless for nearly his whole life.

She did it to protect you, Zende Razm had insisted. Always to protect you.

Sohrab spun, startling the surrounding Turanian soldiers. They scattered, giving way to him as he rode back to the White Fortress. A sharp pain had begun in Sohrab’s gut, the rushing wind whistling ghostlike in his helmet. He would be sick this evening, he knew. He always was when he pushed himself this hard during battle or used his farr so extensively.

By the grace of Ahura Mazda, he did not vomit until the drawbridge closed behind him. Did not fall until he was inside the fortress, his knees digging into the stone floor, his stomach emptying in a foul puddle on the ground.

“My lord!” someone cried out. “The healer! Bring me the healer!”

Spots, yellow and green, floated cloudlike across Sohrab’s vision. Something sharp and astringent filled his nostrils—eucalyptus, perhaps, or haoma? One of those herbs the nurses at Samangan had given him whenever he fell sick like this. As his vision cleared, Sohrab found that he was still kneeling, the army healer close by, holding a strong-smelling cloth in one hand.

“I’m all right,” Sohrab told the man. Groggily, he rose to his feet. “I don’t need your potions. Only rest.”

“Very well, my lord.” The healer stepped aside.

Sohrab knew they were watching as he climbed up the stairs—the generals Houman and Barman, the soldiers and the servants—their expressions likely a mix of trepidation, worry, and distaste. They would talk about Sohrab later that evening. Would wonder—yet again—if Afrasyab had made a colossal mistake by giving him this mission. Sohrab, after all, was a warrior whose powers no Turanian could control. A warrior who did what he wanted—which, in an army, could turn from an asset to a liability in the blink of an eye.

For once, though, these things did not bother Sohrab.

For once, all he could think of was the promise of the next day and what it might bring.

29.

HE ROSE BEFORE THE SUN, the taste of copper in his mouth, his body reinvigorated with the anticipation of a battle that would surely be in his favor this time around.

“I will undo the damage of the past,” he vowed, sliding on a fresh tunic over his sudreh and tying the onyx armlet around his arm. “I will bring you back to us, Father.”

Your father may not wish to return.

He ignored the voice in his head, pushed it aside as he had his mother in his dreams over the past few nights: an apparition sent to discourage him in sleep as Tahmineh had once tried to when he was awake. He would not be dissuaded from finding Rostam. Not when he was so close.

The troops assembled as the sun rose over the mountains, Iranians in the valley, Turanians up in the fortress and down in the plain. Sohrab rode alongside the latter and then broke out ahead, his armor catching the light, his body haloed with farr. Helmets swiveled, eyes peering at him through slits.

Though he was alone, no one approached the Golden Warrior. No one dared to after what Sohrab had done only the day before. Sohrab did not issue an open challenge this time. Instead, he directly rode toward the green pavilion and paused several feet away from the large knight standing under the dragon banner.

“Savar-Framandar.” He addressed the man by the Iranian title for cavalry commander. “Neither you nor your knights responded to my challenge yesterday. Why so? Have you no honor? Or do you not serve the emperor Kavus at all and are merely here as a spectator, eager to see him defeated?”

The large knight said nothing, his silence unsettling. It took every ounce of Sohrab’s willpower to stay still and mirror the man’s moves. Then the knight spoke, his voice low and gruff, as steady as the mountains behind him:

“I fight only on the side of Ahura Mazda and the truth. You, Golden Warrior or whatever you may call yourself, are not on either side today by fighting for the demon emperor Afrasyab.”

A thrill shot up Sohrab’s spine. “If so, then prove it!” he challenged. “Come fight me and we shall see whom Ahura Mazda and the yazata favor!”

As he spoke, he noted the change in the large knight—the subtle silver glow about his armor expanding, making him appear larger than he was.

Farr. I was right about that. What if I’m right about the rest as well?

The thought hadn’t troubled him before. But now Sohrab looked at the large knight as if for the first time. This close to the other man, it was obvious that he was older, his movements regal, yet stiff as he made his way around his knights. Even his horse appeared slower, not quite as agile as Sohrab’s own. What if the knight truly was Rostam? What if Sohrab ended up severely injuring or, worse, killing him?

Mother would never forgive me.

He did not understand where the thought had come from. Ever since he’d run away from home, Sohrab had desperately tried not to think of his mother—or even dream of her. Tahmineh, the witch who had broken his father’s heart. Who had hurt Sohrab, too, with all her deceptions and her lies.

Your father doesn’t know what you even look like. Do you think he will recognize you when you fight under his enemy’s banner?

Sohrab had hated her for saying the words then. Had hated how she’d not thought twice before spearing through his softest parts.

But what if she was right? a voice in his head argued now. What if this knight is Rostam and he doesn’t recognize you?

Sohrab could show the knight his onyx armlet, of course. But that would require removing a part of his armor—and, young as he was, Sohrab wasn’t fool enough to do something like that over here. Also, what if this man wasn’t Rostam? What if Hajir, Houman, and Barman were right and Sohrab, in his desperation, had taken a complete stranger for his father?

Only one way to find out.

“What family do you hail from, Savar-Framandar?” Sohrab asked as the man paused before him. “My men have said you are a foreigner—a prince of the Tatars. But your armor suggests otherwise—with distinct similarities to the other Iranian knights.”

A huff of breath that might have been a laugh. “Why does my name or race matter?” the knight asked, a note of contempt entering his voice. “In battle, nothing speaks louder than the sword, mace, or spear; no names matter except those that are not already ground into the dust. Are you having second thoughts, young Turanian? Are you afraid of losing to one who is older and more experienced in war? Perhaps you should have never left your mother’s side.”

Laughter from the Iranians, louder this time than what Sohrab’s previous challengers had evoked. Heat crawled up Sohrab’s face. The knight was only trying to goad Sohrab into doing something stupid.

“Your farr suggests that you are more than experienced in war, Framandar!” Sohrab pointed out. “Tell me the truth. Are you Rostam, son of Zal, descended from the great knights Sam and Nariman? Are you the champion who has slain dragon, witch, and daeva, the great general who perpetually protects the Iranian empire from harm?”

The man’s farr glowed brighter. “I am not Rostam. Rostam is a warrior of great renown, unmatched by any mortal. I am a man of no consequence and little more than a slave to God—undeserving of throne, kingdom, or crown.”

Clouds drifted overhead, blocking the sun. The small, persistent flame in Sohrab’s chest guttered, a hollow opening in its place.

His father had not come. For whatever reason, Rostam had chosen to stay away from this battle over the White Fortress, uncaring of what the outcome may be.

“Well, then, Framandar,” Sohrab forced out through dry lips. “Let us find a spot on the battleground suited to your advanced age. I will do my best to be quick and give you a clean kill. If you are lucky, I will even leave your head and limbs intact.”

This time, laughter from the Turanian side, though it did little for the bitter taste in Sohrab’s mouth.

They faced off on horseback, lances raised, moving in a slow circle, looking for every weakness, every exploitable gap in the other’s armor.

Sohrab was the first to attack: a powerful charge certain to damage even his toughest opponents. But the man merely held up his glowing silver shield and the lance shattered to bits of wood. A blink later, he surged forward with his own lance, which Sohrab somehow caught and broke off before it pierced his breastplate.

Careful, Sohrab told himself. He had farr, true, but so did this other knight. Despite his age, the knight’s movements were quick on the battlefield, his powers clearly allowing him to see the world as Sohrab’s did—with the slowness and precision needed to avoid sudden attacks from an enemy. Their lances now destroyed, the two warriors switched to maces and moved closer. For what seemed like hours, all Sohrab could hear was the death knell of their weapons swinging overhead, the harsh intakes of breath as each man dodged the other’s blow.

The large knight’s mace was shaped like the head of an animal—a bull? Sohrab wondered, hoped, despite himself. He waited a beat, watched as the mace came at him with snail speed—only to realize that its head was shaped like a lion.

Heat shot up Sohrab’s arms as he blocked the mace with his shield, sparks flying, metal hitting metal with a terrible screech. Furiously, Sohrab swung his own mace at the knight, who blocked it, the force of the blow shuddering all the way to Sohrab’s teeth.

It was the first time Sohrab had ever fought like this. Knight to knight, weapon to weapon, so well-matched that neither he nor his opponent had yet managed to wound the other, let alone be unhorsed. Under him, Tez had begun to pant from exhaustion—the effect, Sohrab realized, of simultaneously being exposed to two men with farr.

How long will this continue? Sohrab thought desperately. At this rate, Tez will fall to his knees and leave me without a mount!

But the knight, powerful as he was, was tiring as well. At Sohrab’s next swing of the mace, a tremor went through his large arms and he fumbled, his shield thudding to the ground. Before Sohrab could react, the other man leaped off his mount and unsheathed a sword.

“Face me here on the ground, Golden Warrior.” He spat out Sohrab’s title. “Face me here if you’re truly a man!”

Don’t do it. Sohrab could hear the voices of every single Samangani captain and general who’d ever instructed him in battle. Kill him now while he is fumbling for an advantage.

But where was the honor in that? Where was the grit and the mettle of the knights of yore—knights like Zal and Sam, like Rostam himself, who had overcome the greatest odds only to emerge victorious?

Somewhere at the back of his mind, a voice was pleading. Desperately trying to get his attention. But whatever it said was drowned by the sound of Sohrab’s own heartbeat, by the thud of his boots as he dismounted, dust rising in his wake.

“Come and fight me, old man!” Sohrab taunted. “Now we are equals in all that matters!”

In Samangan, Sohrab had towered over all the grown men, few matching him in build, none whatsoever in height.

This large knight, however, seemed to mirror him in every way. Head to head, shoulder to shoulder, their weapons clanging, the air soured by their sweat and the coppery tinge of blood. Smoke filled Sohrab’s nostrils, an effect of the magic surrounding him and the knight—a mingling of silver and blue, the heat so immense that it was a miracle his armor didn’t melt into his skin. Soon enough, the circle of troops surrounding Sohrab and the large knight widened to avoid the constant volley of sparks the two emitted.

The large knight was breathing with effort, each exhale more ragged than the last. With a burst of speed, Sohrab lunged with his mace, breaking the other man’s blade in two. The blow reverberated through him, lingered in the air long after pieces of the knight’s sword fell to the ground.

But the other man was not finished. He reached forth and caught Sohrab by the belt, his grip like iron, the strength of it nearly toppling the boy to the ground. Wildly, Sohrab swung the mace again and connected with the man’s shoulder—seeing at last a trail of blood trickling down his armor.

The knight gasped but otherwise showed no outward sign of pain.

For a second, Sohrab wondered. Doubted. Admired his enemy in spite of himself.

It was a mistake the man took full advantage of, his mace connecting with the arm that Sohrab held his sword with, nearly dislocating the elbow from its socket. Stars burst before Sohrab’s eyes, a pain so intense he couldn’t breathe.

Somehow, he swerved away from the knight’s next blow and the next. He spun and he leaped and he dodged, feeling less like a fighter and more like a court jester performing silly tricks. Somewhere in the background, the Iranians had begun to cheer, their words little more than a buzz in Sohrab’s ears.

Slow down, he told himself. Focus.

Vision still blurry with pain, Sohrab paid attention to the sounds he could hear: the rattle of the other man’s lamellar coat against chain mail, the hitch in his breath that second before he raised his mace high. This time, when the weapon came swinging his way, Sohrab moved with more surety, and with a swiftness that surprised even himself, he hammered the side of the man’s helmet. The blow sounded through the clearing like a gong, nearly drowning the knight’s scream of pain.

By the time Sohrab’s vision cleared, the knight was clutching the side of his helmet, veering this way and that like a drunk.

Now was his chance.

Decisively, Sohrab moved forward, mace raised over the knight’s head, when the latter held up his hands.

“Wait!” he rasped hoarsely. “Halt, brave warrior! I submit. I submit to your excellent fighting. You have won this round fair and square. I would gladly let you kill me now, but in my land, it is custom for the winner of a duel to give his opponent a second chance. To allow another fight to the death tomorrow—on this very battlefield. What do you say? Will you do it?”

Sohrab frowned. Was this a trap meant to dissuade Sohrab and kill him from behind? But this seemed unlikely. For one: The Iranian troops were much too far from them to have heard the knight’s plea. Moreover, the man appeared to be grievously injured, blood flowing from his helmet in rivulets, his limbs trembling with exhaustion.

“Please,” the knight said, softer this time, almost plaintive. “Fight me again. If I must die tomorrow, let me do so with honor.”

The words skipped across the surface of Sohrab’s mind, brought an ache to his chest. Wasn’t Rostam a man of honor? Wouldn’t he, too, wish to fight as this knight did—with a weapon in hand, his dignity still intact?

Slowly, reluctantly, Sohrab lowered his mace.

“Tomorrow,” he told the knight. “At dawn. If you don’t come, I promise I will hunt you down to the ends of this earth and break every one of your limbs.”

“I do not doubt that.” The man lifted his visor. A gash had opened up on his forehead and blood poured freely from the wound, obscuring most of his face. A smile flashed, as brief as lightning in the summer sky. “I will be here.”

The knight then turned to the silent, watching troops and called out: “We stop here today. The Golden Warrior and I will fight again at dawn tomorrow.”

Sohrab watched the knight walk back to the green pavilion on slow, measured steps, not moving from his spot until the Iranian troops began to retreat as well.

A hand touched Sohrab’s wounded arm, sending pinpricks of pain across it. He whirled around, ready to strike, when he spotted the generals Houman and Barman standing a few paces away, their hands raised.

“Oh.” Sohrab lowered his mace. “It’s you two.”

“Yes.” Houman swallowed, his mouth firm despite the tremor going through his limbs. “What happened, Golden Warrior? You were winning—were about to defeat that knight. But then you just let him go!”

“He said it is custom for duelers in his country to do so,” Sohrab said with a shrug. “So I agreed we could fight again tomorrow.”

Houman’s teeth gnashed in a way that made him look like a rabid dog. “There is no such custom anywhere in the seven realms! He made a fool of you, boy!”

Anger, still simmering somewhere under Sohrab’s skin, flared. “How dare you speak to me this way!”

Houman flinched but for once did not budge. “I dare because it is true!”

“Houman is right.” Barman stepped between the two of them. “That knight took advantage of your innocence, my lord. He tricked you into sparing his life. He knew he would have lost otherwise and that we Turanians would have won!”

Barman’s voice reached Sohrab as if from a great distance. “He… he said…” Sohrab’s lips cracked as he spoke. “He said it was a matter of…”

The word honor lodged in his throat like a broken bone.

Because it hadn’t been about honor at all. It had been about survival, plain and simple. The clever tactic of an older knight with decades of experience in battle.

Sohrab spun on his heels, fully intent on going to the green pavilion and strangling the large knight with his bare hands. Afrasyab’s generals stopped him.

“You cannot go there!” Houman growled. “You have already agreed to his terms of combat. Now you must honor them or our entire army will perish at Iranian hands. Emperor Afrasyab may have made you our leader, Golden Warrior. But that does not mean you will go ahead and destroy the rest of us on a whim!”

Sohrab’s head pounded. He wrenched off his helmet, uncaring of the sweat pouring down his face.

“Fuck you!” he told the general. “Fuck Afrasyab!”

They would all be lost without Sohrab anyway. Lost without the luminous and terrible power that had been bestowed on him since birth: a power that was still pumping through his veins, demanding that he kill kill kill.

For once, though, Sohrab didn’t respond to its urgings—did not turn into the monster he knew he could be. For once, he simply walked away, the troops parting before him, giving him a wide berth. No one questioned Sohrab as he climbed the stairs back to the fortress. No one dared cross his path. No one except for a lone squire, who waited for Sohrab at the entrance, his wobbling knees held tight together.

“What is it?” Sohrab did his best to rein in his temper. “Why are you in my way?”

“It’s your m-m-mother, Golden Warrior!” the squire sputtered. “Sh-Sh-Shahdoxt Tahmineh is waiting for you inside!”

30.

THE PAST TWO DAYS HAD gone by in a blur. I had been riding for most of them, barely taking the time to rest or eat, pausing once, briefly, to water the horses at the insistence of the old Samangani captain leading us.

“We need to stop, Shahdoxt Tahmineh,” he’d said, a firm note to his gentle voice. “A slow horse is still better than a dead one.”

I knew he was right. I had seen horses go lame, even die after misuse on the battlefield. Yet every moment that passed by made me think of one in which Rostam could meet Sohrab. In which one—or both—could be dead. I could not do magic right now—not in front of my soldiers. In any case, it made no difference. Sleep evaded me for the most part and I was far too restless to effectively fall into an astral dream.

Overhead, the Iranian sun burned bright. I wondered if Meher was watching us. Waiting for exactly the right moment to strike. The stench of death followed us everywhere—in the smoke that still rose from burned villages and fields, in the corpses that lay across them, flesh burned to a point beyond recognition. My men, used to such things, did not bat an eye. So I, too, tried to detach myself as best as I could—until the piercing cry of a child sounded from an abandoned warehouse.

“Stop!” I ordered the men. “There’s a child here somewhere!”

A child all alone.

I was about to dismount and take a look inside, when a woman emerged from the house, a bruise swelling over her left eye.

She saw me and spat on the ground. “Monsters! Demon worshippers! May your crops perish and your homes burn! May all your sons die as mine have and your children no longer have fathers!”

My mouth opened and closed.

That we were Samangani and not Turanian no longer mattered. I could tell that she would not want us here. Would not trust our aid.

Without a word, we turned our horses back to the road.

My stomach roiled. There was no doubt in my mind that Sohrab’s army had done this. Had my son been the one giving the orders, participating in the killing? Or had it been someone else—an older general perhaps, one already hardened by war and bloodshed? I did not know.

What I did know was that directly or indirectly, Sohrab had played a part in destroying nearly all the villages we’d passed—and in killing most of this woman’s family.

And yet, here I am, racing against time to save him.

Unable to stop. Unable to think of anything except the blood-soaked vision I’d seen in my mother’s river all those years ago.

I began making excuses. Sohrab was young. Only fourteen. Clearly he’d been swayed by the men around him—had done things he never would have otherwise. Once I got to the White Fortress, I would reunite Sohrab with his father and all the killing would stop. My son would repent for his actions. He would pay restitution to that woman—to all the villagers for the losses they’d suffered. I would make him.

I ignored the voice at the back of my head that reminded me how often Sohrab had ignored me in the past. How Rostam, himself, had laid many a Turanian village to waste in the long years of war between the two empires.

They will not listen to you—a mere woman.

And yet, I was not merely a woman, was I?

“I’m a witch,” I said, so softly that even the wind would not carry my words. I could still do things. Use my magic in ways beyond anyone’s imagining. The thought beat in me, kept me moving forward as we finally approached the White Fortress, having secretly taken a route around a valley where smoke from various campfires rose. The camp was Iranian, I knew, by the colors of their various tents—none of which were in that distinct shade of Turanian sky blue—and by the fluttering banners with their various sigils.

I could not see Rostam’s sigil—the black dragon—from here. But that did not matter. He would be here. Eram had told me as much.

It was sunset by the time we reached the fortress and a young Turanian guard bowed before me. “Your Highness,” he said. “We welcome you here to the White Fortress.”

“Where is my son, Sohrab?” I asked. “Is he all right?”

“I… I think he’s all right, Your Highness.” The guard hesitated. “I don’t know much about what happened out on the field, but our heralds just announced the end of the day’s battle and from what I know, there have been no deaths today on our side. I think the Golden Warrior should be here soon.”

He led me up one of the towers and into a small room. As he left, I examined my surroundings, which were spartan apart from the bed in one corner and a bench in the other. A knight’s quarters. Sohrab’s clothes and belongings were piled in a heap on the ground along with a palm-sized wooden horse he’d played with as a small child. I picked up the toy and rubbed a thumb along the fine-grained wood, its surface still warm from the blistering heat of the day.

I did not know Sohrab still kept this thing. Then again—I recalled the burned fields we’d passed to get here—it seemed that I did not know him much at all.

A moment later, Sohrab’s voice sounded outside the door. He had taken off his gold armor, except for the breastplate, dark curls plastered to his forehead.

“Sohrab!” Relief flooded through me as I made note of his appearance—unharmed, except for his left elbow, which appeared to be bandaged. He’s alive, I thought, touching his face, examining it for bruises. He’s still alive.

Sohrab winced and twisted away, rubbing a shoulder against the spot where my hand had just been.

“What are you doing here, Mother?” He scowled at me. “You should be in Samangan, fulfilling your duties as regent.”

“I am no longer the regent, remember?” I said, surprised by how calm I sounded. “With Zende Razm now gone, Kaizad is the rightful king of Samangan. My duties there are complete.”

Sohrab’s face twisted briefly with an emotion that might have been anger. Or perhaps grief.

“You should not be here,” he said quietly, his hands curling into fists. “You shouldn’t be near me at all.”

I bit back the urge to retort. To remind him that I was his mother and had every right to be with him if I wished.

“Listen. Sohrab,” I said, trying my best to sound patient. “All is not lost yet. Take me with you to the battlefield tomorrow. I can show you what your father’s banner looks like. I can point him out to you in a crowd, if needed.”

Sohrab stared at me as I spoke, a look of incredulity on his face. And then he laughed—loudly, uproariously.

“You must be joking,” he said. “Or perhaps you’ve gone mad at last.”

“Sohrab—”

“Do you think I’m going to trust you after all you’ve done? You were the reason Father left us. You and Zende Razm. No, don’t speak to me! I know you lied to me again when I caught you both that day by the river. You lied.” He spat out the word. “So many times that I can make no sense of who you are. Who I am!”

“Sohrab, please listen,” I pleaded. “You were so small—only a baby. And there was a terrible prophecy about you and your father—that one or both of you could die if you fought together in battle. Rostam didn’t believe in prophecies. He refused to listen when I tried to tell him about it. So I was forced to take matters into my own hands.”

“By lying? By manipulating everyone with your witchcraft so that I—your poor, foolish son—would remain ignorant, never knowing the extent of the damage you caused?”

His words knocked the wind out of me. I knew Sohrab was angry. That he blamed me for what had happened with Rostam. I just didn’t realize how deep those scars ran.

“Sohrab,” I whispered, my eyes burning with tears. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry! I didn’t want to hurt you!”

“I can’t believe you’re crying.” His face—so much like my own—twisted with disgust. “After everything that has happened, you’re still acting like you’re innocent!”

“I’m not…” I wiped at my face, struggling to compose myself. “I’m not innocent. I know what I did was wrong and terribly so. But my son, what you’re doing isn’t any better. You’re killing people, Sohrab. Not just other warriors, but unarmed civilians! You and your army have burned farms, destroyed families—and for what? So that your father will be impressed? He will not, Sohrab. Not at the cost of his own people!”

“Enough!”

Light exploded from Sohrab and I scarcely managed to duck under the bed to shield myself from the spray of silver-blue sparks. When I crept out again, Sohrab was trembling, his eyes bloodshot, his lips gray.

“You will stay here,” he said, voice eerily quiet. “You will stay here in this room and not leave.”

The door slammed shut. Outside, I heard him instructing the guards to keep watch over me. Threatening to kill them if they let me out for any reason.

Boneless, I sank to the floor next to a heap of dirty clothes.

I wondered how I had, despite my best efforts, turned my child from a loving, tempestuous young boy into a raging monster.

I wondered if I would ever be able to save him.

In the dream, Rostam was on the battlefield outside the White Fortress, surrounded by the odor of smoke in the air, by the blood that now soaked the ground and speckled his armor.

Sohrab materialized before us in all his golden glory, though Rostam only thought of him as that Turanian upstart—a warrior who had, I understood now from flashes of his memories, nearly killed Rostam earlier that day.

“Come and fight me!” Dream Sohrab challenged, raising his mace. “Come and fight me, old man!”

Rostam released a sharp breath. He raised his own mace—no longer the one with the bull’s head but shaped like a roaring lion. Even his armor was different: his tiger skin cuirass replaced with a tunic of iron chain mail and a breastplate of interlocking scales. His helmet no longer bore the white daeva’s skin but was plain and polished to a fine silver sheen. A silken red globe rose from its top, trailing ribbons of green. The color of the yazata Meher.

His attire didn’t make sense to me. Rostam had never been particularly modest, had never shied away from any glory that came his way.

So why is he dressed now in a way that would make him unrecognizable to any who do not know him well?

“Because this Golden Warrior must not know me,” Rostam said, his words turning me completely still. “How many times must I tell you, Eram? He is merely another one of Afrasyab’s minions come here to gain glory and make a name for himself. And what better way to do so than to kill me—Iran’s champion of champions?” Bitterness edged his voice as he recited his title. “Besides, who knows if I will be able to defeat him? I am no longer young, Eram. It is better that I remain hidden. That the Turanians never guess who I am.”

My skin prickled. I had visited Rostam’s dreams in the past. Had even questioned some of his decisions. Never before had he responded to my thoughts in this way. Not once until now—even if he had mistaken me for his first wife.

I hesitated for a second. Then strode forward, melding with Dream Sohrab, morphing his features so that he appeared to be a very old woman.

“Warden of Zabul,” I said, “kingmaker, champion of champions. You are a man of honor, your accomplishments so vast that no upstart could ever eclipse them. Leave this Turanian warrior. Forgive him his age and spare his life. You were young, too, once. Brash and impatient as the young often are. Can you not see yourself in him, Rostam? Not even a little?”

Rostam did not answer. But I could sense his hesitation, his doubts as thick as the fog that surrounded us. Without allowing myself to second-guess, I waved a hand, morphing the vision again. This time, Rostam saw himself—or a slightly younger version of himself—holding an infant in his arms, singing a song. Next to him stood a woman in shadow. A woman much too tall to be his first wife.

My name formed on Rostam’s lips though he did not speak it aloud. Is it you, Tahmineh?

A part of me was tempted to answer. To reveal myself to him in a way I never had in the past. But if I did, I would also reveal myself as a witch. And Rostam, however much he had loved me, had always despised witches.

The younger Rostam and the child vanished and the shadow woman stepped out into the light, revealing herself as the crone again.

“Imagine your son, Sohrab,” she said. “Imagine him grown and eager to make a name for himself. Not for glory, but simply to make his father proud. Now imagine this Turanian warrior you will fight. This young man, who probably has a father of his own.”

“It’s you,” Rostam murmured, staring hard at the crone. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you—”

To my shock, he spun and caught hold of my hand. My hand, not the crone’s.

“I knew it was you,” he whispered, his grip tightening, his eyes wide. “I could feel you. I have always felt you walk through my dreams, Tahmi—”

I severed our connection, the force of it throwing my body into what felt like an endless firestorm, hot winds whipping through my hair, scalding my face and my limbs.

Years ago, Afrasyab had told me that those who had entered the unseen world would always recognize its imprint on another. Had Rostam sensed this about me when we first met in Samangan? Had he always known the truth about me—and my powers—somewhere deep down?

It was too late to ask.

I woke on the floor in a darkened room that was not mine, Sohrab’s clothes in a heap next to me, his wooden horse still clutched in my hand. The very hand his father had held on to moments earlier in a dream. Slowly, I unclenched my fingers, allowing the horse to clatter back to the floor.

Sometime during the night, a tray of food had been left on the bench next to the bed, along with a pitcher of wine. I forced myself to rise. To steadily chew on the flatbread and the grapes—tasteless as they were in my mouth. I had no appetite, but I would need every bit of my strength to perform magic today. My magic—my witchcraft—the only weapon I had left in this fight to save my son.

Outside, light had begun to bleed into the sky.

A battle was about to begin.

31.

WHEN MY HUSBAND AND SON met on the plain outside the White Fortress, they were alone. Curiously so for two men whose battle this morning would likely decide the fate of two empires. Or perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps there were soldiers waiting somewhere farther afield on both sides, ready to step in if either of them perished.

Or both. The voice that crackled in my head was familiar to me—a voice I both dreaded and had grown used to hearing on the battlefield. To the men below, I was invisible in this form, little more than a ghost observing them from the sky. But the angel of war had always been able to see me no matter what form I took.

It surprises me you would want them both dead. I sent my thought toward the sun, which was still rising from behind the mountains, turning the sky a rich gold. Did you not gift Rostam his farr yourself when he was born? Why would you want him to die, when he has fought all these years with your blessings and dedicated all his wins to you? My son, too, is blessed with similar powers thanks to his father. Sohrab, too, could fight for you and add to your glory.

Do not presume that I care for mortal deaths, daeva princess. Especially during a war. Yet there was an edge to Meher’s voice, one that made me wonder if my words had affected him somehow, making him question his own choices.

You have been fighting the daeva for centuries, I went on. You despise me for my daeva blood. And yet have you considered how many of the mortals that you’ve blessed with your farr have daeva blood themselves? Including your beloved Rostam?

In answer, an arrow of red light pierced my eyes, the pain of it splintering through my skull. I veered away from another arrow, then another, finally managing to conjure a shield of shimmering pink and green clouds to deflect the rest.

On the dusty plain below, Rostam and Sohrab had dismounted their horses and were facing off, maces in hand. Sohrab’s voice floated up to me:

“Do you really wish to fight me today, Savar-Framandar? You, who are the strongest man I’ve ever seen, with whom I feel a kinship I cannot explain? Why don’t we put our weapons aside? We can talk, learn about each other’s families over food and wine. I feel we have more in common than this war—than any of the terrible bloodshed that has brought us here today.”

My heart squeezed. Sohrab’s tone was plaintive, so sad. Had my son finally begun to see the error of his ways? To understand the futility of this war? Would Rostam listen to him? Would he, too, begin to recognize parts of himself in Sohrab? See the very truth I’d tried so hard to reveal so many times in his dreams?

“Are you trying to beguile me, young man?” Rostam asked, his tone hard, scornful. “I’m much too old for tricks like this. We spoke of battle today—a fight to the death. Are you afraid of meeting your own?”

“I? Trick you?” The blue smoke curling around Sohrab’s shoulders thickened, sparked. “It was you who tricked me, old man! You who lied yesterday and said that you deserved a second chance. I wanted to give that to you—to extend a hand of friendship.” Sohrab unsheathed his sword. “But it seems you’re fated to die as my enemy.”

Sohrab! I called out to him. Sohrab, no!

My son did not hear me, of course. No one could in this form, no matter how hard I tried. The air around me exploded with heat, taking with it both my sight and sound, the burn of Meher’s latest attack blistering across my face and chest.

You, I thought. Will. Not. Stop. Me.

I clawed at the air and felt it thicken in my grip, imagining that I wasn’t in this alien, unrelenting land, but instead in a meadow in the unseen world, surrounded by infinite threads of light. Something hard formed in my hands, and as my vision cleared, I saw that it was an iridescent sword, its colors shifting as I parried Meher’s attacks, one after another, and then thrust up another shield of pink and green clouds, imagining they were made of ice, watching his flaming spears dissolve to ash on the other side.

There was a roar in my ears, though I was no longer sure if it was the yazata or my own blood.

On the ground below, Rostam had knocked Sohrab’s sword out of his left hand. It was his arm that had been wounded yesterday, I realized. An arm that trembled now as my son rallied, delivering blow after blow to Rostam’s armor and his shield: death knells humming in the air. Sohrab’s face was invisible to me, hidden by that awful gold helmet. But I could see the exhaustion in the lines of his limbs, how his farr, more vibrant than flame itself, had slowly begun to dull, as if coated by a thick layer of the rising dust.

Rostam, for his part, remained steady on his feet. Blocking, thrusting, his movements precise and calculated, reminding me of the way he’d moved in the zoorkhaneh all those years ago, when fighting off two men at once.

Without thinking, I flew at him. Rostam! I shouted, desperate to somehow—anyhow—put space between him and Sohrab. Rostam, stop!

Rostam stiffened. Then, to my utter astonishment, he looked up at me, his mouth slightly agape.

Could he see me?

My heart thrummed until I realized that his gaze veered slightly to my left. But he had heard me. I was sure of it even though I did not understand how this was happening now, after years of not being able to influence anyone in an astral dream. Bushyasta had told me no mortal had ever done it. Had implied it wasn’t possible for me either.

Meher had thought it was possible, though.

Meher, who had understood the true extent of my powers and tried blocking me from entering Iran by magic. Who had tried to kill me each time I magically breached Iran’s boundaries to spy on Rostam and Sohrab.

I readied myself to shout again, hoping, praying it would buy Sohrab more time, when I felt myself fragment, pain scalding my entire body, my skull blazing like it had been set on fire.

When I came to, I was lying on the floor of Sohrab’s room, soaked in my own blood.

In hindsight, I do not know how I got up. How I managed to hobble to the door.

“Open,” I rasped, slamming my bruised hands against the wood. “Open!”

I lurched backward and launched myself bodily at the door again. It opened and I flew out, falling into an armored chest—a burly Turanian guard who steadied me and stared, his mouth agape.

“Shahdoxt! You’re bleeding!”

I was, it seemed. Blood trickling from my nose and the corners of my mouth. Blood seeping from what felt like a hundred cuts all over my body.

“Leave me,” I said, my voice so hoarse I could not recognize it. “Let me go to my son!”

He let me go, too frightened to do anything except watch me stumble down the stairs and out of the fortress, the drawbridge lowering for me at someone’s invisible command.

I ran as if I were seventeen again and back in my old nightmare about Noshir, my arms outstretched, my lips forming my brother’s name as a mare flung him off her back.

Dust rose around me on all sides, thickened as I raced out onto the battlefield. Two figures grappled with each other at the center, their weapons tossed aside. Even from this distance, I could tell which was my son, knew him from his pained cry as he was slammed to the ground, most of his golden armor broken to pieces.

“Rostam, stop!”

Rostam looked up. He’d cast aside his helmet, revealing wild gray locks and a barely healed gash on his forehead. His mouth moved, forming my name. Not quite believing in my appearance.

“He’s your son!” I bellowed. “Your son, Sohrab!”

He did not listen, this man I had once called a husband.

Instead, Rostam did what all men do when they are trained to be machines of war, his farr as bright as polished silver—as bright as the dagger he plunged into Sohrab’s heart.

32.

THE WORLD AS ROSTAM KNEW it turned black. Narrowed to a single, dizzying pinprick.

He’s your son. Her words sank in. Registering much too late. Your son, Sohrab.

The Turanian upstart, Rostam’s great enemy. A boy now lying broken on the battlefield, his face childlike without that golden helmet, a woman weeping over him, her once-black hair streaked thick with silver, her gray dress patched dark with blood.

Tahmineh, princess of Samangan. The witch Rostam had fallen in love with fifteen years ago and married, uncaring of what the world would say—until she had turned around and crushed his heart. Now Tahmineh looked up at him, her face lined, but still beautiful, twisting into an expression that could only be called feral.

“You killed him,” she snarled. “Your own son! You killed him, Rostam!”

“He’s not my son.” Rostam’s head spun at her words. No. It couldn’t be Tahmineh. This woman, she had to be some kind of mirage. “Stop lying to me, witch!”

“She… she’s not,” a low voice rasped. “… not lying.”

The Turanian boy, his eyelids fluttering open, a thin line of blood curving his dusty jaw.

“Sohrab!” Tahmineh took his face in her hands. Her breath sounded like it was being ripped from her with a knife. Her tears dripped onto his cheeks. “Sohrab, you’re still alive!”

“Mother…” The boy’s lips cracked as he spoke. His dark gaze—a replica of Tahmineh’s—was trained on Rostam. “Mother… sh-show him…”

Rostam did not understand what he was saying. But without a word, Tahmineh began undoing the pauldron at the boy’s right shoulder. There, nestled between the curves of his bicep, against his tunic, lay a midnight jewel shaped like an eye. The sight hit Rostam like an arrow, making him double over and collapse to the ground.

“No,” he gasped, touching the onyx. “No!”

But it was no illusion. It was hard and rough-edged, as real as the woman and the boy before him—a boy whom Rostam always considered weak and sickly. A boy who had only ever seen fourteen summers in his life.

“Rostam!”

Tahmineh’s voice, sharp as a whip, snapped Rostam from his stupor.

“Go!” she said urgently. “Fetch a healer, while he’s still breathing. Don’t just sit there. Do something!”

Unsteadily, Rostam rose, stumbling to a walk, and then a run. Faster and faster toward the Iranian camp, farr blurring silver at his sides, so hot that it scalded his skin. Belatedly, he realized that he’d left Rakhsh behind on the battlefield. But for once, thoughts of his beloved horse were superseded by others: The rising sun glowing like blood in Sohrab’s armor. His plea for a truce that Rostam had brushed aside, thinking that Sohrab was attempting exactly what Rostam had done only yesterday—not to escape this time, but to kill him.

Yet Sohrab wasn’t like Rostam, was he? He wasn’t like Tahmineh either. If he were, he’d have been wiser, craftier. Perhaps he might have been the one standing now instead of Rostam. Or perhaps he might have, in a moment of inspiration, thrown the dagger away and embraced his fool of a father—a wrestler’s hold that might have softened if not curbed the shimmering, silver fury Rostam had carried within him ever since he was a boy. The only boy in all of Zabul who glowed so bright that even his parents sometimes feared his wrath.

Now Rostam cursed the power he’d been blessed with: a power that had given him immense strength and speed, a power that never let his aim go awry. Overhead, the sun glowed in a clear blue sky and Rostam wondered if the yazata Meher was mocking him. Or perhaps it was God himself who had turned away—away from Rostam’s terrible, insurmountable pride.

The camp loomed ahead, tents dusty, banners limp in a windless sky. Men looked up, calling out to Rostam as he stumbled forth:

“General! General Rostam, is he dead?”

“General, have we won?”

“Rostam! Rostam, you’re bleeding! Where the hell is Rakhsh?”

Rostam fell into the arms of the last speaker: his old friend Gudarz. “Gudarz.” Rostam could barely speak over a whisper. “Gudarz, he’s my son! The Golden Warrior is my son, Sohrab!”

“What are you saying?” Gudarz asked, worry creasing his worn face. “You’re not making any sense, Rostam.”

The story tumbled out of Rostam. His marriage to Tahmineh, Sohrab’s birth, her betrayal. The letters that made him think Sohrab was ill at all times.

“But he wasn’t, Gudarz.” Rostam wanted to tear out his hair. “He’s strong. Even stronger than I was at that age! And now I might have killed him myself!”

“It’s that witch who is at fault!” Gudarz said furiously. “You should kill her for her lies!”

“No.” Rostam shook his head. “I don’t blame her. I don’t think she ever wanted Sohrab to go to war.”

It was so clear to Rostam now. The odd expression on Tahmineh’s face all those years ago when Rostam had talked about his son fighting for Iran. The abrupt, inexplicable shift in her affections after Sohrab’s birth. She had clearly thought that separating Rostam from Sohrab would keep the latter safe.

And she was right about that, wasn’t she?

Gudarz’s gaze softened. His face, normally lined with laughter, looked like it had aged a lifetime. Was this what it felt like to lose your child? Rostam wondered. If so, how did Gudarz bear it? The man had already lost four of his sons to this war, while Rostam couldn’t stand the thought of losing one.

“I need to find a healer,” Rostam said. “And quickly. I don’t think Sohrab has much time.”

“A healer won’t be enough for the sort of wound you described,” Gudarz said, shaking his head. “You will need to ask the emperor for Haoma’s elixir.”

The elixir, gifted to Kavus by the angel of plants and healing, was a potion meant to cure the worst of wounds and ailments—to reverse the course of death itself.

Rostam grimaced. Kavus wasn’t the most generous of men on his best days, always hoarding treasures, regardless of whether they would be of use to him. But for Sohrab, Rostam knew he had to try.

“Very well,” he told Gudarz. “Where is the emperor?”

Kavus was in his tent—the largest one at camp, made to accommodate his many servants and concubines, with halls and corridors like his own palace at Estakhr. The tent was, to Rostam’s eye, gaudy beyond measure with its walls of expensive silk, brocade, and animal skins, the gold and jewels encrusting its doorways crystalline in the lamplight. Unlike his father Qobad, Kavus did nothing by half measures, had always sought the best of what the world had to offer him.

Even now, in the midst of a war, he reclined on his throne, while a pair of serving girls fanned him with fly whisks and another served him wine. Sandalwood and floral incense burned in a silver atashdan, perfuming the chamber like a bower in a palace garden.

“Shahenshah.” Rostam knelt before the king of kings and lowered his head in supplication. “I am your most humble liege.”

Lazily, Kavus rose, his farr glowing in a dull gold halo around his brown curls, his nose wrinkling ever so slightly at the odors of blood and sweat that Rostam had brought into his presence.

“My champion,” Kavus said, and his smile itself seemed brighter than the lamps lighting the room. “I see you have returned alive. With good news, I expect?”

“Not exactly, Your Majesty.” Rostam swallowed, trying not to flinch. Kavus’s farr would have charmed and put any other speaker at ease. Not Rostam. If anything, it made him more uneasy—a part of him always wondering if the emperor was readying to assign him another unpleasant or decidedly dangerous task. He spoke of Sohrab quickly and tried not to dwell on the details, knowing full well that Kavus’s attention span was limited.

“I am horrified by what I have done, Majesty. And my son will surely die if I don’t help him. I was hoping you could spare some of Haoma’s elixir for Sohrab. If you do, my son and I will both be your slaves for the rest of our lives.”

Kavus was frowning, his golden farr having dimmed considerably. “Is this,” he said, “the same Sohrab who said he would capture me and hang me by a noose?”

Rostam’s stomach dropped. “That was only foolish talk, Majesty. The sort blurted by young men in the heat of battle. He did not mean it!”

“Ah, but I think he did mean it.” Kavus’s mouth curved in an expression too hard to be a smile. “As for you, Rostam—you never wanted to fight in this war, did you? Indeed, you ignored my summons at first. Then you rebelled and openly challenged me in my own court despite your delay. You said that I, Kavus, was nothing without you. Nothing.”

His words crawled up Rostam’s skin, adding fuel to the years-long anger that Rostam had always harbored for this emperor—this foolish man who had made constant demands of his knights, who had secured his lands on the backs of other, better men.

“I have served you and the empire dutifully, Shahenshah,” Rostam said, doing his best to keep his temper—and farr—in check. “I have accepted every mission given to me, have never shied away from the most dangerous tasks. I submit that I made a grave error in refuting you this time. I sincerely apologize and hope you will forgive me for my foolishness.”

“I have forgiven you, Rostam.” Kavus’s face began to glow again, his farr radiating around his throne. The effect made him look almost godlike. “But I cannot forget your words. Nor can I grant your wish for the elixir—no matter how much my heart grieves for you. Even if this boy—this Sohrab—is your son, imagine what people would say if I showed him mercy? A Turanian upstart who raised an entire army to capture my throne. Who not only killed many of our soldiers and our people but also burned so much of our land. What kind of monarch would I be?”

A cowardly one, Rostam realized. A monarch who feared the combined powers of Rostam and his son.

If he wanted, Rostam knew he could kill Kavus now. Could strangle him right here in this tent and take the elixir. No one would be able to stop him. Gudarz, Tus, Gev, and the other azadan would probably back Rostam, urging him to take the throne for himself. For a brief moment, Rostam imagined this: imagined sitting in the great palace at Estakhr, ruling from a throne of turquoise and gold, the only emperor in all the land capable of bearing the weight of the Iranian crown without the aid of chains.

But if I did that, Rostam thought, then who would I be?

He would not be the bright-eyed boy who had knelt before his father in Zabul, thrilling at the gift of his grandfather’s bull-headed mace, vowing to protect the empire with his lifeblood.

He would not be the man who had, without hesitation, eschewed any interest in crown or throne in favor of a greater, weightier role: kingmaker.

Yes, it was true that Rostam could kill Kavus. Probably take the throne—for a time. But what if his actions threw the whole empire into anarchy? There were Kavus’s sons to contend with, for one. Even if the azadan, the most powerful men in the empire, supported Rostam’s claim, his actions would eventually establish him as a usurper—the champion who beguiled Iran’s true king for years and then, in one fell swoop, took his throne.

Father would be ashamed of me, Rostam thought. So would Grandfather.

For who was Rostam if not a man of honor? Certainly not a man anyone recognized or loved. Also, cruel and vindictive as Kavus was, how could Rostam entirely blame the emperor for his own actions?

I am the one who repeatedly lied to my son and refused to recognize him, Rostam thought bitterly. I am the one who drove the dagger through his heart. Not Kavus.

Even now, his farr surged hot in his veins, begging to be used. But Rostam couldn’t. For once, his grief surmounted his endless rage, and the glow around him faded as if it hadn’t been there at all. He was not sure what he said to Kavus or how he returned to the battlefield, this time accompanied by Gudarz and Tus.

Tahmineh was still bent over Sohrab, having done her best to bandage his wound with clean strips of her dress. Now she dabbed the corners of their son’s lips and looked up at Rostam.

“What happened?” she asked, her gaze darting to the two knights behind him. “Have you brought a healer?”

With difficulty, Rostam told Tahmineh about the elixir and Kavus’s refusal to part with it.

“I tried, Tahmineh.” He tasted salt on his burning lips. “I tried so hard. But no healer can cure a wound like this. Not without Haoma’s elixir.”

Tahmineh stared at him for a long moment, as if in disbelief. Then her face crumpled and a thin, high wail tore from her lips.

“They can’t… they can’t just take him from me…” She gasped between the words, slapping Rostam’s hand away when he reached out toward her. “Don’t! After all you’ve done, don’t you dare touch him! Or me!”

“Tahmineh, I—”

“Mother…” Sohrab’s soft voice cut through their despair. His face was the gray of an ash tree, his lips as dry as its bark. “Mother, please. I have a request of Father. One last wish.” His gaze narrowed, focusing on Rostam. “Call for a truce and end this war, Father. Do not harm the Turanians or the Samangani, for they only went into battle because… because of me…” He began to cough, blood bubbling from his mouth.

“Sohrab!” Tahmineh screamed his name.

Sometime during Sohrab’s speech, Rostam had fallen to his knees, and now did his best to shield his son from the sun’s glare.

The boy turned away from him, his eyes for Tahmineh alone. “I’m sorry, Mother,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I—”

“Sohrab?” Tahmineh lightly tapped his cheeks with her hands. “Sohrab! Sohrab, wake up!”

But Sohrab was gone, his dark, unseeing eyes raised heavenward.

Somewhere in the distance, through the haze of pain, Rostam saw the crowd of Turanians gathered around them. Afrasyab’s generals Houman and Barman approached, their faces wan, their shoulders slumped with grief.

“We heard the Golden Warrior and will honor his request,” Barman said quietly. “Turan will agree to a truce in this war if Iran does.”

“We will agree to it.” Gudarz spoke for Rostam in his clear voice. “This war is at an end.”

Gently, Tus closed Sohrab’s eyes. “May you rest forever in the House of Song,” he intoned.

“No!” Tahmineh threw herself across the dead boy. “You will not take him from me! You will not!”

She fought, viciously scratching any man who came too close to Sohrab’s body. It was only Rostam who finally managed to tear her away, his farr too strong for her to combat alone. He expected her to hit him as she had the others, but instead, the fight left Tahmineh’s body and she collapsed in his arms.

“It’s my fault!” she sobbed. “Mine!”

“No, my lady.” Rostam tightened his arms around her, heart shattering with every breath he took. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”

33.

THE MINSTRELS SAY THAT I was inconsolable for the next few days. That I smeared my forehead with dust and stayed in the carriage with Sohrab’s bier, wearing my son’s chain mail tunic and bits and pieces of his armor. That I talked to his horse, Tez, as if he were Sohrab himself, trying to feed him morsels from my own meals, alternating between laughing and keening.

Perhaps they are true, these tales. Perhaps not.

I remember being in and out of consciousness most of the time. Confined to a healer’s stifling tent for much of the journey to Zabul.

They had called the healer for me, of course. Rostam had insisted on it after realizing how much of the blood on my dress was my own. I was, in many ways, far weaker than he’d ever seen me—and he could not understand why. The healer called my ailment heartbreak. A mother’s grief for which there was no cure.

He could not explain the cuts and burns and bruises on my body, nor the weakness that overtook me for days at a time, turning me listless, only able to keep down the lightest of broths and stews. The yazata of war, it seemed, had had the last laugh.

In some ways, I was grateful for the illness. It clouded my brain, softened the edges of my grief. I barely registered our arrival at Zabul or the funeral that followed—one that I am assured was grander than any ever seen before in Iran. Sohrab was taken to a tall dakhma a parasang away from Rostam’s castle and laid to rest in a land he had hardly known, let alone seen when alive.

I did not fight Rostam on this. As little as I could bear the thought of returning to Samangan without Sohrab, I could bear even less the thought of returning with his corpse.

“You had spoken of a prophecy once,” Rostam said suddenly one day. We were seated outside his castle, in the very courtyard where I’d come to see him. It was one of my good days, as the healer called it—a day when I was more energetic than usual and not shivering with fever or spitting up my own blood. “Was it about Sohrab? About what I would do?”

Could I have stopped it? he was asking me. Could things have been different?

“I do not know,” I said after a pause. “In that vision, both of you were dead and I never knew who had killed whom.”

“It’s my fault.” His voice was decisive. Hard. “All mine.”

I could have said nothing. Could have let him believe in the lie. But what purpose would that have served? Certainly, it would not bring us back our son.

“Is it truly your fault?” I asked. “Or is it mine for having pursued the prophecy in the first place? For doing everything in my power to change what I’d seen.”

I had thought of this often over the past few weeks. Wondered if I should have listened to Zari and accepted whatever future came my way. Would I have been happier in my ignorance? Perhaps. Perhaps not. For even in that scenario, I could not say for certain that Sohrab would have been safe.

“Do you want me to take you home?” Rostam asked after a pause.

“Where is home? Does a mother without a child have one? Does a woman without a husband?”

“And yet, unlike Sohrab, you do not grieve losing me.”

Slowly, painfully, I turned to face Rostam. There was no anger on his face, only sorrow. A simple acceptance of fact. Without thinking, I raised a hand to trace the line of his cheek, his bearded jaw. Felt a small thrill to see him swallow—that tiny sign that he was still not unaffected by my touch.

“You are wrong,” I said. “I did grieve losing you. I grieved about many of the things I did to keep you and Sohrab apart.”

“And yet”—Rostam’s lips were soft against my fingers—“if given the chance, you would do it all over again.”

He was right. I would. Even if it would gain me one more moment with my son in this lifetime.

My hand fell back to my side. “Take me home, Rostam.” I sank back against the tree, too tired to move. “Take me home to Samangan.”

The healers in Samangan did not know what to make of me. Did not understand why their best potions and remedies, why even the strongest doses of their haoma could do nothing except dull my pain for a brief time.

No one wanted to tell me I was dying.

But I knew. I knew this even though I had known little else about my future. Knew that there was no cure for me, mortal or immortal, including Kavus’s special elixir.

“You fought like the daeva, child,” Bushyasta told me in a dream—the highest compliment she had ever bestowed on me. “With all your cunning. With every tooth and claw.”

I had. But it had not been enough.

My body began to reject food at first, then water. One night, I closed my eyes and found that I was floating over my body. I studied myself, fascinated by the changes I saw: the sunken cheeks, the shadowed eyes, the bony clavicle rising from the neckline of a dress that once clung to my curves but now hung like a sack over old bones.

Is this an astral dream? I wondered. Or am I lost forever now?

Lost to a body that would no longer sustain me. Lost to the world itself.

I can no longer find my way back to my physical form. Nor can I entirely move on from the mortal realm, despite the vultures having devoured the last slivers of my flesh on the roof of my family dakhma.

Something keeps me tethered to this place, unrelenting in its weight, wandering listlessly through woods of cedar, through the alleys of a city I once called home.

Am I a woman or a haunting? I ask.

No one answers me. Not even the immortals.

Days pass like this. Perhaps months. I would not know. On the days I am not plagued by my memories, I remain surrounded by a blissful fog of ignorance and nothing, not even pain, can touch me.

One night, I am floating in this manner, when a voice calls out: “Tahmineh? Is that you?”

I ignore the voice at first, certain it is a figment of my imagination. But it is persistent. Annoying in a way that is also oddly familiar.

Mother, I realize. My mother, Zari.

The fog around me clears and here I am again by the pairika’s moonlit river, her skin as blue as the water itself, her eyes more brilliant than a dead boy’s armor.

A pang goes through me at the thought—an old memory that I do not wish to rouse.

“Tahmineh.” Zari’s long hands curl around my wrists. “My precious daughter. It has been so long since I’ve seen you.”

I’m dead, I tell her. Why would you see me?

“You are dead, yes, but you have not moved on. Not as you should.”

Why should I? My form, insubstantial though it is, grows heavy again, each word I speak a chain link pulling me downward. I am not worthy.

Of love. Of absolution. Of freedom of any kind.

Surely Zari can see that. Can see the way my sins have blocked me from the Chinvat Peretu—the bridge every mortal soul crosses after death.

Instead, my mother says, “Let me show you something.”

What? Another prophecy?

Zari does not seem to notice my mockery. Or perhaps she does because she smiles at me with all of her sharp teeth and then waves a hand over the river. Despite myself, I lean over to look into the mirrored surface—at the images flashing within. They are, I realize, not visions of the future, but memories of the past:

A girl racing to catch her brother before he dies.

A man entering a dark corridor, his head crushed by a hidden warrior.

A mother screaming her child’s name before his father plunges a dagger into his chest.

I cannot look at this. Not now. Not ever.

“Don’t,” Zari says sharply. “Don’t look away!”

I try to move, but somehow, I am not able to. Again the memories unfurl before me. Again I feel myself drowning in them—caught in a cycle of endless blood and death. But then… I see something.

Light.

Brilliant spheres of it leaving the bodies of Noshir, Zende Razm, and Sohrab. They circle me once, twice, as if in embrace and then, with a sigh, disappear into the firmament.

The vision fades, waves overlapping, turning my memories into a river again.

“Your loved ones are at peace, daughter,” Zari says gently. “Won’t you be at peace, too? Won’t you forgive yourself at long last?”

I want to turn away. To say that nothing I saw would ever let me forgive myself.

But then the dam bursts and I find myself gasping for breath. Crying in that ugly, terrible way I’d rarely allowed myself to when alive.

I thought… I thought they hated me.

“Oh, Tahmineh.” Zari’s arms find me even when invisible. Catch me again as if I’m little more than a babe. “You were always much too hard on yourself. It is a fault that you inherit from me, unfortunately.”

It isn’t very funny, but it makes me laugh and some of the weight lifts. I am floating again, this time with surety. With purpose.

There is something else I need to do, I tell Zari. One last thing.

She nods, though she could not possibly know what this is. Then again, perhaps she does, prophecy being her gift. The greatest gift she ever bestowed on me, despite all her flaws.

I take her hand and dive with her into the river, past glittering shoals of blue and silver fish, through caves encrusted with starfish and sea urchins, a lone shark floating like a shadow over our heads. Zari pushes me through a small opening in a wall of familiar waterweeds pulsing with red bulbs. I emerge into a sky humming with pink and green waves of light, black trees swaying under me even though there is no breeze.

Zari does not follow me into her mother’s realm. But I know Bushyasta is here. I can feel her long hands on my back, no longer piercing but soft, the clicks of her foreclaws guiding me to Rostam’s thread—still burning bright here in the meadow of dreams.

I will tell him to forgive himself, this once-husband of mine.

I will tell him about our son, Sohrab, and how radiantly he now glows in the House of Song.

I will tell Rostam I am well, too.

Or that I will be—at long last.

EPILOGUE

THE SPRING RAIN FALLS IN a torrent, thunder cracking the sky. Water floods the Amu Darya river, turning every road in Samangan slippery with mud. In the cedar woods beyond the palace, the trees rustle with raindrops, a quivering, bell-like sound not unlike the anklets Kaizad’s wife wears whenever she dances in memory of her home across the Indus valley. A home she left behind to come here and be with him.

He has been lucky, Kaizad muses. As a king. A son. A husband. Even luckier as a father—blessed as he has been with four healthy daughters. His wife frets about this. She always listens too closely to his courtiers and their talk about how she hasn’t yet borne the king a son.

“Don’t worry,” Kaizad always tells her, his voice gentle. “Our daughters are strong. Better than any sons I could have.”

He, after all, is not unfamiliar with strong women. His mother, who had loved his father with all her heart even though Zende Razm had never been able to love her back. Princess Tahmineh, who had ruled Samangan as well as any man could have, during her short time as regent.

That rainy morning, however, Kaizad knows that no work will be done at court. As expected, his girls come running into the throne room after breakfast, restless from being cooped indoors already, their harried nurse right behind them.

Kaizad stifles a laugh and dismisses court for the day.

“What is it?” He tries to sound stern as they gather around him, oldest to youngest, ages twelve to four, their faces sweaty, their brown eyes bright with mischief. “Why are you troubling Dayeh Binaifer?”

“We’re not troubling her!”

“We swear we’re not!”

“We’re just bored!”

“Tell us a story, Father!”

“Yes, please, Father! Tell us a story! The one about Tahmineh!”

Kaizad smiles at the girl who made the last request—his fourth and youngest daughter. The one who looks most like Princess Tahmineh. The one he’d given her name.

“Once,” he says, and the girls instantly grow hushed, “there was a princess who lived in the kingdom of Samangan. Her name was Tahmineh and she was rumored to be a witch’s daughter…”

END

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

The story of Tahmineh comes from the Shahnameh or the Book of Kings by Ferdowsi—an eleventh-century epic poem about the kings and queens of ancient Iran. Growing up in a Zoroastrian household, I often heard stories and legends from this poem, including the tragic tale of Rostam and Sohrab. When I read the Shahnameh as an adult, however, I was more intrigued by Tahmineh—Rostam’s wife and Sohrab’s mother—the woman without whom their story would have not existed.

This novel is the result of that intrigue.

Much like the Shahnameh, which blurs the lines between history and mythology, Witch Daughter is not meant to be a true representation of any historical period. In the nature of retellings—or rather, reimaginings—it intertwines elements of Persian history and Zoroastrian mythology to offer a different perspective on a much-loved story about the great heroes and heroines of Iranian literature.

I hope you enjoy it.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Gratitude to:

Access Copyright, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Ontario for funding this manuscript.

Danielle Burby for encouraging me to write this book and fiercely championing my work. I’m so glad you are my agent.

Kirsiah Depp for your thorough and insightful edits and for loving Tahmineh as much as I do.

Albert Austin Tang, Phil Pascuzzo, Cisca Schreefel, Amy J. Schneider, Regina Castillo, Pam Rehm, Jeff Stiefel, Maris Tasaka, Jessica Lyons, and everyone else at Grand Central Publishing for your support.

Deena Helm, K. T. Lawrence, Jodi Meadows, and Lily Maelan Jones, for your kind and thoughtful feedback on the various early versions of this book.

Megan Bannen, Erin Bowman, Kristen Ciccarelli, Paul Coccia, Susan Dennard, Alexa Donne, Amie Kaufman, Brigid Kemmerer, Jodi Meadows, Nicki Pau Preto, and Beth Revis for your friendship and support.

Mom for your endless love and Dad for being the first to ask me to retell a story from the Shahnameh.

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READING GROUP GUIDE FOR
WITCH DAUGHTER

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

How does the story explore the theme of fate versus free will? Do you believe the tragic outcome was inevitable? Why or why not?

Tahmineh is usually a silent voice in the original epic, which really centers on the story of Rostam and Sohrab. How does giving her a voice impact the interpretation of the original story?

How does Rostam and Sohrab’s relationship in the story evolve? What does the tale say about conflict, identity, and legacy?

Is Sohrab portrayed as a victim, villain, or hero in this story? What makes you think this?

Who should be held responsible for Sohrab’s death: Rostam or Tahmineh? Or someone else? Or is it no one’s fault?

How do Tahmineh’s choices affect the world around her? Are there choices that she could’ve made that would’ve changed the outcome of the story? Given the information Tahmineh had, what would you have done differently?

AUTHOR’S Q&A:

Q. What drew you to retell this specific part of Shahnameh, and why was Tahmineh at the center of it?

A. Growing up in a Zoroastrian household, I often heard the story of Rostam and Sohrab from the Shahnameh—a tragedy where a father unknowingly kills his son on the battlefield. However, it was not until I read the Shahnameh again as an adult that I began focusing on Tahmineh—Rostam’s wife and Sohrab’s mother—a woman who keeps the men apart, fearing that her son would join his father in battle and die, a woman without whom there would not have been a story in the first place.

It is late at night when we first encounter Tahmineh in the Shahnameh—a princess who enters the Iranian warrior Rostam’s bedchamber and introduces herself as the only daughter of the king of Samangan. She confesses her love for Rostam, having heard stories about his valor and adventures. She then offers to reunite him with his missing horse in exchange for bearing him a child. In the poem, Ferdowsi repeatedly alludes to Tahmineh’s unearthly beauty and her intelligence, which made me wonder if she had magical powers or supernatural heritage. More importantly, I wondered if she had something to do with Rostam’s horse going missing and had engineered this meeting all along.

I was fascinated by this woman from the ancient world, who in some ways was exceedingly modern—boldly going for the man she wanted, for a one-night stand, no less! And though Tahmineh does not feature heavily in the Shahnameh, I knew I had to write about her.

Q. What was the most challenging scene to write?

A. Developing Rostam and Tahmineh’s romance was somewhat challenging at first. In the Shahnameh, they’re together for a single night, after which Rostam leaves, never to see Tahmineh again (even in the versions of the poem where they get married). I wanted them to have a stronger relationship over the years, so I reworked those sections to give Rostam more time with Tahmineh in Samangan.

Q. Were there parts of the original epic you chose to leave out? Why?

A. I didn’t leave anything out as far as I remember. I did, however, take the liberty of expanding Tahmineh’s narrative and changing some parts of it, and also developing the world and its magic system.

Q. What do you hope for readers to take away from this story the most?

A. I hope readers will be able to connect to Tahmineh, a woman who not only held her own in a society dominated by men but also defied the stereotype of what it meant to be female in ancient Iran.

Q. What was the most unique or challenging bit of research that you had to do in order to write Witch Daughter?

A. Myths are often seeded by history, and the most unique part about researching for Witch Daughter was being able to connect the legendary characters in the Shahnameh to real historical figures from Iran. For instance, the character of Rostam was likely inspired by Rustaham Suren, a powerful Parthian general from the province of Sistan (or Zabul in the Shahnameh and Witch Daughter), who successfully defeated the Romans at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE. While I wasn’t able to find a historical inspiration for Tahmineh, it does not seem far-fetched to believe that there could have been a woman like her in the past, who was eventually written into myth.

Q. This is your first adult fantasy after writing a few young adult novels. What was different about this writing journey and why did you want to embark on it?

A. In some ways, writing adult fiction was a return to my roots. I began my career writing short stories for adults, but my short story collection did not find a publisher nor did my first novel for adults. However, the novel drew the attention of a YA editor, who loved the story and convinced me to rewrite it for the teen market. That book became A Girl Like That, and it was published more than a decade after I first wrote it as a short story. After publishing four more YA books, both contemporary and fantasy, I wanted to try something new and decided to write an adult fantasy novel inspired by my Persian and Zoroastrian ancestry. Again, the first novel that I wrote inspired by this universe did not find a publisher. However, I had another idea in mind and began writing Witch Daughter, which I finished in a matter of months. The book was acquired at auction by Grand Central.

Q. What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

A. I love bird-watching and drawing birds in my sketchbook!

Q. What is one thing you want your readers to know about you?

A. My earliest obsession with women in history revolved around the six wives of Henry VIII. To this day, I will pick up Tudor-era retellings with the hope that these women get better endings than they did in history.

LIAR OR SAVIOR?

THIS QUESTION ROSE IN MY mind when I first read about Princess Tahmineh in the Shahnameh or the Book of Kings—an eleventh-century epic poem by Ferdowsi about the kings and queens of ancient Iran.

As a character, Tahmineh isn’t heavily featured in the Shahnameh, appearing only in an episode titled “Sohrab” or “The Story of Rostam and Sohrab,” depending on the version of the poem you read. This tragic tale of a father who kills his son on the battlefield without discovering his true identity (until it is too late) has been made into numerous films, shows, and musicals across different countries over the years. It even inspired British poet Matthew Arnold, who wrote a lengthy poem entitled “Sohrab and Rustum: An Episode.”

The focus of the story has always been on the two men: the brave and powerful Sohrab and his father, the famous Rostam, who, arguably, is the greatest hero of the Shahnameh, comparable to Hercules with his supernatural strength and the trials he goes through while battling dragons and demons—a hero who lives for so long that he’s nearly immortal.

As a child who grew up in a Zoroastrian household, I too would hear about Rostam and Sohrab—from mentions of the original heart-wrenching tale to jokes and puns cracked by my father and uncles. It was not until I read the Shahnameh as an adult that I truly began to focus on Tahmineh—Rostam’s wife and Sohrab’s mother—the woman without whom neither of these men would have had a story.

In the episode, we begin with Rostam, who goes hunting onagers at the border of Turan and falls asleep in a meadow. When he wakes up, he discovers that his beloved horse, Rakhsh, has gone missing. Rostam’s search for Rakhsh takes him to the small kingdom of Samangan. The king offers to help Rostam find his horse and holds a feast in his honor. It is at night, when Rostam is in bed at the king’s palace, that we finally see Tahmineh appear—lit by a candle held up by a servant, a woman so breathtaking in her beauty that the poet himself says, “She is not of the earth.”¹

Tahmineh introduces herself to Rostam, stating that she is the sole daughter of the king of Samangan—a princess descended from warriors, whom no one has seen outside her bower, except for a few servants. However, Tahmineh also says she has heard tales of Rostam’s adventures and his valor and has fallen in love with him. Then she goes on to make him a most interesting offer:

Because for one thing I adore thee so,

Have sacrificed my prudence to my passion,

And for another—haply God Almighty

May lay upon my breast a child of thine

[…]

Moreover, I will bring back Rakhsh to thee

And put all Samangán beneath thy feet.²

Rostam, who by now is not only allured by Tahmineh’s beauty but also her intelligence, instinctively realizes that she’s telling the truth and accepts this bargain. In some versions of the Shahnameh, Rostam marries Tahmineh before they sleep together; in others, they have a classic one-night stand. After reuniting with his horse, Rostam leaves Samangan for Iran and never returns. Tahmineh eventually gives birth to Rostam’s son—a powerful boy named Sohrab, whom she keeps with her in Samangan for many years, refusing to send him to Iran, as she is terrified (ironically) that he will accompany Rostam in battle and die.

At this point in the poem, I was utterly fascinated by this woman. Several questions came to my mind. Did Tahmineh’s unearthly beauty imply she wasn’t entirely human? Often, in Zoroastrian mythology, immortal witches called pairika disguise themselves as beautiful women to lead God-fearing warriors astray. Was Tahmineh of a similar supernatural heritage? More so, apart from her bold proposition of Rostam and her desire to bear his child, I noted the way Tahmineh offered to bring his horse back to him—as if she knew where Rakhsh was. Did she have something to do with Rakhsh’s disappearance? Had she (and possibly her father, the king) planned this all along?

These questions became pivotal while I was drafting Witch Daughter. I needed to not only flesh out Tahmineh’s background but also understand the world she occupied—both historical and magical. The stories from the Shahnameh are not entirely from Ferdowsi’s imagination, but retellings of older tales from various sources, both oral and written. In Women in the Shāhnāmeh, Djalal Khalegi Motlagh suggests that these older tales might have depicted Tahmineh as a pairika or a witch who bargains with Rostam for his child. Interestingly, the monstrous pairika of Zoroastrian mythology eventually evolved into the more benevolent winged pari or fairies of Islamic and Persian lore.

For my part, I imagined Tahmineh as a mix of the ancient pairika and the medieval pari: a woman with true magical powers who initially acts for her own selfish purposes but ultimately has no intention of harming either Rostam, whom she loves, or Sohrab, whom she desperately tries to protect by keeping him away from his father and the battlefield—even if she must lie to do so.

The setting, too, was important when it came to understanding the world Tahmineh occupied. Would she, as a woman, have had the power to make her own choices during that time? Historically, this is not clear, for these are stories of legend. Ferdowsi’s own setting in the poem is loosely inspired by the Sasanian Iran (224 CE–651 CE), a much later period, during which women’s roles were more restricted.

We see boldness in women as a recurring theme in the early parts of the Shahnameh—especially in women like Tahmineh, who are not of Iranian descent and whose very foreignness appears to give them more agency. However, once these women marry an Iranian hero, most of them fade into the background, losing their agency.

To me, this did not make sense. Would a woman as daring as Tahmineh accept her fate as life handed it to her? What if she did not lose her agency? What if she continued influencing her famous husband and the decisions he made—not only affecting but also shaping the larger narrative of their story?

Temptress. Lover. Liar. Savior. Witch.

Tahmineh is all of these things in Witch Daughter. But she is also a daughter, a wife, and a mother. A woman of immense power who chose the man she wanted as a lover and a husband, who could have potentially even acted as princess regent when the crown prince of Samangan went to war with Sohrab. Like Ferdowsi, I wanted to showcase Tahmineh in all her shades of complexity, and not allow her to be distilled into a series of adjectives.

I hope I have done this for you, reader. I hope you, too, will see Tahmineh for the flawed and magnificent woman that she is, and love her as much as I do.

Footnotes

1 Abū al-Qāsim Hasan Firdawsī, et al., The Sháhnáma of Firdausí, Vol. 1 (Routledge, 2000), p. 123.

2 Firdawsī et al., The Sháhnáma of Firdausí, Vol. 1, p. 124.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

TANAZ BHATHENA is an award-winning Zoroastrian author of contemporary and fantasy fiction. Her books include Hunted by the Sky, which won the White Pine Award and the Bapsi Sidhwa Literary Prize, and The Beauty of the Moment, which won the Nautilus Gold Award for Young Adult Fiction. Her acclaimed debut, A Girl Like That, was named a Best Book of the Year by numerous outlets including The Globe and Mail, Seventeen, and The Times of India. Her short stories have appeared in various publications including The Hindu, Blackbird, Witness, and Room. Born in India and raised in Saudi Arabia and Canada, Tanaz lives in Southern Ontario with her family.

PRAISE FOR
WITCH DAUGHTER

“A beautifully rendered mixture of magic and the Middle East that explores the cost of knowing one’s fate—and the payment exacted when one tries to alter it.”

—Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Sumptuous and surprising, Witch Daughter is a bold love story and a proper journey into a fascinating and exotic world. Bhathena’s writing held me in a trance.”

—Lauren Kate, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Bhathena brings to life a story that is as beautifully tragic as it is bewitching. Witch Daughter is an aching, timeless, and lush tale that you will have to force yourself to look away from to blink back tears.”

—Samantha Sotto Yambao, New York Times bestselling author of The Elsewhere Express

“Rich in detail and mythic in cadence. Bhathena beautifully captures the ferocious beauty of a mother’s love. The world needs more stories that give voice to the oft-villainized women of great literature.”

—Megan Bannen, USA Today bestselling author of The Undermining of Twyla and Frank

“Witch Daughter weaves a tale as gloriously epic as its inspiration—Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh—and casts a whole new spell through storytelling so sweeping and emotional that it feels like witchcraft.”

—Abdi Nazemian, USA Today bestselling author and Stonewall Award–winning author of Like a Love Story and Only This Beautiful Moment

“Like the daevas lurking within its pages, this skillful reimagining of a classical Zoroastrian myth will sink its foreclaws into you.”

—Shveta Thakrar, author of the Andre Norton Nebula Award finalist Star Daughter

“An epic ride through legendary Persia. Tahmineh, the misunderstood but indomitable princess, stands tall, proving that a mother who would sacrifice her own heart to save her son might be the bravest hero of all.”

—Lauren J. A. Bear, author of Medusa’s Sisters and Mother of Rome

“An intimate portrayal of a sweeping epic that’s as gorgeous as it is heart-wrenching. Witch Daughter soars to new heights, reminding us all about the ingenuity and bravery of the women who often get lost within the pages of their own stories. Bhathena’s adult debut is nothing short of a masterpiece.”

—Maddie Martinez, USA Today bestselling author of The Maiden and Her Monster

“A brilliant retelling of an ancient Persian epic, Witch Daughter is a haunting portrait of a powerful seductress, mother, and daeva: Tahmineh is a heroine for our time.”

—Mary McMyne, author of The Book of Gothel and A Rose by Any Other Name

“An enchanting tale about the immeasurable strength of motherhood and the tragic inevitability of fate.”

—O. O. Sangoyomi, author of Masquerade