“Free?” She laughed to herself, a bitter sound, before looking at the open window that framed Vahid’s palace like a target. “We’ll be free? Or broken?”
I shook my head, that black, dark anger rising in me once more, as if it were starting to take charge of me. Words spilled out of me, words I couldn’t control, words that seemed dictated by something else.
“If you don’t want to be here, you can leave.” I pointed toward the door.
Noor stood up, her hands planted on her hips. “I’m trying to save you here. I’m trying to save us both.”
“I don’t need saving,” I said, the voice not my own. It wasn’t even Sanaya’s. It was dark and deep and rageful. “I only need one thing. And it’s clear you didn’t care that much about Souma if you are willing to give up now.”
Noor inhaled sharply, looking as if I’d stabbed her.
I blinked, and the rage melted away, replaced by shame at Noor’s stricken face.
“How dare you?” she uttered, her voice low and vehement.
I stood up and held out my hands, guilt lacing my tone. “Noor, I’m sorry—I know you cared for Souma. I didn’t mean that. I… I don’t know what came over me.”
I knew I couldn’t explain it. Couldn’t rationalize what I was hearing, seeing, feeling. I scrubbed my nails through my hair. I needed to take responsibility for this, but it felt a little like I was losing my mind.
Noor’s eyes narrowed with seething anger I’d never seen before. “You know nothing about my relationship with Souma. You lost your father, yes. But I never really had one, not until I finally found Souma. He taught me how to fend for myself, how to do something no one else could do. You talk about revenge as if you are the underdog, but you were loved your whole life. I was nothing. Abandoned. Forgotten. He was the only one who ever gave me a chance.” She pressed her arms to her sides. I looked down at her hands, which were shaking. She followed my gaze and clasped them together to still their movement, scowling at me. “And you still have your grandmother. You still have someone who loves you. I have nothing and no one. Vahid took the only person who ever gave a damn about me, and you say I don’t care? I don’t want revenge?”
She looked away, back to the open window, back to the palace. “Icare what happens to you, Dani, because I know what it’s like to lose everything. If you spend everything you have chasing this, you might not like what’s left over.”
“What’s your solution, then? Just give up?” I threw my hands in the air. “I can’t do that.”
My words were edged with desperation, panic in my chest at the thought of no longer pursuing this.
At the thought of no longer consuming zoraat.
“I can’t let them walk free, not after what they did.” I rubbed the back of my head, still aching from the latest dose, now also ringing with Noor’s words. “And you have me. We are in this together—you and me. Just don’t give up now, not when we’re so close.”
Noor’s shoulders sagged. For the first time in a long while I really looked at her. Shadows lined her eyes, and she was so pale. She wasn’t consuming zoraat, but this was taking its toll on her too.
Noor sat on the edge of the bed, looking deflated. “I don’t want to give up either.” Her voice was more measured. “I don’t want Vahid to get away with any of it. But I don’t want to lose myself in the process.” She took a steadying breath. “And I don’t want to lose you. I’m here to help you, for whatever you need. I owe you that at least after you came back for me at the prison.”
“You don’t owe me anything.” I shook my head. “We helped each other escape that place. We are both here because we have the same goal. And more than that, we want each other to succeed.” My eyes met hers, hoping to erase my previous words. “I want to help you get revenge for what he did to Souma, just as much as I want revenge for my father.”
“I want to do this, Dani. But I’m allowed to try to stop you if I think it’s killing you.”
I nodded. “I’m not going to take more zoraat than I need. We are going to finish this. For my father, and for yours. And after it’s all over, we are getting as far away from here as possible. We’ll leave the whole empire.”
Noor exhaled, the fight draining out of her. “Well, we don’t have to gothatfar.”
I laughed, relieved that the tension had been dispelled, relieved that my awful words didn’t drive Noor away for good. But the feeling I’d had when I’d said them stuck with me. It was as if the person who had said those awful things to Noor wasn’t me at all.
“So.” Noor’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts, and I was thankful for the distraction. “Who’s next?”
Twenty-eight
Darbaran sat alone at the café, drinking coffee from a golden dallah pot that must have cost the equivalent of his entire year’s salary when he was a guard. Now that he was wealthy, and ran the security of Basral, he bled the city coffers dry with his corruption.
“We already know his weaknesses quite well.” Noor sat across from me pretending to read a book while I sipped my tea.
“It’s certainly not coffee.”
She smiled, her eyes on her book.
Greed.
