The Rose and the Dagger (The Wrath and the Dawn) by Renée Ahdieh Read Free Book Online Page B

pride.
    “But I haven’t,” Shahrzad continued. “I’ve made so many mistakes. I fell in love with the boy responsible for your death!”
    “You did. And that was difficult to watch, at times. Especially the morning you almost died.”
    “I betrayed you.”
    “No, you goose. You didn’t betray me. I told you; I was here the whole time. And I have a confession to make . . .” Shiva’s eyes drifted sideways, sparkling with sly awareness. Filled with vibrant light. “The moment I saw him running toward you that morning, I knew you were going to save him, just as he saved you.” When Shiva reached a hand toward hers, Shahrzad jumped at its warmth.
    It felt so real. So achingly alive.
    Again, Shiva smiled, her slender shoulders easing forward with lissome grace. “It feels real because you remember me this way. And it’s lovely to be remembered as warm and perfectly imperfect.” Shiva laced her fingers through Shahrzad’s and held tight.
    For a moment, the tension in Shahrzad’s throat made itdifficult to speak. “I’m—so sorry for loving him, Shiva-
jan
. So sorry for not being stronger.”
    “What a ridiculous thing to apologize for!” Shiva’s fine-boned features looked doll-like in her outrage. “You should know better. Never apologize for such nonsense again. You of all people should know what happens when you disobey me.” She shook a fist, laughing teasingly as she brought to mind their many childhood squabbles. Shahrzad could not help but join in her laughter, until its chorus filled the space around them.
    “I don’t want to wake up.” The laughter died on Shahrzad’s lips, its echo calling back to her from beyond the double doors. From a gateway between worlds.
    “And I don’t want you to wake up,” Shiva said. “Yet, when the time comes, you will wake up, all the same.”
    “Perhaps we should just stay here.”
    “I think not.” Shiva’s mouth crooked into a melancholy smile. “After all, you were not looking for me when you first arrived. You were looking for him.” It was not an accusation. Merely an observation. Shiva had always been like that—incapable of withholding the truth but incapable of cruelty. A rare kind of person. The best kind of friend.
    Shahrzad averted her gaze. “I—don’t know that I can ever look for him again. Not with the curse—”
    “Then you must break it,” Shiva interrupted. “That is beyond question. What remains is how you intend to go about doing so. Have you made a plan?”
    Though Shahrzad had intended to seek Musa Zaragoza soon for this exact purpose, she could not answer Shiva. She wasn’t yetsure how to proceed. Even as a child, she’d gone through much of life on instinct. That and sheer nerve.
    It was Shiva who had been the planner. Shiva who had always thought ahead of what was to come.
    “See?” Shiva said, her forehead smoothing. “This is why I came to you tonight, my dearest love. You’re lost. And it simply will not do.”
    Shahrzad watched as the fog spread toward the ceiling, wrapping its wraithlike arms around the platform and curling about the single taper above. “I don’t know where to begin,” she admitted, her voice fading into the fog.
    “Why don’t you start by saying aloud what it is you wish for?”
    Could she even dare to say such a thing? After all the death and bloodshed and senseless destruction, it seemed like the worst kind of selfishness.
    To build her world upon a bower of bones.
    “So tiresome.” Shiva nudged her in jest. “This is
your
dream, you goose! If you cannot say what it is you desire in your own dream, then where can you dare to say it?”
    Shahrzad saw herself reflected in Shiva’s gaze.
    It was a shell of the girl she knew. A girl hunched forward, reticent. A girl absent—from life, and of life.
    She squared her shoulders. “I want to be with Khalid. I want my father to be well. And . . . I want the curse to be broken.”
    “There she is,” Shiva said, amusement