All This Twisted Glory (This Woven Kingdom, #3)

by Tahereh Mafi

No one had ever looked at her the way he did, as if the sight of her might be fatal.

Fate, he thought bitterly, was only romantic when one was destined to be the hero.

He’d been afraid to go near her; he hadn’t been ready to hear her voice, to look into her eyes. He was terrified she’d go and do something brutal, like smile at him.

He only closed his eyes against her hair and fought the desperate crush of his chest, the violence of his affection for her. How she managed to disarm him even now, on the brink of death, he could not understand. She’d wept for his pain, wiped the blood from his eyes, taken an arrow in the back for him. She’d shown him more loyalty and tenderness in two days than he’d ever felt in his life, and he knew then, with a force that drove the air from his lungs, that he would never survive her.

“We died and we’re together—and we’re not in hell,” she murmured. She nearly tipped over, but the magic yanked her upright. “And you got a dragon. Maybe I’ll get a dragon.” He swallowed. She patted his arm blindly. “That must mean you’re not so bad.” Cyrus took this like a shot of poison; he couldn’t bear to respond.

No one had ever cared for him as she did. Finally, his eyes closed. A feeling of calm overcame him, allowing him to rest as he never did in her absence. Here, he was safe. With her, he was safe.

“Your thickheaded, self-righteous behavior has no place on the throne. If you do not learn to set yourself aside in the service of others, you will never deserve your crown.”

👏👏

Somehow it didn’t matter that Alizeh had been but a conjuring of his imagination. It didn’t matter that they’d never known each other outside of the delusions of his mind. It didn’t matter that she owed him nothing. He’d loved her.

“You must not resist life when it becomes inconvenient to live. You cannot outrun fear. You should not ignore pain. You will not outlive death.”

But life cannot be experienced one emotion at a time. It is a tapestry of sensation, a braided rope of feeling. We must allow for reflection even when we suffer. We must reach for compassion even when we triumph. If you spend your days waiting for your sorrows to end so that you might finally live”—he shook his head—“you will die an impatient man.”

“Master yourself so that you will never be mastered. Know yourself so that you might live with conviction. Live with conviction so that your steps never falter.” He paused. “The mastery of self means never fearing the consequences of doing what is right.”

“When you suffer,” Rostam went on, “you can choose to endure, or you can choose to overcome.” He gestured around them, to the vast expanse of the meadow. “Here, even in the midst of your discomfort, there existed elements of relief, if only you had bothered to search.”