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

by Tahereh Mafi

Alizeh had grown light-headed under this careful gaze, her skin prickling with awareness where his eyes had touched her. She didn’t know how to describe this feeling, this breathless languor. No one had ever looked at her the way he did, as if the sight of her might be fatal. Her lips had parted under the weight of his silent want, her mouth growing heavy with the sound of his name and a desperate, foolish impulse to whisper the word against his skin.

His throat worked at the remembered feel of her, how he’d touched her in his delirium, drawn the intoxicating scent of her into his head, where it would live, forever,

This was worse, infinitely worse. Her ultimate show of compassion toward him had been his undoing, for this, layered upon all else, had proven she was every inch the angelic figure he’d cherished in his dreams.

He knew now that she was so far above him he wasn’t even worthy of standing in her shadow. Certainly he had no right to desire anything from her.

How would he even bear to look upon her face when he no longer possessed the defenses necessary to shield his pathetic heart?

God, he’d wanted her. He’d wanted her with an all-consuming thirst, with the desperation of a man waiting to die.

For Cyrus, hoping for anything more than death was a treacherous game, one that would end only in tragedy.

It was the kind of contradiction she often felt repeated in herself: that she was both useless and powerful; unimportant and essential.

He’d been surprised in his green life to discover the manifold ways in which a person might experience terror, the creativity with which dread and horror might be provoked in a soul.

His vision blurred; blood pooled slowly in his open mouth; his chest spasmed with some unknown damage and still he smiled, for what he felt in that moment was nothing short of joy. It was over.

He’d cried soundlessly, and they were tears of relief.

The devil, Cyrus soon discovered, would not allow his debtors to default on a contract.

Inch by harrowing inch Cyrus was made to ascend the stairs by way of dark magic, his own blood choking in his throat.

It was a state of suffering so excruciating he’d lost consciousness over and over, only to wake up each time on the slick ground in a shallow pool of his own gore, and made to climb the stairs agai...

You are? Sad. Sad. Sad. Cyrus swallowed. “Yes,” he whispered.

It bothered him to think of it as anything but coincidence; he didn’t like to imagine he’d been born for this role, brought into the world only to endure this misery. Fate, he thought bitterly, was only romantic when one was destined to be the hero.

Alizeh was the fulfillment of his most desperate, undisclosed desire. The constant, gnawing ache inside him – this pitiful need that grew only more fraught in the wake of every darkness that devoured him – He longed for her warmth, for her radiance. She’d been, from the first moment she’d wandered into his dreams, an enduring flame in the endless night, his only haven in the madness that inhaled him. This was his real weakness, and the devil had marked him easily.

He was terrified to ever dream of her again. Cyrus had been using magic to keep himself awake for two days now.

“My son – you don’t understand –” “Tell me, then,” said Cyrus, his chest heaving with barely restrained emotion. He’d all but destroyed himself in the pursuit of righting these wrongs, and always his father doubted him. “Why is it you won’t put your faith in me? What is it I don’t understand?”

It made her realize how little she and Kamran knew each other – how tenuous was the bond between them. Only someone with a shallow understanding of her character could be so easily persuaded to malign her, and it was fortunate, then, that the guileless shock now printed upon her face was clear enough to all.

Despite her own injured feelings, her heart couldn’t help but soften at the dawning horror in his eyes. After all he’d endured – what he must’ve thought of her. How he must’ve suffered.

Alizeh shook her head in a sharp motion. “No,” she said, stunned. “Kamran – you can’t kill him –” “It’s what he deserves.” “No, it’s – well, yes” – she frowned – “I suppose there might be some argument for –” She broke off with a gasp. The fine hairs at the nape of her neck had risen in awareness,

She knew he’d arrived before she’d even laid eyes on him,

and in the time it took her to turn her head in his direction, Kamran had already notched an arrow in...

As he drew closer, it became obvious that he focused on Alizeh to the exclusion of all else, his body taut with restraint even as he moved resolutely toward her. He tried to hide a flare of panic as he studied the unnatural curl of her limbs on the ground – but she knew the moment he discerned the bruise on her face, for his eyes widened with undisguised alarm and he all but ran to her, now bolting down the narrow path at a dangerous speed.

It was wrong, all wrong. Cyrus couldn’t die. Not now. Not yet. Heavens, she thought. Not ever. She felt suddenly like she might scream at the prospect,

This optimism, of course, had been born of denial. He’d lied to himself only so he wouldn’t have to turn around, take her by the arm, and walk her back to the palace. It was too much temptation: the two of them alone in the dark, her body glazed in moonlight. 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 turned because the act of aligning his body toward hers was chased every time by a strange relief.

As much as it tortured him to look at her, it tortured him more to look away.

which was why he didn’t notice, not right away, that she was running toward him. When he did, he nearly lost his mind.

He watched the whirl of her draw closer and went light-headed with rage; he could hardly breathe around the feeling, so extraordinary was his anger.

He couldn’t fathom that she’d thought him worth such an effort, that she’d risk her own safety to spare his life. It made him want to do unforgivable things.

Cyrus managed a choked cry before her soft body crashed into him,

With a sharp thwack the last arrow found its mark between her shoulder blades. Alizeh flinched under the force of impact, and her small, startled gasp rendered Cyrus absolutely, inhumanly still. Panic inhaled him. He felt blind with it, blind with madness. Alizeh whispered something incomprehensible against his neck, and he closed his eyes against a destructive swell of emotion, wishing desperately that he’d never been born. He didn’t realize at any point that he’d stumbled, that he’d lost his footing, or that they were falling – not until he felt the wind, like a heavy hand, rise up beneath them. And then let them drop.

There was no fear in her voice, only mild surprise – as if this were all a stroke of bad luck, a disappointing inconvenience.

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. “Don’t worry, angel,” he said quietly. “You won’t have to.”

she remained motionless; her eyes were closed; her face drawn and pale. Even her trembling had begun to slow. Cyrus struggled to hide his panic. Urgently he whispered her name, willing her to speak, to open her eyes.

Alizeh’s eyelids fluttered briefly, and Cyrus hesitated. The bruise along her cheekbone appeared swollen and tender, the sight both devastating and confounding to him.

Cyrus, feeling both weak and helpless, finally allowed himself to stare at her. He studied the exquisite planes of her face, the fullness of her lips, lashes soft and inky against her pallid skin. It was dangerous to allow himself to linger, memorizing details – for the more he grew to care for her, the more unbearable it became to look at her.

Cyrus took a deep breath, a tremor rocking his body as he exhaled. He gathered Alizeh gently against his chest, pressed his good hand as close as he could to her wound, and, with great effort, transferred the remaining magic in his body directly into hers.

Blearily, she said, “Who are you talking to?” His heart was beating faster now. “My dragon,” he said. “Oh.” A little line formed between her brows. “You have a dragon?” “I – Yes.” “Just like you did before.” She stifled a yawn, her eyes closing. “Do I get one, too?” Cyrus frowned. “Would that… please you?” “Yes, I think so.” “All right.” He blinked slowly. “You can have a dragon.”

“Cyrus?” He felt delirious. He was staring at her with the awe of an idiot perceiving the sun for the first time.

“Yes, angel?” “We died, didn’t we?” The question was such a surprise he briefly jolted awake, and was about to deny it when she spoke again. “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.

He knew she’d be all right. He knew the Diviners would easily mend her. It wasn’t fear for her life that gripped him now; it was fear for his own. He shouldn’t care for her so. He could not. It would kill him before he was ready to die, and then – And then all this torture would have been for nothing.

but Cyrus was somehow deaf to this, blind to all but the chaos flaring inside his body. The statement had struck him like a whip.

it took every bit of Cyrus’s self-possession to keep from displaying his horror.

Horrible as it was to think of losing his empire, Cyrus had comforted himself with the knowledge that he’d be handing it over to one such as Alizeh; he felt certain that, in his absence, she’d care for his people with unimpeachable compassion and justice.

“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.”

“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.”

that he needed to pay attention. “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.”