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

by Tahereh Mafi

Cyrus of Nara was the spare, of course; never the heir.

Alizeh had grown light-headed under this careful gaze, her skin prickling with awareness where his eyes had touched her.

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.

She’d come to know this cologne of him, the floral notes of rose infused with the masculine spice of his skin

When had she allowed Cyrus to take up so many rooms inside her?

OF COURSE CYRUS KNEW HE was being followed.

For as long as he lived he feared he’d know the scent of her, the sound of her walking toward him. She was a fool to think otherwise. He was a fool to think of her at all.

He wanted her closer than he could express in words, wanted her bare and trembling in his arms, wanted to excoriate these sensations from his skin. He wanted to lop off his own head and hurl it into the river.

She’d more likely call him a scoundrel, a charlatan, a common miscreant. The thought almost made him smile before it broke him.

Cyrus could think of nothing now but her small hand at his brow, the home of her arms as she’d held him, the delicious agony of her skin against his face. 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, with the whisper of her voice as she’d cried. Her tears had fallen down his cheeks as she’d repeated his name, over and over, begging him to wake. He clenched his fists.

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

cyrus king of yearning

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

He, who’d been discarded by all – shunned by the Diviners, hunted by his mother, betrayed by his father, abandoned by his brother, plunged into isolation and hated throughout the world? He, whose desiccated heart turned to dust before her tenderness?

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.

oh my

He’d never forget the first time he saw her on that calamitous night, the way she’d stepped out from behind the dressing screen. She’d appeared in the golden lamplight of Miss Huda’s bedroom like some impossible vision. Only when she’d lifted her eyes to his face and the sight of her had nearly killed him did Cyrus realize just how artfully he’d been outmaneuvered.

he weakened each time she looked in his direction. His need grew only more explosive as she solidified into someone real; always he desired another glance, another accidental graze of her skin – He was terrified to ever dream of her again.

Hazan, who was peerless in his loyalty to her, who’d gifted her the rare nosta that had saved her in a thousand ways from harm, who’d risked his life over and over for her safety. She thought he’d been killed. And now he was here? He’d come for her once again?

In all these years since her parents’ death – years of screaming loneliness – she’d lost hope of ever finding another trustworthy soul. Yet Hazan had come to her without demands or expectations, parting veils of night to fall on one knee before her, setting into motion what might’ve been the great escape of her life. There was no one she felt safer with, and she’d done nothing to deserve his kindness. He’d simply put his faith in her.

Cyrus couldn’t die. Not now. Not yet. Heavens, she thought. Not ever.

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.

His land was now littered with fools, his hands slick with his own blood – all because he’d been too afraid to touch a girl.

He didn’t need to turn to see her, for Alizeh lived always in luxury behind his eyes; 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. She was like no one he’d ever encountered. The fact of her beauty was unimpeachable, yes – but one had only to behold her in motion to truly understand her power. She was like an avenging angel come to life, tender and magnanimous, serene even as she slit your throat.

AAAAAAAA

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.”

“Be certain of one thing,” Hazan said with quiet menace. “If she doesn’t survive this, you will know the full breadth of my rage. I’ll rip out every bone in your body before I take off your fucking head.”

HAZANNNNNNN

“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.”

would really fight me?” Kamran said, regaining a shade of his earlier temper. “If I challenged you now – you’d be willing to die for him?” “For her,” Hazan corrected.

She’d embodied eminence, traversed a harsh world with grace, and was possessed of a beauty that drove the breath from his lungs.

“Angel,” he breathed. “My angel.”

she the moon in his interminable gloom.

It broke him to know that she understood the depth of his suffering, that she’d put an end to his pain. No one had ever cared for him as she did.

Here, he was safe. With her, he was safe.

That she existed at all was a miracle; that she cared for him seemed impossible. What had he done to earn the love and affection of an angel?

she had no idea how much he held back, how much more he wanted to say. He was in fact so in awe of her he could hardly breathe in her presence,

“You could probably kill me and I’d thank you for it.”

“I want it all, angel. Not just your joy but your sorrow. Not just your hope but your fear. I want your anger and disdain, your frustration and contempt –”

He loved all of her: the shape of her lips, her hips, her slender hands and the freckle at the base of her throat. He’d kissed that freckle a thousand times, had spent countless hours learning her, loving her, discovering the desires of her body. It didn’t matter how many nights he’d spent in her arms. Always, in her presence, he felt himself coming apart with a need that felt a great deal like madness.

She’d chosen him – trusted him – to know her like this, to protect and pleasure her heart and body,

She had so much power over him it was terrifying even to examine the way she owned his soul.

“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.”

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.”

Every night a new facet of his soul died for her.

Cyrus stiffened at the words your wife. The sheer depth of feeling he experienced at the sound of the possessive your had briefly upended his mind.

“Always,” he said. “She will always be safe with me.”

“But don’t you see? If I let fear keep me from doing what is right, I will always be wrong.”

“Let us hope for the day when we might all remove our masks, and live in the light without fear.”

Thank you for receiving me as I am.

Thank you for trusting me with who you are.