Every Spiral of Fate (This Woven Kingdom, #4)

by Tahereh Mafi

“When a man is on fire you don’t ask permission to extinguish him.

He could not decide then whether he wanted to die from the pleasure or the pain. It was all the same.

Just a touch

When he died, he’d take a part of her with him. She wished he might take all of her.

It would be simpler for him to lay down and die for her than to try to convey the enormity of all that he felt in her presence.

As if he could possibly hold an appetite while being forced to watch, on his own wedding day, as another man touched his wife, danced with his wife, made plans to wed and bed his wife. How much more would he be expected to survive? He loved her. He would kill for her, would soon die for her, and yet he knew he had no right to want her.

“Do you need to take from me my dignity, my privacy, the very thoughts still forming in my head? Take my eyes. Take my hands. Take the breath from my body. Strip the skin from my bones. Were I able to offer you my soul I would; I’d tear it from my flesh this moment and give it to you—”

“Because if you were truly my wife, there would be no force on earth strong enough to keep me from you.”

My life, my heart, my blood—they’re already yours. Heaven knows I have nothing left to give you that isn’t already in pieces.”

“I will say this once, angel, for I feel you should be warned. No man alive has ever loved a woman the way that I love you, and I would rather die, damned as I am, than disgrace us both with the pitiful, unrequited performance of my heart.”

“You’ve already given me everything, and I hate to ask you for more. But if you have any strength left, please use it to come back to me. Please—Cyrus, I beg you—”