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

by Tahereh Mafi

She wondered then what it might be like to be so freely enraged; to scream into the heavens and simply fly away.

“By that logic,” Alizeh pointed out, “all scoundrels are also murderers.” “And what scoundrel hasn’t killed a woman’s soul?”

She knew she had no right to demand anything of him, not when he’d already given her everything—his home, his heart, his kingdom— By the angels, his very blood ran through her veins.

It was cruel of her to want to see him smile despite his suffering; she knew she was callous and selfish for wanting him to bare his heart when she’d already severed it from his body. She knew this and still it stoked a wild fever within her.

“You seem somehow incapable of delicacy,” said Cyrus, cutting her off, “so I ask this question sincerely: Do you happen to think I’m deaf?”

“I should like to wear black,” he said, swallowing, “to my own funeral. Yes.”

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.

“I promise to rescue you from every indignity. One day you and I shall look back on this ugly day as a necessary evil—”

Kamran has been here for two seconds and I'm exhausted

She, the prophesied savior of an entire civilization—and he, servant to the devil and sentenced to death. He was not her equal; she would never belong to him.

Presently, he and Alizeh stood suspended in a sphere that hung like a bauble among the clouds.

I'm imagining Glinda's bubble

Every spectator would leave here today with memory as currency: an anecdote to share as evidence that they’d been present at an event that might alter the realms forever.

How I felt at the Eras tour

She was so beautiful he wished fervently to be blinded, or else spared this crucible with a swift dagger to the throat.

“There’s no woman alive capable of unseating me from his heart,” she said, “but you will do just fine, I think.”

Boy mom

“Should you pledge your allegiance to me today, know this: My heart is not my own. My hands are not my own. My life belongs to those oppressed on this earth, and I will not stop until I’ve done everything I can to secure our freedom from tyranny.”

Where is OUR Alizeh

“Is it not a small miracle to bear witness to such beauty?” “Yes,” he said, still staring at her.

It’s so giving Conrad and Belly at the Seine 😭

“Oy,” cried a voice. “Dusty moth!” Cyrus stiffened in horror.

Lmfaoooo

Somehow, the tortures of his life had taught him nothing. He should’ve anticipated that this moment would only get worse.

“You mean there’s only one bedroom,”

Lolololololol

It was notable to Alizeh that Hazan seemed to enjoy taunting Cyrus, and more notable that Cyrus almost seemed to allow it.

Aw besties!

A single bed. This innovative torture device was hardly large enough to accommodate him, much less the two of them.

So little stood between them. Threads of clothing. Shreds of willpower.

“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.”

SIR

Five days since Cyrus told Alizeh that he loved her. Five days that he’d been sleeping, fully dressed, by the front door. Five days that she’d hardly seen him or spoken to him. Five days that he’d become a ghost who refused even to haunt her.

Alizeh was not doing well.

Honestly me either

when Cyrus so much as walked in her direction she grew agitated beyond reason, her very skin chafing at her.

God they just need to fuck

“What do you say, King? Will you not agree with me?”

Kamran is Jeremiah levels of obnoxious

Firuzeh snapped a biscuit in half. “Close your mouth, darling. This is hardly the time.”

even his own mother lmaoooo

“Each day that I do not slit your throat,” said Cyrus softly, “is both a miracle and a mercy, so if you are testing me now to determine whether I am possessed of infinite patience, you will be sorely disappointed.”

am every inch the brute you describe. Speak to me of such things again and I will carve the very soul from your body.”

She’d inspired him to believe once more in the enduring magic of the human heart.

If the purpose of his life could be distilled to this: that he was to die so that she might live, he might depart this world contented.

How much pain could a body hold before fissuring at the seams? How much hope could a soul conjure before surrendering to sorrow?

He wanted a life with her he was afraid even to fashion into thought. He wanted time with her he would never have. He wanted moments he did not deserve.

Cyrus really went to the Conrad Fisher School of Yearning

Where she was everything, he was nothing, and never was this more apparent than now.

It was true that Alizeh’s heart was perhaps more tender than most. It was true that she cried too easily and felt too deeply. But too often her kindness was misunderstood.

She knew when to wipe her tears, when to rise to her feet, when to draw boundaries and when to draw blood. Her kindness was not inexhaustible; it was not unconditional.

“I don’t need peace,” she said softly. “I want war.”