More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Tahereh Mafi
Read between
October 27 - October 31, 2025
Alizeh had ruined him.
“Is it true?” he asked. “She’s really going to marry you?” Cyrus stepped forward, his sword at the ready. “Yes.” Kamran would not recover.
but the creature had gone invisible in the sky, leaving her floating on a patterned rug.
Very aladdin esque
Oh, she had never feared death. No, it was life that scared her, life that scarred her. It was the slow torture of consciousness that had done its utmost to crush her.
She reminded herself to take comfort, as she always had, in the strength she carried in her body, in her mind, in the faith she’d always had in herself.
Kamran wanted to set it all on fire.
Valid crash out
Unexpectedly, Cyrus smiled. For the first time since she’d met the reprobate, he truly smiled. He grinned like a boy, not a man, the infinitesimal flash of his white teeth rendering him almost childlike, softening him into something more mischievous than vengeful.
“But I see now that you, as with everyone else, seem to want something from me.”
the options were so stunning it had taken little indeed to convince Alizeh to do so. Still, she’d chosen to wear only a simple circlet in her hair: three whisper-thin gold bands hammered into a fine crown, a rainbow assortment of gems embedded throughout.
I wish
But there was something about being asked to do it—something about being all but threatened to do it by decree of the young man’s mother— It unnerved her.
Same
Alizeh was grateful for the good in her life, really she was, but sometimes she longed for a joy undiluted; she wanted to know what it was to smile unhampered by darkness, to laugh without knowing the drumbeat of pain, to see friends without the shadow of uncertainty. What was uncomplicated happiness? She dearly wished to know.
Alexa play the prophecy
“God, you’re so beautiful,” he said, his smile vanishing. “Even when you lie to me.”
Cyrus stood up suddenly, stepped closer, towered over her. He all but blotted out the light with his height, casting her in shadow, causing her to shiver in the absence of the sun. He touched her then, shocking her with a tenderness she wasn’t expecting, tracing the line of her jaw so lightly her lips parted on a sudden breath.
Damn the tension is crazy
“Wicked girl,” he whispered. “You’ve been making deals with my mother.”
Lmao the way he just knew
MELT THE ICE IN SALT BRAID THE THRONES AT SEA IN THIS WOVEN KINGDOM CLAY AND FIRE SHALL BE
“I hate you,” he whispered. Alizeh blinked, her heart pounding too hard in her chest. “I know.” He leaned in then, his throat working, his gaze fixed entirely on her mouth. “I hate everything about you. Your eyes. Your lips. Your smile.” His words grazed her skin when he said, softly, “I find your presence insufferable.”
“I only wish I were. I wish I felt nothing for her. I wish I could rip this useless organ out of my chest for all the trouble it’s caused me. I was so deluded—so disgustingly besotted—I even named her as a possible bride to my grandfather. I had the gall to propose as my queen the young woman prophesied to be his downfall, and he nearly chopped off my head in response.
“What’s that?” “We go to Tulan.”
Finally geez
“Oh, I don’t know,” he mused. “I didn’t say a word until I was three years old. I don’t like eggplant. And you have a single little freckle in the hollow at the base of your throat.”
“No,” he echoed softly. “And you should take care to remember that. Should you marry me, it would be in title only. I have no interest in your companionship.” The nosta went cold.
OH MY GODDDD
“Take care, Cyrus,” she chided him. “If you keep laughing like that, I’m liable to think you have a heart.” “Oh, you needn’t worry,” he said, his smile fading. “I most certainly don’t.” The nosta went cold.
He’d asked her why she’d never been inside of a bakery, for “surely Ardunia was not so pathetic an empire as to lack such establishments,” to which she’d responded that Ardunia was “quite thick with bakeries, thank you very much,” it was only that she’d never had the time to visit one, for she’d always worked, at minimum, twelve-hour shifts, though even if she’d had the time, she’d reasoned, she’d “invariably lacked the money to purchase anything from such a place,” and as a result hadn’t seen the point in torturing herself with even the possibility of such decadence— Cyrus had abruptly taken
...more
Awe:')
Alizeh decided she liked bread very much.
Me too girl
Bit by bit, he was being proven wrong about Alizeh.
No shit
For while, on some level, these answers exonerated Alizeh, they also proved that she’d lied to him; she’d pretended not to know Cyrus while she was all the while allied with the Tulanian king. She’d accepted his help, his magic. She’d worn his gown; they’d had a plan.
Bruh i need your judgement to stop clouding your mind
“I didn’t know your name for so long, angel. I love the way it feels in my mouth.”
“Don’t be afraid of me, angel. I won’t hurt you. I’ll never hurt you.”
“Come here,” he said roughly. “N-No,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t— I— Cyrus, you’re very tired.” She watched his chest expand as he breathed, his eyes closing even as he fought it. “I want you,” he said, weakening in that familiar, sudden manner. “Next to me.”
leave this feather to my grandson, to use only when all else seems lost, when his tragedies feel insurmountable, and hope feels impossible. He will need only to touch it to his own blood, and Simorgh will come for him, as she once did for me. I also leave him my
Would be cool if it was a dragon
Simorgh, Simorgh, a magnificent bird
None would forget the day Zaal had returned The way the world brightened the way his father had burned Zaal took the throne he was always meant to claim But he would never forget his true mother’s name
What the fuck???
Steadily, she met his eyes. She saw an intensity in his stunning irises, something desperate straining against his control, and she swore in that moment she could almost feel his soul pressing against hers. Even then, he was breathtaking.
“Forgive me. I never should’ve lifted my sword against you.” “Why not?” She bristled. “You don’t think me a worthy opponent?” “You,” he said ardently, “have always been too worthy. I will not hurt you.”
“Why did you do it?” he said, his voice strained. “Why were you so kind to me? I’d heard someone crying, but I thought the sounds were part of a dream, or a hallucination. God, the way you touched me—” He cut himself off, his expression tortured. He shook his head, dragged a hand across his mouth. “Alizeh, my own mother has never touched me with such tenderness. I didn’t think there was any chance you could be real.”
But the longer he stood there without speaking aloud a retraction—without issuing an apology or denial—the more she wondered whether he stared at her now not with fear, but with longing.
“I would marry you,” he said, stepping closer again, coming dangerously within reach. “I’d marry you tomorrow. And then I’d take you to bed. For weeks.”
AH IM BLUSHINGGGG
“And now you’re thinking too much.” “You’re being cruel—” “And you are needlessly shocked. You’ve known from the first that I am yoked to a ruthless master, that in fact I sought you out under his orders, that I disrupted my life and disordered my home and tore myself open at his behest, all for you.” He swallowed. “All for you. Do you really not see what you’ve done to me? In a matter of days you’ve stripped me down and upended my world. My hours are in disarray, my future is in chaos, and my head—my head—”
“And instead of being angry,” he went on, “instead of driving you away—instead of wishing we’d never met—I keep staring at that fucking cut on your neck, Alizeh, and I want to die.”
“It’s my own fault,” he said, and dragged both hands down his face. “I have only myself to blame. I knew better; I knew you were dangerous. You’ve had the upper hand from the moment I laid eyes on you. I saw you and saw right away that I was in hell, and I hated you for it, because I realized even then that you would be the end of me.”
“You don’t understand,” he said, tortured. “I’ve been dreaming about you for months.”
“Far from it. I always thought you were some kind of an angel.” She drew a sharp breath.
“It was a long time before I suspected Iblees had anything to do with my dreams,” Cyrus was saying. “I see now, of course, that I should’ve doubted sooner, but you always struck me as far too lovely to be associated with him. So generous, so sweet. So beautiful I could hardly look at you, even in my dreams. I thought my mind had magicked you to life as an antidote to my nightmares. I never dared to believe you might exist in real life.”
THIS IS SO ROMANTIC WHAT
Alizeh grew only more unsteady as she listened; she worried she wouldn’t survive this speech.
GIRL SAME
I thought you’d never match up to the figment of my dreams, and I was wrong. You are far more enchanting in real life. Far more exquisite.” His voice shook just a little when he said, softly, “It is excruciating to be in your presence.”
This is mr darcy level speech oh my god
“You act as if I’m intentionally cruel. As if I’m indifferent to you.” “Aren’t you?” “No,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. “Of course not.” Cyrus stared at her from where he stood, his chest heaving with barely leashed intensity. He devastated her with that look, even as he seemed planted in the ground, immovable. “Then be with me,” he said softly. “Let me worship you.”
“You have no idea what I want. I have been in agony for eight months, Alizeh. Do you know how hard it’s been to pretend I don’t know you? To pretend I don’t want you? To act as if I haven’t known every inch of your body in my dreams? To learn that your heart has been entangled elsewhere? I look at you and I can’t breathe. In my mind, you are already mine.”
OH MY GODDDDD
“No, I could never be with you,” she said. “Not because I am indifferent, but because you could never be faithful to me—you could never choose me first—and you should not blame me for my fears.”
PAINNNN
“Who will we become then? Are we to be enemies once more?” He said nothing, his body trembling almost imperceptibly as he stared at the ground, and when he finally parted his lips to answer, there came a sudden, urgent pounding at the door.
NOOOOOOOO
