Page 26 of Every Spiral of Fate (This Woven Kingdom #4)

Twenty-Five

CYRUS HELD HIS COOLING CUP of tea, absently swirling the leaves at the bottom as he stared into the blinding distance.

Cold sun slanted through a bank of endless windows, which enclosed the room in a perfect circle.

Bright winter birds occasionally shot past like flung jewels, casting brilliant color against the glass.

The famed, silvery-white Arya mountains rose in stupendous glory just beyond, so mammoth in size and scope they appeared close enough to touch.

In fact, they were woefully out of reach.

Their familiar group was assembled at present in worn, squashed chairs gathered around a blazing wood stove forged in the shape of a teardrop, and which anchored the center of a circular cabin, its sooty black chimney shot straight through the ceiling like a stamen.

Outside, several other structures surrounded this round house, arranged just so, like petals about a flower head.

On a whim Cyrus peered up through the window at the sunlit skies, and there, quitting the clouds, was the shimmer of a white flake whorling drowsily to the ground.

This was not a surprise, of course.

The pastoral region they now occupied was beholden to the weather patterns of a mountain range that was notorious for its blizzards. One did not travel to the Arya mountains without expecting snow.

Cyrus held back a sigh, then took a sip of his lukewarm tea.

It wasn’t that he minded a snowfall. In fact he was ardently enamored of an idyllic landscape.

Cyrus was not immune to creature comforts; nor did he despair of relaxation.

If he denied himself such pleasures in the normal course of his life it was only so that his imminent exit from this world might strike him with a lighter hand.

But just then, the liquid warmth of the gently appointed room was almost dangerous to his health.

He hadn’t slept since the night before his wedding, and this current pause in planned events would do him no good.

Without upheaval to animate his spirits, he worried he might simply fall over.

It was helpful, then, that the mere sight of Alizeh kept his pulse racing at an unsustainable speed, the resulting effects of which were so uncomfortable he felt he might explode out of his own body to escape them. He didn’t know how long it might be before their group made another move.

They would need to lay low for a while.

Despite their recent, narrow escape from enemy assailants, Cyrus felt uneasy. He was certain they’d evaded what was only the beginning of something—not the finish—and he knew for a fact that they were being watched.

Kaveh had reported sightings of other dragons in the region, armed combatants riding astride.

Their single great advantage was that other dragons could not speak with their riders. There was no possibility, as a result, for enemy beasts to explicitly communicate Alizeh’s whereabouts even if they suspected her location.

For now, this would keep them safe.

Still, it meant they couldn’t emerge from the protected outpost for at least a matter of days, for they were doubtless being slowly encircled.

They would have to wait until the riders grew tired and took up positions elsewhere.

Which meant they couldn’t make any moves toward the mountains right away—which meant their stay here would be longer than anticipated.

Cyrus set down his teacup too hard, the sound clattering.

He’d been delusional to hope they might find Alizeh’s magic within a matter of days, but now—

Hells, they might be trapped here for weeks.

Worse, Cyrus had to ration his magic. Between the apothecarist’s needs, the demands of the recent dragon battle, and the protective enchantments he’d erected around the perimeter of the outpost—he was already worried he’d not packed enough crystals.

He exhaled slowly, the gentle thrum of his environment coming into focus by small measures: the soft snap of the fire, the murmur of voices.

Kamran and Hazan were engaged, just inches from his elbow, in a sporting game of chess.

Huda was teaching Omid table manners. Deen was currently sprawled upon a small sofa, for Cyrus had recently delivered him another infusion of magic, and the apothecarist was now sleeping off a renewed stupor.

They were all of them waiting for Princess Firuzeh to return with information about their lodgings.

“Do you have any idea when your mother might return?” asked Hazan, frowning as he cautiously skated his bishop across the board.

“Possibly never,” said Kamran, knocking down said bishop with his knight. “My mother is likely having a laugh.”

Hazan, unfazed, moved his rook a few spaces back. “You mean to imply she’s left us here, this long, on purpose?”

“Would that surprise you?” Kamran crossed his arms as he considered the pieces. “When she once left the dinner table without warning, her fork still dripping with stew, only to return two weeks later as if nothing were amiss?”

Hazan’s frown only deepened. “In fact, no.”

Cyrus was listening to this conversation with no small amount of interest. It was slowly occurring to the southern king that he and the prince might have more in common than they liked or realized. At minimum, they both appeared to have been raised by chaotic mothers.

Kamran chose then to play his other knight, and Hazan sailed his bishop down the board, routing Kamran’s queen with a satisfying thwack . “Check . ”

“What?” Kamran looked at the board, then up at Hazan. “How did you—”

“Never leave your queen unguarded, you fool.”

Alizeh laughed at this, and Cyrus looked up like a wrenched marionette, magnetized to the sound. He waited to see if she would laugh again.

Instead, she sighed, and he withered.

At the moment, she sat curled up inside her seat, elbow on the armrest, chin propped in one hand.

Her shoes had been arranged neatly on the ground beside her chair, her rose-colored skirts draping in elegant folds around her.

An empty teacup had been set aside, abandoned on a nearby table, a half-bitten biscuit tucked into its saucer.

He tried not to look at this biscuit.

Hells, he tried to look away from her altogether. It could not be said with any justice that he didn’t try, always, to look away from her. And yet—

Just then he couldn’t summon the restraint.

Cyrus felt overheated. He felt unwell. He was denying himself always; starved for her, always. Perhaps it was exhaustion that weakened him now, or else it was the effect of her aching speech to the gathered soldiers—but he stared upon her then with a longing so desperate it scared him.

How could he not feel unworthy?

She was a luminous hope in the lives of millions—while he dragged his dead corpse through the blossoming valley of her life, staining everything with his blood.

Every day he looked upon her majesty and awaited, with the bated breath of the damned, a fresh summons from the devil.