Page 31 of Every Spiral of Fate (This Woven Kingdom #4)

Thirty

ALIZEH FROWNED .

“Oh, you need not worry yourselves,” she said, her heart rate steadying as she waved a dismissive hand. “I so often sit by the fire that I’m all the time dropping things in it. You’ve no idea the number of pins and needles I’ve had to fish out of the grate over the years.”

“But, Your Majesty—” said Hazan.

She reached into the flames as if she were rummaging through a bin, plucked her book free from the small blaze, and lightly blew off a layer of ash from the unscathed cover.

“See?” she said. “Everything is all right.”

Deen had paled. “Devils above.”

“Holy hell,” Kamran said on a breath.

“Your—your dress, dear,” said Huda, sounding faint.

Alizeh looked down at herself to see that her sleeve had caught fire. In fact, it was still on fire.

“Oh,” she said, and tapped gently at the flames, putting them out one at a time.

Her dress was at least partly ruined, and this was perhaps the more frustrating issue.

Alizeh had no garments of her own save the ones Sarra, Cyrus’s mother, had gathered for her wedding trousseau, and she’d packed only what she might carry for this journey—which meant options were in short supply.

With a sigh, she realized the blanket had also sustained damage. “Hazan, I appear to have ruined this.” She held up a singed length of quilt. “I’m terribly sorry.”

But everyone was staring at her, dumbfounded.

“I am sorry,” she said, chagrined. Her adrenaline now depleted, her previous exhaustion was returning to her in waves. She stifled a yawn. “I’m not normally so clumsy. And I can fix the quilt—”

“That was brilliant, miss,” said Omid, rubbing his eyes. “I never seen you catch fire before.”

“Neither have I,” said Deen.

“Are you all right?” asked Cyrus, the only one of them who still stood, frozen mid-motion, as if he’d meant to launch himself across the room.

“I’m fine,” she said, smiling to emphasize the point.

Cyrus sat down like a felled tree.

“But the book,” said Hazan, unable to hide his astonishment. “I’d not realized the book was also fireproof.”

Alizeh merely nodded. She felt no desire to depress the room with the story of its discovery.

“May I hold it?” he asked.

Alizeh said, “Of course,” and rose slightly to hand the volume to Hazan, who’d crossed the room to her. He visibly started as he took the tome into his hands.

“It’s cold,” he said, looking up at her. “I don’t remember it being cold.”

“That’s because you had the decoy,” said Cyrus quietly.

Hazan stilled.

It was Kamran who said to her, “Is it the ice in your veins that allows you to withstand the fire? Do you think that’s why you’re always so cold?”

“Yes, that’s exactly it,” she said. “It’s always been my understanding that the ice is responsible for making me so—” She hesitated, then frowned. “That is—it used to make me so cold.” Her frown deepened, and suddenly Hazan was frowning as well.

“What do you mean, Your Majesty?” he asked.

“Do you know,” she said, “I’m only now realizing that I haven’t experienced the effects of the brutal frost in several days.” She looked up. “Indeed I’ve not been in freezing pain since the night we performed the blood oath.”

The room seemed to lapse into collective silence.

“Is that unusual?” she asked, searching stunned eyes for answers.

“I wouldn’t know, Your Majesty.” Hazan handed the book to Deen, who’d quietly asked to hold it. “We’ve not had a Jinn sovereign in over a millennia. And I’ve never heard of any who’d performed a blood oath.”

“Perhaps not,” said Deen, running his hand along the book’s worn cover, “but we have enough documented history of blood oaths to know what to expect in the aftermath. The temperature of the body”—he lifted his eyes to hers—“has never been affected.”

“Strange,” said Kamran.

Cyrus, she noticed, hardly appeared to be breathing.

“Why did you not mention this sooner?” asked Huda, who was gazing at her afresh.

“I don’t know,” said Alizeh, trying to think.

“It feels as though I’ve hardly had a moment to reflect on it.

Of course, I’d felt the change immediately upon the completion of the oath, but I assumed the warmth I felt then was a direct result of the magic, for I’d had a similar experience in the temple.

After I awoke upon being healed by the Diviners, I’d felt a parallel sort of comfort—a warmth inside of me—though it quickly faded. ”

“They’d put you into a medicinal sleep,” said Deen, handing the book back to Hazan. “You were likely feeling the effects of residual magic.”

“Yes,” she said, encouraged. “Precisely. And I thought that this feeling, too, might’ve been temporary.

But then”—her brows furrowed—“heavens, I don’t know.

We’ve been so busy. And I think perhaps I got used to it.

It’s been days and days now, and the feeling shows no signs of diminishing.

” Alizeh managed a smile. “Is this what it’s like for the rest of you?

Do you feel this comfortable all the time? ”

“Oh, my dear,” said Huda, looking heartbroken.

Omid appeared confused. “I don’t think I understand, miss. Are you saying his blood has made you warmer?”

“Yes,” she said, a little line forming between her brows. “I think so.”

“Yet you are still impervious to the fire,” Deen marveled.

“ Melt the ice in salt ,” said Hazan softly.

Alizeh stiffened.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Kamran, who looked suddenly uncomfortable.

“Nothing,” said Hazan, whose eyes were fixed on the Book of Arya. He ran his fingers over the words of the prophecy, which were embossed in gold upon the back cover. “I don’t know.”

Omid scrunched his nose. “Salt is hardly the same thing as blood.”

“No, but there’s salt in blood, darling,” said Huda, who was staring, wide-eyed, from Alizeh to Cyrus. “Enough of it, anyway.”

“Hazan?” said Alizeh.

Hazan only shook his head. “I don’t know why I said that, Your Majesty. I must be very tired.”

“Blood already runs through her own veins,” said Kamran. “Why would she require the blood of another?”

“ Ice runs through her veins,” said Deen. “She does not bleed red like the rest of us.”

“Is that true, miss?” asked Omid.

Everyone turned, slowly, to face Alizeh.

But she saw only Cyrus’s eyes. She felt only the intensity of his gaze, heavy upon her like the press of a hand.

She read the fear in the lines of his body even as heat flooded hers.

She considered it all, turning things over, and it occurred to her that she’d been a great deal drowsier lately, her body more quickly succumbing to the call of sleep.

It was only that there were so many reasons to account for her current exhaustion that she’d not considered it might have anything to do with an overabundance of warmth.

But, of course, that was rubbish.

Alizeh had never slept well. She’d been tired nearly all her life.

She was accustomed to backbreaking labor and snatches of rest with little recovery.

She was always tensed, always frozen, always aching with cold.

Never had she been warm enough. Never did her tired bones fully relax.

Never had she felt the euphoric release of her body unclenching.

Never, until now.

She touched her cheeks, which were hot and flushed.

Lately, she’d been boneless with fatigue.

Even with so much to wind her mind, she’d been surrendering, fully, to the lull of sleep.

She drew her hands away from her face, holding them open before her as if in supplication.

She examined her fingers and her palms, and then—

There , in the absence of her incinerated sleeve, she noticed the darkening veins branching beneath the thin skin of her wrist.

“Might I borrow a blade?” she whispered.

“ No ,” shouted Cyrus and Kamran at once.

Hazan stood with perfect calm, yanked his dagger from the table, and handed it to her, hilt first.

She took the weapon.

“What are you doing?” Kamran yelled at Hazan. “Why would you allow her to harm herself—”

“Please,” said Cyrus, panicked. “I beg you do not—”

She pressed the sharp blade to the palm of her hand, and Huda screamed.

Omid sucked in a breath.

“Good God,” Deen gasped.

“This is barbaric,” said Kamran angrily.

“ Alizeh ,” Cyrus whispered, horrified.

She exhaled harshly as the steel pierced her flesh, her heart thundering inside her. She’d slit a clean line across her palm and watched, with bated breath, as fresh blood pooled along the gash.

It glimmered scarlet against her skin.

Alizeh gave a soft cry and the dagger fell from her free hand, hitting the stone hearth with a clatter.