Page 41 of Every Spiral of Fate (This Woven Kingdom #4)

Forty

INSIDE, THE MOUNTAIN WAS WARM.

Alizeh watched as the door fused shut behind them, the tremendous wood panel restoring itself to the raw stone interior of the cave they now occupied.

They appeared to be in some kind of vestibule.

The ceilings were high, the space somehow both cavernous and cozy.

The warm light that lit them now appeared to glow from nowhere, rendering them all in liquid, dreamlike forms. There was no adornment, nothing beyond the entrance, now erased, to otherwise indicate they might’ve entered a den of magic.

As they were sealed inside they heard only the drip of water, the steady patter coming from a single melting icicle, the ominous spike of which hung above their heads like a sword.

Alizeh turned in a circle as they divested themselves of gloves and overcoats, the susurrations of soft movement lifting like whispers. Alizeh was soon enclosed within the ring of her friends, backing by accident into the puddle forming in the center of the room.

Her boots splashed; the sound carried. Alizeh was overwhelmed with wonder. She searched for Hazan, and in his gaze she found the emotion no doubt mirrored in her own.

She couldn’t believe it had finally happened.

Everything her parents had promised her—all the stories she’d been told—

“Thank you,” she said, lifting her eyes to Cyrus.

These were the first words anyone had spoken since entering the mountain, and they shattered the glass silence like a mallet.

In response, Cyrus only lowered his head.

“Is this it, then?” Omid was studying the cave with a frown. “What do we do if we have to use the bathroom?”

“ Omid ,” said Huda, aghast. “Didn’t you use the bathroom before we left?”

“Yes, miss, of course I did, only I’m just wondering—”

The ground gave a sudden lurch.

The cave shuddered around them, the din like dim thunder, and they all turned to watch, astonished, as stone hooks grew like gnarled fingers from the roughly hewn walls. A series of low benches then formed beneath these hooks, exhuming themselves from the ground with eerie, spectral sound.

“ Brilliant ,” said Omid, slack-jawed.

“Astonishing,” whispered Deen.

“I’ve never heard of a room magicking itself to life,” said Kamran quietly. “I’ve only seen such enchantments in children’s fables.”

Alizeh glanced at the melting icicle as they made their way to the newly born hooks, for the steady drip of water had seemed suddenly to intensify.

She frowned at the sight even as she hung her pelisse and scarf, and then again as she unearthed the Book of Arya from a pocket of her skirts.

She was surprised and distracted to discover that the slim volume had lost its cold.

It now emanated an unusual, pulsing warmth.

She turned it over in her hands and gave a gasp of surprise. “Oh,” she said. “It’s changed.”

“How?” said Hazan, drawing forward.

Everyone save one brooding king quickly huddled around her, and though Alizeh looked up at Cyrus, hoping he might join them, his gaze remained fixed on the growing puddle.

“Here,” she said quietly, turning the book so they might see.

One new word had debossed itself onto the front cover. Where before there was nothing, now it read:

BLOOD

“No, I don’t like that,” whispered Huda.

“It wants blood?” asked Omid, frowning. “The book wants blood?”

Cyrus looked up sharply.

“It appears so,” said Deen. “Quite a traditional form of payment, as these things go—”

“Hazan,” Alizeh said, her eyes lifting once more to the ceiling, for the sound of dripping water had again intensified. She nodded at the diminishing icy tusk, the puddle beneath. The icicle seemed to be melting at an unnatural rate. “What do you make of that?”

“It seems ominous,” he said, frowning. “It might be a defensive mechanism—”

“It’s a ticking clock,” said Cyrus suddenly, his eyes brightening with alarm. “I should’ve realized— Your time is limited—”

Alizeh gasped.

A lash of pain had struck her without warning, and the book fell from her grip, hitting the ground with a soft thud and the lisping breaths of fluttered pages. She turned her eyes to the source of the discomfort, where the soft flesh of her hand had been neatly, deeply severed.

Dark red blood was pooling in her palm.

She heard a blast of sound, something like a shouted voice, but Alizeh felt hazy. Heavy. Her limbs had gone loose and warm, the feeling strengthening as the seconds passed. She lifted her head with difficulty and the room blurred, almost as if she were inside of a dream.

Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to sleep.

She would have, too, except that more voices clamored around her—more strangled, undecipherable sound keeping her cruelly awake—and then, there, the clasp of something like safety, and in relief she surrendered herself to arms that steadied her.

She felt nearly euphoric as she pressed her face to a solid warmth, sighing as her body liquified, yielding to slumber even as voices swarmed and warped about her head.

“—abbb bb errrrrrr errrr aaaaaaannnnnnndd—”

“Whhhaa you you kiiiiiiiiiiiingggggg—”

“—errrrr aaaaaaand—”

Then, like a door slamming shut, sound sped up with a disorienting crash.

“—herhandherhandwhatareyoutalkingaboutherhand—”

“ Will no one grab her bloody hand! ”

Alizeh straightened with a sharp, painful inhalation, looking up in time to see that the palm of her hand had been pressed flat against a blank page in the Book of Arya.

She watched, transfixed, as her blood was absorbed by the parchment, red whorls marbling the white sheet as they spread, like smoke, across the open spread.