Page 47 of Every Spiral of Fate (This Woven Kingdom #4)

Forty-Six

EVERYONE STILLED .

Alizeh experienced instant panic.

Kamran knocked again, this time with greater force, and the wood did nothing more than give a faint, responding groan.

Alizeh closed her eyes as a wash of horror overcame her. It was not only fear that motivated her racing heart but also humiliation. It had been hard enough to allow her friends to pledge their lives to her, but to realize that Kamran in particular was not, in fact, willing to make such a sacrifice—

Oh, she was mortified .

Kamran was growing frustrated. In anger he pounded his fist at the door, and when, once more, nothing happened, Hazan stepped forward. He clapped the prince on the shoulder.

“Step back,” said Hazan, his voice heavy. “That’s enough.”

Kamran turned around with palpable shame. In fact, everyone looked a little ashamed.

Omid, however, looked devastated.

“You’re not willing to die for her?” said the boy.

Kamran kept his eyes on the ground as he swallowed, his jaw tense. “I am,” he said quietly. Then, lifting his head to look at Alizeh, “I am willing to die for you. I don’t understand why it won’t accept my sacrifice.”

“Because it knows,” said Cyrus quietly.

Kamran turned to look at him, as did everyone else. “What?” he said. “It knows what?”

“That you were willing to let her die,” said Cyrus, his voice cold. “The night your grandfather sent his mercenaries to kill her. You might care for her, but you have not yet proven that you’re capable of living for anyone beyond yourself.”

Everyone, collectively, gasped.

“What?” said Alizeh, looking between them. “What do you mean he was willing to let me die?”

“ How dare you ,” said Kamran to Cyrus, his eyes flashing angrily. “How dare you speak to me with any kind of moral supremacy, as if you have any right, when you are the most dissolute soul among us—”

“You knew the time and place of her attempted murder,” said Cyrus. “You knew exactly what the plan was. And you stood aside as it happened. You weren’t willing to go against your king. You weren’t willing to risk your head.”

“How would you even know?” countered Kamran furiously. “How did you come by such information?”

“Because I was there,” he said quietly. “I was there that night, watching, to ensure that she was safe.”

“What?” Hazan said, looking up sharply.

“Besides,” Cyrus added. “The devil told me.”

Now Kamran laughed bitterly. “The devil told you? And we’re supposed to accept the word of a dark beast as bond for your delusions of honor?”

“But is it true?” Alizeh was looking at Kamran. She felt gutted. “The day you came to Baz House—the day you came to search my room—you lied to me?”

“I didn’t lie to you—”

“You made me think you had nothing to do with your grandfather’s plans. I asked you outright whether you were aware of the attack on my life— I can’t believe—”

She touched her fingers to her lips, remembering how she’d kissed him—how she’d lost herself in what she thought was the safety of his arms—and never knowing that the night prior he’d all but allowed her to be killed.

She felt suddenly sick.

She couldn’t believe she’d nearly consented to marry him.

“Alizeh, please,” he said, moving toward her, “I didn’t know who you were or who you might become to me— At the time, I felt I had no choice but to remain loyal to the crown—”

“I see,” she said, holding up a hand so he might not draw closer.

Alizeh hardly knew where to rest her eyes.

The door would not open now; they’d not be able to pass.

They’d be crushed under the weight of this failure.

The snowy mountain had begun to tremble ominously, the promise of an avalanche growing more probable by the moment, and she’d begun to fear now that they’d truly die here.

She’d done this.

She’d brought them all here to die.

Alizeh was trying to remain calm; trying to reason with herself. It was unfair to be upset with Kamran. It was unfair to demand, in retrospect, that a prince unacquainted with a lowly servant should go against the decree of his king.

She knew this, intellectually.

Kamran had not acted cruelly toward her, only indifferently. He’d chosen duty, and there was honor in that.

Even so, he’d known an innocent woman was going to be brutally murdered and he’d stood aside and let it happen.

Worse, she’d already been struggling to ignore the fact of King Zaal’s betrayals. She’d already been compartmentalizing the fact that she might one day be married to a man who lionized his grandfather, a man responsible not only for numerous attempts on her life, but for slaughtering her parents.

Alizeh’s head began to pound.

She’d been trying, desperately, to manage all these complicated feelings in the face of her own duties as a sovereign, for she’d begun to feel it was necessary to marry Kamran in fulfillment of prophecy—in order to ensure the safety of her people by allying with the might of the Ardunian empire.

But now she wondered whether she’d been pushed too far.

Now she wondered whether she’d only made one poor choice after another.

She needed to sit with her thoughts and sort them.

But, of course, as always—

There was no time.

“What the hell is the matter with you?” said Kamran, turning on Cyrus. “Do you not see how you’ve upset her?”

“How I’ve upset her?” Cyrus almost laughed. “When you’ve just proved your faithlessness? Perhaps desperation will motivate you to die for her now, for I cannot see how else you might recover from your own inadequacy—”

“Enough,” said Hazan angrily.

“You hypocritical bastard,” said Kamran acidly.

“You think you’re so superior—why don’t you come knock at the door?

It’s because you know that you are too dark of heart to pass such a test. You speak to me of faithlessness?

When you’d willingly sacrifice her soul at the altar of the devil should he so much as suggest that you do so—”

Cyrus shot Kamran a hateful look before he set off toward the door.

Omid gasped.

“Cyrus, stop,” said Hazan angrily. “This is ridiculous. You are bound to the devil. You cannot participate—”

Alizeh was stunned, rooted to the ground. Cyrus had hardly reached the threshold when the door gave a thunderous, earsplitting boom , then shattered into pieces with the force of a thunderclap.

Huda screamed.

In the proceeding cacophony of crashing debris, Cyrus stood painfully still, only his chest heaving. It was in the moments after the chaos, when silence fell as a disorienting spell upon them all, that he finally lifted his head.

He directed his gaze at Kamran.

“What do you know of sacrifice?” he said.