Page 56 of Every Spiral of Fate (This Woven Kingdom #4)

“I’ve protected you all your life,” he said poisonously. “Can you still not understand? I’ve been watching you since the day you were born. Is it still unclear? I’ve hunted your enemies and kept you safe. Will you refuse to see it? After all I’ve done? After all I’ve given you? ”

Alizeh backed up a step.

“I was the one who listened for the whispers of others’ plotting,” he said, his voice rising.

“I was the one who sent you warnings before every hard turn of your life, so you might remain vigilant in the face of danger. I was the one who felled your enemies as you fled from town to town. I brought you out of misery. I gave you power. I delivered you from hardship and strife. You owe me everything ,” he cried, his chest heaving now.

“Your health, your magic, your crown—your very existence is due entirely to my efforts.”

Heavens, he was diseased.

“And now,” he said, calming himself. “Now, it’s time for you to repay me for my kindness. I’ve earned the right to claim you, body and soul. It is what I am owed.”

This struck her nearly numb with horror.

“I owe you nothing,” she said, her breaths quickening. “I made no bargain with you. You brought me to this moment, as you said, of your own volition. How do you intend to take anything from me when I’ve not entered into a contract with you?”

“Oh, there are many ways,” he said dismissively, his anger dissipating as quickly as it had arrived.

Cyrus? she tried desperately. Cyrus, can you still hear me?

“But the careful and regular dispensation of black magic,” Iblees went on, his neck spasming, “would result in the simplest method of control. I need not take your magic in that case, which I think would be the preferable route, for I believe it would be good to keep up the appearance that you are acting of your own power. We don’t want the people to think you’re being mistreated. ”

Alizeh made herself swift promises: When this was over, she would find a way to save her friends. When this was over, she would find a way to finish the journey and claim her magic. When this was over, she would fulfill her destiny and save her people.

But before any such dreams could be realized, she would have to manage the devil, which meant she would need her wits about her.

“Naturally,” she said, her heart pounding. “I quite agree.”

Alizeh was stalling for time.

In fact, it felt as if they were both of them stalling, dragging out this conversation, delaying an inevitable confrontation for different reasons—only she couldn’t figure out what Iblees was waiting for.

Alizeh, of course, was still trying to refine a plan.

She couldn’t simply slit the devil’s throat, not now that she knew Cyrus was still alive. There had to be a way to save him—there had to be a way to salvage this—

Cyrus? Cyrus, please—

Only a faint pulse of heat returned this time, and it sent her into a panic.

“Do you know, I’m actually quite relieved about all of this,” Iblees said, then flinched. He rapped himself angrily on the side of the head—almost like a dog trying to expel a flea—and then he laughed.

Some of the darkness cleared from his eyes.

“I thought my plans might’ve been spoiled last month,” he went on. “I thought you might’ve deduced my intent when you were being treated at the temple. I thought maybe those insipid Diviners would warn you.”

She met his eyes slowly. “Warn me?”

“No one is more sensitive to black magic than you are,” he explained. “Your body refuses to metabolize the dark matter. I thought it might’ve been obvious how easily such a substance might be used to control you.”

She raised an eyebrow, feigning interest. “And is that how you intend to control me?”

“Yes,” he said, delighted now that she seemed to understand.

“I can’t manipulate you using my own power, because, as you said, you haven’t entered into a contract with me.

But as a king I can easily purchase black magic in shadow markets—” He cut himself off, then gave his head another rap, another slight shake, as if still trying to dislodge something.

“What is it?” she asked.

“You are”—again, he shook his head sharply—“you are astonishingly beautiful,” he said, looking both bothered and confused by this.

“I’d always known you were beautiful, but to behold you through Cyrus’s eyes is both maddening and distracting.

It’s giving me a pain, here”—he pounded a fist against his forehead—“and I don’t like it. ”

“It’s giving you a headache to look at me?”

He frowned. “Is that what this is? It’s been so long since I had a body that I’d forgotten how tiresome it was to carry about all this flesh. Though I suppose this annoyance won’t last much longer.”

Alizeh felt a pulse of intuition.

“As I was saying,” he went on, “too much black magic could easily kill you. But with the right, steady dosage, I could keep you in a permanent, trancelike state, where you would simply do whatever I told you to do.”

“I see,” she said, feeling suddenly unnerved.

“Do you?” He canted his head.

“Yes,” she said faintly. “You intend to do this to me now, don’t you?”