“Yes.”
Alizeh reached a tired hand toward a wilted bloom, stroking its broken neck and sleepy petals, and the flower wriggled under her touch, straining to stand upright. She realized then that the blooms would pop straight back up once she left.
“Someone would have to walk for miles to find you here,” he said, answering another question she hadn’t asked. “There’s no direct path to this field.”
“Then what purpose does it serve?”
“What do you mean?”
“The flower field,” she said. “I don’t think it’s a wild field—for it seems planted intentionally—but you say there’s no way to access it. And if it’s been enchanted to bloom always, I have to assume the stems aren’t meant to be sold at market. So why is it here? Who put it here?”
“The field exists simply to exist. There are thousands of different types of flowers here,” he explained. “It’s meant to be a kind of living painting; an experience with beauty meant to invigorate the tired senses.”
Alizeh nearly lifted her head, she was so surprised. “That’s why you brought me here?”
“Yes,” he said quietly.
“You mean, you were trying to console me?”
“Bloody hell, Alizeh, knock it off.”
“All right, okay,” she said with a sigh.
“Good.”
“Me?” she said again. “You were trying to consoleme?”
“You know what, you can walk back to the castle—”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I promise I’m really done this time.” She bit the inside of her cheek, and then—very, very softly—she said, “I do hope you know how grateful I am that you brought me here. It’s absolutely beautiful.”
“Yes, well,” he said, taking a sharp breath. “You strike me as precisely the sort of maudlin person who would appreciatethe company of flowers while crying.”
She sat with that for a moment, trying to decode it. “Do you know,” she said finally, “I think that might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“It wasn’t a compliment.”
“Yes,” she said, smiling. “I think it was.”
He laughed quietly at that and she did, too, and the two of them fell into a companionable silence, studiously avoiding the most obvious topic of conversation. Alizeh didn’t know what Cyrus was doing where he sat, but if he had any idea how ardently she was now mulling over the prospect of taking over his empire, he said nothing about it.
Alizeh, for her part, was tickling the stems of tired flowers, watching them squirm while she deliberated. She was grateful for the moment of quiet, for her mind was a distorted mess.
If ever she’d doubted her place in the world before, she knew now unequivocally that there were people waiting for her—people who would follow her—and to whom she was tethered by birth and fate, duty-bound to lead and unify.
And yet, for years this had seemed impossible.
It had been easy to tell herself that she could do nothing about so large a problem when she lacked a crown to make her queen, an empire over which to rule, and resources to help her people. But now—how could she willingly walk away from her responsibilities when an easy answer was sitting right there next to her, offering up his castle, his title, his land, and his people?
She’d be a fool to say no.
Then again, the obvious answer to so many of her problems was also entangled in the wishes of Iblees, who’d orchestrated this circus from its inception. He’d likely nudged her into this exact moment through devious means, having found ways to bend her emotions to his will without ever saying a word. Her parents had once warned her that her heart, if tuned precisely to compassion, would become a two-pronged tool: it would be her greatest strengthandher greatest weakness.
She’d never really understood what they’d meant, for it had been difficult to imagine how empathy, so necessary in an emotional arsenal, might prove a weapon of destruction. But now she knew—now it was clear to her that the devil, who was a master of pinpointing and exploiting a person’s greatest weakness, had struck her target straight and true, and would use her compassion against her until she broke.
What would happen, she wondered, if she accepted Cyrus’s proposal—if she fulfilled her destiny?
How might the devil intervene?
