Still, she made no response at all when the dragon came up underneath her, registering only a muted shout before Cyrus’s warm hands circled her waist, plucking her from the air as if she were an itinerant flower. He drew her firmly onto the carpet beside him, where she landed with a teeth-chattering thud, and after which he drew away from her with unflattering haste. She took note of it all as if watching through fog, for Alizeh seemed suddenly incapable of emotion. She felt not unlike a rag doll, unable to animate.
All seemed irretrievably lost.
Hazan would hang. King Zaal was dead. Kamran—
Kamran was in danger.
Ardunia’s royal Diviners had been murdered; the palace had been attacked. Kamran had been injured when she left—how would he receive swift treatment without the Diviners? How long would he be left vulnerable before theywere able to gather a new quorum of priests and priestesses? Even Alizeh, who’d witnessed the devastation of her own life in the last hours, could see clearly that Kamran had suffered a series of similar travesties.
As if the death and disgrace of his grandfather had not been enough to endure, Alizeh could still picture the look on Kamran’s face when he realized Hazan had betrayed him, when he seemed to think that she, too, had been disloyal—
No—no, she could not bear it.
Every hope she had recently, privately clasped to her chest—every effort she had made these last several years to build herself a quiet, protected life—every backbreaking labor to which she had submitted herself in hopes of securing a quiet future—
She shuttered her mind against the thoughts.
There was an unconscious part of Alizeh that seemed to understand that if she unlocked the pain in her chest, she might not survive it. Much better, she thought, to keep it leashed.
In any case, it was the devil who’d done this to her—who’d designed grand plans of torture for her—and here, here was proof.
His disciple sat beside her.
“Will you not say something?” said Cyrus, his voice uncharacteristically subdued.
Alizeh felt as if her lips were numb. “I will not.”
“You will not speak?”
“I will not marry you.”
Cyrus sighed.
The two sat in a terrible silence, darkness inhaling them both. The magnificent skies were her only consolation then; for even as she clenched her teeth ever more desperately against the glacial atmosphere, Alizeh refused to be immune to the midnight sea upon which they appeared to sail, nor to the resilience of stars burning holes in the heavens.
This was a habit Alizeh had mastered long ago.
Cataloging moments of grace even in the midst of disaster often helped steady her mind; indeed there had been days in her life so bleak that Alizeh had resorted to counting her teeth if only to prove she still owned something of value.
Just then she forced herself to listen to the susurrations of the wind, to appreciate that she’d never seen the moon so close, in all its unobstructed glory. She drew in a deep breath at the thought, tasting pure cold on her tongue, and lifted a searching hand to the night. The skies passed under her fingertips much like a cat, demanding to be pet.
“Abandon the idea,” Cyrus said sharply, wrenching open the silence. “Your efforts will be futile.”
Alizeh did not look up. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Fling yourself into the sky as many times as you like. There will be no escape. I will not allow you to die.”
“Do you speak to all young women with such ardent affection?” Alizeh asked steadily, even as her bones shook with cold. “If I swoon and fall off the dragon again, you will have only yourself to blame.”
Cyrus made a sound, something that was almost a laugh, and which quickly evaporated. “Your first attempt hasalready cost us precious minutes. Should you insist upon throwing yourself over and over you will only put us behind schedule and irritate my dragon, which she doesn’t deserve. It’s well past her bedtime; you need not torture her.”
“Careful now,” Alizeh said to him. “You’re in grave danger of suggesting you might care about this dragon.”
Cyrus sighed, looked away. “And you appear to be in grave danger of freezing to death.”
“I am not,” she lied.
Without a word he removed his heavy, unadorned black coat—but as he leaned forward to drape it over her shoulders, Alizeh stayed the gesture with a single hand.
