You may not see your failure, King,
but we can smell your fear
Cyrus felt a flash of rage. “Is that why you summoned me, then? To celebrate early?” He shook his head. “You’re a vile bastard.”
Afraid to close his eyes at night!
Afraid to see her face!
He hasn’t slept a single wink
beyond a drugged embrace
At that, Cyrus gave a mocking, unhinged laugh. He felt like a caged animal. “You dare taunt me for my efforts, when it wasyouwho planted her image in my dreams? You play dishonorably, resorting to manipulations beyond the terms of our agreement. What choice do I have but to protect myself?”
Poor Clay brain is made of dirt!
It cannot solve a puzzle!
Poor Clay heart
it falls apart
A frail, decaying muscle
“Why do you repeat yourself?” he demanded. “Cease hounding me with your nonsense if you won’t explain your meaning!”
Never have we lost a match
We swear it by the stars
Never shall you have the girl
Her fate is twined with ours
You think to best the jester
in a game we have designed?
You mean to take away our toys –
and expect us to be kind?
Cyrus could hardly bring himself to speak through his fury, his fear, his wretchedness. Of all the ways the devil had thought to undermine him, this was by far the worst – and Cyrus could see now how easily he’d cleared the path for his own destruction. Iblees had endeavored over and over to break him with violence, yet these bleak efforts had only strengthened the young king.
But appealing to his parched heart?
Delivering him not merely the vision of an angel but the temptation of the real thing? He, who’d been discarded by all – shunned by the Diviners, hunted by his mother, betrayed by his father, abandoned by his brother, plunged into isolation and hated throughout the world? He, whose desiccated heart turned to dust before her tenderness?
Alizeh was the fulfillment of his most desperate, undisclosed desire. The constant, gnawing ache inside him – this pitiful need that grew only more fraught in the wake of every darkness that devoured him –
He longed for her warmth, for her radiance. She’d been, from the first moment she’d wandered into his dreams, an enduring flame in the endless night, his only haven in the madness that inhaled him.
Thiswas his real weakness, and the devil had marked him easily.
The jester is quite delighted
to see you so distressed
