Eight

Alizeh presses Cyrus to select a weapon and honor her challenge, but Cyrus refuses, mocking her courage and pointing to the lethal drop as her only escape. As Alizeh falters from exhaustion and cold, Cyrus closes in, seizes her by the waist, and, smiling, hurls her off the cliff, declaring, “I choose dragons.”

Plummeting and disoriented, Alizeh braces for death until a flight of dragons erupts from the waters. One seizes her in its jaws, injuring her with its teeth, but instead of devouring her, it ascends and releases her onto soft grass at a high, secluded terrace within the castle complex.

Alizeh finds herself at the entrance of a serene, arch-lined garden with sweeping views of the waterfalls. Following rugs inside, she discovers an opulent suite: an airy bedchamber, sitting room, bath, and a small courtyard. She tends her wounds with torn linens, fighting dizziness and fatigue, and longs only for rest.

While searching for clothes in a luxurious dressing room, memory strikes: amid the chaos of the last hours, she left her carpet bag behind. Alone, injured, and relocated by Cyrus’s theatrical show of control, Alizeh steels herself within the gilded confinement of her new quarters.