Every Spiral of Fate
Every Spiral of Fate (This Woven Kingdom #4)
By: Tahereh Mafi
[Fulfills prompt: ‘Book with sacrificial love’ for the Shelf Reflection 2026 Reading Challenge]
[Nominee for Best Young Adult Fantasy/ Sci Fi for the 2025 Goodreads’ Choice Awards]
“True justice requires the retention of compassion.”
”Our armor is our hope / Our weapon is the truth.”
Gah! I need book five ASAP as possible.
My main qualm with this series has been that there’s not a lot of action and plot movement and I’ve been waiting and waiting for things to get going and to get answers to all my questions. To quote a line from the book that sums it up: “Every day was shades of anticipation and suffering.”
Soooo much anticipation. And lots of suffering and longing. Cyrus being tormented by the devil. Alizeh longing to find her magic and save her people. Cyrus longing for Alizeh but restraining himself thinking he was just a means to an end and she had to kill him anyway.
And FINALLY!
We went somewhere! We find out about the curse! We find the magic! Kamran’s mom shows up (still a crazy lady, but hey, she’s around)! There’s a quest! And there’s a climax where everything feels lost!
Admittedly, this book had a slow start. We have the anticipation of the wedding and Alizeh’s suffering for Cyrus’s suffering. And then a few chapters for the wedding. And then we finally call the dang dragons to take us away from here: to the mountains! And then we have a bunch of anticipation before we actually approach the mountains, but the last fourth of the book was all action and worth the slow beginnings.
I’ve been saying that a lot of my thoughts of this book hinge on if it goes anywhere. I’d say this book was the turning point I needed. I wish all the books were more like this. A couple of the middle ones seem a bit forgettable. I don’t think I’ll forget this book as easily.
This is book four of the series, so I’m assuming those reading this review have already been reading the series and may have even read this one. If you haven’t read any other books, you will find some spoilers here. (With having to wait so long in between books I’ve realized I’ve needed some refreshers on previous books and so I write these reviews to remind myself what happened and what I’m looking for next.)
Basic Plot Points
All This Twisted Glory ends with the blood oath between Cyrus and Alizeh. The terms of the oath ensure that Cyrus can’t touch Alizeh unless she wants him to and solidifies that he will not abandon her and will stay true to his word to marry her and give her his kingdom.
Every Spiral of Fate begins with Cyrus locked away from everyone, enduring the effects of the blood oath, and Alizeh feeling helpless because he refuses to see her.
Part of the torture of the blood oath is that it binds Cyrus and Alizeh together and her physical presence or absence causes intense feelings.
“When she moved, he fought to remain still; when she breathed, he wanted to draw breath. Every aspect of him was now tuned precisely to her; and like a compass searching for true north, he felt frenzied when she was out of sight. In her absence he felt pushed to the very edge of lunacy; in her presence he felt unhinged. The mere sight of her sent his pulse pounding with a speed that scared him.”
They need to marry but Cyrus keeps delaying the ceremony. Alizeh is anxious to go to the Arya Mountains to find this long-held magic that is destined for her to help save her people (the Jinn).
After the very public wedding ceremony, a threatening message delivered through Deen (which actually seemed more comical than dangerous) alerts them to leave for the mountains with the cover of night and readiness for opposition when they arrive.
Thanks to Hazan (and Kamran’s mom), they have a hidden base camp at the mountains. Alizeh is stunned to be returning to the place of her childhood and already begins to feel the effects of being proximity of the magic. Once they find the entrance to access the magic, they believe Alizeh’s magic book will give them further instructions in what to do and where to go.
Will Alizeh find her magic? Will Cyrus (or anyone else) betray her? What tricks does the devil have up his sleeve?
A Review of Characters (and my predictions)
Alizeh is the destined savior with both a sense of justice and compassion. Her past has molded her into what she needed to be to take on this role.
“The last six years of her life had been marred by endless strings of attempted murders or else sickness, poverty, cruelty, debasement, and abuse. Alizeh’s life was so colors by suffering that she was often surprised by her ability to carry on. Injustice raged at her from every corner of the earth. It was indeed astonishing to her that the pain of life itself had not already killed her. And yet— She’d begun to realize that it was pain that had built her; pain that had both softened and scarred her; pain that had prepared her most for this moment.”
Cyrus is publicly hated by many, believed to have murdered his own father and others and now beholden to the devil’s schemes. But as a reader we see there is more to him than meets the eye. Of course we love how much he, the poet, cares for Alizeh (although obsession would also be an appropriate word to describe his feelings) but we also sense a spirit of sacrifice in him. A willingness to endure suffering for the good of others. Unlike Kamran, he doesn’t have a sense of entitlement but a humble strength and incredible restraint.
“‘I will say this once, Angel, for I feel you should be warned. No man alive has ever loved a woman the way that I love you, and I would rather die, damned as I am, than disgrace us both with the pitiful, unrequited performance of my heart.’”
Basically, as Akbar says, “‘the man is still a legend!’”
Kamran thinks Alizeh will marry him once she kills Cyrus as planned. But we just want him to chill out. Cyrus had an epic burn on Kamran— “What do you know of sacrifice?”— that is probably the kickstart to some character development on Kamran. He has his strengths and faults and though there was a moment of connection between Alizeh and Cyrus in the first book, we now know that Kamran should really be with Huda even though they actively hate each other. Alizeh doesn’t love Kamran the same way and I’m guessing the next book should rightly place Kamran friend-zoned and courting Huda in a comically awkward enemies to lovers situation.
Huda is still her dramatic best-friend-side-kick self keeping an eye on Alizeh and sharing all her indignant thoughts without a filter. Her found connection with Kamran’s mom regarding her stepmom is another link in the Kamran/Huda sideplot. I think Huda is going to do something surprisingly smart in the next book that requires her to get dirty.
Omid and Deen are also comic reliefs. Twelve-year-old innocent, loyal, and surprisingly perceptive Omid, mothered by Huda and reminded to go to the bathroom before long trips. And Deen the quirky genius apothecary that is bumbling, sincere, and level-headed all at once. Omid will continue to be brave. Deen will continue to be their on-call scientist/knowledge knower.
Hazan is the steady right-hand man who leads armies, plans for continginecies, and whose main objective and devotion is serving Alizeh and Cyrus in both patriotism and friendship. He is security, calm, and a believer in Alizeh and Cyrus as a couple. No love interests in sight for this one, but he’s not one to need them. Especially because there is mystery here about Hazan’s ancestry that has not yet been revealed. There is information he hasn’t fully divulged and will most likely have big implications in the next book.
Princess Firouzeh is Kamran’s crazy mom who is “incapable of even a moment of maternal normalcy.” She’s like a cross between a gypsy, Paul Atreides’ mom in Dune, a Real Housewife, and Inspector Clouseau. I don’t think I can make it any clearer. Alizeh says this to her:
“I’m genuinely fascinated by the artful way you dispense your verbal poisons, or else I’d never be able to tolerate your comany.”
I was glad to learn more about her, but she still has another role to play. I don’t think it’s betrayal. I think it’s going to be a surprise sacrifice uncharacteristic to her perception by others. And I don’t think it will be for herself or her own son. Probably Huda or Omid.
The Bargain
This section will have spoilers if you haven’t read Every Spiral of Fate yet, but I need them here for future reference. Scroll to the next section to avoid them.
Cyrus has been suspected of killing his father. His brother has been MIA. He is not allowed to speak the terms of his bargain with Iblees or he forfeits. All this time he has been plotting and trying to outwit the devil, thinking he has been successful, when it all comes crumbling down on the mountain. He realizes he is caught between two impossibilities. If he’s going to die, he might as well reveal the truth about his deal so Alizeh knows what’s coming.
Tulan’s kings long long ago made a deal with the devil in order to gain the security and protection their oft-ravaged kingdom needed to survive. They just had to agree that one of their descendents would do the unmentioned favor Iblees needed at some undetermined time in the future.
Cyrus’ father was the one Iblees eventually called upon. He refused (his punishment being sent to Purgatory, which, apparently, he can possibly come back from). Cyrus’s brother was next in line and decided to run from it. It then fell on Cyrus. The consequence of refusing would be the entire annhilation of Tulan. His training to become a Diviner prepared him for such a sacrifice, though he didn’t know at the time the extent to which he would endure such suffering.
Besides the regular mind and pain torture from the devil, he was tasked with five things: Crown himself king of Tulan, pinpoint the magic’s location, kill King Zaal, kill the royal Diviners of Ardunia, and marry a bride of the devil’s choosing.
Between these terms and his wedding vows, he is eventually put in a place where he can’t let Alizeh move forward and enter into harm, but if she doesn’t, then he can’t unlock her magic and thus cannot fulfill his end of the bargain. Either way he fails, and the result: Iblees takes over his body and tries to kill his soul. The inhabiting of the body was the original request of Iblees that Cyrus’ father refused.
Iblees desired to possess a human body and by inhabiting Cyrus’ he would be married to the Jinn queen and could put her in some sort of trance like state and be able to use her magic and power to enact his revenge on all the Clay people for what they did to the Jinn.
The Prophecy
We get the full poem of the prophecy:
Melt the ice in salt
Braid the thrones at sea.
In this woven kingdom, clay and fire shall be.
Beyond this barren cave,
infinite threads are found.
All this twisted glory, in braids and binds abound.
Innocents torn asunder,
kingdoms born of hate.
High time to knit together,
with every spiral of fate.
As you can see , the titles of all four books are found within. I don’t fully grasp everything about it yet.
The ice and salt part has to do with Alizeh’s blood mixing with Cyrus’ but we still don’t know its significance. The braiding and the binding allude to the mixing of the Clay and the Jinn kingdoms and being woven together— possibly like her blood?
We have no idea what’s been going on in Ardunia during this entire book (or the last one?) but it appears war is on the horizon and with the end of this book Alizeh has made an enraged enemy of Iblees. Does the next book take place ‘at sea’ or in another kingdom entirely?
Her desire is to protect her people and free them from the oppression of the Clay (because of the Jinn’s powers) but it seems like her destiny is more so about uniting them.
I noticed that Mafi put a lot of ‘spirals’ into this book that I don’t think are necessarily plot-sgnificant but were nice additions in keeping with the theme. There were the spirals of their wedding bonds, spirals of flowers growing, spirals of snow at the Arya mountains, spirals of steam from the fortune telling teapot, the castle in the mountains was spiraled, and Cyrus’ mind was spiraling out of control.
One could speculate that all of these are threads that lead to a specific fate.
Questions
I still have more questions that need answered.
One overarching question continues to be— what/who is the foil to Iblees? It seems odd to have a world where the only unkillable, unseen force is Iblees (the devil) and no counter. Diviners are the gatekeepers of magic but it seems like Jinn or Clay people can become Diviners, they aren’t actually ‘divine’. Is there some ultimate Diviner out there we have not yet known? No other god seems to exist. Alizeh has a huge amount of power, but she wasn’t born until 19 years ago. With the displays of power I saw in this book, I find it hard to believe that Iblees can be ultimately defeated. I’m interested to see what that showdown looks like…
Omid seemed convinced that the Ardunian Diviners knew Cyrus was going to kill them and let him (back in prior books). Cyrus seemed bothered that Omid revealed that. We were never told why the Diviners would let Cyrus kill them. That seems like an important piece of information we should get in the next one.
We also don’t know why the natural world (animals/insects/dragons) would be pledging loyalty to the Queen. The dragons are keeping some sort of information from Cyrus about that. Will they be involved in whatever final battle happens?
What has Cyrus’s brother been doing? If he comes back, now that the bargain has been satisfied, can we trust him?
Why did Iblees want Cyrus to kill King Zaal? Is it just because he was deluded into thinking it would please Alizeh since King Zaal killed her parents? Or is there some other plan he has for Ardunia?
Why did Hazan have a connection to the Nosta?
What was it about Alizeh being born that made it the catalyst for Iblees to call on Cyrus’ dad for his favor? They made it seem like the earth decided to give Alizeh her special powers… why then? Why not before? I need more information on all the timing of everything.
Are Kamran’s mom’s fortunes actually true?
Recommendation
This book was the one I needed to confirm that it was worth it to keep reading since This Woven Kingdom. Mafi definitely strings us along throughout the series with only moderate payoff, and I do wish that part was different, but this book gave us a big push. It might be my favorite of the series. Maybe tied with book one.
Even though there are slower, character-driven parts, the characters have unique personalities and good banter that still make those parts enjoyable. I tend to be a more action-centric reader, so those who read more for characters will probably like this series even more.
Throughout this whole series, after each (previous) book I had said- I’m not sure what really happened but somehow I still enjoyed reading it. This book I can tell you all the things that happened AND say I enjoyed reading it.
I am really looking forward to the next one! I’ve had to wait so long in between each book that I might have to find my way to an advanced reader’s copy of book five I can read earlier!
[Content Advisory: 12 f-words, 1 s-word; sexual tension throughout, but nothing overly graphic, one scene in chapter 33 that’s the height of the sexual tension and would be fine to skip, there is no actual sex]
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