Page 70 of Sweet Venom Of Time (Blade of Shadows #6)

“The other one,” I whispered, my voice cracked and fragile. “Give him to me.”

The elder woman looked at me, and in her eyes, I saw sorrow, deep and ancient, like the shadowed sun outside. She knelt beside me, and her words destroyed me.

“Your other baby… he didn’t make it.”

Her voice was gentle, but it hit me like a scream. Like the sky itself had broken open.

“No.” The word ripped from my throat. “Give him to me!” My voice a shattered plea, a command, a mother’s cry born from the marrow of my bones. “Please, I need to hold him.”

She shook her head slowly, her face lined with the burden of many such moments, but this was mine. Mine to carry. Mine to grieve.

“No,” she whispered. “The child is dead. We can’t.”

The world collapsed.

A guttural cry ripped from the depths of my soul, as if grief itself had found a voice through me. My body convulsed around the sound, and in that moment, I ceased to exist as anything but pain.

The entrance of the teepee darkened. A silhouette filled the space—broad, strong, yet burdened. Dancing Fire stepped inside, and in his arms lay something impossibly small, impossibly still.

My breath caught.

He was holding my child—my lifeless baby—and the sight cleaved through me, a blade of agony so vicious I thought it might kill me where I lay.

“Marcellious…” The name was a whisper of despair, a fragile prayer to a god who had not answered. I stared at that tiny face—peaceful, untouched by breath or laughter—a little warrior who had never drawn his first breath yet had stolen every part of me.

Dancing Fire’s eyes, always fierce, were dim now, dulled by sorrow. He held my baby close, his arms trembling.

“Give him to me, now!” I gasped, my voice hoarse, torn raw by anguish.

“Elizabeth…” His voice cracked, and he turned slightly, shielding the baby from my sight as though he could spare me. As though he could stop the bleeding of my soul.

“Give him to me!” I screamed, the words shredding my throat, a mother’s plea.

His face twisted in pain as he relented, stepping forward. With shaking hands, he placed my stillborn child into my arms.

Tears poured from me—silent, ceaseless—as I held him, my fingers tracing his perfect, lifeless face. I kissed his forehead, my lips trembling.

“My sweet boy,” I choked out. “Your father would have wanted you to be strong.” I pressed him close as if I could will life into him. “I love you so much, my little Marcellious. I love you so much.”

Against my chest, Roman stirred, his small body pressing into mine as he suckled hungrily, alive and warm. One child in my arms, clinging to life—one lost to death’s quiet claim.

The contrast was unbearable. Roman’s heat, his breath, the rhythm of his heartbeat—against his brother’s cool, unmoving form. My arms were full, yet I had never felt so hollow.

Tears ran like rivers down my face, and I clung to them both—one of flesh and fire, the other now a memory etched in sorrow. Death had come for my son, but it could not take my love. Not ever.

Sobs racked my body, violent and unrelenting, each one a dirge, a farewell to dreams never lived, to whispered promises now lost in the void.

I clung to Marcellious, desperate to hold onto the fading warmth in his fragile body, as the shadows of the eclipse seemed to pull him from my arms, from this world.

Dancing Fire knelt beside me, and with a tenderness that defied the hardened calluses of his warrior’s hands, he reached for Marcellious. I resisted, tightening my hold, unwilling to surrender even in death—but the cold had already claimed him. With shaking hands, I let go.

He took Marcellious, reverent, silent. Then, with a murmured word, he passed him to a waiting woman, who disappeared into the fading light beyond the tent flap.

I watched every motion, every step, my eyes pleading, my heart hollowing.

It felt like a piece of my soul was being carried away with my silent babe. Gone.

I couldn’t bear another loss. Not now. Not ever again.

“Roman!” The name burst from me like a cry of war. I clutched my living son, holding him so tightly he whimpered in protest. I pulled him against me, skin to skin, my body curled around him like a fierce, trembling shield.

“You can’t have this one!” I sobbed, hysteria rising like floodwaters in my throat. “You can’t take Roman. I won’t let you take him!”

Dancing Fire didn’t move. He stood before me, still, grounded, his eyes full of sorrow—and something more. Something ancient. A knowing that chilled me more than the loss.

“I won’t take him,” he said softly. “He is yours to raise.”

My breath hitched, raw and uneven, as I looked up at him, barely able to comprehend.

“Elizabeth,” he said, voice composed, despite the tremor of grief between us, “Roman is a Timeborne. Like me.”

Through the veil of my tears, I met his gaze, desperate to find a lie, a crack, some sliver of doubt—but all I saw was solemn truth, ancient and immutable.

“How do you know?” I rasped, my voice hoarse from crying, from screaming, from surviving. My heart pounded, a frantic rhythm against Roman’s tiny chest, his fragile life held close. Alive. Safe. Mine.

Dancing Fire said nothing. Instead, he reached into the folds of his garments and drew forth two daggers.

At first glance, they seemed ordinary—but then I saw it.

A faint glow pulsed from the intricate carvings on the hilts and blades, a soft, rhythmic light that shimmered perfectly with Roman’s heartbeat.

It was not a coincidence. It was a connection. Proof.

I stared at the blades, my breath catching, the blood in my veins turning ice-cold. The memories came rushing back—memories of my father, of bloodshed, of Timebornes hunted like animals—my father’s cruelty, his thirst for control, painted in crimson across history.

“No.” My voice was hard, edged like flint. “Take it. Hide it. Bury it where no one will ever find it. He will never know about this. Never.”

Dancing Fire’s eyes didn’t waver. “Elizabeth, you can’t decide his destiny,” he said, and in his voice was the weight of centuries of lives lived and lost under the burden of prophecy. “This is who he is.”

Anger surged, blinding, fierce. It eclipsed my grief, burning through my veins like fire.

“I can, and I will!” I snapped, my voice cracking under its force.

My hands curled into fists, nails biting into my palms. “My father was a Timehunter. He slaughtered Timebornes—your people. If they find out Roman is one of you, they’ll hunt him too. He’ll die because of what he is.”

I pulled Roman tighter, closer, as if I could shield him with my body, as if I could force him back into the womb where nothing could touch him. My whole being trembled with the need to protect him—no matter the cost.

Dancing Fire knelt setting the daggers aside, his hand hovering over the them but never touching to honor my defiance and grant me this small illusion of control.

“Elizabeth,” he said softly, his eyes shadowed by something deeper than sorrow. “Not even the shadows of time can hide what fate ordains.”

But I had already made my decision.

Clutching the tiny, fragile beacon of hope that was Roman, I whispered, fierce and resolute, “I will never let him fall into the clutches of people like my father.” The vow etched itself into my soul, a binding promise written in blood and grief.

Dancing Fire’s words lingered in the air, heavy with a truth I didn’t want to face. “You can’t run from this forever,” he said, his gaze unwavering, dark, a mirror reflecting inevitability.

I pulled Roman closer, feeling his chest’s gentle rise and fall against my skin, each breath a fragile miracle.

Sadness flooded me, hot and suffocating, until tears blurred my vision.

“I’ve already endured too much heartache,” I said, my voice breaking.

“First Amir… and now Marcellious. He’s gone.

I can’t stay here, Dancing Fire. I won’t.

Roman and I—we’re going back to England.

We’ll start over, far from all this sorrow and this cursed land. ”

My voice trembled, laced with mourning too vast to name—yet beneath it, a steel edge of determination.

“Elizabeth,” he began softly as if he could reach into my despair and pull me free, but the gentleness in his voice couldn’t dull the edge of the warning that followed. “You’re making a mistake. Stay. I will protect you. I care for you… more than you know.”

I lifted my defiant gaze as my heart cracked beneath the weight of it all. “Then what do you suggest?” I demanded, the question biting with desperation. “What would make this right?”

“Marry me.”

The words fell from his lips, simple and shattering.

“No.” My answer came too fast and harsh, recoiling like a torn open wound. “You and I—we come from different worlds. You’re a savage. A barbarian. And I…” My voice faltered. “I am a lady.”

The hurt in his eyes pierced me—quick and deep, sharper than any dagger could ever be. He stood abruptly, the shift in his body language a storm barely contained.

“You call yourself a lady,” he said, voice low and raw, “and yet you opened your legs to a man who wasn’t your husband. And you call me a savage?” His words struck like thunder, bitter, edged with betrayal. “A man who would die for you?”

I flinched as if he had struck me, but the wound wasn’t on my skin—it was deeper, tangled in my heart. His words should have shattered me. Instead, they freed something buried, something unbreakable.

“Yes, I did,” I said, voice firm now, no longer shaking. “I gave myself to him. And now, I will give my life to be the best mother I can be to this child. That’s all that matters.”

Without another word, Dancing Fire turned and stormed out of the teepee, leaving me alone—again—with the fragments of my shattered world.

Tears streamed down my cheeks, hot and endless, as I cradled Roman to my chest. Everything felt crumbling, piece by piece, slipping through my fingers like sand. All I had—all I was—rested in the child’s fragile body in my arms.

“Roman,” I whispered, my lips brushing his soft, warm forehead. “I will protect you, no matter the cost. I will be the best mother I can be. I promise.”

A silent oath, sealed in grief and love, binding my heart to his. But deep within me, an uneasy truth stirred—words spoken in the glow of new motherhood could crumble like dust when faced with the man he would one day become.