Page 78 of Sweet Venom Of Time (Blade of Shadows #6)

Chapter Thirty-Two

ELIZABETH

T he needle dipped and rose steadily, the thread weaving through delicate fabric with practiced ease.

Each stitch was a small defiance—a quiet survival.

In the stillness of Amir’s townhouse, where the bustle of London was reduced to a distant murmur, I found a semblance of peace—false, fragile, but mine.

My fingers moved nimbly, attaching an intricate lace trim to the hem of Lady Harrington’s dress, a commission that filled my days and allowed me to pretend life was as ordinary as it seemed that I was simply a seamstress. That I was not Elizabeth Hassan, wife of a man the world believed a ghost.

But within these borrowed walls, every corner whispered of his absence.

Eighteen years had passed since I became his. Amir pressed a ring into my hand, kissed me beneath a silvered moon, and vowed that no matter the years or distance, I would always be his. And yet, each moment without him gnawed at me, leaving a hunger unsated.

The ache was constant—a wound that never quite healed—an emptiness that should have been filled by his arms, his voice, him. My husband, my love, bound by duty, secrets, and a world that had never allowed us to be anything but stolen moments and whispered vows.

I paused, lifting the gown to the light, inspecting the neatness of the hem—but my mind was not on stitches or patterns.

It was elsewhere, tangled in memory—fleeting touches and stolen kisses, the way his breath would hitch when I touched his jaw, the way his eyes darkened with need, then softened with love.

His laughter—rare, precious—was always cut short by the call of duty.

Always gone before dawn.

Only the lingering scent of sandalwood, the faintest echo of his warmth on my skin, was left behind to haunt me.

A soft sigh slipped from my lips. I set the dress down and reached for the bundle of letters hidden in the drawer of my worktable, fingers trembling despite the familiarity of the ritual.

Their edges were worn, smoothed by countless readings.

Each word was traced by his hand, written in the brief hours he could steal from the darkness.

They were all I had of him.

Letters were sent with no pattern and no warning. Letters that came like lightning at night illuminating everything, only to vanish again.

I pressed the letters to my chest, eyes closing. The ache flared—not just for his touch, but for the life we were never allowed to live. A life not stitched in secrecy, not experienced in stolen nights and shadowed dawns.

As I unfolded the topmost letter with trembling fingers, a question rose like smoke in my mind—heavy, suffocating, impossible to ignore?—

How much longer could love survive in the shadows… before it withered in the light?

“Dearest Elizabeth,” I read aloud, my voice barely a breath.

The ink was slightly smudged, his hasty script pressed deep into the parchment.

I traced the curve of his letters with my fingertip, imagining his touch on my skin, the calloused pad of his thumb trailing the same path.

The paper crackled softly beneath my touch, worn and fragile from how often I unfolded it—a ritual of longing, of reaching across miles and months to find him.

His words, though reassuring, could never still the storm that lived within me.

The longing was my constant companion, an ache that never eased, not even in dreams. Our life was a mosaic of fragments, scattered moments snatched from time’s cruel hand—a look, a kiss, a whisper of his name against my lips.

And though they were fleeting, they were everything—my treasure, my torment.

A tear slipped free before I could stop it, trailing down my cheek. I brushed it away, chastising myself for the indulgence. Tears would not bring him closer, nor would they hasten the next letter, the next reunion, the next reminder that I still existed in his world.

With a shuddering breath, I folded the letter and returned it to its place. Then, with numb fingers, I reached for my needle again. The fabric tugged beneath my hands, the rhythmic pull of thread through cloth anchoring me to the present, to the illusion of normalcy, I wore like a second skin.

But as I stitched the hem of Lady Harrington’s gown, my thoughts remained tethered to Amir, like a thread tied around my soul. Each loop and knot were a silent prayer, a message sent out into the void—a hope that somewhere, he felt my fierce and undiminished love.

Somehow, he knew—no matter the distance or silence—our love endured.

Ceaseless as the turn of the earth.

Boundless as the sky.

Roman entered the room then, shifting the air, commanding attention as Amir once had. He moved with a certainty that belied his youth, his stride solid, purposeful, each step a quiet echo across the wooden floor.

He stopped behind me, gaze flicking over my shoulder, his eyes locked on the lace trim I was stitching.

“Your stitches are impeccable, Mother,” Roman said, his voice rich, warm—a timbre so like Amir’s it struck something deep within me. Bittersweet nostalgia bloomed in my chest, sudden and aching, like a wound reopened.

“Thank you, my dear.” I smiled at him, my eyes lingering on the familiar lines of his face. In his features, Amir lived again—the strong jaw, the proud nose, the intensity that radiated from him in waves. Only his eyes, vivid and storm-blue like mine, marked him as distinctly my own.

“How are you?” I asked, needing to tether us to something safe. “Have you finished your studies? Have you been well?” Yet as I spoke, I knew. His mind was elsewhere, reaching far beyond the confines of this townhouse, beyond the life I had carefully crafted to keep him safe—and ignorant.

“Quite,” he replied, but his eyes held a storm, his thoughts dark and distant, unspoken and simmering.

Roman had grown. Not just into a man—but into a force. One who carried his father’s blood and, unknowingly, his father’s destiny.

“Your father would be proud,” I murmured, my fingers pausing mid-stitch. The words slipped out before I could catch them, and my heart swelled with a fierce, painful pride.

His eyes snapped to mine. A flicker of something dangerous ignited in his gaze.

“Would he?” Roman’s voice was low, coiled tight. “Is that why he abandoned you? Abandoned me?” The words dripped with disdain. “Is that how he shows his regard for his son?”

His sneer was a lash, and I flinched—not from surprise, but from the familiar sting of Amir’s long-ago command, echoing in my mind like a curse I could never outrun.

He must despise me.

Promise me, Elizabeth.

Make him hate me.

Prepare him for what’s to come.

And I had.

Gods help me, I had.

“Undoubtedly,” I said, masking the tremor in my voice as I returned to my stitching, each loop of thread a lifeline I could no longer grasp. “You have his determination, his strength. And like him, you carry a sense of destiny that cannot be denied.”

He scoffed, harsh and hollow, but I saw the flicker of something haunted in his eyes. And for a fleeting heartbeat, Amir stood before me, not Roman. A ghost of love and loss, shadowing the man my son was becoming.

“Destiny...” Roman echoed, his voice a murmur, his gaze turning inward.

That word held weight—a future just beyond the horizon, both promise and peril wound together.

It was the same look Amir wore when duty called him away, the same steel in his spine, the same fire in his blood—a resonance that defied time, defied absence.

“Indeed,” I whispered, placing the final stitch, my hands numb. I tied off the thread with trembling fingers, but there was no sense of completion—only the sense of something slipping away.

“Mother.” Roman’s voice cut through the hush. He stood before me, Amir’s reflection in the flesh, save for those sapphire eyes—mine, and mine alone.

“What is it?” I asked, though dread coiled tight in my belly.

His jaw set, the line hard and familiar. His voice was calm, certain, and unshakable.

“I’ve decided. I’m going to fight in the American War of Independence.”

The world tilted. My heart seized.

“No!” The word escaped me like a wound torn open.

“You can’t go. I forbid you.”

Desperation, raw and primal, surged to the surface—an attempt to hold back the tide, to assert the only power I had left—the power to protect him.

“Mother! I must!” Roman’s eyes flashed, his voice, a mirror of Amir’s battle cry. “It’s my duty.”

My heart twisted, and the ache that had long since nestled there clawed its way up my throat. Amir’s words reverberated in my mind, melding with Lee’s—voices of destiny, of paths one must walk alone.

“Roman,” I began, my voice softer now, laced with fear. “Please, understand that…”

But I saw it in his eyes—the same unyielding fire that lived in Amir, a flame no plea could extinguish. This was destiny, pulling at the threads of our lives, weaving a tapestry I could neither predict nor prevent.

He was stepping onto a path that would change everything, a journey that might alter our family forever. And as I looked at him—like the man whose absence hollowed our world—I knew I could no more restrain him than stop the earth from turning.

“Your duty…” I whispered, resignation settling over me like a shroud. “Just like your father.”

“I am nothing like my father,” he hissed. “I won’t abandon my duties or ignore those I love.”

I saw it then—not just Amir’s likeness in him but his legacy, too—a legacy of honor bound by something greater than us all.

I let out a broken breath, wishing my deceit hadn’t worked so well.

Roman loathed his father.

His hand, firm yet gentle, closed around mine, stilling the tremble that had begun as I worked the needle through the fine fabric.

“Mother,” he said, his voice filled with conviction, echoing from some deep, immovable place within him. “I know you’re scared. You’re afraid you’ll lose me. But I have to fight—for something bigger than myself.”