Page 79 of Sweet Venom Of Time (Blade of Shadows #6)

His words struck like cold water, jolting me back to a reality I wanted to deny. My eyes, blurred by tears, met his—so familiar, yet resolutely his own.

“I have lost so much already,” I choked, the pain of years past clawing at my throat. “Your twin brother... I lost him. I’ve lost family. Roman, I can’t—” My voice broke. “I can’t bear the thought of losing you too.”

Silence. Then?—

“Wait, what?”

His confusion was palpable.

“Twin brother?”

I froze. The memories I had buried beneath years of silence clawed their way free, rising like ghosts between us. The secret I had guarded with my life now hovered in the space between us, a truth I could never take back.

“Never mind,” I murmured, the words brittle, meaningless.

But it was too late.

Roman didn’t let it go.

“No, Mother—wait. What is this about a twin?” His gentle but unrelenting voice pressed for an answer I had never meant to give.

I swallowed hard, my heart pounding as though it could beat the truth back down.

“Long ago, in a world that feels lifetimes away and as close as yesterday, I went to the New World. I had a baby—a boy, your brother. There were two of you.” The words tore from me, raw and bleeding.

“He didn’t make it, Roman. He never took a breath in this world. ”

The revelation hung heavy, a specter of loss filling the quiet room, mingling with the morning light and the faint scent of beeswax polish.

As Roman stood there, grappling with the ghost of a brother he never knew, I realized no amount of stitching could mend the tear in our family that destiny had wrought.

Roman’s face froze—disbelief etched in every line, hurt creeping in like frost.

“And you didn’t think that was important to tell me?” His voice cracked under the weight of this new reality. “Why now? Is it to keep me from leaving?”

“Gods, no, Roman.” The words rushed out, frantic, my hands reaching for him, desperate to pull him back from the edge. “I just can’t bear to lose you too. Don’t go.”

In my panic, the secrets I’d buried began to unravel.

“There’s so much you don’t understand. About time travel, about Dancing Fire?—”

“Time travel?” He stared at me, incredulous, an eyebrow arched in disbelief. His look said it all—he thought I had lost my mind.

“Listen to me,” I begged, my voice breaking. “You were born during the solar eclipse. And with your birth… a dagger appeared. A sign of your heritage. Roman—you are a time traveler.”

“Mother—” The word landed like a wound reopened, and the skepticism in his eyes cut deeper than any secret I had ever buried.

“Roman, please.” My voice shook, but I pressed on. “If you go to the New World, you will find your destiny. I’ve only tried to protect you—from dangers and truths that would burden your soul too soon.”

My plea hung heavily between us—a mother’s last desperate attempt to shield her son from a world far too eager to claim him.

He stared at me, those piercing blue eyes—his father’s gaze, softened by dawn light. Disbelief still clung to him, but something shifted—a subtle loosening of his jaw, a flicker of something that might’ve been understanding… or pity.

“Mother,” he said, softer now, his tone laced with the kindness of a man who believed he was humoring someone fragile. “You’ve been alone too long.”

Roman stepped forward, closing the distance I hadn’t realized had stretched between us. His hands rested on my shoulders, warm and reassuring. “These ideas… they’re preposterous. Time travel? Daggers?” He shook his head gently, like one comforting a child.

Before I could speak, he bent down and kissed my forehead—a benediction or perhaps… a farewell.

And then he turned away, leaving silence in his wake—vast, unspoken, and final.

I stood frozen, bereft, watching the back of the man who was both my son and the living legacy of a love that burned eternally… yet always out of reach.

“Where are you going?” My voice broke the stillness, and I trembled with desperation as I watched him gather his meager belongings.

He didn’t look up.

“I must prepare for my journey,” Roman said, steadfast. “The ship leaves in two days.”

The finality in his voice hit me like a door slamming shut. My time to protect him was running out.

“Two days?” The words tumbled from my lips, with disbelief and a dawning horror. “You’ve already secured passage?” My heart sank. The room seemed to darken around me as if the light knew to retreat in the face of such sorrow.

“Please… don’t go.” The plea slipped out as a whisper, barely audible, trembling between us.

Roman straightened and turned to face me. His eyes—so achingly like Amir’s—held the fire of untested courage. “Mother,” he said gently but firmly, “I am a man. I have to fight for something. I must go.”

Tears welled in my eyes and spilled freely. I saw not the man he had become but the child I had once cradled against my breast—the one I had sworn to protect. “What if I lose you?” I choked out, my voice thick with anguish. “I’ve buried my entire family, Roman. I can’t bear to lose you, too.”

He stepped closer, taking my trembling hands in his.

His touch was warm and steady—too steady for someone I still saw as my boy.

“You’re stronger than you know,” he said softly.

“And I will come back. I won’t be on the front lines, not at first. I’ll be cleaning weapons and running errands. I probably won’t see battle.”

His reassurances fell hollow against the pounding dread in my chest.

“Nothing will stop me,” he added, his tone hardening. “Daggers and time travel… they’re stories. Fantasies. They don’t exist. Please, let me go. I promise I will return.”

But as he spoke, I knew—some promises were made in love, not in certainty. And some were broken by fate.

* * *

Two days later, I stood at the threshold of Amir’s townhouse, watching Roman’s figure grow smaller as he strode down the cobblestone street—toward destiny, toward danger, away from me.

My heart shattered into fragments, each jagged piece a testament to love lost, a life altered, and a future teetering on the edge of the unknown. He had left—just as Dancing Fire foretold, just as Amir had warned. Our son will leave… and find his destiny.

The pain was searing, a hollow ache that pulsed with every heartbeat.

I clutched the doorframe as if it could somehow tether me to the life I once had.

How I needed Amir now—his strength, his touch—but he was gone.

The letters had stopped. His visits—those precious moments I clung to like breath—had vanished into the ether.

Silence pressed in like a closing fist, suffocating.

As the final glimpse of Roman disappeared around the corner, I turned back inside.

The door shut behind me with a heavy finality, an echo of farewell that seemed to stretch across the years, sealing away the last flickers of hope I still harbored in my weary soul.

Months drifted like autumn leaves spiraling to the ground—colorful, dying, forgotten. Each day bled into the next beneath a veil of solitude, the townhouse filled with the absence of laughter, life, and love. Roman’s voice, once a constant, now echoed only in memory.

I lost myself in the delicate threads of my work, the needle a metronome for the grief I couldn’t speak aloud.

Lady Harrington’s emerald masterpiece gown shimmered in the candlelight—vibrant, alive—everything I no longer felt.

I stitched as if the fabric could hold me together when everything else unraveled.

Where was my son?

Where was Amir?

The questions haunted the silence. And still, no answers came. Only the rhythmic pull of thread through cloth—and the suffocating weight of love left unanswered.

Then—a sudden knock at the door.

I jolted upright, my breath catching, my heart slamming against my ribs. Hope flared, sudden and reckless, an ember igniting in the cold ashes of solitude. I cast aside the gown, the needle slipping from my grasp and vanishing into the folds of fabric at my feet.

“Please be him,” I whispered, already moving, nearly stumbling in my haste as I reached for the door.

My fingers fumbled with the latch, and I threw it open with a force born of desperation.

Not Amir.

A young post boy stood there, cap askew, cheeks flushed from the chill air. He grinned, oblivious to the storm behind my eyes, and thrust an envelope into my hands.

“Miss! A letter for you!” he chirped, his voice far too bright for the shadows clinging to my home.

“Thank you,” I managed, voice hoarse, fingers trembling as I accepted the worn envelope. The edges were smudged, the paper soft from many hands, but the name scrawled across it was unmistakably mine.

I turned it over, holding my breath. The script wasn’t Amir’s.

A knot tightened in my stomach. Confusion prickled along my skin, and the spark of hope guttered. Still, I tore the seal open, parchment crinkling like dry leaves in my hands.

The scent of ink and faint smoke rose from the page.

I froze. That scent—I knew it.

Dancing Fire.

My heart plummeted.

“Dear Elizabeth,” it began.

I couldn’t read further—not yet. My hands clutched the letter as dread laced my veins. The room tilted, narrowing to the parchment in my hands and the storm of memories rising.

I closed my eyes.

“Please,” I whispered—to no one, the heavens or the gods I no longer trusted. “Let this be good news.”

But as my eyes fluttered open and the inked words took shape, I felt that dark and inevitable tremor creeping in to claim me again.

“Mary has died.”

The world buckled beneath me.

I couldn’t breathe.

Mary—gone? The woman who held my secrets, who knew every shadow of my past, every fracture in my heart. She had been my refuge, my constant in the void Amir’s silence had left behind. Our letters—once a lifeline—were now relics of a bond severed far too soon.

We had written endlessly, confiding in each other as though stitching together a tapestry of sisterhood I believed even time could not unravel. But now... her thread was cut. Too young. Too cruel.

A sob clawed up my throat, and I sank to the floor, the letter crumpling in my fist as I folded in on myself, drowning in grief. The walls closed in, the dim light casting shadows that danced like ghosts—echoes of all I’d lost.

“Amir…” My voice was a broken plea, barely more than a breath. “Where are you?”

No answer.

No arms to gather me close.

No voice, no kiss against my temple to make the pain ebb away.

Only silence—a suffocating beast, devouring the last scraps of my strength.

Mary’s death snuffed out the final ember of hope within me, leaving only ashes.

Leaving me in darkness. Alone.

And in that silence, one truth became clearer than ever—everyone I loved was either dead… or had vanished into shadows.

And I feared—no, I knew?—

I was next.