Page 85 of Sweet Venom Of Time (Blade of Shadows #6)

“I’m sorry, I...” I started, but the words faltered on my tongue, the weight crashing into me.

“Please,” Elizabeth interrupted, her voice trembling but unwavering as she stepped forward, drawing all eyes to her.

“That man—lying there—is my son. The same child they told me was dead the moment he was born. I never saw him… not once. Not until today.” Her breath hitched, but she pressed on.

“I am also a healer. I have skills. Let me help him.”

Her plea settled heavily in the chamber. The flickering torches seemed to still, their crackling subdued by the weight of her words. For a long moment, no one moved.

Amara’s gaze softened, compassion flickering in her eyes. Wordlessly, she stepped aside, granting Elizabeth passage.

Elizabeth moved to Marcellous with a fragile, yet graceful, step, each one intentional and reverent. She knelt beside him, her hands hovering just above his bruised, bloodied form. His chest rose shallowly, each breath a struggle—his body a testament to the violence he’d endured.

“I’m so sorry, my son…” Her voice cracked like glass underfoot, tender and broken.

“I didn’t leave you by choice. They tricked me—lied to me.

Not a day passed that I didn’t imagine you, what you’d be like and become.

And now… now I see I was deceived. You are alive…

but barely.” She reached for his hand, her touch feather-light.

“This will not be the first and last time I see you. I swear it.”

A tear slid down her cheek, and I moved beside her, wrapping my arm around her shoulders, trying to ease the weight of her sorrow, though I felt it, too, as a blade buried deep in my soul—a pain shared, a past that refused to rest.

She stared at Marcellious, her eyes wide with dread and desperate love. “Can he survive this?” she whispered, her words barely audible, a fragile plea lost in the stillness.

Amara met her gaze, her expression gentle but resolute. “Elizabeth… I am a Timehealer, as you are. And I swear to you—I will do everything I can to save him. To protect him.” She paused, then added with quiet conviction, “And to tend to Roman as well.”

Elizabeth’s hand slipped beneath her stola and retrieved a small glass vial at that moment. The movement was fluid, almost instinctual, but it hit me like a punch to the gut.

Disbelief surged through me, a storm of shock tightening in my chest.

What was that?

Panic laced my thoughts, twisting into fury as realization clawed forward. Alchemy. She had been practicing, defying everything I’d warned her about. The very thing I’d pleaded with her to forsake for her safety, she had kept it alive in secret.

Rage, sudden and slicing, surged inside me—not anger at her, but at the unbearable fear that gripped me.

If Salvatore sensed her alchemical presence—if her work had drawn his attention—she could be in grave danger.

Every precaution I had taken, every shadow I had lived in to keep her safe, now trembled at the edge of ruin.

“I concocted this remedy,” Elizabeth said. She held the vial like an offering, unaware of the war breaking inside me. “It will accelerate bone healing. It’s potent, but safe. It will help him.”

The vial glinted in the torchlight, casting faint green and gold reflections across her fingers—like hope, distilled. But to me, it was something else—proof of her defiance. Of the risk she had embraced without telling me.

I stared at her, torn between fury and helpless admiration.

No. I had to trust her. I swallowed the bitter knot rising in my throat. Perhaps it was an old tincture she had crafted before she swore to abandon alchemy. Perhaps it had simply survived the years, like our love.

Amara stepped forward, accepting the vial with care.

Her wise and knowing eyes flickered with understanding as she nodded.

“These young men mean the world to me. I’ll give them the care they deserve—as if they were my own sons.

” She cast a nervous glance at the door, tension bristling in her posture.

“Now, quickly, my dear. You must leave. The emperor has eyes and ears in every shadow.”

Elizabeth embraced her tightly, the contact fierce and grateful—a silent promise between women bound by their love for the same boys. As they parted, I felt a swell of conflicting emotions rise within me—pride, fear, anger, and love battling beneath the surface.

She trembled as I led her through the winding stone corridors, the echo of her quiet sobs trailing behind us like a mournful hymn. The ancient and unfeeling walls absorbed the sound but offered no comfort. Each step carried the weight of parting, each breath a struggle between duty and despair.

Just as we neared the exit, her soft and broken voice halted me in my tracks.

“Amir… wait.”

Her eyes locked on an open narrow cell to our left. There, lying motionless on a stone slab, was Roman. His chest rose and fell with labored breath, his body bruised, battered, yet alive.

I said nothing as she moved toward him as if drawn by an invisible thread that had tethered her to him since the moment of his birth. She knelt beside him, her fingers trembling as they gently brushed the damp curls from his forehead.

“My son,” she whispered, the words spilling from her lips like a sacred prayer. “I love you more than words could ever capture.” Her voice, heavy with love and longing, seemed to fill the small cell. “I pray the stars will guide us together again one day.”

A single tear slipped from her eye, tracing a glistening path down her cheek before falling onto his still hand.

She leaned in, pressing a tender kiss to his brow, her lips lingering there as if to imprint her soul onto his skin.

Roman stirred not, his eyes closed, but his breath remained shallow, fragile, but steady.

Her gaze turned to me, and I felt my composure fracture under the weight of her anguish. The sight of her there, fragile yet fierce, seared into my memory.

“We must go,” I murmured, stepping forward, my voice low with urgency. “Amara will care for him. She vowed to treat them as her own—she would not fail them.”

Reluctantly, I helped Elizabeth to her feet, the torchlight casting flickering shadows over her tear-streaked face. She nodded, her sorrow etched into every line of her expression, but her steps were firm as we left the chamber behind.

As we entered the night, I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, drawing her close. Her body pressed into mine, seeking warmth in a world suddenly colder.

“There are dangerous eyes everywhere,” I murmured, my lips near her temple. “For now, only their ignorance keeps our sons safe. But fate is not yet finished with them. One day, Roman’s wife will reunite them.”

“His wife?” Elizabeth’s voice was barely a whisper, taut with confusion.

“She hasn’t yet met him,” I murmured, my gaze fixed on the moonlit streets ahead, though all I could see was the anguish etched into her face.

Her breath caught—fractured, ragged—a sound that pierced straight through my chest. “I don’t want to leave,” she confessed, her voice trembling and thick with unshed tears. “I want to watch over them, even if only from afar. Can we stay in Rome for a little bit?”

The raw ache in her plea struck something deep within me. I understood all too well—the agony of parting from one’s blood, of walking away when every instinct screamed to protect. I turned to her, cradling her face in my hands, my thumbs brushing away the tears threatening to fall.

“Yes,” I said, my voice low and certain. “We will stay. Until the next full moon, we will remain here. Together.”

She exhaled a breath she hadn’t known she was holding, her body leaning into mine, seeking solace in the only place left to her—my embrace.

Her sorrow clung to her like mist, but beneath it, I felt her resilience awakening, steady and fierce—the same resilience that had drawn me to her all those years ago.

In the shadow of the Colosseum, with the city of emperors slumbering around us and the past bleeding into the present, we would stand vigil over the two sons fate had stolen from us once—and now returned.

Until the moon called us home, we would not leave them again.

* * *

The full moon had waned; with it, the mystical tether that bound us to ancient Rome released its hold. The familiar mustiness of our English parlor wrapped around us like a well-worn cloak, the scent of aged wood and hearth smoke a stark contrast to the blood and sand we had left behind.

Elizabeth’s breath came in excited bursts as she spun through the room, her skirts sweeping around her ankles.

The weight that had clung to her shoulders in Rome now lifted, vanishing like mist beneath the dawn.

Her bright, unburdened laughter rang out, and it was the sweetest sound I had heard in years.

“I’m going to make you the best dinner,” she declared, her eyes dancing with light, a spark of the girl I once met flickering anew in her gaze.

“Go then,” I murmured, a rare smile tugging at the corner of my mouth. She was a balm; her grace was an elixir that soothed the quiet storm forever brewing within me.

She disappeared into the kitchen, her laughter trailing like the last notes of a song. I stood in the quiet that followed, savoring the illusion of peace—until I saw it.

A parchment lay on the table, a blemish on the polished wood. My fingers, calloused from battle, curled around it with growing dread. The seal was already broken. The moment I unfolded it, I knew.

You think you can protect her forever, Amir?

But the shadows are my domain, and I am always watching.

One day, your plans with Lazarus will crumble beneath my power, and Solaris will fall to me.

But more importantly… You will lose her.

Mark my words—when that day comes, nothing will save her from the fate I have planned.

The blood drained from my face.

My pulse thundered in my ears.

The scrawl was unmistakable—elegant yet cruel, every line dripping with mockery and menace.

Salvatore.

Only he could lace ink with such venom.

Only he could turn parchment into a weapon.

A declaration of war.

A harbinger of the shadows to come.

A cold dread settled deep in my gut, creeping through my veins like poison. He hadn’t shown his face, but his intent was etched into every stroke of the letter—he would unravel everything. Everything I had built to keep her safe.

I crumpled the parchment in my fist. The brittle paper crackled like bones under pressure.

This wasn’t just a threat.

It was a promise.

“Amir? Is everything alright?”

Elizabeth’s voice floated in from the kitchen, warm and gentle, unaware of the chill that now clung to the room like a curse.

“Everything is fine, my love,” I called back, masking the storm gathering in my chest.

My gaze drifted to the window, where twilight devoured the last light of day.

And in that deepening dark, I made a vow—quiet but unshakable.

Whatever hunted us, whatever shadows crept from the corners of our lives?—

I would be her shield.

Her sword.

Her sentinel.

And if fate dared to take her from me…

I would burn the world down.