With it, I could obliterate them all.My father.His men.The entire wretched Timehunter society.
I reached for the pestle, but my hands trembled too violently.It slipped from my grip, clattering to the stone floor with a deafening crash.
I couldn’t do it.
Each motion felt like a betrayal.
The thought of harming Amir shredded what remained of my already tattered heart.
Memories flooded my mind, unwelcome but desperately clung to.
Amir shielded me from my father’s wrath that stormy night, his arms a fortress around me.
His body and soul had met mine in his sleeping chamber, searing away the cold fear with something raw, unbreakable.
The whispered vows of vengeance we had spoken in the dark.
The plans we had woven together, our rebellion a tapestry of justice and destruction.
But now…
Now, those plans felt like distant dreams.
Dreams torn from my grasp by the cruel hands of my father.
And by the man I was meant to marry?—
Lord Winston.
I was trapped.Caged.
The word circled like a vulture over carrion, persistent and suffocating.Trapped by duty.By blood.By love.
I was Elizabeth Alexander, daughter of Thomas Alexander—forced to choose between the man who gave me life and the one who made that life worth living.
No more.
With determination hardening in my bones, I brushed away the remnants of herbs from my hands and set to work.Grief could not save Amir.Despair could not change my fate.Action would.
Once unsteady with sorrow, my fingers now moved with tenacity honed by love.
“I love you, Amir,” I whispered into the silence of the alchemist’s cottage.“I don’t care about my father.I’m going to heal you.He won’t torture you anymore.”
The words, spoken aloud, solidified something within me.
I turned to my shelves, hands carefully selecting only the most potent healing agents—roots of renewal, elixirs of restoration, powders that could mend flesh and stave off infection.
I filled the vials one by one, sealing them with wax and setting them aside with the tenderness of a promise.
But healing him was not enough.
I needed a way to reach him.
The glass vials and dried herbs before me were no longer mere ingredients—they were allies of subterfuge, instruments of rebellion.
The soft grind of mortar and pestle became the drumbeat of my defiance.
A sleeping draught.
