Drawers ripped from their places, glass vials shattered, bundles of herbs strewn like corpses across the floor.
A violent search.A desecration.
A mirror of the turmoil inside me.
“Elizabeth?”
Mary’s voice floated from the doorway, thin with worry.
I didn’t answer.
I couldn’t.
Desperation moved my limbs, each step frantic as I tore through the wreckage, searching for two sacred things?—
The Noctyss flower, once preserved beneath the glass.
And my mother’s alchemy book, the legacy of everything she was.
Gone.
Both gone.
My breath hitched?—
A sound of grief, of failure.
They had taken everything.
I had destroyed my father’s Timehunter society—yes.
But that wasn’t the promise that mattered.
There had been one sacred vow I made to my mother as she lay dying?—
And I had failed her.
No flower.No book.No legacy.
I stood there, ruins at my feet, my hands trembling at my sides.
But I couldn’t stay here.
Not in this grave of memories.
I pressed a hand to my heart, choking back tears.
“I promise you, Mother,” I whispered.
“I will fulfill your dying wish… when the time comes.”
A vow?—
Not broken.Delayed.
“Mary,” I called, my voice hollow.
“Before we go, I must say goodbye to my father.”
