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.
ChapterThirty-Three
AMIR
The rhythmic scratching of my quill halted as a faint knock echoed through the chamber door of my underground study.“Enter,” I commanded, setting the black feather aside.
The door creaked open, revealing my servant, head bowed low.In his outstretched hand lay an envelope, its edges frayed as if it had crossed continents and centuries to find me.“This just arrived for you, Pasha,” he murmured.
I rose and took the letter with a nod.“You may go.”
The door closed behind him softly, leaving me alone in the dim, flickering light.My fingers traced the rough parchment, and my breath stilled as I recognized the unmistakable scrawl clawing across the seal—the mark of Dancing Fire.
With a practiced flick, I broke the wax and unfolded the missive, the parchment trembling between my fingers.The words inside bled sorrow onto the page, each line steeped in grief, raw, unflinching, and heavy with heartbreak.
He wrote of Marcellious—my son—and how the boy’s departure to Rome had cleaved through his heart like a blade.He spoke of the silence that filled his home now, the ghostly echoes of laughter that once danced through the halls, and the unbearable weight of a son who no longer called him father.
Each sentence was a wound drawn deep across my chest.I felt his pain as if it were my own—because it was my own.Reflected, refracted, returned to me in cruel, haunting clarity.I had entrusted Marcellious to him not only out of duty but out of necessity—a choice born of love, forged in the hope that it would protect them both.
And now, that fragile bond was severed.
Then came Roman.
He stepped into Dancing Fire’s life, and, for a time, light and hope returned.Together, they began to heal.But that peace was short-lived.
Roman was never meant to stay.
It was time to reunite him with his brother.And now Roman was gone too—both of your sons, lost to me.Roman has traveled to Rome.I’ve lost them both.And the pain is unbearable.But I let them go—because the future depends on the strength they will forge in the fires of the past.I have followed Lazarus’ instructions...and sent them back to Ancient Rome.Both of your sons are now in the past, shaping themselves into the warriors they were born to be—for the war that waits.
The letter trembled in my grip, the ink smudging beneath my thumb as I clenched it.
Elizabeth.
