The air was thick with the scent of blood and crushed herbs—pungent, cloying, and impossible to ignore.Before us, Marcellious lay broken—his body a tapestry of bruises, gashes, and swelling, his breaths shallow, each inhale a battle he was barely winning.
Amara knelt at his side, her hands steady despite the chaos in the room.She uncorked a small glass vial, its contents a deep-amber hue that caught the dim light.Without hesitation, she poured the tonic between his lips, cradling his head with care as he struggled to swallow.
Her other hand worked quickly, pressing a salve of her own making into the torn skin across his chest—her touch gentle yet filled with urgency born of fear.
At the sound of our arrival, her head snapped up.For a moment, shock flickered in her eyes, quickly replaced by concern.Rising swiftly, she crossed the room with urgency, her gaze darting between us.
“Amir,” she hissed, her voice taut and low, barely contained.“You shouldn’t be here.If Lazarus finds out—” Her eyes shot to the door, then to Elizabeth, filled with unspoken questions and rising dread.
“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.
