Lazarus.
Seated in his study, quill scratching across parchment, his eyes fixed on the page as if the world outside his door wasn’t unraveling.As if I wasn’t standing there—ablaze.
He didn’t look up.
Didn’t flinch.
Just wrote.
Calm.Detached.
As though none of it mattered.
“Elizabeth,” I breathed.Her name slipped from my lips, barely more than a whisper, a question, a plea.
“Is she?—?”
“Alive.”His voice was flat, unaffected.He didn’t pause, didn’t lift his gaze.
“She’s back home.Recovering.Her father lives too—though paralyzed.She is not alone.Her maid tends her.”
Relief hit me like a wave—hot, blinding.
It seared through my veins like the serpents’ antidote, stinging, cleansing, overwhelming.A weight lifted—but only to be replaced by another.
Urgency.
Need.
Her.
“I have to go to her,” I said, the words ripping from me, half-prayer, half-declaration.Her face filled my mind—sky-blue eyes, wheat-blond hair—etched into my soul.
I needed to protect her.
I needed to see her.
“No, Amir.”
Lazarus’ voice cut through my thoughts—leaving no room for argument.
He looked up.Finally.
Eyes like ice, gaze honed enough to flay me where I stood.
He rose slowly, every movement deliberate, authority cloaking him like armor.The quill slipped from his fingers, forgotten.
“You will stay away from Elizabeth,” he said.
His voice was iron.Final.
“That’s an order.”
Silence thundered between us.
My heart pounded, fury igniting like dry tinder.Every fiber of me rebelled.
“What?”The word tore from me—a half-snarl, half-wound.
