I flinched as if he had struck me, but the wound wasn’t on my skin—it was deeper, tangled in my heart.His words should have shattered me.Instead, they freed something buried, something unbreakable.
“Yes, I did,” I said, voice firm now, no longer shaking.“I gave myself to him.And now, I will give my life to be the best mother I can be to this child.That’s all that matters.”
Without another word, Dancing Fire turned and stormed out of the teepee, leaving me alone—again—with the fragments of my shattered world.
Tears streamed down my cheeks, hot and endless, as I cradled Roman to my chest.Everything felt crumbling, piece by piece, slipping through my fingers like sand.All I had—all I was—rested in the child’s fragile body in my arms.
“Roman,” I whispered, my lips brushing his soft, warm forehead.“I will protect you, no matter the cost.I will be the best mother I can be.I promise.”
A silent oath, sealed in grief and love, binding my heart to his.But deep within me, an uneasy truth stirred—words spoken in the glow of new motherhood could crumble like dust when faced with the man he would one day become.
ChapterTwenty-Nine
AMIR
The clanging of steel echoed through the desolate chambers, each strike of my blade a cry into the void.I drove the weapon again and again into the practice dummies, their straw-stuffed forms bearing the brunt of my fury—futile stand-ins for the anguish tearing me apart.Every swing was a desperate attempt to silence the cacophony of loss that resounded in my skull, to drown out the unbearable silence left behind by Elizabeth’s voice—the one I’d never hear again.
Days had bled into weeks into an endless blur of sweat, blood, and exhaustion.I had made these cold, stone walls of the underground palace my prison, exiling myself from rest and reason.Sleep had long abandoned me; food was an afterthought, and pain… pain was the only thing that still reminded me I was alive.
My knuckles were torn open, raw, and bleeding, skin peeling back like my sanity.Still, I persisted.A hollow shell of the man I once was, filled only with rage, haunted by a grief that would not loosen its grip.
My men had tried.Their words—pleas to stop, rest, heal—were whispers lost on a storm wind.I didn’t hear them.I couldn’t.
“Amir.”
My name cut through the haze of exertion like a knife, but I didn’t stop.
“Amir!”This time, the edge in Lazarus’ voice snapped something inside me, and the blade stilled in my hand.
Chest heaving, I staggered back, the weight of my limbs suddenly unbearable.I slumped to the cold floor, my back hitting the stone wall with a dull thud.Once so vast and filled with weapons, the room now seemed to close in around me, pressing against the hollow of my chest.
I lifted my head, my gaze locking with Lazarus’.His face was unreadable, but I knew that look—it was the calm before a storm.My voice ripped from my throat, hoarse and worn from disuse.
“What?”I snapped.
Lazarus didn’t flinch.“It’s time,” he said.“We’re going to the New World.Your children—” he paused, letting the words fall like stones in a still pond, “—they’re about to be born.”
The world tilted beneath me.The blade slipped from my hand, clattering to the floor, useless and forgotten.
But through the haze of shock, suspicion clawed at the corners of my mind.My brow furrowed, and I fixed him with a piercing, wary stare.“Why would you let me see Elizabeth now,” I demanded, voice low, edged, “when you forbade me from getting close to her before?”
The question hung between us, heavy with accusation and the remnants of hope I couldn’t quite smother.
Lazarus’ eyes remained unreadable, his next words cold and precise, each syllable a dagger.“I have ordered Dancing Fire to inform Elizabeth that one of the children did not survive.I must raise one of the twins.”
His declaration punched the air from my lungs.I staggered, my chest tightening around a grief that was not yet real but already unbearable.
“You what?”The words scraped from my throat, disbelieving, guttural.My body screamed in protest as I forced myself to my feet, trembling with rage.“Out of the question!”I stepped toward him, every fiber of my being bristling.“You think I’ll allow this?That I’ll let you take my child like some—some pawn?”
But the image of Elizabeth—her hearing those words, believing one of her babies was dead—ripped through me more viciously than any blade.The pain of her grief, of her being deceived, gutted me.I could see her face crumple.I could feel the weight of her sorrow.
Anger and desperation clashed in violent waves, our voices ricocheting off stone walls like war drums.Fury scorched in my veins, but Lazarus stood firm, unmoved by the fire in my eyes.
And then came his final blow, his ultimatum slicing through my rage with ruthless precision.
“Do you want to see your newborn babies, or don’t you?”
Silence fell.My breath hitched, broken.My heart beat against the walls of my chest like a caged beast.
