Chapter 44
Alina
Three months after my son was born, the shrieks of Scholar’s wicked voice began invading my mind.
They never stopped. They slithered into every corner of my thoughts, poisoning my sanity with cruel whispers.
Paranoia devoured me. The hallucinations grew more vivid until I couldn’t tell reality from madness.
No matter where I went, I was never alone. His voice always followed.
“You think you can run away and hide in Italy?” he hissed. “I see everything. I watch you, always.”
There was no escape. No silence. No safety. He haunted me like a curse stitched into my very bones. And still, one small voice whispered in the background—But why hasn’t he killed me?
Sometimes I would claw at my scalp, sobbing and screaming into the void, “What do you want from me? Why are you doing this?”—but Scholar would vanish into chilling silence, letting my own thoughts destroy me.
The quiet was worse than his words.
My suffering was constant, relentless.
Even my son—my beautiful boy—was beginning to show signs of darkness. He would cry and thrash with a rage far beyond his age, like something ancient and angry stirred inside him. Part of me wanted to stay, to nurture that darkness, to raise him to understand what he carried in his blood.
But the voices… they wouldn’t stop. And I knew—if I stayed, I would only bring ruin to us all.
The idea of leaving Raul and our child crushed me.
The memories—our whispered conversations, shared laughter, and burning passion—lived in my chest like dying embers I didn’t want to extinguish.
I wished, with everything in me, that I could freeze time, that I could live inside those fleeting moments forever.
But time never froze. And shadows never slept.
Raul had left for the Phytomancer’s Den early that morning, unaware that he would return to find me gone.
He believed all would be well—that our little world would remain unchanged.
But I couldn’t take the torment any longer.
I had to leave. I had to find Malik. I needed answers before I lost what was left of my sanity.
Even the thought of leaving the Den weighed heavily on my heart.
I had spent weeks immersed in the study of poisoncraft, crafting potent mixtures with steady hands and a restless mind.
My latest creation—the belladonna elixir I prepared for Olivia—still felt incomplete, as though something essential was missing.
Raul had kept the Widow’s Bloom and other forbidden plants out of my reach, guarding their secrets too closely.
I had to hope the belladonna would be enough.
As I stepped into the yard, memories clung to me like ivy. Every leaf, every stone, every petal whispered what I was leaving behind. The Phytomancer’s Den—the estate, the craft, the quiet darkness of it all—had once felt like a strange kind of home. But it wasn’t mine anymore.
I had made my choice. A choice I didn’t want to make—but one I had to.
The light faded, shadows stretching long across the grass as I stood beneath the weeping willow. Hidden from view, I let my grief unravel. Hot tears slid down my cheeks, and sobs wracked my chest, each one sharper than the last. My legs trembled, my heart splintered.
I bowed my head and whispered a silent prayer to whatever God might be listening for strength, courage, and the will to walk away from the ones I loved.
Because sometimes, love wasn’t enough to keep you sane.
Once the last of my sorrow had drained from me, I packed only the essentials, clutched my revised journal to my chest, and fled. I ran through the night, chased by voices that refused to die and sensations that didn’t belong to me. Fear clung to my skin, and desperation pulsed off me like a fever.
My footsteps echoed across the cobblestones, each strike a protest against the madness unraveling inside me.
I pushed my body to its limit, breath ragged, muscles burning, until the sky bled with the first hues of morning.
Just as the sun crowned the horizon in a golden blaze, I collapsed, spent, broken, empty.
I hadn’t planned any of this. I was running blind and scared, trying to outrun something that lived inside me.
Living with Raul had been a beautiful illusion. I had let myself believe I was safe, that Florence could shield me from the darkness. But it had only been a pause—a brief inhale before the storm. I had mistaken a temporary haven for salvation.
I was never free. I was still being hunted.
The town had only just begun to stir. Smoke curled lazily from chimneys, and a few drunks staggered home from their debauchery, their laughter long since faded into echoes. My heart hammered in my chest as I turned the corner, hoping for clarity or a moment to breathe.
Instead, a figure emerged from the shadows.
Tall. Gaunt. Eyes like storm clouds boiling with madness, locking onto mine with feral intensity. He looked starved for power, connection, and something only I could give. He froze me in place. My breath caught.
Salvatore.
“So,” he rasped, voice low and rough as gravel, “you’re looking for Eyan Malik… just like I suggested.”
The mention of Malik’s name sent a bolt of tension through me. I stiffened, pulse thundering.
“What makes you think I’m looking for him?” I asked, keeping my tone level, though my insides twisted.
His mouth curled into a knowing smirk. “I hear things. I told you—I’m powerful. And I’m your ally, Alina. I’m here to protect you. I’m proud of you.”
He extended his hand to me, palm open in eerie invitation.
The air around his arm shimmered like cut glass filled with starlight, millions of tiny diamonds suspended in motion. My arm moved before I could stop it, drawn by something deeper than reason, as if fate had woven the moment.
When our fingers touched, a jolt of energy surged through me—hot, electric, dangerously intoxicating.
A tether formed between us, invisible but unbreakable.
His touch was deceptively tender, his warmth wrapping around me like silk, even as his eyes of shadow and seduction threatened to swallow me whole.
He stepped closer, lifting his hand to my face. His fingertips traced the curve of my cheek with reverent precision, and a shiver danced down my spine. The contact sparked waves of pleasure I hadn’t known my body could feel. It was maddening. Addictive.
I ached for him.
Every inch of me burned for more. But deep within, a warning sounded—soft but urgent. There was danger buried beneath his gentleness, something twisted behind the mask of affection.
“My darling Alina,” he whispered, voice slick with desire and something darker. “Balthazar blessed you, and I know you love him. But you’ll learn to love me too. I’ll protect you. Nothing will ever hurt you again. Nothing will ever take you from me.”
He smiled at me like it was the most natural thing in the world, as if meeting under strange skies and stranger circumstances was routine for us.
“You’ll find Malik in 1323 A.D.,” he said calmly, “in a small cottage near the city’s northern edge.”
“What city?” I asked, breath catching. “Is he here—in Italy?”
“Britannica.” The word floated between us, soft as a feather caught on the wind.
And then he was gone.
Just like that. As if he had never truly been there at all.
I stood in stunned silence, wrapped in a strange mix of longing and something darker—something raw and primal.
There was a pull to him, an enigma threaded through every glance, every word.
I didn’t just want to understand him. I ached to unravel him.
To know what made him more intoxicating than Balthazar and more dangerous than Raul.
I lingered at the city’s edge for days, a shadow among the living, scavenging crumbs from taverns and back-alley cafés. Hunger gnawed at my ribs, but worse was the sting of the words that followed me through the streets.
“She left him without a word. Didn’t even take the babe,” an ancille whispered one morning, her voice thick with scorn as the maids gathered in the courtyard to exchange gossip like coins.
“Lord Costa’s orders are clear,” another chimed in, “if we so much as see her, we’re to report it at once.”
They delighted in my fall from grace.
“She fooled him, that one. Had Lord Costa doting like a lovesick fool. All those gifts, all that praise. But she was never more than a common whore in silk.”
Their words pierced me like glass—sharp, cold, and unforgiving. But I was too hollow to bleed. I had no strength left to fight back. Not yet. I had one purpose now—find Malik.
And so, beneath the pale, watchful eye of the full moon—starved of food, stripped of sleep, with nothing left but fractured hope and sheer will—I clutched the dagger and tore through time, landing in Britannica, 1323.
To the edge of fate.
I wandered the crooked streets, asking everyone I passed if they knew Malik.
Most flinched at the name and turned away, muttering under their breath.
One man, emboldened by lust and perhaps imagining I’d repay him with flesh, offered an address.
I took it with forced gratitude, declined his advances, and disappeared into the shadows.
Malik’s manor loomed like a phantom from another life.
Perched atop a lonely hill, it stood sentinel over the countryside, its stone walls weathered by centuries and secrets.
Wind whipped around me violently, as if the earth was warning me to turn back.
The trees rustled above, their skeletal branches swaying like silent witnesses.
Each step up the path echoed in the night, the sound hollow and final. I raised the heavy knocker at the door and let it fall once. The metallic slam rang out, clear and decisive.
The door creaked open.
Malik stood before me, his face carved with fury, shadows clinging to his sharp features like old scars. The tension between us coiled instantly, thick as smoke.
“What are you doing here, Alina?” he growled. “How did you find me?”