Page 100 of The Immortal’s Mark

Chapter 17

The Jealous Husband

Emperor Ren

I wake before dawn, the way I always do, and in the grey half-light I find her still beside me.

I become aware of my hand. It rests against her ribs, where it must have drifted in the night. I do not remember placing it there. I do not move it now.

I close my eyes. Count my breathing. Open them again.

She is facing away, as she does every night. Her shoulder rises and falls in rhythms I should not have memorized. Her hair has escaped its tie and spreads across the pillow like dark water. In sleep, her face loses the sharpness it carries during the day—the constant vigilance, the readiness to run. She looks younger. She looks like someone who might stay.

I do not examine why this thought produces a sensation behind my ribs that I cannot name.

Her eyes open.

For a moment, neither of us moves. The dawn light catches in her gaze, turning it amber, and I find I have forgotten how to breathe in a way that feels casual.

“You are staring,” Tianlong announces. Aloud. Because of course he wants Lián to know.

“He’s always staring,” Lián says without opening her eyes. “I’ve learned to sleep through it.”

“I am not—”

“You are. I have been watching you stare.”

“Creepy,” she murmurs into the pillow. “Both of you.”

“I am three thousand years old. I am entitled to my entertainments.”

Her eyes open. She looks at me, then at the faint glow of Tianlong’s brazier. “Is he always like this in the morning?”

“He is always like this.”

“Lies. I am a delight.”

Neither of us mentions the kiss. Neither of us mentions my hand. The morning light shifts across her face, and I watch her decide not to pull away.

“I will make breakfast,” I say, because I need to move. Because if I stay in this bed one more moment, I will do something foolish. Pull her closer. Bury my face in her hair. Ask her to say wife again.

I have never made breakfast. Ever. This is still the safer option.

I stand. My feet are bare on cold floor. The merchant’s clothes hang loose on a frame built for armor and ceremony, and I am acutely aware that I do not know how to be this person—this man without title or throne or purpose beyond the next mile of road.

She watches me cross to the small brazier. I can feel her gaze on my back like a hand I cannot shake.

The rice. The water. The flame. Simple things. Things people have done for centuries without education or training or thought.

I burn it anyway.

“Impressive,” Tianlong says. “Truly. You command dragon fire but cannot manage a cooking flame.”

I stare at the blackened pot. The smell is acrid, wrong, a failure so mundane it almost makes me laugh. In the palace, servants prepare my meals. In the palace, I have never held a cooking implement in my life.

“Here.” She is beside me suddenly, reaching past me for the pot. Her arm brushes mine. I do not flinch. I do not lean into the contact. I stand very still and pretend I am not memorizing the exact temperature of her skin.

She scrapes the burned rice into a bowl. Pours water over it. Takes a bite.