Page 101 of The Immortal’s Mark

“You are not actually going to eat that?” I ask.

“I’ve eaten worse.” She takes another bite, chewing with deliberate theatricality. “Death number two hundred and seven, I survived three weeks on shoe leather and spite. This is practically a feast.”

“She is being kind to you,” Tianlong observes. “I would mark this day.”

“I’m always kind,” Lián says without looking up.

“You attempted to assassinate him.”

“Yes, but in my defence, there was a lot of money involved.”

I feel the corner of my mouth threatening to curve. I do not stop it.

She sees. Her eyes warm.

I look away before I do something irreversible.

Every night is exquisite torture.

We share the bed because there is only one, and purchasing separate rooms would raise questions about a merchant traveling with his wife. Wife. The word sits strangely in my mind. I have never considered marriage—the throne requires political alliance, not personal choice, and I had accepted that my eventual bride would be a treaty in silk. Someone appropriate. Someone who would understand that the emperor does not belong to anyone.

Lián does not understand this. Lián does not understand any of the rules I have lived by for twenty-two years. She sprawls across her half of the bed like she has never heard of propriety, and when she sleeps, she makes small sounds that should not be endearing and absolutely are.

She sleeps facing away. I lie awake, aware of every inch between us.

Dumpling has no such concerns. He sprawls across both of us without hesitation, a ball of warm orange impediment who has decided that the space between our bodies is the ideal location for his nightly bread loaf impression.

The cat has more sense than you do, Tianlong says directly in my head.

I do not dignify this with a response.

Just touch her.

No.

Your self-control is admirable and stupid.

Go to sleep, I think to him.

I don’t sleep. I watch. It’s what I do.

Then watch quietly.

Where would be the fun in that?

I close my eyes. Count my breathing. The cat purrs against my hip. She shifts in her sleep, and her foot brushes mine, and I lie very still and do not move for the next three hours.

The road is dusty and the day is hot and we have been riding since dawn.

Something in me snaps.

I do not know what triggers it—the heat, perhaps, or the way the river glitters through the trees ahead, or the simple fact that for the first time in twenty-two years, no one is watching. No court. No ministers. No guards watching my every movement for signs of weakness or strength. Just the road, and her, and this unbearable heaviness I have been carrying since I was twelve years old.

I dismount. Hand the reins to her. Walk toward the water.

“What are you doing?” she calls.

“Swimming.”