Page 113 of The Immortal’s Mark

Then he holds out his hand. I take it.

We step into the square.

The music swells around us—erhu and pipa, a simple melody. Not the formal court dances with their precise steps and prescribed distance. This is closer. The kind of dance where you hold someone because you want them close, not because etiquette demands it.

His hand settles at my waist. My hand finds his shoulder. Our bodies move together because that’s what bodies do when the music asks them to.

“People are watching,” I murmur.

“Let them.”

“We’re supposed to be inconspicuous.”

“You’re wearing silk and moonlight. We were never going to be inconspicuous.”

The words land in my chest and stay there.

I want to make a joke. Something sharp, something armor-shaped, something to create distance between this moment and whatever comes next. But his breath is warm against my skin, and my hand fits exactly right against his shoulder, and the silk moves against my legs with every step, and for once in eight hundred years, I don’t want to run.

His hand tightens on my waist. Not controlling—steadying. Grounding. Like he knows I need something to hold onto.

The music swells. The lanterns sway overhead, casting shifting patterns of light and shadow across the dancing square. Other couples move around us—an old man and his wife, a young pair who can’t stop laughing, merchants and farmers and strangers who don’t know they’re sharing the square with an emperor and an immortal.

None of it matters.

Just this. Just him. Just now. Just the warmth of his hand and the rhythm of the music and the impossible feeling of not wanting to be anywhere else.

I laugh. I don’t know why. Some overflow of something I refuse to name.

He smiles.

Not the court smile. Not the diplomatic mask. The real one—the whole-face one that transforms him, that makes him look like the boy he must have been before dragon fire and duty and brothers who died. The smile I’ve been collecting glimpses of for weeks, hoarding like stolen coins.

This is the part where the story gets complicated, I think. This is the part where something changes.

The contact finds us.

We’ve drifted to the edge of the square, not quite ready to let go, when a voice cuts through the music.

“Newlyweds?”

Elderly woman, shrewd-eyed, wearing merchant’s clothes that have seen better decades. Her hair is iron-gray, pulled back severely. Her eyes miss nothing—the way his hand rests at my waist, the way I’ve unconsciously leaned into him, the way neither of us moves apart even now that the dancing has stopped.

“Is it that obvious?”

She snorts. “You’ve barely stopped touching each other all night.”

We both become aware of his hand on my waist. Neither of us moves it.

“You’re the merchant’s wife,” I say. Not a question.

“And you’re the ones looking for the temple.” She tilts her head, studying us. “Interesting pair. He carries himself like he’s used to giving orders, and you move like you’re used to killing people who annoy you.”

“We’re merchants,” Ren says smoothly. “From the capital.”

“Sure you are. And I’m the Empress Dowager.” She waves a dismissive hand. “Relax. I don’t care who you really are. I care about the coin and the cause. You’re paying. That’s enough.”

She leads us to a wine stall, quieter than the main square. The owner knows her—pours three cups without being asked, then disappears with the particular discretion of someone who has learned not to see things.