Page 116 of The Immortal’s Mark

The work is methodical. She translates the older scripts—her eight centuries have given her fluency in dialects that died before my grandfather’s grandfather was born. The way her brow furrows over a particularly archaic character, the small sound of satisfaction when she cracks a cipher—I find myself watching her more than the documents in my hands.

You are doing it again, Tianlong observes.

I am mapping patterns.

You are watching her mouth move while she reads.

That is not—

I am literally inside your head, little flame. I know what you are watching.

I return my attention to the scrolls with more force than necessary.

“The cult is older than I thought,” I say after an hour. “Older than the empire.”

“Older than me.” She holds up a scroll, her brow furrowed. “This text predates my first death by three centuries.”

The records tell a story. A brotherhood formed around a philosopher-king who sought to conquer death itself. Rituals. Sacrifices. A bloodline marked for something I do not yet understand. Names and dates spiral backward through time, and somewhere in the maze of ink and crumbling paper, a pattern begins to emerge.

Lián goes still.

I look at what she is reading. A name. Written in characters so old the strokes seem almost pictographic.

Mei-Ling of the House of Ascending Dawn.

“That’s—” She stops. Swallows. “That’s my mother’s house. My grandmother’s grandmother’s lineage.”

I take the scroll from her hands, careful not to tear the brittle paper. The text describes a woman from Lián’s bloodline. A woman who loved a man who became a monster. A woman whose face—the scroll includes a rendering, stylized but clear—looks enough like Lián that my chest tightens.

“This is about me.” Her voice is barely above a whisper. “It’s always been about me.”

“About your bloodline.” I hear myself say the words, steady when I do not feel steady. “Not you.”

“What’s the difference?”

She is shaking. I watch the tremor move through her shoulders, see her jaw clench against it. Eight centuries of practice at hiding vulnerability, and she cannot hide this. Something in me cracks open at the sight.

I reach for her.

My hand hovers in the space between us. I do not know if she wants to be touched. I do not know if touching her now will feel like comfort or like taking advantage of her vulnerability. The old rules of the palace—the careful distance, the measured gestures—these things have no map for this moment.

I reach again.

She lets me pull her close.

Her body is rigid against mine, her breath coming in short, controlled bursts. I do not say anything. I do not offer reassurances I cannot guarantee. I simply hold her, my chin resting on the top of her head, my arms wrapped around the tension in her spine.

Slowly, so slowly, she softens.

“This is not very imperial,” she mutters into my chest.

“I am not being imperial right now.”

“I noticed.” A pause. Her fingers curl into the fabric of my merchant’s robe. “Don’t stop. Not yet. Right now I want Ren. Not the emperor.”

The guardian finds us.

He emerges from the shadows of the inner sanctum as if he has been waiting there for years. Perhaps he has. An old monk, spine curved with age, robes the color of dust. His eyes are milky white, unseeing—and yet they track to Lián’s position with unsettling accuracy.