Page 117 of The Immortal’s Mark

“Daughter of the Dawn.” His voice creaks like ancient hinges. “I knew you would come. Eventually. All the daughters come.”

Lián has pulled away from me, but not far. Her hand remains on my arm, a point of contact neither of us acknowledges.

“What do you know about my bloodline?” she asks.

The monk’s blind eyes move to me. Study me without seeing. “And the Dragon’s chosen. Interesting. The pattern shifts.”

“What pattern?” I keep my voice level. “Who are you?”

“I am the keeper of what remains.” He settles onto a fallen pillar, moving with the deliberate care of someone who has made peace with the limitations of his body. “I was here when the Hungering King was still a man. I was here when he made his bargain. I have stayed to watch what unfolds.”

Lián’s grip on my arm tightens. “The Hungering King.”

“You know the name.”

“I know the cult uses it. I did not know it was a man.”

The monk’s laugh is dry as paper. “All monsters were men, once. Shen Wei was a king, ruler of an empire that predates yours by four centuries.” His blind gaze turns to me. “He would have liked you, I think. You have the same weight about you. The same burdens.”

I do not respond. Beside me, Lián has gone very still.

“Shen Wei loved a woman.” The monk’s voice takes on a cadence like prayer, like scripture. “Mei-Ling, of the celestial bloodline. She was immortal, as your companion is immortal. They had seven hundred years together. It was not enough.”

I glance at Lián. She has gone rigid beside me, her face carefully blank in a way I have learned to recognize. Her armor is rebuilding. She does this when something threatens to crack her open.

“What happened?”

“She died.” The simplicity of it lands like a blow. “A plague swept through their kingdom. She burned her own life force to heal thousands, severed the tie that bound her existence to his. She chose to save her people instead of living forever with the man she loved.”

Lián’s hand moves—a small, aborted gesture toward her own chest. I know what she is thinking. I know the shape of her fear.

“That’s—” She stops. Swallows. Tries again. “That’s a choice.”

“It was the choice.” The monk’s blind eyes seem to focus on something neither of us can see. “The right one, perhaps. Or the wrong one. Even after so many centuries passed, I still cannot say.”

“And Shen Wei?” I prompt, as much to give Lián time to compose herself as to hear the answer.

“He made a bargain with something old and terrible. Traded his humanity for the power to bring her back.” The monk’s hands fold in his lap. “It did not work. What returned was empty—a shell wearing her face. He destroyed it himself. That is when the hunger began.”

The temple seems to grow colder. I am aware of Tianlong’s presence at the back of my mind, uncharacteristically silent, listening.

“What does he want now?” I ask.

“To complete what he started. To fill the void.” The monk’s blind eyes turn toward Lián, and despite their milkiness, I would swear they see her clearly. “The ritual requires willing sacrifice. A death freely given, by someone of Mei-Ling’s blood, fueled by love. It will either restore him or—”

“Or?”

“Or end everything. The hunger consuming him will consume the world.”

Silence. The mist curls around the broken columns. Somewhere outside, a bird calls—incongruous, ordinary, belonging to a world that does not know what we have just learned.

“Well.” Lián’s voice is carefully flat. “That’s worse than I thought.”

My hand moves to my pocket without conscious decision.

The jade comb. I have carried it since my mother’s death, a talisman against the weight of the crown. Green jade worn smooth by generations of hands. Silver filigree tarnished to a soft grey. Plum blossoms etched along the spine, their petals so delicate they seem ready to fall.

I have pressed this comb to my lips in moments of despair. Held it like a rosary when the weight of empire threatened to crush me. Touched it before every battle, every treaty, every execution I was forced to order. My mother gave it to me the night before she died, and I have never spent a day without it. I don’t know why, but I retrieve it now.