Page 125 of The Immortal’s Mark

I don’t say anything.

Can’t.

The most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.

In eight centuries.

Eight centuries of living and dying and living again. Husbands and lovers and people I let close because the loneliness got unbearable. People who promised everything. People who had armies and wealth and power and clever words.

No one has ever just—

No negotiations. No conditions. No careful calculations of what he’d get in return. Not I can protect you or I have resources or you’d be useful to me.

Just me.

Just himself, offered like it was nothing.

Like he was nothing.

Like he was everything.

Something cracks in my chest. Not breaks—cracks. Like ice in spring, like something frozen so long I forgot it was ever anything else. Eight centuries of walls and armor and never letting anyone close enough to matter, and he just—

He just offered.

I should make a joke. That’s what I do. What I’ve always done. Armor up. Deflect. Fill the silence with noise so nothing real can slip through the gaps.

I don’t.

I can’t.

“I’ve never stayed.” The words come out before I can stop them. Raw. Honest in a way that terrifies me more than any blade. “Not once. Every time it starts to feel like—”

I stop. Don’t know how to finish.

“Like home?” he offers. Gentle. Like he’s afraid of breaking something fragile. Like he can see the cracks already forming.

“Like something I could lose.”

The river moves. The fire crackles. The silence stretches between us, and for once I don’t try to fill it. Don’t know what I’d say if I did.

He doesn’t push. Doesn’t demand. Just waits. Patient as stone, patient as water, patient as a man who’s been carrying an empire on his shoulders for twenty-two years and has learned that some things can’t be rushed.

“Then learn,” he says finally. Soft. “With me.”

I stare at him across the fire. The flames paint shadows across his face—the sharp cheekbones, the dark eyes, the mouth I’ve kissed twice now and can’t stop thinking about.

Something in me is screaming to run. Pack my things. Vanish into the night. Never look back. Protect myself the way I always have, by never letting anyone close enough to hurt me when they inevitably die.

But I’m so tired of running.

Tired of eight centuries of motion without destination. Tired of burying people and walking away and telling myself it doesn’t matter. Tired of being alone in a way that sleep won’t fix and death won’t cure.

“Stay because you want to.” His voice is barely louder than the river. “Because this is worth staying for.”

Not a command. Not a request. Not even a plea.

Just truth. His truth. Offered like something fragile and precious, like a bird in cupped hands, like the first green shoot after winter.