Page 137 of The Immortal’s Mark

“Majesty.” He bows precisely as low as courtesy requires and not a degree lower. “There are… concerns. About the shadow. About her influence over—”

“Her name is Lián.”

Feng’s mouth tightens, but he presses on. A man who has survived three emperors does not retreat at the first rebuke.

“—over your judgment. She has compromised you. This… attachment… is unsuitable. The court sees it. The empire sees it. An emperor cannot be led around by—”

“She has saved my life. Multiple times.” I let the words settle. “How many times, Chancellor, have you saved my life?”

He stutters once but recovers with the practiced grace of a man well-used to scheming. “She is an assassin. An immortal. A creature of unknown origin and unknowable loyalty. She cannot be trusted with—”

“She is mine.”

The words leave my mouth before I have fully decided to say them. They hang in the air—too heavy, too raw, too true to take back.

Feng goes pale.

I should soften this. I should couch it in language the court can swallow—strategic alliance, valuable asset, necessary arrangement. I should be the emperor who calculates every word.

I find that I am tired of calculating.

“She is mine,” I say again, quieter now but no less certain. “And I am hers. And the next person who suggests removing her will explain their concerns directly to Tianlong.”

Feng’s face cycles through several expressions before settling on something careful and blank. He has survived three emperors. He will survive this too. But he will remember.

“The court,” he says finally, “will need time to adjust.”

“Then the court should begin adjusting. Immediately.”

Feng retreats. He has no choice. But his eyes find Lián before he goes, and what I see there is not defeat. It is patience. Calculation. The understanding that this battle is lost but the war continues.

He will scheme. He will plot. He will look for weaknesses and opportunities and ways to separate us.

Let him try.

That was dramatic, Tianlong observes. Also somewhat territorial. I approve.

I do not respond. But I notice that Lián’s breathing has changed—faster than before, though she is trying to hide it. When I turn my head slightly, I catch her expression before she can compose it.

She is looking at me like I have done something impossible.

She is looking at me like I am worth staying for.

The lair is exactly as he left it—gold coins piled in corners, ancient tapestries draped over stone, the faint smell of sulfur and smugness. Tianlong expands into his full magnificence with a sound like silk tearing, scales catching the torchlight, wings stretching to fill a cavern that suddenly seems smaller than I remember.

“That,” he announces, unfurling to his full height, “was degrading.”

“You survived.”

“The cat tried to eat me.” He coils around a pillar, his tail flicking with residual indignation. Dark scales catch the light—each one larger than my palm, each one older than the palace above us. “Seventeen times. I counted. He knocked me into a soup pot on the sixth day. I smelled like broth for three provinces.”

“He likes you.”

“He is a menace.” Tianlong’s eyes—ancient, knowing, never quite as amused as he pretends—find mine. “He is also disturbingly good at stealth for a creature that size. I did not hear him coming. Me. Three thousand years of predatory instinct, and I did not hear him coming.”

“He has hidden depths.”

“He has hidden claws.” Tianlong inspects a scale near his left forelimb, where there is indeed a small scratch. “This is permanent. I am scarred. By a cat.”