Page 154 of The Immortal’s Mark

“No.”

“Excuse me—”

“Don’t.” I don’t look up from the sword I’m testing. The balance is wrong. I grab another. “He wants me. If I bring an army, Ren dies before I reach the door. If I bring anyone—” The next sword is better. Not good. Better. “—they die. All of them. That’s not a maybe. “That’s what happens when you face something that’s survived a thousand years by consuming everything in its path.”

Wei’s jaw tightens. He wants to argue. He’s a general; arguing is what he does.

“Let me come with you,” he says. “Just me. One sword watching your back.”

I finally look at him.

He’s a good man. Loyal. The kind of soldier who would die for his emperor without hesitation, and right now he’s offering to die for me too—for the woman his emperor loves, the woman who might be able to bring him back.

I could let him come. He’d fight well. Die well.

He’d still die.

“I’ve done this six hundred and forty-four times.” My voice sounds strange. Flat in a way it hasn’t been in years. “Dying. I’m good at it. You’re not.”

Something moves in the doorway. Lady Mei. Her face is a mask of perfect composure, but her eyes are sharp and assessing.

“You’re going alone,” she says. Not a question.

“Yes.”

“That’s suicide.”

“Probably.”

I expect her to argue. She doesn’t. She just watches me with those calculating eyes, the ones that have survived three decades of court politics by knowing exactly when a battle is worth fighting.

This isn’t one of them.

“Bring him back,” she says finally. “The empire needs an emperor. I’d rather not have to train a new one.”

“That’s touching.”

“It’s practical.” A pause. “The touching part goes without saying.”

I almost smile. Almost. My face doesn’t seem to remember how.

“Watch Tianlong,” I say. “He’s hurt. I’ve never seen a dragon hurt like that before.”

Lady Mei nods once. Then she turns and walks away, and I’m left with Jing still clutching her scrolls and Wei still standing at attention and fifty soldiers who will never leave this palace because I won’t let them follow me into the dark.

I’m going alone.

That’s how it has to be.

Tianlong’s lair is colder than I remember.

The gold doesn’t gleam. The crystals that have glowed for milennia are dim, flickering. And Tianlong—

Tianlong is coiled around his hoard like he’s trying to hold himself together. Scales that should gleam like hammered gold are dull. Tarnished. Blood leaks from his eyes, his nostrils, pooling between the coins beneath his massive head.

Three thousand years old. Head the size of my chambers. And he looks like something that’s dying.

Golden tears have dried on his scales—dragons cry gold, apparently. The tracks cut through the blood like rivers through mud.