Page 157 of The Immortal’s Mark

The way they cup my jaw. Careful. Like I’m something precious, something that might break, something worth treating gently even though he knows I’ve survived worse than gentle handling.

I think about his voice.

The rare almost-smile that transforms his entire face. The way he said wife like he was tasting the word, deciding if he liked how it fit in his mouth. The way he laughed—actually laughed—when I told him his poetry needed work, and I realized I would do terrible things to hear that sound again.

I think about mornings.

Waking up next to him. His shoulder against mine. Dumpling between us, purring like a small motor, and for the first time, in too many years to remember, I didn’t want to leave. Didn’t count the exits. Didn’t calculate the fastest route out of someone’s life.

I wanted to stay.

So I’m going to get him back. And then I’m going to stay.

The thread pulls harder. Closer. The darkness ahead is absolute—not just absence of light but something more, something active, something that eats photons and hope and everything good.

I ride faster.

Chapter 644, revised.

In which our heroine stops running away.

And starts running toward.

In which she discovers that eight hundred years of practice at leaving doesn’t mean anything when you finally find a reason to stay.

In which she rides into darkness—not because she wants to die, but because everything she wants to live for is waiting on the other side.

The road narrows. Trees close in overhead, branches reaching like fingers, and the shadows beneath them are deeper than shadows should be.

The thread pulls.

I don’t look back.

Everything worth seeing is ahead.