Page 161 of The Immortal’s Mark

“Diluted by generations, but yes. The House of Ascending Dawn was one of the great celestial lineages—beings who walked between heaven and earth before the current order. Mei-Ling was their last princess. Her descendants carry echoes of that power.”

I think of Tianlong’s words when he first saw her. You carry old magic, daughter of dawn. I had not understood. I am beginning to.

“Her mother knew I had found them again,” the Hungering King says. “She had perhaps a day’s warning. Not enough time to run. Not enough time to hide in the usual ways.” His voice softens. “So she did something desperate. Something that should not have worked.”

“The curse.”

“The curse.” He turns to face me. “She poured everything she had into hiding her daughter. Not just from my eyes—from my senses. Every way I have of tracking the bloodline, every thread of connection I can follow—she severed them all. Made her daughter invisible to me in a way no one had ever managed before.”

“For eight hundred years.”

“For eight hundred years, I could not find her. Could not sense her. Could not even confirm she still existed.” Something flickers across his face—frustration, old and festering. “I searched. I sent agents. I waited. Nothing. It was as if Mei-Ling’s line had finally ended.”

“But the immortality,” I say. “Lián cannot die. That is not hiding—that is something else.”

“The immortality was not intended.” He says it simply, as fact. “Her mother was desperate. The magic she worked was older than she fully understood—celestial magic, from before the current order. She meant only to hide her daughter. But the concealment magic... it caught. Held. Refused to let go.”

“She cannot die because the curse will not release her.”

“She cannot die because the magic that hides her requires her to exist. If she dies permanently, the concealment ends. So the curse brings her back. Again and again. A side effect her mother never anticipated.”

I think of Lián. Six hundred and forty-four deaths. Eight centuries of pain, of loss, of watching everyone she loves turn to dust while she remains. All because her mother tried to save her.

“Does she know?” I ask. “What she is? Why she cannot die?”

“No.” The word is soft. Almost gentle. “Her mother died casting the curse. There was no one left to tell her. She knows only that she cannot stay dead—not why, not how, not what she carries in her blood.”

“The House of Ascending Dawn.”

“Gone now. She is the last. The last of Mei-Ling’s direct line, the last of the celestial house, the last daughter of dawn.” He meets my eyes. “And she does not even know her true name. The curse took that too. Took her memories of her mother, her heritage, her history. She chose the name Lián because she did not remember any other.”

Something cold moves through me. Not for myself—for her. Eight centuries of not knowing who she is. Of being hunted for reasons she does not understand. Of dying again and again for a curse she never asked for.

“Then how did you find her?” I ask. “If the curse hid her so completely—”

“Dragon fire.” He smiles, and there is no joy in it. “Her mother designed the curse to hide her from me. From my senses, my magic, my ways of seeing. But she did not design it to hide her from dragons.”

I understand now. The night Lián poisoned me. Tianlong’s fire erupting from my chest, burning through the wound, illuminating the room with ancient light.

“When your dragon’s fire touched her—when she witnessed the bond between you—the magic recognized something older than the curse. Something it could not conceal.” He spreads his hands. “She lit up like a beacon. After eight hundred years of darkness, I could finally see her.”

“So you arranged for her to find me.”

“I arranged for her to try to kill you. I knew she would fail—the dragon bond protects you from death. But I needed her close to dragon fire. Close enough, long enough, for the curse to crack.” He tilts his head. “I did not expect her to stay. That part was... fortunate.”

Fortunate. He calls it fortunate. He calls the slow destruction of our lives a piece of good luck in his centuries-long game.

“You have studied this curse for eight hundred years,” I say. “You understand how it works. How it hides her. How it brings her back.”

“Yes.”

“Then you know how to break it.”

Something shifts in his face. Subtle. Most would miss it.

I do not miss it.

“The ritual will—”