Page 165 of The Immortal’s Mark

Not about strategy. The Hungering King has been planning this for eight centuries. I have been a piece on his board since before I was born. Any plan I devise in moments, he has already anticipated in years.

The decision is simpler than that. More fundamental.

I think of what he said. Love makes you willing to burn.

He is right.

I would burn my empire for her. Every treaty, every alliance, every carefully maintained peace I have spent two decades building. I would let it all turn to ash if it meant keeping her safe.

I have spent my whole life not wanting things. Duty instead of desire. Control instead of chaos. The empire needed a steady hand, and I made myself steady. I made myself stone.

She makes me want to be something else.

I do not know how to save her. I do not have a plan. I have only this: certainty. A weight in my chest that refuses to be reasoned away.

I love her.

The thought lands like a blade between my ribs. Simple. Devastating. True.

I love her, and she is riding toward a trap, and I am bound in shadow, and I cannot warn her, cannot reach her, cannot do anything except sit in the dark and want.

I am so tired of not wanting things.

I want her.

I want her laugh and her chaos and her terrible jokes. I want mornings with her and arguments with her and the way she looks at me when she thinks I am not watching. I want to show her every secret I have kept. I want to know every secret she has hidden.

I want a life with her. However long. However dangerous. However much it costs.

He thinks his trap is perfect. He thinks our love is his weapon.

He is wrong.

Because she is coming for me. And when she arrives, she will not find a man who has given up.

She will find me.

And I will find a way.

The shadows hold me.

I wait.