Page 169 of The Immortal’s Mark

“Then you’ll—” the Hungering King begins.

“I’m not finished.”

The words come out sharper than I intend. Something raw underneath. Something true.

I stop. Three feet from an ancient evil. Close enough to see the void where his humanity used to be. Close enough to see eleven centuries of grief carved into the lines around his eyes, the set of his jaw, the careful emptiness he wears like armor.

We’re not so different, him and me. We’ve both been hollowed out by loss. We’ve both built walls to keep the world from hurting us again.

The difference is what we’re willing to do about it.

“I’m not afraid of death. I never have been.”

A breath. The hardest breath I’ve ever taken.

“But I am terrified of this.”

The words sit in the air between us. Heavy. True. The truest thing I’ve said in eight hundred years—maybe the truest thing I’ve ever said.

“Of wanting something enough to die for it.”

My voice cracks. I let it crack. No armor now. No jokes. No clever deflections or walls built from humor and distance and centuries of practice at not giving a damn.

Just me. Just the wound I’ve been carrying since the first person I loved turned to dust in front of me.

“Of having something worth losing.”

I think of Ren’s hands on my face. The calluses on his palms. The way he touches me like I’m something precious, something breakable, even though I’m the furthest thing from breakable that exists in any world ever.

I think of his voice in the dark, reading poetry he pretends not to like. The way he looks at me when he thinks I’m not watching—soft, unguarded, like I’m something he wants to keep.

I think of mornings in his arms, his heartbeat under my ear, the quiet warmth of waking up next to someone who actually wants me there.

“Of—”

The word sticks. Eight centuries of practice, and I still can’t say it. Still can’t admit it. Still can’t crack myself open enough to let it out.

Say it.

The thought is savage. Furious. My own voice, yelling at myself from somewhere deep inside.

You’re about to die for it. The least you can do is name it.

“Of love.”

The word falls out of me like something I’ve been carrying too long. Heavy. Sharp-edged. Catching the light as it drops.

It doesn’t feel like relief. It feels like bleeding.

“That’s what I’ve been running from. Not death. Not pain. Love. The most terrifying thing in any world.”

I’m shaking. My whole body is shaking, fine tremors running through my muscles like my bones have forgotten how to hold me together. When did that start? When did I become this fragile thing, held together by nothing but stubbornness and grief?

“I’ve been running from love. From wanting something. From letting anyone close enough that losing them would—”

I stop. The words pile up behind my teeth, too many of them, too heavy. I have to breathe. Have to start again.

“I had a husband once. In the second century. Kind man. Good man. He laughed at my jokes even when they weren’t funny—and they weren’t, not really, not back then. I was still learning how to be funny. Still learning that humor was the only armor that worked.”