Page 191 of The Immortal’s Mark

It falls out of me. Just drops, like something I couldn’t hold anymore.

“I think I’m pregnant.”

The silence that follows has a texture. Heavy. Impossible. The kind of silence that changes the shape of everything that comes after it.

Ren’s face does something I’ve never seen before. Fear and hope fighting for the same space, neither one winning, both of them written across features I’ve memorized without meaning to. He crosses the room. Takes my hands. Both of mine in both of his, and my fingers are shaking, when did they start shaking?

“Tianlong has been looking at you strangely since you came back.”

“I noticed.”

“Lady Mei said you looked ‘different.’”

“I noticed.”

“Dumpling keeps shoving his face into your stomach.”

“He’s a cat.” A laugh bubbles up, tastes hysterical. “He sniffs everything.”

“Not like that.”

The laugh cracks into something else. Not crying. I’m not crying. I’m just—leaking. From my eye ducts. Completely different.

“So everyone figured it out before me. Wonderful. That’s exactly how I wanted this to go.” I pull one hand free to gesture at nothing, at everything, at the absurdity of my own body betraying secrets I didn’t know I was keeping. “Diagnosed by a dragon, a terrifying spymaster, and a cat with no concept of personal space.”

“And me.”

“You didn’t know.” I meet his eyes. Force myself to hold there. “You suspected.”

Something shifts in his expression. Goes soft in a way that makes my chest hurt.

“I hoped.”

The word lands like a knife between my ribs.

Hoped. Not worried. Not feared. Hoped. Like this was something he wanted. Like the possibility of a— of a—

“You hoped?”

“When you came back and nothing made sense. When the ritual failed and he couldn’t hold you.” His thumbs trace circles on my palms. Slow. Grounding. “I thought perhaps the blessing protected something. Someone.”

His hands guide mine back to my stomach. Both of us touching the place where something impossible might be growing.

“I didn’t want to say anything. Not until you figured it out yourself. Not until you were ready.”

“And if I wasn’t ready?”

“Then we’d figure out what that meant together.”

I search for a joke. Something sharp, something to slice through this unbearable tenderness before it swallows me whole. My mouth opens. Nothing comes out. For the first time in eight hundred years, I’ve got nothing. No quip. No deflection. No armor.

Something cracks open in my chest. I let it.

“I don’t know how to do this.”

My voice shakes. I hate that it shakes. I’ve faced down armies. I’ve looked the Hungering King in the eye and cracked jokes while he tried to consume my soul. And here I am, trembling because of a word. Because of a possibility. Because of a clump of cells that might not even—

“I’ve never— I didn’t think I could—” The words come out jagged. “I don’t know how to be someone’s mother.”