Page 20 of The Immortal’s Mark

When I reach the imperial library, there is light bleeding from beneath the doors.

I should not be surprised. I know who I will find.

She is surrounded by histories.

They spread around her in organized chaos—scrolls unrolled, books stacked in precarious towers, loose papers weighted with ink stones. A single lamp burns at her elbow, casting her face in gold and shadow. Her hair has come loose from whatever arrangement imprisoned it during court, and she is frowning at a document as if it has personally offended her.

She does not startle when I enter. Does not look up.

“You walk loudly for someone who has just survived an assassination attempt,” she says.

She does not bother with formalities. With the official titles. She does not bow. Another emperor would have her executed. It would be a waste of time. Instead, I wonder why I do not care.

“You heard me coming.”

“Since the east corridor.” She sets down the document.

“Researching how to kill me more effectively?” I ask.

“Researching who might want you dead.” She gestures at the chaos around her. “The list is impressively long.” She looks at me. Her eyes are dark in the lamplight, assessing, amused. “I am starting to wonder what you did to deserve it.”

“An emperor’s prerogative.”

“An emperor’s curse.” She taps the document in front of her. “Three families. The Chens of the southern province. The Wangs of the eastern coast. The Lius of—” She pauses. “Well. We know about the Lius.”

I move closer. The lamp casts strange shadows across the histories, illuminating names I have not thought of in years.

“All three opposed expansion of the silk trade routes,” she continues. “All three died within two years of their opposition. Accidents. Illness. A hunting incident that was remarkably convenient for the merchants’ guild.” She spreads her hands over the papers. “Your scholars have been looking for a conspiracy in the present. The roots are twenty years deep.”

I stare at the documents. At the pattern she has found in hours that my advisors missed for two decades.

“Why?”

The word comes out before I can stop it. She looks up. The lamp flickers. Her eyes hold something I cannot name.

“Boredom,” she says, “is a worse death than any you could give me. And this—” She gestures at the conspiracy laid bare between us. “—is the most interesting puzzle I have had in decades.”

She is not lying. I would know if she were lying. After eight centuries of survival, she has surely learned every variant of deception, and yet what I see in her face is genuine. Interest. Engagement. The professional satisfaction of competence applied to worthy challenge.

I should not find this amusing.

The corner of my mouth curves.

She notices. I see her notice—the slight widening of her eyes, the flicker of something that might be surprise. Neither of us acknowledges it. The moment stretches. The lamp burns. Outside these walls, the empire sleeps, and in here there is only the smell of old paper and lamp oil and something else, something that shifts between us like a current I do not know how to name.

“Continue your research,” I say. My voice is not quite steady. I note this. I do not correct it. “Report what you find.”

“Directly to you?”

“Directly to me.”

She nods. Returns to her histories. I should leave. I do not. Not immediately. I watch her work—the way her fingers move across the documents, the small furrow between her brows, the unconscious rhythm of her breathing.

She looks up. Catches me watching.

“You should sleep,” she says. “Even emperors need rest.”

“Even assassins need rest.”