Page 32 of The Immortal’s Mark

The cavern opens.

Tianlong fills it.

Even after twenty-two years, the sight catches my breath. He is enormous—scales like hammered gold catching the crystal-light, each one the size of my spread hand, layered in patterns that speak of age beyond counting. His eyes are ancient furnaces, holding centuries of watching empires rise and fall, of seeing men become legends and legends become dust. His head alone is the size of my chambers. His body coils through the cavern like a river of fire made flesh, disappearing into shadows that go deeper than the crystals can illuminate.

The heat is immediate. Not burning, but present. Like standing in sunlight, except we are deep beneath the earth and there is no sun—only him. Only fire made patient. Only three thousand years of existence compressed into scales and eyes and breath.

I glance at her. Waiting.

She does not kneel.

She does not bow.

She looks Tianlong in the eye—those ancient eyes that have witnessed more deaths than she has died—and says:

“You’re smaller than I expected.”

My heart stops.

I have seen generals blanch before Tianlong. I have seen ambassadors from rival kingdoms fall to their knees, weeping, overwhelmed by the presence of something so vast and ancient that their minds could not hold it. I have seen hardened soldiers forget their training and their pride and every lesson of courage they ever learned.

She stands there with her chin lifted and insults him.

The silence stretches. I wait for fire, for fury, for the ancient wrath of three thousand years—

Tianlong laughs.

The sound rolls through the cavern like thunder, shaking stone, making the crystals ring. I have not heard him laugh like this in years.

I like her, he says to me, amusement rippling through the bond.

I do not respond. I am still trying to restart my heart.

Tianlong turns his attention fully to her now. His eyes—gold and ancient and knowing—study her with an intensity I recognize. He is seeing something. Reading something.

“You carry old magic, daughter of dawn.”

His voice.

Aloud.

Not to me, not through the bond. Not warmth in my skull, private and familiar. He is speaking aloud. In the air. Where she can hear him without any bond at all.

“Older than this empire.”

I cannot move.

“Older than me, maybe.”

Dragons speak only to their bonded. This is known. This is absolute. This is the foundation of everything I understand about the bond, the fire, the ancient compact between dragon and emperor—

This should not be possible.

Her face. I see it change. The armor that never cracks—I watch it crack. Her eyes widen. Her hand moves toward her throat, then stops. She is shaken. Truly shaken. For the first time since I have known her.

I should not feel protective of someone who tried to kill me.

I feel it anyway.