Page 39 of The Immortal’s Mark

His study smells like ink and paper and sandalwood. I notice this. I wish I hadn’t noticed this. I notice a lot of things I wish I hadn’t noticed lately.

“The payment passed through three intermediaries before reaching the contractor who hired me.” I spread the documents across his desk, keeping my voice professional. Clipped. Safe. “Standard obscuring. But the second layer connects to a merchant house with court ties.”

He looks up from whatever he was reading. “Which house?”

“Still working on that. The records are…” I gesture vaguely. “Creatively maintained.”

“Show me.”

I expected him to nod, to pass the work to an advisor, to do what emperors do. He doesn’t. He actually takes the documents. Actually reads them.

His hands—

Burn scars across both palms. Old ones, clean and pale against his skin. The dragon bond, must be. I’ve seen marks like that before, on priests who survived temple fires and soldiers who walked through things they shouldn’t have. His are worn smooth by years. He doesn’t try to hide them. Doesn’t angle his grip to keep them out of sight like most people do with their scars.

His grip is precise. Fingers that know paper, that move through records without hesitation. He reads like he’s looking for something specific—methodical, thorough. Most rulers skim and pretend otherwise. He doesn’t bother pretending.

Focus on the money.

Money doesn’t have hands. Money doesn’t have burn scars that make you wonder what he felt when the dragon chose him. Money doesn’t—

I focus on the money.

“Here.” He points to a discrepancy I’d already marked. “The timber shipment. The quantities don’t match the reported prices.”

I blink. “You noticed that.”

“It suggests either a tax evasion scheme or a secondary revenue stream.” He’s still looking at the documents. “Given the amounts, I’d assume the latter.”

Right. He’s actually smart. I keep forgetting that. Or keep trying to forget it. One of those.

“The secondary stream leads somewhere,” I say. “A warehouse in the merchant district. The address shows up three times in the payment records, always in connection with the same intermediary.”

“Then we should see it.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

We work through the rest of the documents together. He asks questions—good ones, the kind that prove he understood what I just explained and is already two steps ahead. I answer them. The rhythm is easy. Comfortable.

I don’t like comfortable.

“You’re not actually bad at this,” I say, and immediately wish I hadn’t.

He glances up. “For an emperor?”

“For anyone.”

The words are out before I can catch them. That was almost a compliment. I don’t give those. I give threats and sarcasm and occasionally stab wounds, but compliments are not part of my usual vocabulary.

Something in his face shifts. Not quite a smile. Almost. He catches it before it forms completely.

So do I.

We both pretend we didn’t notice.

He goes back to the documents. I go back to not looking at his hands.

We’re working through another manifest when I open my mouth.