Page 44 of The Immortal’s Mark

Chapter 8

Resurrection

Emperor Ren

I have seen men die. I have never seen anyone come back.

The last of the cultists falls. I do not remember killing him. My hands are doing things my mind has not approved—dragon fire flickering at my fingertips, called without thought, burning through flesh that tried to hurt her.

That tried to hurt her.

I turn.

She is still.

The stillness is wrong. She is never still. She moves constantly—shifting weight, checking exits, hands near weapons. She fills every room with noise and motion and commentary I pretend to find irritating. She is chaos given human form.

Yet now, she is still.

I am kneeling. I do not remember deciding to kneel. Stone bites through silk. Her blood spreads beneath my palms, warm and wrong and everywhere.

My hands are shaking.

I cannot make them stop. I have watched brothers die and not wept. I have held myself still through coup attempts and poison and the slow work of court betrayal. I have commanded armies. I have burned traitors with dragon fire and felt nothing but grim necessity.

Yet now, my hands are shaking.

She should not matter this much. She tried to kill me five days ago. She is a tool, an asset, a temporary alliance born of mutual convenience.

She moved without hesitation. I saw it happen—the archer on the roof, the bolt aimed at my back, her body already in motion before I understood the threat. She did not pause. She did not calculate. She simply moved.

And now she is still.

I press my fingers to her throat. Nothing. I press harder, as if pressure might create a pulse through sheer imperial will.

Little flame. The guards come. Tianlong’s voice, distant. I cannot read his tone. I cannot read anything.

Let them come.

She needs to be moved.

I do not respond. I am watching her face—the sharp angles, the impossible youth that masks eight centuries, the mouth that always held a joke or a threat or both. Still now. Wrong.

Her blood is cooling on my hands.

The guards arrive. Too late. Always too late.

“Your Majesty—” One of them reaches for her body. Practical. Efficient. Doing his job.

“Do not touch her.”

The words come out in a voice I do not recognize. Low. Raw. The guard’s hand stops mid-reach. He looks at me—really looks—and I watch him see something that makes him step back.

Good.

I gather her. She is lighter than I expected, for someone who carries so much. Her head falls against my shoulder. Her arm hangs loose. I adjust my grip, pulling her closer, and something in my chest cracks along fault lines I did not know existed.

Bring her home, Tianlong says. Not mocking. Not amused. Just that. Bring her home.