Page 47 of The Immortal’s Mark

A pause. I watch her armor try to reassemble. It does not quite manage.

“That was a first.”

I should say something appropriate. Something measured. Something that acknowledges the tactical implications of her choice without addressing the personal ones.

“Thank you.”

Two words. They carry everything I cannot say.

She looks at me. I look at her. The silence is not uncomfortable. It is weighted with things neither of us is ready to name.

She reaches for the investigation because it is easier than silence. Because talking about conspiracy is safer than talking about what just happened. Because she is rebuilding her armor one word at a time, and I recognize the strategy because I have used it myself.

“The list.” Her voice is stronger now, the rough edge fading with each breath. “From the warehouse. I need to break the cipher.”

I focus. Or try to. The investigation. Right. The conspiracy that nearly killed us both. The reason we were in that warehouse. The reason she—

I focus.

“The cipher,” I repeat.

“The names will connect to someone.” She is watching my face, cataloging my reaction. Even now. Even minutes after returning from death. Even with blood still drying in her hair. “The funding trail. The symbols. It all leads somewhere.”

I should be taking notes. I should be summoning scribes, advisors, someone to record this properly. Instead I am sitting beside her bed, close enough to touch her if I reached out, watching her chest rise and fall with each breath.

She shifts on the bed—testing her body, I realize. Confirming that everything works. She pushes herself up against the pillows—my pillows—and something in the movement catches my attention. The way she winces, slight but present.

“The resurrection takes it out of me. Before you ask.”

I had not planned to ask. I had planned to not notice that she was in discomfort, because noticing would require acknowledging that I care about her discomfort.

I noticed anyway.

You are sitting very close, Tianlong observes, for two people discussing treason.

The humor is back. That means he believes the crisis has passed. I should find comfort in this. Instead I find irritation.

She nearly died.

She did die, he corrects, not unkindly. And now she is alive again, and you are sitting close enough to count her eyelashes, and I am simply making an observation.

I do not respond to him. I am watching her hands—restless, already wanting to work. I am noting the way her chest rises and falls. I am counting her breaths without meaning to.

“I should cross-reference the financial manifests,” she continues. “Trace the intermediaries back to—”

“Tomorrow.”

She stops. Looks at me.

“The investigation can wait until tomorrow,” I say. “You need to rest.”

“I’ve had worse.”

“I know.” I meet her eyes. Hold them. “Rest anyway.”

For a moment I think she will argue. She is built for argument, for deflection, for filling silence with noise and motion. But something in my face must communicate what I cannot say, because she subsides against the pillows with only a small sound of irritation.

“Emperors,” she mutters. “Always giving orders.”