Page 48 of The Immortal’s Mark

“You could ignore me.”

“I could.” She closes her eyes. “I find I do not want to.”

The admission hangs between us. Neither of us examines it.

“Good,” I say. “You should rest.”

“You should leave.”

Neither statement is a request. Neither of us moves.

The hour is improper. I have been here through three hours of waiting and however long since she woke. Dawn light creeps through the window screens, pale gold against dark silk. The court will be stirring. The whispers that started in the streets will have reached every corner of the palace by now.

I do not leave.

“The servants will talk,” she says.

“They already talk.”

“The court will have opinions.”

“The court always has opinions.” I settle deeper into the chair. I have not moved from her side since I sat down. I do not plan to move now. “I find I care about them less than I once did.”

She turns her head on the pillow to look at me. Her hair is matted with dried blood, her face still pale from resurrection, her eyes shadowed with exhaustion. She should look terrible.

She does not.

“Perhaps,” she says. “That is why so many people want you dead.”

“Perhaps.”

The silence stretches. It is comfortable now, in a way I did not know silence could be with another person. I have spent twenty-two years filling silences with strategy, with careful words, with the endless performance of emperor. This silence requires nothing.

“I didn’t have to move.” Her voice is quiet. “When the bolt—I could have let it hit you.”

“I know.”

“You would have survived. The dragon bond. You healed from the poison.”

“Yes.”

“It might have hurt. A lot. But you would have lived.”

“Probably.”

She looks at the ceiling. Her throat moves as she swallows. “I don’t know why I did it.”

“I know.”

Same answer. Same truth. Neither of us knows why we are doing what we are doing. We are doing it anyway.

“You stayed,” she says.

“Yes.”

“The whole time. Three hours.”

“Three and a half.”