Page 62 of The Immortal’s Mark

“Traced through seven shell organizations.”

She whistles—low, impressed. “Your spymaster is terrifying.”

“Yes.”

“I like her.”

“That concerns me.”

She laughs. Not the laugh she gave Wei—shorter, sharper, aimed at me. I find I prefer it.

We do not mention last night.

We do not mention the garden, the jasmine, the way I said the court they could think what they wished and she said ‘same time’ like it was already decided. We do not mention that she is sitting slightly closer than she sat last night—close enough that I can smell jasmine and something underneath, something that is simply her. We do not mention that I am not moving away. That I have not moved away in days. That the distance between us on this bench has been shrinking by inches, and soon there will be no distance left.

The silence stretches.

It should feel dangerous. Silences in gardens have been weaponized before. Treaties have collapsed in silences like this, marriages dissolved, alliances shattered. I have seen men ruined by what they did not say in spaces like this.

This silence feels like breathing.

“The stars are different here,” she says. Quiet. Not filling silence anymore—just speaking. “The palace lights are too bright. I can only see the brightest ones.”

“There is an observatory in the eastern tower. The astronomers complain about the lanterns constantly.”

“Do you go there? To see the stars?”

“I used to.” The admission comes without planning. “Before the crown. I wanted to map them. Chart their movements. Understand why they seemed to rotate around a single fixed point while everything else changed.”

She is looking at me now. Not at the jasmine, not at the moon. At me.

“What happened?”

“I became the fixed point.” I do not know why I am telling her this. “Everything else rotates now. I stay still.”

She does not respond for a long moment. When she does, her voice is different. Softer.

“That sounds lonely.”

“It is what it is.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“No. It is not.”

She leaves before the moon reaches its apex. “Same time?” she asks, not looking at me, and I say “Same time” without considering whether I should.

The space where she sat is still warm when I finally rise to leave.

Later.

You are aware, Tianlong says, that this will end one of two ways.

I do not ask which two.

Either you will have her, or you will lose her. There is no third option where you keep circling each other in moonlight and calling it strategy.

I have no response that would not prove him right.

So I say nothing.

Which, of course, proves him right anyway.