Page 75 of The Immortal’s Mark

Close enough that I could reach out. Close enough that the space between us feels like the most important distance in the empire.

Move your hand, little flame, Tianlong murmurs. Four inches. Perhaps five. I have watched glaciers advance with more urgency.

I do not move.

She is not moving away. You see this, yes? In three thousand years of observing your species fumble toward connection, this is—

Your commentary is not required.

It is absolutely required. You are going to die of old age—an impressively extended old age, granted, but still—without ever once taking what is in front of you. A pause. Move. Your. Hand.

My fingers twitch. The space between us hums with something I cannot name.

She glances down. Sees the distance. Sees me seeing it.

Neither of us moves.

Neither of us moves away.

Coward, Tianlong says, but there is warmth in it. Something almost like pride. Tomorrow, then. Or the day after. I am old. I can wait.

The moment holds. The sun rises. The city wakes.

“We should go back,” she says finally. “Before someone notices we’re both missing and draws unfortunate conclusions.”

“Yes.”

Neither of us moves.

Then she pushes off the railing, and the spell breaks—but gently, like a soap bubble releasing rather than bursting. She pauses at the top of the stairs, looking back at me with an expression I cannot quite read.

“Thank you,” she says. “For… this.” A gesture that encompasses the terrace, the sunrise, the confession she did not ask for but received anyway.

“Thank you for listening.”

“Seems only fair.” The armor is rebuilding, the humor returning to her voice. “You listened to me talk to a cat for ten minutes. Consider us even.”

She descends before I can respond.

I remain on the terrace a moment longer, watching the sun climb higher, feeling the warmth on my face and the jade comb cool in my pocket.

Something is taking root in my chest. I identify it clinically: a loosening. An easing of pressure I have carried so long I forgot it was there.

I do not name it. Naming things gives them power.

But it feels, dangerously, like the beginning of something.

Better, Tianlong says quietly. That was better.

For once, I do not argue.