Page 77 of The Immortal’s Mark

He doesn’t.

The silence stretches. I can hear my own heartbeat, steady and unhurried. Eight hundred years of practice at waiting for dangerous men to make dangerous decisions.

“It takes three weeks,” he says finally.

“Give or take.”

“Disguises.”

“Obviously.”

“A cover story.”

“Merchant and wife.” The words come out smooth, professional. I’ve used this cover before, different centuries, different partners, different—

Wife.

The word hangs between us like incense smoke.

I don’t look at him. Very specifically don’t look at him. My knife keeps flipping—silver-white-silver-white—and I focus on that instead of the heat climbing up the back of my neck.

“It’s the most common cover for mixed-gender travel,” I say, and my voice doesn’t waver. Good. “Two merchants would be questioned. A married couple draws less attention.”

“I see.”

That’s all he says. I see. Two words, perfectly neutral, carrying absolutely no weight whatsoever except for the weight of three weeks of shared rooms and shared meals and shared everything that “merchant and wife” implies.

I should not have said merchant and wife.

The silence stretches. I’m very carefully not thinking about the word wife.

“There’s a complication,” Ren says.

I wait.

“The bond has… requirements.” His voice is careful. Measured. “Distance deteriorates it. If Tianlong and I are separated too far, for too long—” He stops. Starts again. “We both begin to decline. Mentally. Physically.”

Three weeks. Three weeks’ ride south.

“How far is too far?”

“We’ve never tested it.” A pause. “Neither of us wanted to know.”

I file that away. The Emperor of the Jade Throne, afraid to learn the limits of his own power. The ancient dragon, unwilling to risk his bonded. There’s something almost tender in that mutual cowardice.

“I have a plan for the dragon,” I say.

Tianlong’s lair is warm.

Not the warmth of braziers or summer sun—something deeper. Ancient. The kind of heat that seeps up from stone that’s been absorbing dragon fire for thirty centuries. The air tastes of minerals and old magic, copper and ozone and something that might be the residue of stars.

The passage descends for what feels like miles, carved through bedrock that predates the palace, predates the dynasty, predates everything human hands have built above. The walls are smooth—not from tools, but from the passage of something massive moving through them for millennia.

When the cavern opens, I still lose my breath.

I’ve been here once before. Tianlong had addressed me then—voice echoing off stone, ancient and amused, while I tried not to stare. I’d thought I was prepared this time.

I was wrong.