Page 95 of The Immortal’s Mark

He considers this. Doesn’t deny it. “It was very good.”

“I know.”

“I would like to have another one tomorrow.”

“Sure.”

“And perhaps the day after.”

“We can discuss it.”

“He’s going to want them every day now,” Tianlong says. “I hope you understand what you’ve done. You have created a monster.”

I have.

That’s the problem.

The market sprawls in the way market towns do—organized chaos, stalls bleeding into each other, the permanent shops along the edges and the temporary sellers crowding every available inch of the square. It smells like cooking oil and incense and something rotten that no one wants to investigate too closely.

I navigate. He follows.

We pass a silk merchant hawking bolts of fabric in colors that would cost more than most people make in a year. A fortune teller with clouded eyes and a suspiciously accurate-sounding spiel about crossing paths with destiny. A weapons dealer whose wares look good but would shatter on the first real impact—pretty steel for pretty boys who’ve never actually fought anything.

Ren takes it all in with the intensity of a man seeing a new country for the first time. Which, I suppose, he is. The empire is his. But this—the grit of it, the smell, the press of ordinary people going about ordinary lives—this is foreign territory.

A stall catches my eye. Mostly junk—cracked pottery, produce that’s seen better days, a caged bird that looks personally offended by its existence. But there’s a basket in the corner.

Books. Water-damaged, dog-eared. The kind someone loved once and then lost—old bindings, older paper. The sort of collection that ends up at market stalls when estates are cleared or debts are called.

Ren’s hand goes to it before he can stop himself.

I watch him. I shouldn’t. There’s nothing tactical about this, nothing useful. Just an emperor touching the spine of a cheap poetry collection like it might bite him if he’s not careful.

He pulls one out. Thumbs through it. Something crosses his face—not quite pain, not quite longing. Something between.

“You can buy it,” I say.

“I do not need it.”

“When was the last time you bought something you didn’t need?”

He doesn’t answer. Which is answer enough.

The book is small. Worn. The binding is coming apart at the corners and someone has written notes in the margins in handwriting too faded to read. It costs four copper. I have four copper. The math is simple.

I buy it. Press it into his hands before he can object.

“Read it tonight,” I say. “Tell me which one you like best.”

“Lián—”

“Consider it an assignment.” I pause. The word is sitting right there, waiting. I’ve said it before—cover story, convenient fiction, necessary lie. But this time my mouth is doing something my brain didn’t authorize. “From your wife.”

He goes still.

Not emperor-still. Not the controlled stillness of a man who’s learned to give nothing away. Something else. Something I can’t read, which is terrifying because I’ve spent centuries learning to read people.

“Say that again.”