The Immortal’s Dawn (The Immortal and the Emperor #2)

1. The Biological Betrayal

The Biological Betrayal

Cold tile under my knees.

Dawn light through the window. The specific shade of grey that means the palace is waking up, the servants are stirring, and the Emperor’s Shadow—assassin, immortal, certified disaster—is hunched over a basin like a drunk outside a wine house.

Dignified. Very dignified.

The nausea rolls through me in waves—not the sharp, useful kind that comes with poison, but something slower. More insistent. More personal. My body has decided to stage a coup, and the new management has inconsiderate thoughts about everything I eat, smell, or look at sideways.

I’ve been poisoned thirty-seven times. Stabbed through the liver twice.

Once, a particularly creative enemy fed me to a kraken—don’t ask, the story involves a boat, a misunderstanding, and a really unfortunate case of mistaken identity.

None of that prepared me for the sheer biological betrayal of morning sickness.

The wave passes. Eventually.

I stay on the floor anyway. The tile is cool against my palms, smooth under my knees.

The tile doesn’t have opinions about my pregnancy.

The tile doesn’t want to discuss my feelings or offer helpful suggestions or look at me with that specific expression of careful concern that makes me want to stab something.

The tile is my new favorite thing in this palace.

I’ve died… alot of times. Swords, poison, fire, drowning, one memorable incident with a siege engine that I still don’t fully understand.

I’ve been beheaded, burned, buried alive, and once killed by a very angry goose—Death #412, we don’t talk about it.

But sure. Let’s add ‘defeated by a creature the size of a plum’ to the list.

The plum in question doesn’t care about my dignity. The plum has declared war on my stomach lining and shows no signs of negotiating a truce.

My stomach lurches again. I grip the edge of the basin.

Chapter 645 and my body has decided to rebel.

Wonderful. Marvellous. Exactly how I wanted to spend my morning.

Kneeling on cold tile, waiting for the next wave of mutiny, while somewhere out there an emperor is probably looking calm and composed and not at all like someone whose insides are trying to become outsides.

And now, I can hear footsteps in the corridor.

Of course. Of course someone is coming. It’s not enough that my intestines have declared independence; now I have to have an audience for it.

I push myself up. Wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. Attempt to look like something other than a woman who’s been thoroughly betrayed by her own biology.

The footsteps get closer.

I reach for a knife out of habit, then remember I’m in my nightclothes and the only weapon available is a decorative hair pin. Eight hundred years of survival instincts, and pregnancy has reduced me to hair accessories.

Grand.

Jing arrives first.

She’s carrying nineteen books. I count them because I’m avoiding eye contact, and because counting things is better than feeling things, and because if I look at her earnest, worried face I might actually cry, and that would be unacceptable.

Tears are for funerals and really good poetry.

Not for kind archivists with too much research.

“I brought research,” she says, like this is a problem that can be solved with sufficient documentation. “The imperial archives have extensive records on—”

“Jing.”

“—pregnancy symptoms and their management, and I’ve cross-referenced them with the medical texts from the Eastern provinces, and there’s a very thorough treatise by Scholar Wu that suggests ginger tea can—”

“Jing.”

“—alleviate morning sickness in the first trimester, though the dosage recommendations vary significantly between sources, and I’ve compiled a comparative analysis that I think you’ll find quite comprehensive, and I also found some historical records about imperial pregnancies that might be relevant to your specific situation given the—”

“Jing.” I hold up a hand. “I love you and I really don’t want to have to kill you. Please stop talking.”

She stops. Blinks. The books wobble dangerously in her arms. Her ink-stained fingers tighten on the spines, and for a moment she looks like a scholar about to lose her entire thesis to gravity.

“I read that mood changes are normal in early—”

“If you say ‘normal’ one more time, I will throw one of those books at you.”

She considers this. Adjusts her grip. Nods slowly.

“That’s also… expected behaviour.”

I don’t throw the book. It’s a near thing.

She leaves the stack by my door with a look that says she’ll be back, probably with more books, possibly with notes. She definitely has notes. She’s probably organized them by trimester, cross-referenced by symptom, with color-coded tabs for easy navigation.

I’ve known Jing for less than six months. She’s been alive approximately twenty-two years, and has already learned more about pregnancy than I have in eight centuries of occasionally seeing pregnant people. This is either impressive or concerning. Possibly both.

Wei arrives at breakfast.

This is worse.

General Wei does not do emotions. General Wei does strategy, logistics, and the kind of gruff disapproval that could wither crops at fifty paces.

General Wei once stared down a charging cavalry unit without blinking.

General Wei lost his son at Crimson Pass and buried his grief so deep it fossilized into something like bedrock.

But now General Wei is standing in my doorway with a scroll that I recognize, with sinking dread, as a security assessment.

For a baby that doesn’t exist yet.

“I’ve reviewed the proposed nursery locations,” he says.

“The nursery doesn’t exist yet.”

“That’s the problem.” He unfurls the scroll.

There are diagrams. Detailed diagrams. With measurements and sight lines and little arrows indicating potential threat vectors.

“This wing has three potential entry points that an assassin could exploit. The eastern chambers have better sight lines but are too close to the public corridors. I’ve identified twelve locations that meet minimum security requirements—”

“General.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “The baby is the size of a plum.”

Wei looks at me with the steady, immovable expression of a man who has survived three wars and buried one son and decided that he will bury no one else. Not on his watch. Not if he can help it.

“Plums can be assassinated.”

I open my mouth.

Close it.

He has a point. I hate that he has a point.

I’ve been an assassin for three centuries; I’ve killed targets who were better protected than an unborn baby.

The fact that this particular baby is inside me, protected by my own immortality, is beside the point.

Wei doesn’t know about that. Wei just knows that threats exist and his job is to stop them.

“I’ve assigned preliminary guard rotations,” he continues. “For the room that doesn’t exist yet. Which will need to be constructed to these specifications—” More diagrams. “—if we’re going to maintain adequate security coverage for—”

“A fruit,” I say. “You’ve assigned guards to protect a fruit.”

“An imperial fruit.”

The corner of his mouth twitches. It might be a smile. It might be indigestion. With Wei, it’s hard to tell.

I let him finish. It’s easier than arguing, and somewhere underneath the tactical analysis, underneath the guard rotations and the threat assessments, there’s something almost like care.

Wei lost his son—sixteen years old, holding a corridor so others could escape.

He doesn’t talk about it. He doesn’t have to.

The way he’s holding that scroll, like protecting this nursery is a battle he refuses to lose—

I don’t throw anything at him either.

Mei arrives at lunch.

This is the worst.

Lady Mei is the imperial spymaster, which means she knows everything about everyone, which means she’s probably known about this pregnancy since before I did.

She moves like smoke through the doorway, settles into a chair without being invited, and produces a piece of paper from her sleeve with the casual grace of someone who has hidden knives in worse places.

“I’ve prepared a list,” she says.

“A list of what?”

“People I’d like permission to eliminate. Preemptively.” She slides the paper across the table. “Just in case.”

I look at the list.

It’s long. Disturbingly long. The handwriting is elegant, precise, the kind of penmanship they teach in noble households. Each name is followed by a brief notation—position, potential threat level, suggested method of removal.

“Mei.” I scan the names. “Half of these people are foreign diplomats.”

“Your point?”

“You can’t assassinate the Xiang ambassador because he looked at me funny during last month’s trade negotiations.”

“I’m not suggesting assassination.” Her fan moves slowly, deliberately. The fan that definitely has a blade hidden in it, because Mei’s accessories are like Mei herself—beautiful and deadly. “I’m suggesting... contingency planning.”

“There are fourteen people on this list.”

“It was twenty-three. I’ve already handled nine.”

I don’t ask what ‘handled’ means. I don’t want to know.

Mei’s version of care involves a lot of poison and limited witnesses, and right now, with my stomach still churning and my head pounding and everyone in this palace looking at me like I’m made of something breakable, I find that I don’t entirely mind.

It’s nice to know someone is handling the murder. Frees me up to focus on the vomiting.

“The remaining five will require your authorization,” she says. “Given their political positions.”

“I’ll consider it.”

She nods. Rises. Pauses at the door.

“You look terrible,” she says.

“Thank you, Mei. That’s very helpful.”

“I mean it with affection.” The ghost of a smile, there and gone. “Get some rest. You’re carrying the imperial heir. Try not to die before dinner.”

“I’ll do my best.”

She leaves. I look at the list again.