Page 103 of Night's Reckoning
“From this night forward,” Zhang said, “he will be my child.”
She put her head back to the ground. “I understand.”
“Know that I will never command him to forgive you.”
Tenzin felt her heart move. She closed her eyes and felt Ben’s pulse inside her own body. Her heart beat in time with his.Thump. Thump. Thump. Her chest ached with the pain of it, but she welcomed that pain.
Then Ben’s heart faltered.
She closed her eyes. “Do it now.”
26
She heard his heart struggling. She heard it fall silent.
And then nothing.
Tenzin sat frozen in the courtyard, under the light of a waxing crescent moon. She held her breath, lifted her face, and prayed to the moon once more. She prayed to the stars and the sky. She prayed until the thin, golden thread of new amnis wound its way through her house and into the courtyard where she waited underneath the tangerine tree.
She’d sent Jinpa and Mei away from the house for the next day. Zhang and Tenzin would fly Ben to Penglai at dusk the next night, only hours before he would wake and become aware of what she had done.
Tenzin clung to his amnis. It was warm. Golden. It grounded her and gave her focus.
An hour after Ben’s heartbeat had gone quiet, Zhang called for her. He stood in the doorway of her home and allowed her inside. “He is as he will be.”
Tenzin walked into the house, noting the changes even before she saw him. His scent was different. His energy, once so ebullient, had deepened to a low, thrumming pulse she could almost feel against her skin.
Zhang had cut the black diving suit from his body and washed him, placing him on a pallet in her meditation room.
Shining boy.
Tenzin knelt down and brushed his hair back from his forehead.
One day you will be infinite.
His skin was pale with only a shadow of the summer tan he’d carried from Italy. The bruise on his lip would heal by morning. Every injury he’d worn was healing before her eyes. The wound from the sword. The gash in his belly. The nerves in his spine were knitting back together, fed by amnis that had been on this earth for over five millennia.
Old scars would remain, but his body was durable now. His mind was eternal.
“I need to tell you something.”
She had wanted to be the one to wash the seawater and blood off him. Wanted to care for him as his body transitioned from mortal to immortal.
“I love you. I love you so much.”
Would he remember?
Of course he would. He remembered everything.
“I have let you see him,” Zhang said. “Now you should go.”
“He will forgive me.” Tenzin didn’t move. “If it takes a century, I will wait.”
“A century?” Zhang’s eyes were pools of sorrow. “Oh, my daughter. I have waited far longer for forgiveness.”
She looked up at her father. “Do you compare my actions with yours?”
“I would not claim that.” Zhang sat across from her, Ben stretched out between them. “You acted out of love. I acted with only self-interest.”
