Page 107 of Night's Reckoning
The sun rose.
Tenzin rested. She meditated. She read books he had left at her house. She took shelter in the stone garden house where her father usually rested during the day. Its austerity calmed her riotous mind.
The sun reached its zenith.
She knew her father had already sent word to Penglai. There would be celebration on the island and preparations to feed and welcome the new immortal. The elder had chosen a son. The court would celebrate such an auspicious event. She looked at the calendar and noted the position of the moon. Predictions would be made based on the hour of his turning. There would be speculation. Gossip.
She steeled herself for the field of curious faces that would meet them.
When she felt the sun go down, she left the stone house and gathered Ben’s clothes, stuffing them into the spare backpack he’d left in his room. She walked out to the garden to see Zhang with Ben wrapped in a white sheet to protect his sleeping body from the wind and rain.
“I’ll be flying high and fast,” Zhang said. “Can you keep up?”
“Haven’t I always?”
Without another word, her father soared into the sky and out of sight.
27
His body hovered a foot over the bed with a single silk sheet draped over him. It was the lightest silk they could find, nearly transparent. His skin would ache. His throat would burn. He was in Tenzin’s rooms, surrounded by luxury and protected by a cadre of her father’s servants, but Tenzin would not leave him.
The first night of immortality was traumatic whether you were waking in a dirty tent or a palace.
She waited with fresh blood. Waited for Ben to open his eyes.
She would not apologize.
Tenzin saw the sheet begin to move first. His amnis was waking. It was confused. Chaotic. He drifted higher, and Tenzin gently tugged the sheet to keep him in place. His power was a tangible thing. She reached out and brushed against it, trying to bring him calm.
Tenzin sensed it a split second before it happened.
His back arched and he drew in a ragged breath—the first instinct of humanity—before his eyes flew open.
Tenzin darted toward him, holding his shoulders as he opened his mouth to scream.
“No!”
Her heart froze, but she held him.
His body bent in half; she knew the hunger was overwhelming. His stomach would cramp and burn until he fed it. She turned him on his side and pushed him as gently as she could down to the soft mattress. “You need to drink.”
His eyes flew to hers and she saw them for the first time; her breath caught.
My Benjamin.
She swallowed the knot in her throat and forced her face to remain calm.
His eyes, which had once been a warm, rich brown, had altered in immortality. They were a silvery-grey shade with dark flecks of gold.
“Tenzin?” His voice cracked. “It hurts.”
“I know,” she whispered. “You need to drink.”
She lifted a bag of blood and held it to him. The guttural snarl he let out should have been expected, but it still surprised her.
He grabbed her wrist to hold the bag in place as he bit, and she saw his fangs for the first time. They were long, thick, and lightly curved. She pushed back her instinctual reaction to seeing them and held steady as Ben tore into the plastic bag of blood.
Zhang had suggested a goblet, but Tenzin knew better. Ben would need to bite. Need to sink his fangs into something that gave way to quench the insatiable thirst.
