Page 51 of These Immortal Truths
“Would that bother you?”
“It would be a gross waste of the gifts you’ve been given.” His eyes meet hers. Anna wonders how dark his eyes would be in the light of day. “It’s a big world. It would be a shame not to know it.”
“See it, you mean?”
He shrugs. “Give it a few more centuries and seeing won’t be enough. There is so much that the eyes can’t see. Textures to be felt, tastes to be experienced, cultures to be learned.” His eyes slide to hers, so dark and still they reflect the moonlight better than the ocean below them. “If you don’t feel it now, you will.”
Anna doesn’t, but she believes him. It’s hard not to when he’s been right about so much else. “Isthat what you do?”
“Something like that. How is your Cantonese coming along?”
“It’s so very different from what I know. It’s taking me longer.” She breathes a laugh, shaking her head. “Though I suppose I started learning centuries ago, in a way. It’s funny. After all these years, I still remember the name of the fruit you gave me. Still remember the taste of it.”
“Immortality leaves an impression, whether it’s bitter or sweet.”
Anna hums. “I was told a story the other day,” she says, mouth quirking. “About Sun Wukong. You wouldn’t have heard of him, would you?”
“Born from a rock and dismissed by the Jade Emperor for being a nuisance?” His grin is wicked. “I’m not sure I’m familiar. Was he devastatingly handsome?”
“I’m told he’s a naked monkey.”
His smile doesn’t slip. “Tell a story enough and the details are bound to change over time. Man has a habit of omitting and embellishing where they see fit. Time touches everything.”
“Not you,” Anna murmurs, humor faltering. “Not me.”
“Yes, me.” His eyes are dark, but for a sliver of a moment she thinks she catches a glimpse of pale green. “Especiallyyou. Nothing is immune to change, Anna. Not the mountains or the oceans. There is nothing more inevitable; nothing else that unites us so indiscriminately.”
She looks down at her hands, picking at the calluses lining her palms. They were there in the beginning, too. Somehow she knows that’s not what he means. There are more scars on her heart now. More heartbreak and tragedies. Time has hardened her; made her numb to all the death and suffering of the world.
And, in that moment, she realizes that she misses the woman she was.
“It’s a hard truth,” he soothes, “but there’s comfort in it, too. Don’t you think?”
Anna looks up at the stars and wonders how much they’ve changed without her noticing. If something as vast and endless as the heavens can’t resist, she supposes it’s folly to believe that she can. “Maybe,” she murmurs, brow creasing. She faces him,bolstering her courage because there is only one person she can trust to answer her with honesty. “Am I heartless?”
Surprise flits across his eyes, creasing his brow. “Heartless?” he echoes. “How—”
“It hurts less now,” she blurts, the words leaving her in a rush before he can finish his thought. “The death, the pain. It doesn’t hurt like it used to.”
Confusion softens into sad understanding. “No, Anna. Of all the people in this world, I think you’ve more heart than any of them.”
Anna shakes her head, arms wrapping around her waist. “I don’t feel like it,” she murmurs, looking across the water. “I’ve watched prisoners wither and starve and I felt nothing for their suffering.”
He raises a brow. “Nothing?”
“Not enough.”
His chuckle is too light for such a heavy topic, but it floats between them. “Only you would consider offering your meal to the same men who spat at your feet as not caring enough.”
“How did—”
“You’re on the ship of the most successful pirate on the seas. Did you not expect me to check on you?”
Anna frowns. “I didn’t see you.”
“Sometimes I don’t wish to be found.” Then, as if only to appease her, he confesses. “I stayed only long enough to see that you weren’t in any danger.” His eyes soften. “You’re no monster, Anna. No matter how much guilt you bury yourself under. Your heart is only harder because it has to be.” He places a hand over her chest, high above her heart. She can feel it racing beneath his palm. “It deserves to be protected, too.”
It takes a week to reach shore. A week where Anna enjoys the feeling of wind in her hair and salt on her lips, of sharingstories and culture over tea. A week where she thinks this life is one she could continue to live longer than the rest.
