Later that night, I lay on the narrow bed in my cabin, staring at the wooden ceiling. The fire had died to embers, casting long shadows that danced across the walls like memories given form. Sleep wouldn't come—it rarely did on nights like this, when the past pressed close and demanded to be felt.
And so, I let myself remember. The most and last memory I had of him.
The year was April of 1943, and I was in Malaya.
The world was at war—again. I had lost count of how many wars I had witnessed, how many times humanity found new and inventive ways to destroy itself. But this one felt different. This one felt personal, somehow, as if the darkness my king had once held at bay was now seeping through every crack in the world's defences.
I had been making my way towards Singapore, believing that the British stronghold might offer some semblance of safety. Thomas—my steward, now in his late-twenties and built like a pillar of muscle from years of service—had secured passage on a boat heading west, back to England, back to somewhere that wasn't here. But I couldn't leave. Not yet. Something had pulled me inland, toward the jungles, toward the chaos.
The roads were a nightmare.
Japanese patrols swept through villages with terrifying efficiency, leaving destruction in their wake. Bodies hung from trees as warnings. Homes burned. The air smelled of smoke and death and something else—something that made my immortal skin crawl. The darkness was here, feeding on the violence, growing fat on human suffering.
Our truck—a rickety thing held together by hope and stolen fuel—rumbled along a dirt track through dense jungle. Thomas drove, his jaw set, his eyes constantly scanning for threats. I sat in the back with a few other refugees: a Malay family with wide, terrified eyes, an old Chinese woman who hadn't spoken in days, and a young Eurasian girl clutching a ragged doll.
We were hours from the next village when the truck screeched to a halt.
"Out!" Thomas shouted. "Everyone out, now!"
Before I could process, figures emerged from the jungle—young men, barely more than boys, their faces gaunt with hunger but their eyes burning with desperate determination. They surrounded the truck, crude weapons raised: parangs, sharpened sticks, one ancient rifle that looked like it might explode if fired.
One of them stepped forward. He was taller than the others, with sharp cheekbones and dark eyes that held a fire I recognized immediately. It was a fire I had seen in a hundred faces across a hundred lifetimes—the fire of a leader, of someone who would die for what he believed in.
He spoke in rapid Cantonese, demanding supplies, food, anything that could help his people survive.
I understood every word.
The language came easily—I had learned it centuries ago from a wandering monk who had taken me in during the Tang dynasty in 800AD. He had taught me not just to speak, but to hear the poetry beneath the words, the history embedded in every tone. It was a gift that had served me across countless encounters.
Before Thomas could respond, before anyone could move, I stepped forward and spoke.
"We have food. Medicine. Not much, but you're welcome to it."
The young man's eyes widened. His comrades stared, weapons faltering. A white woman—a Caucasian woman—speaking Cantonese. And not just speaking it, but speaking it fluently, with the correct tones, with the cadence of someone who had grown up with the language.
"You... you speak our tongue?" he asked, disbelief evident.
"I've had good teachers," I replied simply.
Thomas grabbed my arm. "Are you insane? We need those supplies to get to Singapore."
"They need them more." I turned to face him, letting him see the steel in my eyes. "We have our passes. Our papers. That's enough. Without food, these boys will die in this jungle. Is that what you want?"
Thomas released my arm, his expression shifting from anger to something softer. He had learned, over the years as a member of the Silas, not to argue with me when I used that tone.
The young man—his name, I would learn, was Chen Wei—watched the exchange with growing fascination. When I turned back to him, he was staring at me with an intensity that made my heart ache with recognition.
"Take what you need," I said switching back to Cantonese. "All of it."
His comrades moved forward cautiously, gathering the supplies. But Chen Wei didn't move. He stood there, looking at me, and I looked back, and for a long, suspended moment, the war didn't exist. The jungle didn't exist. Nothing existed except the pull between us—that ancient, familiar pull that had guided me across centuries.
One of his comrades, a stocky boy with a scar across his cheek, grabbed Chen Wei's arm. "We should take her. She knows too much. She's seen our faces. If the Japanese capture her—"
Chen Wei shook his head. "She's not a threat."
"You don't know that."
"I know." His eyes never left mine. "She's coming with us as a guest but not a prisoner."
Thomas stepped forward, positioning himself between me and the young men. "Absolutely not. She's under my protection. You can't just—"
"It's alright, Thomas." I placed a hand on his arm. "I'll go with them. You continue to Singapore so the passengers would be safe in Singapore. Make sure they have food and shelter. I'll find you when I can."
"That's not—"
"Thomas." I used the tone again. He stopped. Got on the truck and drove off when the truck was emptied.
So, I went with them.
The camp was hidden deep in the jungle; a collection of bamboo huts and canvas tents tucked beneath the canopy. There were maybe forty of them—students, mostly, who had fled the cities when the Japanese invaded. Some were as young as fifteen. All were starving.
Chen Wei showed me around with a quiet pride that broke my heart. He was their leader, their protector, the one who kept them alive through sheer force of will. He was twenty-two years old.
"We had a teacher," he told me that first night, as we sat by a small fire. "Professor Liang. He organized us, taught us how to survive. The Japanese found him three months ago." He paused, his jaw tightening. "They hung his head in the town square. Made us watch."
I reached out and touched his hand—just briefly, just enough. "I'm sorry."
He looked at me, and in the firelight, I saw the question forming in his eyes. "Who are you? Really? A white woman who speaks Cantonese, who travels alone through a war zone, who gives away her supplies without hesitation. You're not a refugee. You're something else."
I could have lied. I should have lied. But something about those eyes—those ancient, familiar eyes—made me want to tell the truth, or at least a version of it.
"I'm a traveller," I said. "I've been traveling for a very long time. I've learned many things. Many languages. Many ways of surviving."
"How did you get past the Japanese checkpoints?"
"I speak Japanese too." I smiled slightly. "And I'm very good at negotiation."
It was true, in a way. Over countless lifetimes, I had learned from masters—politicians, diplomats, leaders who could sway crowds with a single word. Many of them had been him, in one life or another. The skills had accumulated, layering on top of each other like sediment, until negotiation was as natural to me as breathing.
Chen Wei stared at me for a long moment. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed—a sound so bright and unexpected that it made the other refugees turn and stare.
"You are the strangest person I have ever met," he said.
"I get that a lot."
The days that followed were a strange kind of peace.
I helped where I could—tending wounds, sharing knowledge of edible plants, teaching some of the younger students basic first aid. Chen Wei and I talked for hours, sitting by the fire after the others had slept. He told me about his life before the war: his family's small shop in Kuala Lumpur, his dreams of becoming a teacher, the girl whom he hadn't loved but who had loved him fiercely—she had died in the first bombing, along with his entire family. His parents. His three siblings, ages ranging from three to sixteen. All gone in a single moment.
I told him stories too—carefully edited versions of my endless life. I spoke of mountains and oceans, of cities that no longer existed, of people I had loved and lost. I never mentioned immortality. I never mentioned the curse. But I think, on some level, he understood that I was not like other people.
One night, as the jungle sounds rose around us, he reached out and took my hand. His fingers were warm, calloused, real.
"When this is over," he said quietly, "if we survive—I want to be with you. In whatever life comes next."
My heart seized. He didn't know. He couldn't know. And yet, somehow, his soul was reaching across the void, saying the same words his previous incarnations had said a hundred times before.
"That would be nice," I whispered. "I accept the offer."
He didn't ask what I meant. He just held my hand tighter, and we watched the fire burn down to embers, and for a few precious hours, the war didn't exist.