But as he reached for an empty tankard from farther down the bar, his sleeve shifted, and he glimpsed his wrist. His breath lurched in his throat.
There, barely visible against his skin, were marks. Dark lines that hadn’t been there this morning curled up from his wrist like smoke rendered in flesh. They were so faint he might have dismissed them as tricks of the firelight, but he knew better. He’d seen marks like these before.
The tankard slipped from his suddenly nerveless fingers, clattering on the bar and splattering warm dregs of ale. Several patrons looked up, but Sass was already there with a cloth, tsk-ing at him good-naturedly.
“Butter-fingers tonight, are we?” she said, but her expression was concerned. “You feeling all right, Vask?”
“Just weary,” he managed, pulling his sleeve down as far as it would go. “It's been a long day.”
Sass didn’t look convinced, but a call for ale from another table drew her back to the great room. It was Iris who didn’t look away, her dubious gaze following him as he attempted to go about his work.
The last time he’d seen dark marks etched in skin, the wearer had been consumed by dark magic. Dark magic that had rebounded on him. But Vaskel hadn’t been playing with magic of any kind.
The hellkin twitched as he thought back to that night on the cliffs. He had been in close contact with the dark magic. Could the marks have infected him? He shook his head, as if to dislodge the thought. He’d been fine for months, shown no signs, felt nothing unusual except...
Except for that prickling when he’d worn Iris’s ring that warned of danger. What if the danger it had been warning him about was himself? What if he was infected with dark magic?
“Vask?” Lira’s voice made him jump. She stood in the kitchen doorway, her auburn hair dusted with flour, worry pleating her brow. “Sass said you’re not feeling well. Do you need to take a break? We can handle the bar.”
“I’m fine,” he said, perhaps too quickly. “Just tired and overheated.”
Lira arched a brow at this. A hellkin too warm? Luckily, she didn’t call him on it.
“Go,” she said. “Get some fresh air.”
“That’s right.” Sass came behind the bar and used a dishtowel to shoo him away. “I can cover the bar for a bit. You take a breather.”
He mumbled thanks, grabbed his cloak from the peg behind the bar, tromped woodenly across the great room, and stepped out into the snowy night. The cold was biting, but he welcomed it. Maybe it would clear his head and help him think.
The snow cavorted in thick, lazy flakes through the night air, and his breath formed clouds in the cold as he pulled back his sleeve. The marks were clearer in the warm spill of light from the lantern over the door, winding around his wrist in delicate spirals, like ink traced beneath his skin.
“Hells and cinders,” he muttered, the pointed tip of his tail quivering like it often did when danger was approaching.
Behind him, the tavern door opened, gushing golden light and laughter into the darkness. He quickly yanked down his sleeve and turned to see Iris stepping out, wrapped in her heavy cloak.
“I thought you might need this,” she said, offering him a steaming mug. “Lira’s chai.”
He accepted it gratefully and let the warmth seep into his fingers. “Thank you.”
The apothecary bustled the front of her cloak together with one hand, the icy air clearly not as welcome for her. “Would you like to talk about it?”
For a moment, he considered telling her everything. Iris had been an adventurer herself once, after all. But the words died in his throat. What could he say? That he was cursed with dark magic? He didn’t even know that for sure. “It’s nothing.”
Iris studied him for a long moment, a shadow of a smile playing across her face, and he had the uncomfortable feeling she sawright through his lie. But she only patted his arm. “Maybe it’s that sore throat returning.”
He met her gaze, not sure if she was calling him out for all his feigned illnesses, but her expression betrayed nothing. “Maybe.”
She jerked her head toward the tavern door. “I’m going to have a chat with Lira about the wedding. You stay outside as long as you need.”
She rested her hand on his arm, and for a moment, the heat of her touch masked the prickling of his skin. Then she gave a quick squeeze and slipped back into the tavern, leaving him alone with the cascading snow and his swirling thoughts.
Vaskel stood under the creaking wooden tavern sign for a long while, watching the light from the leaded windows paint golden squares on the icy ground and trying to come up with explanations for his marks.
Every single one made his blood run cold.
Four
The heavy woodendoor thudded shut after the last patron stumbled outside, and Sass thunked a pair of tankards on the bar. “All clear!”
