Bull’s eye rashes covered the entire length of Braeden's arm and his tattoo was distorted by crusted, pustular lesions that peppered his skin from the midpoint of his limb and above. The pent-up fluid in his upper arm had leaked out and dried in yellow slabs, giving his skin a deflated, rubberized appearance. Now Sam could see that the demon’s teeth had speared the eyes of the lion’s head inked on Braeden’s shoulder. Half of the lion’s face was blotted out by the telltale black of necrosis and its mane was streaked with blood and pus.

“Is it that bad?” Braeden asked.

Sam slapped her forehead with her palm. “You can’t see your shoulder properly, can you? I’m no doctor, but I’d wager my right hand that your wound is infected.” She touched his brow again and hissed. Braeden’s skin was so hot he had actually scalded her. “And you have a ridiculously high fever. You need a doctor.”

Braeden gingerly sat up, using his good arm to shift his weight. “Sam, I appreciate your concern, but stop treating me like I’m human. I’m not. This illness or whatever it is will pass on its own accord.”

Sam bit her lip. “Will you at least let me help you wash it? It can’t be good to leave dirt in an open wound, even for you.”

“If you must.”

“Thank you. I’ll be back with supplies in a minute. Don’t move from this spot,” she said sternly.

Sam filled a small basin with water in the privy and retrieved a spare tunic and salve from her pack. She soaked the tunic in the water and then returned to Braeden’s side on the pallet. “Put your hand on my lap,” she said. She gently wiped away the dried blood and debris on his forearm. “Does this feel okay?”

Braeden nodded, his lids heavy. “Feels good.”

Sam edged her ministrations higher on his arm, lightening her strokes when Braeden jerked at her touch. “Still okay?” she asked.

“Fine,” Braeden said between clenched teeth.

“I’m going to clean your shoulder now,” she told him. She brought the wet tunic close to the teeth marks, hovering right above the angry skin. “Here goes,” she said, and pressed the fabric to the wound. The instant she touched him, Braeden’s eyes rolled up into his head and he fell back against the bed.

For a panicked second, Sam thought he might be dead. But he was still breathing. She all but sobbed in relief at the steady up and down movement of his chest. “Idiot man,” she said to his passed out form. “I’m getting Tristan. If you die while I’m gone, I’ll kill you.”

Sam dashed down the hall and pounded on the door to Tristan’s rented room with both fists. He answered almost immediately. “It’s bad, Tristan,” she said, swallowing down the lump in her throat. “He’s out cold, and I think his wound might be fatal.”

“Take me to him,” Tristan commanded.

Sam dragged Tristan to the room she shared with Braeden, but he hardly needed encouragement to go faster. He moved as if he were keenly aware of the urgency of the situation, shoving Sam out of the way and marching over to Braeden’s prone body straightaway. Tristan busied himself with checking Braeden’s vital signs and inspecting his wounded arm, careful to not touch the wound itself. “It’s bad,” Tristan confirmed.

Sam threw up her hands. “I told you! Now what? If he dies, I’ll—”

Tristan eased off the pallet and came to stand in front of her, placing his large hand on the top of her head. “Let’s not worry until we have to. His vitals are still very strong.”

“But his skin is so hot.” Sam showed Tristan the small red burn mark on the back of her hand. “I’ve never seen a fever that can do this.”

“Sam, we can’t judge Braeden by the same standards we would ourselves.”

“He’s still human!”

Tristan dropped his hand and stepped back. “He’s human where it matters, Sam. I want you to know I believe that. But illness is a science, not a behavior, and you can’t deny the demon’s blood that flows through his veins. I don’t think Braeden himself fully understands how it physically affects him.”

“So what do we do? Sit around and pray to the gods that he doesn’t die?”

“Of course not. I’ll find a doctor, one who is used to dealing with the unusual. I’ll leave now.”

Sam nodded tightly. “And me? What do I do while you’re gone?”

“Pray to the gods he doesn’t die.” Tristan sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose. “And bathe. Definitely bathe.”

Bathing seemed so self-indulgent, but Tristan was right that there wasn’t much Sam could do for Braeden in his absence. She knew how to clean and bandage a basic wound, but she daren’t risk touching Braeden’s shoulder again. She had no choice but to wait for Tristan to bring back a doctor, hopefully one who was open minded.

Still, Sam kept her bath short, not bothering to wait for the water to heat. Now that she had rinsed away the layers of dirt and grime, a smattering of minor bruises and cuts were visible across her pale skin. She couldn’t entirely credit her skill in battle for her relative lack of injury; she’d made several mistakes, as Tristan had been sure to point out. She’d been lucky—no, not lucky—protected. Out of some sort of misguided sense of chivalry, Braeden had watched over her to distraction. She refused to be the reason he got himself killed, now or ever. If he recovered—when he recovered—she’d lecture him about it. Maybe she’d even challenge him to a friendly duel to prove her point.

To Sam’s great displeasure, Tristan didn’t return until dusk, the Uriel surgeon in tow. “You brought him?” she asked incredulously. “But he’s with the Uriel!”

“Lovely to see you again, too,” the surgeon said. He set down a large physician’s bag by Braeden’s pallet. “For the record, I’m not ‘with’ the Uriel—I work with the Uriel.”

“There’s a distinction?” Sam asked.

“Yes, it means they pay my bills, but I report up to no one. And my oaths of medicine come before any Uriel business.”

“He was the best man for the job,” Tristan said by way of explanation. Sam folded her arms and regarded him skeptically.

The surgeon unpacked his bag. Sam blanched when he dumped out the conical mouth gag and three long needles onto the pallet. “It’s true,” he said. “The only other doctor in Pirama is a quack.” He withdrew a magnifying lens, hooked retractors, a bottle of leeches and a hand fan. “Besides, I studied demon anatomy. Your Paladin thought that might come in handy.”

Sam ignored the smug look on Tristan’s face. “I wasn’t aware that demon anatomy was a study.”

“It’s not, not officially, anyway. But when more and more of my patients started coming in with injuries inflicted by demons, my curiosity was piqued. I’ve conducted quite a few autopsies on demon corpses over the past year.”

Sam’s scowl encompassed the surgeon and Tristan. “Braeden’s not a corpse yet, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I’ve yet to mistake a live patient for a dead one. Now, move aside,” the surgeon said. He sat down on the edge of the pallet and grabbed Braeden’s wrist. “His body temperature is severely overheated, but his pulse is steady. How long has he been out?”

Tristan looked at Sam. “Sam?”

“A few hours now,” she said. “I touched his shoulder – there, where it’s all black – and he collapsed.”

“Did you try to rouse him?” the surgeon asked.

Worry sunk like a heavy weight in the pit of her stomach. She’d been too nervous to touch Braeden again after he collapsed – she hadn’t wanted to make things worse than she already had. But what if her inaction was responsible for even greater harm? “No, should I have?”

“No harm done,” the surgeon said. “I’ll try now.” He slipped his arm underneath the armpit of Braeden’s good shoulder and wrapped his other arm around Braeden’s lower back, carefully moving him into a seated position. The surgeon snapped his fingers at Sam. “Grab that fan and start fanning him. He needs cool air.”

Sam jumped to obey him. “Like this?”

“Good.” The surgeon tapped on Braeden’s clavicle with his knuckles, eliciting a hollow sound. “Braeden,” he called softly. “Braeden, can you hear me?”

Braeden’s eyes fluttered open. Sam exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “What happened?” Braeden croaked. “What are you doing here?”

“According to Sam, here, you passed out, likely from pain,” the surgeon said. “You’re quite ill, lad.”

“Impossible,” Braeden said flatly. “I don’t get sick.”

“On a scale of one to ten, with one being perfectly fine and ten being gods awful, how would you say you feel?” the surgeon asked.

“Five,” said Braeden.

The surgeon lifted an eyebrow.

“Maybe six.”

“So we can agree, then, that your body is out of balance with its normal state.”

Braeden huffed. “I suppose.”

“Then I would characterize you as ill, and I’m considered somewhat of an expert on the matter.” The surgeon rubbed his chin, as if an interesting thought had just occurred to him. “Why do you say you don’t get sick?”

“I’m immune to human illnesses, with the exception of a very few diseases that would require some effort on my part to contract. Have been my whole life.”

Sam stopped her fanning. “But Braeden, your wound was inflicted by a demon.”

“You think the poison of their bite affects me?” Braeden scoffed.

“Explain your shoulder, then,” she quipped.

“What of it?”

Tristan held up his hands. “Stop, you two. Sam, you should know better than to rile up a sick patient.”

Sam looked at her feet guiltily. “Sorry,” she muttered. She hated quarreling with Braeden, but his obstinacy was enough to make her scream.

The surgeon glanced at Sam disinterestedly. “I’ll take a look at that shoulder now.” He grasped Braeden by the ankles and shifted him so that his legs hung over the side of the pallet. Braeden’s face darkened—Sam was sure he didn’t appreciate the indignity of the surgeon’s manhandling.

The surgeon held up the magnifying lens to Braeden’s shoulder. His nut-brown eye was enormous under the amplification of the glass, unblinking for what must have been minutes. “The tissue around the wound site is dead or dying,” he said. “I’ll need to remove it surgically.”

“His whole arm?” Sam asked, her heart in her throat. She flashed back to the Uriel infirmary, the horrible crunch of metal sawing through bone still fresh in her mind.

“Don’t get overexcited. I just need to excise the topmost layer of skin around the shoulder area,” the surgeon said.

Braeden’s eyes flew open. “You mean to remove my tattoo?”

The surgeon blinked. “It will be necessary to remove part of it, yes.”

“You can’t.”

The surgeon crossed his arms. “The tissue death will spread to the rest of your arm if I don’t. So unless you prefer I amputate the entire limb--”

Braeden gripped the surgeon by the shoulders, his knuckles white. “Keep your knives away from my tattoo, surgeon.”

The surgeon let out a puff of air. “Do you want to die, boy?”

Braeden’s mouth tightened. “If you remove my tattoo, you’ll wish I had.” He ran the tips of his fingers along the three foxtails that curled around his bicep, grimacing as he did. “I can’t be let off my leash.”

Tristan looked at him questioningly. “I don’t follow,” he said.

Braeden’s eyes darted to the surgeon and back to Tristan, staying silent. Tristan coughed into his hand. “Asa, would you leave us for a moment?”

“I’ll wait outside.” The surgeon stood from the pallet and exited the room.

Once the door was shut, Tristan took the surgeon’s place by Braeden’s side. “This better not be some nascent fit of vanity. A bit of pretty ink isn’t worth your life.”

Braeden sneered. “What use have I for vanity?”

Sam winced at the rancor in his voice. She would never have accused Braeden of vanity, even in jest—he wore his self-loathing on his sleeve—though she still hoped his opposition to surgery was unfounded. “Help us understand, Braeden, why you would risk dying for a tattoo.”

“It’s more than a tattoo,” Braeden said heavily. “It’s a seal. This ‘pretty ink’, as you call it, is the only barrier that keeps my demonic side in check. It shackles my inner monster and allows me to function as human—or maintain a semblance of humanity, as the case may be. Without it, I’m no better than any other demon.” He smiled without humor. “So either I can risk infection as a human or die with a Paladin sword through my neck, and the gods know how many more deaths to my name.”

Tristan angled his head to better view the mangled tattoo. “Have you always had it, then?”

Braeden shook his head. His face was sallow, drawn. “Not always, no, though I was little more than a child when I was so marked.”

“And before?”

Braeden squeezed his lids shut. “I was a monster,” he said. “I had no control, no way to repress my violent tendencies. I have no idea how many innocents died at my hand—I committed my worst atrocities in a vacuum. Their deaths were blighted from my memory as soon as my bout of madness ended.”

Tristan compressed his lips into a thin line. “And a design on your skin is what holds this violence at bay?”

Braeden lifted his chin. “It’s not a mere design. It’s blood magic.”

“Who in the kingdom knows how to do such a thing?” Tristan asked.

“The man who raised me,” said Braeden .

“Your father?” Sam asked without thinking, wishing she could take back the words as she spoke them.

Braeden turned to her with glittering eyes. “No, Sam. My father would as soon have killed me as parent me. The man who raised me—he took me from an orphanage across the Rheic Ocean, in Yemara. I called him Master.”

“Was he good to you?” Sam asked.

Braeden paused before answering. “In his own way, yes.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” she said. She imagined him as a child, his strange, translucent eyes overlarge in his thin face. He must have been so lonely, so afraid. “You won’t part with your tattoo, will you?”

“Not for anything.”

Sam focused on a spot on the floor, willing the tears that welled up inside her not to fall. Tristan sighed. “Your mind is made up?”

“Aye,” said Braeden. “I truly believe my body will recover on its own, in a few days’ time. But even if it doesn’t, I’d rather die as myself.”

“Understood,” said Tristan. “I’ll inform Asa.”

After Tristan stepped outside to speak with him, the surgeon reentered the room, muttering under his breath about foolish boys and their foolish pride. “Boy!” he barked. “Let me make it clear that I don’t agree with your decision.”

“You’ve made your stance clear. If I drop dead, no one will blame you,” Braeden said dryly.

“Hmph. Well, let me take another look at your arm. I’ll do what I can without touching your tattoo. Your Paladin says it’s off limits to my scalpel.”

“Thank you,” said Braeden, twisting his torso so that the surgeon had better access to his injured arm. He sat there stoically as the surgeon poked and prodded, combing the traumatized skin with his magnifying lens. The surgeon pinched a large abscess near Braeden’s elbow and squeezed until a thick, green discharge squirted from the head of the swelling. Sam had to look away as the surgeon drained several more abscesses.

“I’ve done what I can,” the surgeon said finally, wiping his hands on a small towel. “We’ll have to hope that the necrotic tissue will heal itself. Drink plenty of water and stay abed for the next few days. If you aren’t improved by then, we’ll broach the topic of your tattoo again.” He began repacking his medical bag.

Tristan rummaged through his coin purse and extracted two gold pieces. “For your time,” he said, holding out the coins to the surgeon.

“Generous of you,” said the surgeon, dropping the money into the front pouch of his bag. “Oh, before I go, Adelard asked me to give this to you.” He withdrew a sealed enveloped from the front pouch and handed it to Tristan. The surgeon stood to his feet and slung his bag over his shoulder. “I’ll be on my way, then.” He bowed and left the room.

Tristan tore open the envelope and scanned the letter’s contents. His eyes bulged wide. “Well, I’ll be.”

“What is it?” asked Sam.

Tristan folded and unfolded the letter, reading it again. “It’s an invitation to dinner,” he said. “With Sander Branimir himself.”