Sable Shadowmark's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Oryn had asked to meet where no one would see them. Sable chose the old chapel ruin outside town, half-swallowed by vines and moss. Its arches had cracked and fallen. Broken windows let in gray light. Sable stood under one and rolled his sleeves down again, without meaning to. Oryn watched from across the stone floor. He held a sketchbook against his chest, its cover marked with faint stars. "I can't teach what I can't see," Oryn said. "Your arms." Sable pushed a sleeve up. The silver lines glowed against his dark skin. Then his hand moved on its own and pulled the cloth back down. He did not decide to do it. His body decided. Oryn frowned. "Again." Sable bared the marks a second time. A vine shifted in the wind. His shoulders tensed. The sleeve came down. "Someone hurt me for these," Sable said. His voice was low. "I don't remember it. My hands remember it. They want to hide." Oryn set the sketchbook on a fallen stone. He said nothing for a moment. Then he opened it. Inside, Sable saw drawings of flowers, page after page, each one bloomed where the fae lord had walked and would not stop. Oryn stared at them like they shamed him. "I carry a thing I can't control either," Oryn said. "You know that. You've seen the flowers." He looked up. "I don't ask you to trust me. I ask you to hold still for one drawing." Sable understood. Oryn was not reaching for his skin. He wanted to copy the marks onto paper. Then Sable could hide his arms and still learn. "Draw fast," Sable said. He pulled both sleeves up. His hands twitched toward the cloth. This time Oryn stepped close and lifted a sheer silk wrap from his coat. He laid it over Sable's forearms, light as breath. The tattoos glowed through it. The wrap covered the skin but not the light. Sable's breathing slowed. His arms were hidden. His arms were also seen. The two truths held at once. His hands went still. Oryn's pencil moved fast across the page. He copied one arm, then the other. The outer lines shifted while he worked, and he caught the shift, drawing both positions. Sable held the pose. He did not pull back. Not once. "Done," Oryn said. He lifted the sketchbook. Every glyph sat on the page in silver-gray lead. Sable looked at his marks on the paper, outside his own body for the first time. Something loosened in his chest. He had let a stranger record the thing that broke him, and he was still whole. "Now we can begin," Oryn said. He tapped a curled glyph. "This one repeats four times. It's a name." Sable leaned in. "Whose?" Oryn studied the shape. His pale eyes narrowed. "Yours," he said. "Or the person who marked you."