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Today two of my coworkers asked about this story, then said the ending was predictable and why didn't I try to make one of the characters do something different? Give that character a good reason to step out of character? We batted it back and forth, and it's given this tale a real twist! Hope I get to write all the way to the end.

As he drew back from the window, he caught the flash of silver at the edge of his vision. Slowly, deliberately, he moved the open pane until he was staring at his reflection in the glass. He could not resist checking, although he was certain now that the mark existed. He'd had it for three days. The day he'd first noticed it, he'd lain awake all night long, worrying. He'd been afraid it was a symptom of some rare ailment, or that it was some loathsome parasite. He had gone into Cardu to the local healer the next day, but although the healer said yes, she could feel the coolness of the area, she could see nothing, and she detected nothing about his condition to concern either of them.

He never mentioned the disfigurement, but he waited for someone else to do so. No one ever did. It was as invisible to everyone else as it had been to the healer.

By now, in a part of his mind he was convinced it was a mark of something portentous. He didn't know how or why, but he was sure he was being singled out for greatness. Still, whenever he saw it, his skin crawled.

He crossed to his desk and picked up a thin book bound in black leather, spreading it open before him. The book had been sent from the Scribes Guildhall in a crate full of other books and scrolls. He didn't know why his clerk thought he'd be interested in it. It was a pile of nonsense masquerading as a scholarly tome, an attempt to make myth into history. But on the first page was a particularly beautiful painting of two dragons, reared up high and straight, their foreclaws poised to strike each other or defend from a strike. He touched the claw of the red dragon, running a finger absently along the dragon's limb. There was something – he didn't know what – that seemed familiar about it, and that he believed was tied to the mark on his head.

He slammed the book shut, furious with himself. He was a man of logic and sense, not some bard or poet. Dragons did not exist. If he started to read medical records, sooner or later he would find what was wrong with him and how to cure it.

Zuib knocked and entered. "You wished to see me, Master Tenni?" A man of huge bulk, he could barely execute a bow, and as he rose again, he wiped sweat from his face with his sleeve.

Tenni twitched internally. Everything about Zuib irritated him. He did not offer the man a chair. "I wanted to speak to you about what I can't help but feel is a lack in the apprentices' training."

Zuib's thick lips folded into a smug smile. "If you refer to the missing words in the passage that Ortin presented to you, then let me point out, with your permission..."

Which I haven't given you, but you'll prate on anyway.

"... that the rules of the Guild allow a certain percentage of error in an apprentice..."

"Which young Ortin exceeded."

"And also I would want to add that Petros' version of that passage, which is, I believe, the one provided for copying, differs from Teya's in several small ways."

"Thank you," Tenni said dryly. "I know exactly how they differ, and the errors are not consistent with the discrepancies. And you say you believe that was the verse used in the apprentices' hall? You should know."

"I normally do!" Zuib said, looking longingly at the chair he had not been asked to use. "But today was unusual, as Lady Ultar had need of my services."

"She mentioned nothing to me, and I am the Master Scribe," Tenni pointed out mildly, with a slight smile.

"She sent a page, and since the child came to me first, I hastened to the keep hall at once."

"What a pity that she did not send any kind of a note with the page, so that we could, perhaps, have considered fulfilling her request with one of us whom we can more easily spare from his or her duties."

The man did not dare lie about something so easily verified. "As to that, she did, in fact. But I thought..."

"I know exactly what you thought," he snapped. "I suggest that, before you begin ingratiating yourself with any lord or lady, you first do the tasks with which the Guild has entrusted you. Otherwise you will find yourself guildless. The errors were not the only problem. The lettering was barbaric, the capitals atrocious, and the lines dipped at the ends. A merchant's clerk could do better."

Zuib's face reddened more and more with every sentence Tenni spoke. "The boy is..."