Page 4 of Inferno

The downside, of course, was that Yorin was now forced to see Nerik on a regular basis, which kept alive the flickering hope that one day they might be more than casual acquaintances, even while Yorin told himself that longing for anything more was futile.

CHAPTER TWO

Exiting the tailor’s shop, Nerik surreptitiously took a deep breath to steady himself, even as he made an effort to look relaxed as he strolled down the street. Gods damn it, that man could turn him inside out. And today, Yorin had given him a shirt, of all things! Something Yorin had made, his hands carefully crafting every inch of the garment, his clear, brown eyes staring intently at the fabric as he’d sewn it… and now that same fabric was flush against Nerik’s skin.

His whole torso was tingling, the brush of fine cotton only half responsible for the warm, pulsing sensation coursing through him.

The shirt looked like the cloth embodiment of fire. The dark red contrasting the dancing gold and orange… Nerik had damn near panicked for a second, wondering if he’d made some slip or Yorin had discovered something he shouldn’t have…

And then Yorin had gone and mentioned his necklace, and that had nearly given him a heart attack – if he’d actually had a heart, which Nerik was entirely certain he didn’t. Thank the heavens he’d been talking about the metal necklace, rather than the obsidian one. The gods only knew what would happen if a human ever figured out what that one was for.

He remembered the first day he’d seen Yorin as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. Nerik had been in Minia for about six months by that point, recovering from his journey here for the first two – a journey that had damn near killed him – and figuring out how to fit in for the next four. Thankfully, he’d had a few good friends to show him the ropes, but even so, it had been an effort.

But then, one day in early spring, he’d been trotting down the road on one of his first deliveries when he’d spotted the man. Yorin had been standing in the street, handing a parcel to a customer. The sun was making his blond hair glint. He was young, all smooth skin and sleek angles, and dressed in a pair of tan trousers and a forest-green shirt that had made his hair seem even brighter. He had the sleeves rolled up, displaying strong forearms with a light dusting of hair across them. His fingers were long, his hands artistic, and something the customer had said had made him smile. He was, in a word, beautiful, in a way that Nerik had never expected to find a human.

As he watched, Yorin had bent his head and said something benevolent to the customer – or at least that's what it looked like from a distance. Then Yorin reached out and put a friendly hand on the old woman's arm. Nerik instantly wanted Yorin's hand on his own arm.

He spent the next three days trying to come up with an excuse to visit Yorin, then decided screw it, he was a messenger, he would just go and ask if Yorin had any errands to be run.

Nerik remembered almost nothing about what Yorin had actually asked of him. What he did remember, though, was that he ended the transaction both elated and disappointed – elated that he’d apparently done the job well enough to warrant being hired again, and disappointed that at the end of it, Yorin had politely thanked him and sent him on his way. No questions about where he’d come from, no idle chat about Nerik’s favourite pub or Yorin’s favourite season. Just a polite thank you, see you next time.

Nerik had tried to offer tidbits of his life to tempt Yorin into conversation – which baker had the best pastries, which carpenter had helped him repair his cottage. And while they’d progressed to talking about the latest colours in fashion and grumbled together about the fuss the locals made of the warriors, Nerik had never managed to coax Yorin beyond that.

On the other hand, he’d never told Nerik to go away, not even after his more audacious attempts at flirting. So he supposed he could take that as a win.

Pulling himself out of his daze, Nerik checked his surroundings and realised he’d come further than he’d thought. He backtracked a couple of shops, ducking into the florist to deliver a letter. This time, he didn’t need to worry about payment since the sender had already given him his copper coin.

One copper coin was the standard delivery fee for anything within the city limits, so he needed to do a minimum of ten jobs a day to make a liveable wage. And that might have sounded like an easy feat, if it was just a case of dropping off a letter here and a box of pastries there. But many of the deliveries were at the opposite end of town. Some were on a time limit. Some required carrying heavy boxes or bags, which slowed him down considerably.

And then there was the weather. Nerik had had to spend three silver coins on a waterproof coat to be able to keep up his deliveries in the rain. In winter, the snow was even worse. He loved the cold, the crisp air and the crunch of ice beneath his boots, but wet trousers were a serious problem, trudging through deep snow drifts, and he’d had to invest in a pair of leather over-covers to keep his legs dry. Not to mention a very decent pair of boots.

But all things considered, his expenses were relatively low, as compared to many other businesses, and he could set his own hours, and best of all, he got to keep up with all the various bits of gossip in town. Not that Nerik enjoyed gossip for its own sake – he was more of the opinion that people’s private lives were theirs to do with as they pleased – but given their proximity to the Gate of Chalandros and the regular dramas that went on with the army of warriors and the serving women who waited on them hand and foot, it was best to keep an ear to the ground to spot trouble coming before it happened.

Nerik desperately tried to pull his head together as he arrived at Kit’s jewellery shop. Gods, he had too many things fighting for space in his mind. Visiting Yorin always seemed to have that effect on him, leaving him feeling restless and impatient. Was the tailor charmed by Nerik’s flirting, or just putting on a polite face because that’s how he ran his business? Was he blushing because he liked the attention, or from embarrassment, wishing Nerik would just stop already? Nerik had been flirting with him steadily for the past three years, at least, and in all that time, Yorin had never asked him to stop. But at the same time, he’d never made any move whatsoever to return Nerik’s attentions. Until today, when he’d given him a shirt and stared helplessly at Nerik’s abs while he’d changed.

But then again, he’d asked Nerik to spread the word about who had made the shirt, so maybe it was just free advertising, after all.

Gods above, all the ups and downs, the ins and outs just made his head want to explode.

In addition to wondering about the minutiae of his relationship with Yorin, Nerik also had four more errands to run today – two of them urgent, if he didn’t want his payment docked for being late – and then tomorrow at midday, the Gate of Chalandros was due to open. That one always filled him with dread. Twenty-three days of the town’s army of warriors slaughtering his kin and countrymen, until the gate closed again and he had twenty-three days of respite.

If he disliked being near the gate that much, Nerik reminded himself, he could always choose to live somewhere else. There were plenty of other towns that could use a good messenger, and it wouldn’t take him too long to build up a decent reputation in a new place.

But if he moved, he’d be useless when it came to trying to help the hoards of people – or demons, according to the humans – still trapped on the other side of the gate. Gods, he’d never asked for life to be so complicated.

He wandered through the door of Kit’s jewellery shop, still trying to figure out which errand to run next. If he took the letter in his bag up to the seamstress next, it would save him a journey back this way. But if he didn’t get the mushrooms to the Red Stallion pub in the next hour, he’d lose his fee, and that was in the opposite direction. And there was also a part of him that desperately wanted to go back and see Yorin again, regardless of the fact that his rubies weren’t urgent. By the gods, that shirt had looked magnificent on him, highlighting his trim waist and just tight enough that Nerik got a good look at the firm muscles beneath the fabric. Yorin wasn’t anything like as buff as the warriors – or the blacksmith, or the carpenter, for that matter – but neither did he have the expanding waistline of other tradespeople who had more sedentary jobs. The baker up on Green Street, for example, seemed to make a point of tasting every batch of pastries he made, and it showed on his ample girth. By contrast, Yorin seemed naturally slender, the day-to-day duties of chopping wood and hauling buckets of water apparently enough to keep him in shape.

But the shirt wasn’t any kind of exception to Yorin’s usual standards. Everything he wore looked fantastic. That was the natural result of being a talented tailor with a keen eye for fashion. His clothes fit perfectly, and they were just the right combination of traditional and daring – like the embroidery on the shirt today. Nothing outlandish, but just fancy enough to draw a bit of attention.

Nerik was so caught up in his thoughts that he walked straight into one of the glass counters housing the jewellery. The trays inside rattled, and Nerik jerked backwards, cursing under his breath.

He glanced around, finding the shop empty aside from Maky, a large, lumbering dog who sat in front of the curtain that blocked off the hallway that led to the back of the shop.

“Hey, Maky,” Nerik greeted him, sounding tired even to his own ears. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to walk into things. It’s been that kind of day.”

Maky huffed out a breath, then hauled himself to his feet, making the job look like three times the effort that it actually was. He shook himself lazily, then trotted over, nudging his head in under Nerik’s hand.

Maky, like Nerik, was a foreigner to Minia. He was a fire-dog, or as the humans called them, a hellhound; a fire elemental, just like Nerik. Both of them were refugees from across the Gate of Chalandros, both of them hiding in plain sight in the middle of the most dangerous city in the human world.