"Says the immortal selling drugs at the pier…" Ludwig said, his gaze shifting briefly toward the old fisherman's retreating back and the small pouch of opium being tossed in his hand.
The half-frozen sea groaned behind them, ice scraping over dark water, while the brazier hissed at Ludwig's side.
Coal smoke mixed with salt, fish rot, wet rope, and the faint sweet stink of the drug that had just changed hands. In a place where men dragged empty nets from a dying sea, seeing an immortal hiding among them as a supplier of poison had a certain ugly poetry to it.
"That's rude," the young man said as he approached Ludwig, his eyes turning red. Crimson bled slowly across his irises, sharpening his youthful face into something older and far less harmless. The sailors nearby continued their work, unaware of the pressure gathering near the brazier, while the young man stepped closer with the calm confidence of a predator tired of pretending to be prey.
