Blade Scratch or Crack?

I bought a couple of bushcraft blades from a maker a few months back, and having a little spare time I thought I'd put some spare tan micarta handles on one. The blades came with the scale still on after heat treating so I thought I'd remove it and fit the micarta..This I did,then fitted the handle then I started work on finishing the knife

as I did I noticed dimpling on the blade, this to me is a worrying sign as it can mean over heating on this part of the blade,but the more I worked on the blade something became evident,a scratch or was it a crack???

generally, as it's running horizontally I would have considered it a scratch and not worried, but the dimpling around it has me convinced that it's a crack, I'm a bit miffed to say the least.. I'm going to work the blade and see what happens with it over the next while but it has made me cautious over buying scale covered blades in the future.