We didn't see many of them in Riverwood. They stuck to the Great Forests or the high-spire cities. To see one here, in the mud and the muck... he was either lost, or he was looking for trouble.
He was an Adventurer. You could tell by the way he stood—relaxed, yet ready to kill in a heartbeat. He carried himself with the arrogance of someone who had survived things that would stop a human heart at a glance.
"Easy, boy," the elf said, raising a hand. His fingers were long, spider-thin. "I'm not the one who kicked your ribs in. Though, judging by your stance, he probably didn't have to work very hard for it."
My face burned. "If you're here to mock me, get in line. The wait time is about five minutes."
The elf smirked, a quick, humorless expression. He walked closer, ignoring my jagged weapon completely. He stopped a few feet away, looking at the Old Oak, then at the splinters on the ground.
"I'm not mocking you," he said. He reached out and touched one of the fresh gouges in the tree bark. "I'm observing. Most humans without a Blessing would have gone home to cry into their mother's apron after a beating like that. You came here to fight a tree."
He looked at me then, his eyes narrowing. They were a piercing violet, unsettling and ancient.
"Anger is a potent fuel," he mused. "But it burns dirty. You're swinging wild. You're trying to hurt the wood, not cut it."
"I don't have a class," I spat out, lowering the broken handle. "I don't have the swordsman blessing. I don't have auto-correct for my swing. I just have anger."
"Classes," the elf scoffed. The word sounded like a slur coming from his mouth. He unclasped a waterskin from his belt and tossed it to me. "A crutch for the short-lived. Humans differ from us. You are so desperate for power you beg the gods to graft it onto your souls because you don't have the patience to earn it."
I caught the skin, hesitating. Then, the thirst won. I uncorked it and drank. It wasn't water; it was some kind of herbal wine, sharp and revitalizing. It numbed the throbbing in my ribs almost instantly.
"Thanks," I muttered, wiping my mouth.
"I watched you," the elf said, leaning back against a neighboring tree, crossing his arms. "Before your weapon broke. Your footwork... it's atrocious. But your timing? When that boy attacked you on the road?"
I froze. "You saw that?"
"I saw you dodge a Heavy Infantry's grapple," the elf said. "A Level 1 Blessing, sure, but a Blessing nonetheless. The magic guides their hands. It makes them faster, stronger. And you, a unblessed nothing... you made him miss."
He tilted his head, studying me like I was a rare insect pinned to a board.
"That wasn't luck," the elf said quietly. "You read his intent before the magic could execute the move. That is... rare. For a human."
He pushed off the tree and took a step toward me.
"My name is Kaelen," he said. "And I have a question for you, boy. Do you want to learn how to hit back? Or do you just want to break more sticks?"
I didn't answer immediately. I lowered the waterskin, the taste of the herbal wine turning slightly bitter on my tongue.
In the stories—the ones the bards sing for copper in the tavern—meeting an elf is a stroke of destiny. They are wise, benevolent mentors who bestow magic swords and cryptic advice before vanishing into the mist.
But in Riverwood, we have a saying: "If an elf offers you a coin, count your fingers. If he offers you a hand, count your years."
I tossed the waterskin back to him. He caught it without looking, his violet eyes still locked on mine.
"I'm unblessed, Kaelen," I said, my voice scratching against the silence. "I'm not an idiot."
Kaelen raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow. "Distinctions matter."
"Elves don't do charity," I said, stepping back from him, putting the bulk of the Old Oak between us. "You don't teach humans for the fun of it. You look at us like we're mayflies. Here for a day, dead the next, annoying the whole time."
"Mayflies have their uses," Kaelen said, attaching the skin to his belt. "They make excellent bait."
The air between us chilled. The pain in my ribs was a dull throb now, pushed back by the elf's brew and the sudden spike of adrenaline.
"So that's it," I said, gripping the splintered handle of my waster tighter. "You need bait. Or a mule. Or someone to walk into a trap first to see if it triggers."
Kaelen chuckled. It was a dry sound, like dead leaves skittering over stone. "Paranoia. Good. That will keep you alive longer than a Blessing."
He walked forward, closing the distance. I tensed, ready to swing my piece of jagged wood, but he stopped just out of reach. He looked me up and down, his expression shifting from amusement to something colder. Calculation.
"The catch is simple, Adam," Kaelen said. "I am a hunter. I hunt things that the gods—and their precious, Blessed pets—cannot see. Things that hide in the cracks of this world."
He gestured vaguely toward the town, where the lights of Riverwood were flickering on.
"Those with Blessings... they reek," he said, a look of distaste curling his lip. "The moment a human accepts a Class, they are marked. They shine in the magical spectrum like a bonfire. They are loud. They are clumsy. And they are leashed to the divine laws of their skills."
He pointed a long finger at my chest.
"But you? You are empty. You are a void. You have no divine signature. To the things I hunt, you are invisible."
I stared at him. "You want to use me because I'm nothing."
"I want to use you because you are a blank slate," he corrected. "I need someone who can walk where I cannot without setting off every ward and alarm in the county. I need a shadow. And shadows need to be sharp, or they dissipate."
He leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper.
"I will teach you how to kill, boy. I will teach you how to move so that even the wind doesn't know you're there. I will teach you how to take that anger and forge it into a weapon that cuts through Iron Skin like parchment."
He paused, letting the promise hang in the air.
"The price is your obedience. When I say move, you move. When I say kill, you kill. And if you die?" He shrugged, a gesture of elegant indifference. "Then you were not the student I thought you were, and I leave your corpse for the crows. No funeral. No tears. Just a failed experiment."
He extended a hand. It wasn't a handshake of friendship; it was a contract.
"So," Kaelen said, his violet eyes glowing in the gloom. "Do you want to be a victim, or do you want to be a weapon? Choose."
I looked at his hand. Pale, deadly, ancient.
Then I looked down at my own hand—bloody, bruised, trembling. I thought of Gareth's boot in my gut. I thought of the pity in my mother's eyes. I thought of the lifetime of mediocrity waiting for me in Riverwood.
Being a weapon sounded dangerous. It sounded suicidal.
But it sounded better than being nothing.
I dropped the broken wood. I reached out and gripped the elf's cold hand.
"Teach me," I said.
Kaelen's grip tightened, crushing my fingers with shocking strength. He smiled, and this time, it showed too many teeth.
"First lesson," he said, and before I could blink, his other hand blurred.
Crack.
The world spun. I was on the ground, face pressed into the dirt, my arm twisted painfully behind my back. I hadn't even seen him move.
"Lesson one," Kaelen whispered into my ear, his knee digging into my spine. "Trust is a weakness. You just gave me your hand. Never give an opponent a limb unless you intend to lose it."
He released me and stood up, dusting off his cloak.
"Get up, Adam. The night is young, and you have a lot of bleeding to do."