=•=•= Bryson
An elf? Really?
First, I nearly got fried by freak lightning. Then I ended up hauling an elf out of a gutter. Somewhere, someone’s laughing at me. Probably a god I don’t believe in.
She weighed almost nothing in my arms. Lighter than she looked—like the muscle on her frame was just for show. Blood smeared her front, warm against my chest, the smell copper-sharp even through rain and smoke. I’d already stopped the worst of it—heated my dagger in a lantern and seared her wounds shut. If she hadn’t been unconscious, the pain alone would’ve dropped her.
The storm was easing. The night air held the stink of charred wood and wet urth, of piss steaming off stone from Skinter’s earlier humiliation. I breathed it all in and called it mercy.
Once I was far enough from the town’s edge to feel out of sight, I lowered her into tall grain—oats, wheat, barley, didn’t matter. All I cared about was cover. I stripped off my soaked tunic, folded it into a clumsy pillow, and slid it beneath her head. Not much. The best I had.
She didn’t stir. Limp as death without being dead. If she’d opened her eyes—if she’d been able to speak—I might’ve stayed. But she didn’t. So I turned back to the real prize: Skinter.
I pulled the blindfold down over my eyes where it belonged. Tonight, it had been more than a mask, but it had been that too. To anyone who’d seen me, it had made me forgettable. Harmless. A blind fool no one bothered to watch. Now it protected my eyes.
The walk back toward the outhouse was easy. No rush. For a long while, there was no reason to be cautious. I chewed the end of a grain stalk—urthy, bitter—just for something to do.
What did I know about her? Practically nothing. A muddied tangle of pale hair. A frame too fine-boned for the fight she was in. Female. That was it.
Well, that and the word that kept needling me: elf.
That carried its own weight.
No one ever seemed to need a reason to hate someone else. Humans, elves, and every half-step between carried their own catalog of grievances, polished over centuries until they gleamed like truth.
Elves were despised for living too long, moving too fast, and carrying themselves like they’d been born knowing better. Humans were loathed for breeding like wildfire, taking what they wanted, and leaving nothing but stumps and bones behind. The rest of the humanoid breeds picked their sides, or were picked for them, and the whole mess kept turning.
If they met, it usually ended in someone’s funeral. Sometimes, both sides died. The rare exceptions—an elf passing as human, a human welcomed past their tree lines—were so few they might as well have been myths. Most encounters were just another chance to prove the stories right: that the other side was dangerous, treacherous, and better off dead.
And the ones who thrived on stirring the pot made sure those stories never ran out of fresh blood. Like politicians on my world.
Of course, it wasn’t all lies. There was truth in the worst of it, enough to keep the hate alive. But truth twisted through pride and fear is a blade with no handle—you can’t pick it up without cutting yourself. Every side carried the same scars, the same poisoned lessons, and no one seemed willing to set them down.
Which made stepping into that scene—carrying an elf out of anywhere unless it was for a bounty—a gamble most people didn’t live long enough to brag about. And there I was, rescuing her from a fight. But I’d sworn an oath, and to me, that meant everything.
I laughed under my breath.
A female elf with long hair. Oh yeah, Bryson. Lots of information you got there, buddy.
My cane clicked out to full length, the metal sliding smooth. Ordinarily, it was my signal: see, just a blind man. Tonight, it would serve as my staff—a weapon. The magic in it stirred, but I kept it leashed.
I crouched low as I approached the clearing where the outhouse stood.
Mud sucked at my boots. The scent of wet dirt clung to everything.
I reached out—searching for wings, claws, a tail, a twitching nose. Anything with eyes I could ride. Nothing. No bird, no rat, no roach. Even vermin had the sense to steer clear of ground scarred by magic.
Which left me here. Alone. No eyes but my own. Just another insect in the storm, chasing danger like it was a pastime.
Not for conquest, I reminded myself. Never that. I hunted for the rush, and if someone wanted to pay me on top of it? That was just icing.
With no creepers around to ride, I slipped fully into the familiar void. Blindness. The abyss. My old companion.
Then—movement.
I halted mid-breath, every nerve sharpened to a blade’s edge.
Skinter’s voice carried out of the dark, foul as a latrine and twice as loud. Threats, curses, promises of inventive pain—he was nearly free from the black goo I’d pinned him with. The bastard sounded confident enough to scare his own mother back into the womb. He wasn’t alone, either. Two others clawed at the mess, trying to haul him out. That meant three more were unaccounted for.
The air thrummed with tension, like a bowstring drawn taut.
Footsteps.
Soft. Close. No more than twenty paces—then fifteen—then less.
From my left. Oblivious. Perfect.
I eased down into the mud, low and loose, vanishing into shadow the way only a blind man can—because I knew the dark was already mine.
Three sets of steps now. One heavy, dragging. Another light and quick beside it. The third hung back.
“You smell anything?”
“Someting. I dunno. Might bees him.”
The nasal wheeze gave one away—a kobold. Its fore and hind paws scuttled through wet brush, claws clicking softly on stone. Harmless unless this was some freak among its kind. The human beside it worried me more. Which one of Skinter’s men? Didn’t matter yet. Three others were still out there.
Their gait betrayed them—steady, even, predictable. A hunter’s mistake. You learn quickly in this line of work: rhythm gets you killed.
At ten feet, I coiled.
At eight, my grip tightened on the steel rod. My knuckles cracked, muffled by rain and their own tread.
At six—I struck.
The rod whistled once, then landed square on the side of the nearest skull. The sound was sickening—bone giving way with a dull, wet crack. He dropped like a sack of grain, gone silent except for the hiss of rain on his body. Dead or unconscious—it didn’t matter. One less problem.
The jolt traveled up my arms, humming in my bones. It felt good. Really good.
The kobold shrieked and bolted, claws scrabbling, vanishing into the brush with yelps loud enough to wake the grave.
An instant later, an arrow hissed past my ear.
Then another.
An archer—hidden. Smart one. Waiting till his friends were in trouble before showing his hand. That one had some sense.
I flattened into the mud and crawled, belly low, toward the outhouse. Rain-soaked stalks swayed above me, veiling my path. The dark cloaked me like an old friend.
By now, magic was no longer optional. Patrol or no patrol, if they came, they’d be too late.
Twenty paces from the outhouse, I reached into the Aether. Threads exploded across my senses, burning bright as lightning.
There.
The man I’d cracked lay still, his life force leaving him. The kobold was gone—its trail marked by snapped stalks, vanishing fast. Now the archer stood alone, notching a third arrow, the bowstring humming with intent. Skinter had two men bracing him, swords bared, shoulders squared. A neat little triangle of death.
I flicked my wrist, and a fireball hissed into the night. Small, fast. Just enough. The archer flinched as flames licked his sleeve. That tiny bit of distraction was all I needed. I wove a shimmer of Aether—an illusion, a phantom version of myself sprinting left.
Two arrows followed the mirage, whistling harmlessly into the dark.
Precious seconds.
The henchmen saw me next. Steel glinted as they surged forward.
My dagger answered the call, sliding into my hand in a blaze of blue. Damn, the blade always felt good—an extension of sinew and thought, alive in my grip.
The first man lunged. I slipped aside, my blade kissing his ribs in a clean slash before I cracked the rod across his head. His ear split with a wet pop. Not fatal. Enough. He crumpled, choking on blood and spit.
The second faltered. That pause—his mistake.
The dagger flared red because it liked the fight too. I drove it into his shoulder, straight through meat and tendon. His sword clattered to the ground. In desperation, he seized my rod like it might save him.
It didn’t.
A growl behind me—raw, guttural. The archer again, out of arrows, swinging his bow like a cudgel.
The strike caught my ribs with a bone-rattling crack. Pain flared white-hot, jagged enough I wondered if I’d just broken something vital.
I didn’t have time to wonder.
Snarling through my teeth, I released the dagger, seized his wrist mid-swing, and twisted.
Snap.
His scream tore out of him, sharp and raw. Almost satisfying. I wrenched the rod free and cracked it across his temple. He folded like wet canvas.
Silence.
Then—movement.
Just a flicker. Not one of the three I’d dropped.
I spun toward it. Skinter was gone.
Even in the Aether—no trace.
I crouched low, turning slowly, ribs stabbing with every breath. The archer’s blow had left me wheezing, each inhale like glass against bone. Three bodies lay in the mud, groaning or still.
Under my breath, I cursed. I didn’t enjoy killing unless I had to. But Skinter’s reputation? That called for paranoia. A man like him could fake injuries so well a trained healer might swear on them. And if he needed to open his own veins to sell the lie—well, desperate men have done worse.
With him, I couldn’t take chances.
A thought brought my dagger back into my hand. It purred against my palm, faint energy humming like it wanted to play. I set the tip against one thug’s throat. Then another body jerked upright and bolted.
Skinter.
I knew I couldn’t outrun him, not in this mud, not with cracked ribs. So I reached into the Aether. The air snapped alive. My fingertips glowed, threads of power leaping forward. The blast caught him mid-stride—his body seized like a puppet with its strings yanked.
He hit the ground hard, frozen where he landed, sprawled and stiff in the muck. Every muscle locked. Every strand of hair held rigid.
I stalked closer, dagger low. “End of the line, Skinter.” My voice was flat. Final. “Get comfortable. Someone’ll be along in a couple of hours.”
Then I kicked him square in the face.
Cartilage cracked under my boot. He moaned—helpless, but alive. My side screamed with the effort, pain radiating out from the ribs, but I kept my weight over him.
The borrowed shape began to fail. His face shifted beneath my boot—cheekbones sliding, jaw softening, features swelling and sinking as if half a dozen forms were trying to surface at once. No true face emerged. He just kept undulating, amorphous and unfinished, his magic reaching for a shape the paralysis wouldn’t let him hold.
I fished into my pouch and pulled out an Arcane Seal. The hexagonal token was cold and heavy, obsidian etched with runes that glowed faintly, steady as old truths. One of the few constants in a world where damn near everything else shifted.
Dropping to one knee, I tapped the runes in sequence. The seal hummed in my hand, eager, like it could smell blood.
“You brought this on yourself,” I muttered, pressing the token to Skinter’s forehead.
The runes flared. The Seal bit down with a hiss, latching like a leech. Skinter groaned, his body trying to twist, but he couldn’t so much as blink. The shifting stopped—not resolved, merely locked in that unfinished state. The glow pulsed once… twice… then settled into a steady hold. Only a magistrate’s release could strip it away.
I stood, ribs stabbing with every breath, and let the fine drizzle wash muck and blood into the urth. The only light left was the faint glow of the Seal, unwavering in the rain.
Voices rose behind me—curious patrons stumbling out of the tavern, drawn by the noise and chaos. Curious, not brave. They wouldn’t dare come closer. No one sane interfered with a sealed bounty. The Seal’s curse didn’t care who touched it; meddle, and you shared the fate of the one it held.
Rain pattered softly. The fight was done. Another monster marked.
I turned, every step a jab of pain through my ribs, and my thoughts wandered, unwelcome, back to the woman.
An elf.
Of all the cursed things to stumble across in a piss-soaked border town. She could’ve been a succubus. A banshee. A flaming lamia.
Hell, I’d take the devil himself.
But no.
An elf.
“Thanks a lot, Hurman,” I muttered to the ghost of my mentor.
I adjusted the blindfold over my eyes. The snick of my walking stick telescoping out felt like punctuation—final, cold, certain. Tap-tap into the dark, ribs aching, I tilted my face toward the sky and sighed.
“Why an elf?”