"Get up," Kaelen commanded.
I scrambled to my feet, clutching my side. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind a cold, throbbing ache in my ribs.
Kaelen didn't offer comfort. Instead, he drew his sword.
It wasn't a practice weapon. It was a long, slightly curved blade of steel, etched with patterns that looked like flowing water. the edge looked razor-thin.
"If you want to survive a Blessed," Kaelen said, holding the sword loosely at his side, "you have to understand what they are. They are puppets."
He began to circle me. I turned with him with my empty hands.
"When a man with a Swordsman Blessing attacks," Kaelen lectured, his voice drifting through the dark, "he doesn't swing the sword. He triggers a command. He thinks 'Strike,' and the magic seizes his muscles, corrects his posture, and drives the blade. It is powerful. It is perfect."
He stopped. The tip of his blade hovered inches from my throat.
"But it is also arrogant. And because it is magic, it has a 'tell.' A lag. A micro-second where the divine energy gathers before the muscle moves."
"I didn't see any lag when Gareth kicked me," I spat, eyeing the steel.
"Because you were looking at his foot," Kaelen snapped. "You were looking at the weapon. If you look at the weapon, you are already dead."
He sheathed his sword with a sharp clack and picked up a heavy, fallen branch from the ground. It was roughly the size of a mace.
"Stand still," he ordered.
"What?"
"Stand. Still."
I froze.
"I am going to swing this at your head," Kaelen said calmly. "If you try to dodge when you see the wood move, I will hit you. And I will hit you hard."
"This is insane."
"This is survival. Close your eyes."
"No!"
"Close them!" Kaelen roared, a sudden burst of command that snapped my eyelids shut by reflex. "Listen to me, Adam. The Blessed rely on the visual. They rely on the flash of power. You must be the void. You must feel the intent."
"How?" I whispered, trembling.
"Before a man strikes, he commits," Kaelen's voice was closer now, circling. "He inhales. His weight shifts. The air pressure changes. The 'Blessed' are even worse—they leak intent like a cracked vessel because they trust the magic to protect them. They don't feint. They don't hesitate. They declare."
I stood there in the darkness, the wind rustling the leaves of the Old Oak. My breath came in shallow hitches.
"Don't wait for the swing," Kaelen whispered from somewhere to my left. "Wait for the decision."
Silence.
I strained my ears. I heard the crickets. I heard the distant bark of a dog in town. I heard the blood rushing in my own ears.
Snap.
A twig broke. I flinched to the right.
Whack!
The branch caught me in the left shoulder. It wasn't full force, but it was enough to spin me around. I yelped, eyes flying open.
"Too slow," Kaelen said, standing right where I had been. "You reacted to the sound. Sound travels slower than intent."
He reset his stance. "Again. Eyes shut."
We did it again. And again. And again.
Whack. Left thigh. Whack. Right shoulder. Whack. The bruised ribs (I nearly vomited from that one).
"You are thinking too much!" Kaelen chided, his voice showing the first hint of irritation. "You are trying to calculate. Stop thinking. You are a prey animal right now. Let your fear do the work. Feel the shift in the air."
I was panting, sweating, and aching in places I didn't know I had. I wanted to quit. I wanted to tell him to go to hell.
Focus, I told myself. Gareth is a mountain. Kaelen is a ghost. If I can dodge the ghost, I can dodge the mountain.
I closed my eyes. I forced my breathing to slow.
I stopped listening for footsteps. I stopped waiting for the swish of air.
I reached out with my skin, with the hair on my arms.
I felt Kaelen's presence circling. It was a cold spot in the dark.
I felt him stop.
There was a pause. A silence so deep it felt heavy.
Then, a tiny, almost imperceptible intake of breath. Not a sound, but a vibration. A tightening of the air. A feeling of projection.
He was going to swing. He hadn't moved a muscle yet, but the intent was screaming.
Right.
I dropped to my knees and rolled forward, under the plane of the attack.
Whoosh.
The heavy branch swept through the space where my head had been a fraction of a second ago. The wind of it ruffled my hair.
I scrambled up, dirt on my face, eyes wide open.
Kaelen had followed through with the swing, ending in a crouch. He slowly straightened up, lowering the branch.
For a moment, he said nothing. He just looked at me, his violet eyes unreadable in the gloom.
"Sloppy roll," he criticized. "You look like a drunk badger."
I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.
"But," Kaelen added, a corner of his mouth twitching upward, "you moved before I did. You felt the commitment."
He tossed the branch aside.
"That is the difference between a Blessed warrior and a killer," he said. "The Blessed wait for the god's permission to strike. We strike in the silence between their prayers."
He turned and began walking toward the deeper woods.
"Come. We need to set your ribs before they get more messed up. If you're going to be my student, you need to be able to breathe."
We walked in silence for ten minutes, deeper into the woods than I had ever dared to go alone. Kaelen moved without breaking a single twig. I sounded like a wounded ox crashing through the brush.
We arrived at a small, hidden hollow formed by the roots of three ancient elms. A small fire was already crackling—smokeless, I noticed—and a bedroll was laid out.
"Sit," Kaelen ordered, pointing to a flat stone near the fire. "Shirt off."
I winced as I peeled my tunic over my head. The cold night air bit at my skin, but not as hard as the bruising. My left side was a canvas of angry purples and sickly yellows. Gareth's work.
Kaelen rummaged through a leather satchel, pulling out a small mortar and pestle, followed by jars of strange, pungent ingredients. Dried moss, a vial of thick amber liquid, and what looked like crushed beetle shells.
"This is going to hurt," he said casually, grinding the mixture into a thick, green paste. "Cleric healing is soft. It uses light to trick the body into thinking it was never hurt. But nature?"
He scooped the green sludge onto his fingers. It smelled like pine for some reason.
"Nature demands a price. To knit bone, we must accelerate growth. And growth is violent."
He slapped the paste directly onto my ribs.
I screamed. I couldn't help it. It felt like he had pressed a branding iron against my skin. The heat wasn't on the surface; it dug deep, sinking into the marrow.
"Breathe," Kaelen commanded, his voice devoid of sympathy. He placed his hands over the paste and began to chant—not in the high, singing tongue of the High Elves, but in a low, guttural rhythm.
Under his palms, my skin rippled. I felt—actually felt—the bone moving. It was a sickening, grinding sensation, like gravel shifting under water.
"You know this... because of the war?" I gasped, grit clenching between my teeth.
"War?" Kaelen didn't stop chanting, but his eyes darkened. "I was a Field Medic for the Silver Vanguard before I went freelance. I spent fifty years patching up 'Heroes' whose Blessings failed them the moment they ran out of mana."
He pressed harder. The pain spiked white-hot, then suddenly vanished, replaced by a dull, throbbing itch.
"There," he said, wiping his hands on a rag. "The cracks are fused. The bruising will fade by morning. It's ugly work, but it holds."
He handed me a piece of dried meat. "Eat. Your body needs fuel to finish the repair."
I took it, my hand still shaking slightly. "So you were a soldier. That explains the attitude."
"It explains why I'm still alive," he corrected. He sat across from me. "And it brings me to your next step."
He leaned forward.
"Tomorrow morning, you are going to the Adventurer's Guild. You're going to register as an F-Rank applicant."
I choked on the dried meat. I coughed, pounding my chest. "The Guild? Are you crazy?"
"I am rarely crazy when it comes to logistics," Kaelen said dryly.
"Kaelen, I'm 15," I said, gesturing to my scrawny frame. "I start Commoner School in two days. My parents spent their life savings on the tuition. If I don't go, they'll kill me. And if they don't, the Truancy Officers will."
Commoner School was the end of the line for people like me. It was where you went to learn a trade—blacksmithing, accounting, farming—so you could serve the Blessed. It was safe. It was boring.
"I can't just drop out to go chase slimes," I insisted.
Kaelen looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. "Who said anything about dropping out?"
He took a bite of an apple he produced from nowhere.
"You will go to your little school," he said between chews. "You will sit in your rows, you will learn your arithmetic, and you will nod politely when the teachers tell you that the Blessed are the saviors of humanity."
He pointed the apple at me.
"And then, when the bell rings, you will go to the Guild."
"You want me to do both?"
"The Guild doesn't care about your schedule, Adam. F-Rank is the bottom of the barrel. It's cleaning sewers, hunting giant rats in basements, delivering packages. It's grunt work."
He smiled, a sharp, predatory expression.
"It is also the perfect cover. No one looks at an F-Rank. You are beneath notice. You can attend school by day to keep your parents happy and the authorities off your back. And by night? You will be in the filth, learning how to use a knife in the dark."
"A double life," I muttered. The idea was terrifying. It was also... thrilling.
"The school will teach you how the world thinks it works," Kaelen said, standing up to kick dirt over the fire, dousing the flames. "The Guild will teach you how it actually works."
He tossed me my tunic.
"Go home, Adam. Sleep. Tomorrow, you register. Don't worry about an entrance exam. For F-Rank, the only requirement is a pulse and a lack of self-preservation."
He melted back into the shadows of the forest.
"Don't be late for our lesson tomorrow night. If you are, I'll start throwing rocks instead of branches."