Aiden saw them first, far away, ghostlike silhouettes poised upon the trees.
"…elves."
The word left his throat not as a statement but as a fracture, a splinter in silence, the syllables trembling like a secret too heavy to carry.
The treeline rippled, and for a heartbeat he thought it was the wind. But no—those shapes were too deliberate, too watchful, too still. Their silver-green cloaks clung to the branches like mist, eyes glinting in fragments of sunlight.
[Serpent swordsmanship activated: level—basic.]
The whisper of notification in his mind, not in any voice he knew but in the blade's. His hand found the hilt before he realized he was reaching, before thought could catch up with instinct. Cold steel pressed against his palm and a spark arced through him—recognition, tether, completion.
It wasn't just grip. It was link.
