Alkor Durinbexl could sense the young elf’s presence in the weave again. The first time it had been a whisper, a light pluck on a harp string ever so gently, almost fragile. In the beginning he believed it was something from another realm. A force somewhere out in space and time that was touching his world, nothing to worry about because it was so weak. But, over the few years since his discovery, it had grown stronger and closer until it was almost a heartbeat, it’s pulse strengthening with each season’s arrival. This is what worried Alkor. If he was feeling it, then others surely were also. He knew he must find the child elf, for surely that’s what this was, and at least help the child in reverie skills. Teach the young one what could keep you hidden during the communion with the weave. He owed the kid that much just as an elf himself. Call it a bloodright. Maybe one more long winter here in the north and if the calling grew stronger Alkor knew he could use his own magic to find the young one. He wondered if he would be the first.

Janyce climbed the stairs and opening the door to Rai’s room she called the boy to dinner. She saw he was buried in a copy of Potien’s Healing Herbs and Forest Gums, yet again. She was always amazed at how long the young elf could study, hours at a time and then sometimes days on end. Every time a traveler came through Janyce and her husband traded the fine cheeses that was their business for anything the boy could read. They had begun to get a following of chubby, often inebriated mages and travelers that would bring anything remotely legible. Rai took it all and devoured it. Reading was the only thing that felt normal for him, that and what they called meditation. They were his “parents,” Janyce and Trudk, and they were always there for him. Their love and dedication to him and to each other was where Rai drew his strength from. But they were human. And he, clearly, was not. 

He knew he was an elf, obviously. He had glowing golden skin and hair that shone like a sun on the brightest of days during full summer. His almond shaped eyes were the truest blue of any ocean, cerulean, until his meditation - then they flashed to a deep green with rivers of black slicing out of the pupil. He was a light build but seemed stronger than he should be for his frame and age. And he was patient, he was always calm and rational. Always waiting for the next clue to move upon. Even as a child he felt he had a future. A destiny. But where was his past? Where was he born and to whom? He didn’t even know his surname. Where did he come from and why was he here now? So far away from anything, everything. By his eleventh year on the farm he was beginning to feel some strange power during his meditation in the evening while the others slept. He had learned to steady himself, to stay perfectly still much longer than his body wanted, to combine his mind with this weird sensation. Bending his own will to that of the weave. The weave, that was what they had called elven magic in the few books of lore he had read. 

Soon he had learned to call out upon it, this weave of magic, searching for another presence. A few times he had felt something but there was no communication, no answer or reply. Only feelings. And the feelings were so strange. Sometimes he felt a common joy, something of warmth and cheer, maybe even love, and sometimes he felt a great wisdom pulsating just below the surface. But lately, he had only felt a cold air, an icy dampness. A darkness. This darkness depressed his communion and always gave him the willies, interrupting his concentration for the evening. 

That night after Janyce’s dinner of lamb stew and braised collierberry flower he reached out again and finally, finally had what he considered a breakthrough. He had actually heard something, if you could describe it that way. A few words had somehow leaked into his mind like some sort of pervasive thought. The feeling that accompanied them was very odd though. The words felt trusting, almost sincere, but they were carried upon that cold wind, a chill breeze like the early coming of fall cutting through the fields. He had shivered as he immediately wrote them down – Stay Coming Help. He never made it back to the weave that evening and so in the morning he showed the scribed words to Janyce. He had hoped to see if she had any idea what they might mean. 

When Janyce saw the three simple words Rai had written she went into a panic. “What is it?” Trudk yelled over his eggs smothered in their finest goat cheese. “We must leave, now,” she called to her husband, “they’ve found him! We’ve failed!” Suddenly they were both in a shouting match for what to do first. Rai was doing as he was told and was in his room gathering as many books as he could stuff into his bag, worrying about what exactly was going on. He had never gone anywhere before that he could remember and it was starting to dawn on him that perhaps he had put his family in danger with his nighttime activity. He didn’t know how and he surely didn’t know why, but he could feel the danger now. Surely as the day is hot in the field, he could feel it now.

Suddenly there was an old elf standing next to him. He wore light, earthen colored robes that seemed to blend him into the wooden walls of the room. The best Rai could see him was when the elf spoke and as he did Rai noticed the elf had the palest, pearl white colored skin he had ever seen and with jet black hair that stood out so strongly against the old elf’s flesh the head appeared almost as a floating orb. Very out of place. “Are you listening, young one?” Alkor asked. “You must stand perfectly still and not say a word, not a peep, no matter what happens now! Not a move will you make,” the old elf spoke hurriedly. Rai seemed stuck in time. He tried to ask what was going on but barely whispered the first few words before remembering he must be quiet. That was when he heard the shouting and crashing downstairs. He could hear Janyce screaming now that someone had been killed. Before he could figure out who was no longer in this peril with them he heard something like the sound of an ax being sharpened on a short stone, only wetter. And then, a soggy thud.

There were footsteps rushing up the stairs and he realized that the orb head was gone now. Rai was standing perfectly still as the killers smashed into his room. A bag of books fell to the floor and one of the men shouted, “where is he?” The other came in and rushed to the window, peering outside. “He must’ve run, let’s go. He’ll not get far in the daylight,” spoke the beast of a man in the doorway. “You go,” said the one near the window gruffly, “I’ll check the house again and catch up.” Rai couldn’t even breathe he was so terrified. The man near the window turned and scanned the room again, then he moved, flipping the bed over with one clean swoop of his arm and kicking a bag of books in disgust. 

Rai could see him clear as a bell and understood now that the man couldn’t see him. He must be invisible. The man had nearly kicked Rai’s leg when he struck the bag and Rai panicked but held. He didn’t move at all. And neither did this man. Rai looked at the murderer now. His face was pockmarked with scars and unshaven, his breath smelled of rotten fruit and onions he stood so close. He was dressed in leather trousers and a black cloak, rugged boots that Rai realized were covered in the blood of the closest thing he’d ever known to family. He wanted to lash out at the man, hurt him, kill him if he could, but the man was moving away now. He exited the room leaving bloody boot prints and a terrible mess. Rai stood petrified, surrounded by some unknown and cruel twist of fate, not even crying yet. The crashing sounds continued for a few moments downstairs and then it became deathly quiet. 

In a flash Rai became aware of himself again. He could see his own body and feel the hot tears welling up in the elongated corners of his eyes. Alkor was slumped in a corner of the room and appeared exhausted as he spoke, “they’ll be back, or something worse when they don’t discover you easily. We must move and now!” As Alkor and Rai escaped the house Rai saw the bodies of Janyce and Trudk lifeless and discarded on the floor. Their blood had pooled together near the center of the room as if even in death they still sought each other’s warmth.