Taramiel’s head always cleared in the woods. There was little to do at camp, anyway, and little reason to remain there. Gloss was sick. He liked to say that the Gods punished his disobedience, the disobedience of his riders, with illness. And Taramiel believed him. So Taramiel kept out of their clearing, and brushed away the nagging thought that perhaps some earthworm in the village had wriggled into the dirt and out of his grasp.

If there were good targets here, he had yet to find one. He had his bow slung over his shoulder and a quiver of hand-crafted arrows strapped to his back, but so far had found no reason to fire one. Small critters padded around him like any other element of the vegetation, while he cleared a path through it, stepping onto and over roots and small plants.

Taramiel could see a stronger beam of light break through the greenery further down. Now, the forest cleared the way for him, leading him to the shore of an enormous lake, which turned down a snakepath of trees and past his vision. The cerulean surface of the water barely shifted, and shined like the folds of a young lady’s dress. He could feel the warm blanket of the sun against his skin, the smell of life as the breeze scattered the loose foliage at his feet. There was a momentary vision in his head; him sitting in the dirt, dipping his hands into the cool water, skipping rocks as he used to as a child. His heart, his chest, beat for it. Others shared in the same vision; a large elk dipped its head and drank from the pool a few meters from him, its antlers like large, unbreakable branches. When it lifted its head, it had what Taramiel thought was the same shine in its eyes—

Taramiel hid behind a tree with his bow clutched in one hand and an arrow in the other. The vision he’d crushed and let blow away in the same wind. He did not need to know the path for his feet to find it, stepping without interruption or noise between tripwires and unsteady terrain. Even when he crouched a few feet away, the deer failed to notice. As the beast stared out at the water, Taramiel nocked an arrow, and pointed it at the weak blesh behind its forward leg.

The arrow sunk into the deer’s side. The creature neighed, shaking its head back and forth and striking its other side against the trees. The arrow kept firm in its organs, mangling them. But with his target weak, he had no reason to wait. Taramiel withdrew a long dagger from his back and stepped forward after the elk’s initial commotion had ceased. He grabbed its antler, exposed its neck, and cut a deep line across it. The meat fell to the earth.

The rest of the ritual was a familiar rhythm, and would pass quickly. Taramiel withdrew a well-folded and compressed skin bag from his pocket, shook it out and laid it against the ground. With the same knife, he peeled away the elk’s skin, and carved out the best cuts he could get with the least trouble. The rest he’d leave for carrion. He severed the head from the bone, and with the bag of flesh in one hand and the prize in the other, headed for camp. The lake was long gone.

There was little other movement. A few other riders had ventured into their own neck of the woods for food, but he found few of them. Besides—they were searching for a small meal and a poorly carved skin. Taramiel collected firewood as he went. Upon arriving at his tent, Taramiel dropped his bag and set the severed head of the elk in his tent, snout pointed at the sky and antlers holding it up, and built a quick bonfire. Over it he spitted his meat, and waited. As the flesh of the meat grew darker, so too did the sky, and the embers became like orange stars against the night sky before blinking out.

Taramiel’s dinner was quick. Two thick slabs of meat. The rest was salted and returned to his sack. He decided on a walk before bed, a good chance to clear his head. Most of the other riders were setting up camp for another night of drinking. The other generals had already arrived, their laughs and voices already muddied. The spots of fire were fewer, but most had decided this night as good as any other. Taramiel passed them all, crawling around the border of their clearing, feeling the heat against his cheek on one side and the cool moans from the forest on the other.

Then he heard screaming. Gloss’ tent. Everyone’s head turned, and after a moment, scurried back to their tents. Before Taramiel had the chance to blink, the fires had gone out, the riders (and the alcohol) had disappeared, and the clearing was empty and dark, but for the bright glow of Gloss’ tent. And Taramiel. He crossed the clearing and hid in his tent, slipping into bed and hoping for sleep. Thankfully, the screams dimmed, long enough to keep Taramiel’s mind untroubled . . .

A dark shape stood in front of him, pushing open his front entrance. The humanoid silhouette tilted its head in, as though waiting to ask a question. No threat here. Taramiel realized he must have only been asleep for an hour or so—now only Gloss’ light remained outside (as far as he could tell), and his head was far away. The figure in front of him, dressed in a black cloak, must have been one of Gloss’ personal confidants.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Taramiel said. The cloaked figure chuckled. It sounded like a skeleton laughing at someone stuck in their catacombs.

“The Sacredate would like to see you,” the figure said. “Must see you.”

“Now?” Taramiel asked. He knew the answer that would come, and knew that in a moment he would be crossing, upon shaky legs, over the dirt floor, but another second in bed would still be nice.

“I would come quickly, for your own sake,” the figure said, then dropped the flap of his tent. Taramiel rubbed his eyes and almost let his head fall back on his pillow, but that was a quick recipe for disaster. Instead, he crawled out from the tent, and when under the eye of the moon, finally rose. The face of the figure was now apparent to him; a well-creased and crooked.

The cloaked figure led Taramiel slowly. Taramiel’s heart woke up before he did, and sent a warm, all-erasing rush to his head just before he entered the tent. The cloaked figure held it open and shoved Taramiel in.

Gloss lay in his bed, with his retinue encircling him. They fed him, and kept a fresh, cool towel on his forehead. He was a very old child. Each of the cloaked faces was worried, and Taramiel noticed that even the man who’d ripped him from slumber had become grave. He shoved Taramiel forward, just a foot away from the others, and as he did, Gloss turned to meet him.

“Taramiel, you lied to me,” he whispered. Taramiel almost didn’t hear at first, and then he wished he hadn’t. It took him a moment to dig up some words worth saying, if that.

“I promise you, Sacredate, that I have done everything in my power to stay true to you.”

“Yes, I’m sure. But you didn’t do a very good job. You didn’t kill everyone in the village.”

Taramiel wanted to protest, but didn’t. No matter what he saw with his own eyes, Gloss, even while stuck here, could see better.

“Sacredate, I apologize for my mistake—”

“This goes deeper than a mistake, Taramiel! These mistakes are costly, and this one in particular.” Gloss was grinning now. “You’ve made an awful blunder here. Listen—I can forgive you. But you must rectify your mistake.”

“How can I do that, Sacredate?”

Gloss’ smile grew wider. “They will be leaving Palthos two days from now, at noon. Go to Fiarin and request a boat—take one if you have to—and meet them at the sea. Destroy them.”

“Them?”

Gloss laughed. “The little boy found himself a travelling mate. Now go. Get some rest if you need it.”

Taramiel did as requested. When he left the tent, felt the breeze and saw the night sky, it felt as though everything was watching him: the small creatures that hid in the underbrush, the birds that hopped on their branches, the trees that surrounded him, and the stars that peered down at him. He sighed. Awful blunder. First blunder, but still—awful. Taramiel headed back to his tent to get some rest.