Vahkul always knew that the world was cruel. He knew that it waited for no man and cared little for it’s inhabitants. He knew that, yet he always held out hope that things weren’t as they seemed. He thought that if he worked hard enough, listened well enough, laughed loud enough, the world would be kinder to him.

He knows now that he was wrong.

The woman that treks before him is proof enough. She’s the embodiment of everything cold and unforgiving in the world. The empress waited for nary a minute after shoving his memories into his head to begin giving out orders. Now that she knew Vahkul had carried out his portion of her sinister plans, whatever those may be, she was ready to spring into action.

Unbeknownst to him, Vahkul had given Tanitha something foul. Every few days when she would come to visit him, he slipped something in her tea. The empress had morphed his memories into something else. It made him believe that the herbs he was giving her were a particularly strong sedative, meant to induce a reaction that helps with focus. The empress made him believe that he was giving Tanitha the same thing that they gave newly risen smazers.

He thought he was helping her.

It turns out he was just another person hindering her. It’s almost as if the world is working against that woman. His eyes stray to the empress, lingering on the quiver of arrows strapped to her back. Why does she want Tanitha dead?

Vahkul had been compelled to give Tans the crumbled and dried remains of a person plagued with smaze. He doesn’t know of the effect that it would have had on her, but he can guess that it was meant to harm. He just can’t figure out why. Why her? What does the empress, ruler of one of the strongest nations in the realm, stand to gain from the death of a straggling creature?

Currently, the small group is traveling further inland, being led by Trige. He can sense people’s innate abilities, and apparently he has a lock on Tanitha. When he caught sense of her magical essence, the druid doesn’t know. Vakhul travels a few feet behind the group, his legs just barely able to keep up with everyone else's. They’ve been on the move for what feels like a week.

The empress doesn’t require sleep, another symptom of the smaze’s effects on her, so the group travels for nearly a constant twelve hours everyday with only a few small breaks. Vahkul is barely hanging on.

Not for the first time in his life, Vahkul wonders what power runs through his leader’s veins. He had gained the ability to heal himself and others. Trige had the ability to sense magical auras, and Hunts was a predatory hunter with immense strength. But all of them required sleep.

The smaze hadn’t taken all of their human needs away. While they didn’t need to eat, doing so helped improve their mobility. Smazer’s are also particularly sensitive to sunlight, so eating certain foods can help with that. They also, typically, require sleep. Smazers breathe and drink and fuck and bleed.

Except for not requiring food to live and acquiring strange abilities, they were more or less still human. They could die again, permanently. Though some required more effort to kill.

But the empress, she seems invincible.

Searching through his returned memories, Vahkul notes that he’s never once seen her eat or drink or stumble. She’s never bled or cried or been exhausted. Smazers alone are strange creatures, but it seems like their empress is in a league of her own.

Just as Vahkul is beginning to wonder if they’ll ever stop for the night, everyone halts. The empress’s hand raises, signaling everyone to stay behind her. “Well, it’s about time,” Vahkul hears her whisper. He peaks around her form and sees nothing but a wall of mountains. They must have traveled all the way to the opposite side of the lands.

He can almost smell the sea.

The empress leans forward, one of her hands gathering her thin skirt and the other pulling an arrow from its quiver. “You’re sure this is it?” Both Trige and Hunts nod, each of them dropping low to the ground.

Trige is the one that answers. “Yes. I can feel them right here. I don’t know why we can’t see them, your grace.”

Hunts nods again. “I can smell them. They’re here. And so is she, your grace.” He points so somewhere a few feet away. The grasses have been flattened in that particular spot and the ground was imprinted with some kind of foot print.

The closer Vahkul looks, the more feet he sees. He shivers at the thought of whatever animal was large enough and heavy enough to cause that kind of impression in the dry ground. The empress nods, then forcefully cuts the bottom of her dress off revealing legs clad in black leather. She then pulls her hair, tiny braids and all, into one large plait, wrapping it around itself and tucking it into place.

“From what I remember, they have a kind of magic that hides things from sight, but that shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll do as we practiced. How many can you feel Hunts?” Confused, all Vahkul can do is watch. How does she know about veils? How does she know about any of this?

Something clicks within him as he looks towards the mountains again. The empress was after Tanitha. They’ve arrived at a wall of mountains with people concealed by a veil. The amonos. The empress has found the amono settlement that’s taken Tanitha.

This will not end good.

Vahkul, always the last one to know the plan, watches as his empress gets down on one knee. She puts her hands in a familiar position, and the druid is astonished to see the shadows around her warp and bend. They lift from the ground, the trees, the rocks, and languidly levitate until they form something. A bow made of shadows seems to solidify in her hands. “I sense five in our vicinity, Great Grace.”

She notches an arrow. “The farthest one,” is all she says in response, but Hunts knows what she wants. He directs her, his voice low as she aims around a tree. And before Vahkul can let out the breath that he’s holding, his empress releases her arrow.

It flies, cutting through the air silently. Four pairs of eyes follow its path, but Vahkul is the only one surprised when it vanishes. Everyone is still, nothing but the slight sound of small insects scurrying around filling the air. Then they hear it.

Someone grunts.

The empress is already notching another arrow when the sound of hurried whispers is carried throughout the air. “Move,” She orders. With her arrow still in place, she rises from her spot and leads the group to their next location. Behind them, Hunts does something with his hands. He makes some kind of signal with his fingers, digging them in the ground as they run low.

“Again. The farthest one.” Hunts directs her again, centering her on a target that neither of them can see. Vahkul doesn’t know how this factors into their plans. He gave her the poison, so Tanitha should be dying or dead. Why then are they killing the guards of this place? What is she after?

His head hurts trying to figure it all out.

The empress’s arrow releases, and this time the accompanying sounds are louder than the hushed and suspicious whispers that followed the last arrow. They all pause, waiting. Hunts holds up a finger as he listens closely. Then he nods. “This one is dead. They scatter to find the shooter. Someone is ab-”

The ground shudders.

A shriek sends the trees trembling.

And then suddenly, everything becomes clear.

The veil has fallen.