"Meat."

"How much would you like?"

"A lot."

Encrid ate enough for twenty people in one sitting, all by himself. He had always been a big eater, but this was more than enough to call excessive. Most of it was high-calorie food, too: beans, meat, thick sauces, and the like.

Several soldiers watched him eat with wide eyes. Was eating like that part of his training, too? It certainly looked that way. Should they try it?

"Don't do anything stupid."

Bell, now a commander, gave one of his soldiers a light smack on the head. Try to copy what Encrid did, and you would never live out your natural lifespan. Bell knew that.

When had he realized it? When Encrid saved Platoon Commander Vengeance? He had known even before then that the man was extraordinary, but that was when he had truly begun to admire him.

Saving Bell on the battlefield might have happened by chance. But saving a comrade from a burning tent, knowing you could die? And someone who hated you, at that?

Bell could never be sure he would do the same.

Regardless of the stir he caused, Encrid ate just as much at dinner, and again the next day. His appetite was monstrous.

Sitting beside him, Rem gave him a what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you look and asked, "Decided you've got the stomach of an ogre or a Giant?"

Ogres were monsters notorious for eating people and eating enormous quantities. Giants were simply notorious for stuffing their faces. Both had huge bodies to maintain, so of course they needed to eat a lot. Encrid did not.

Rem's question was only natural.

"I wanted a hearty meal."

"Going somewhere?"

"No."

What was wrong with him this time? Rem studied him with a knowing look, but left him alone. What could he say if the man wanted to eat?

Encrid kept eating that way for four more days. He ate well, shat well, and slept well. Morning and night, he thoroughly washed every inch of his body.

"You don't have a fever."

At one point, Sinar laid a hand on his forehead and said as much. He had suddenly stopped sparring and did nothing but eat, drink, sleep, and train lightly.

Of course, to an ordinary soldier, that light training was a brutal workload they could barely keep up with. It only looked easy by comparison because his usual exertions were beyond anything they would even dare attempt.

Encrid ate, drank, rested, and washed as though preparing for some ritual. He looked like a man preparing to fight a momentous battle alone.

As he spent a week this way, a wind swept away the last of the heat. An autumn wind.

Seated on a stump, waiting for evening, he let the breeze wash over him and thought of the West. More precisely, of spells, a part of western culture.

'Spells are wrought through invocations.'

That did not mean he intended to perform an invocation or a ritual for a spell. Cleansing body and mind before an undertaking could only help, not hinder. This was simply part of setting his mind in order.

Many eyes watched Encrid.

Rem thought the man had finally gone completely mad, but was also curious to see what he intended. He seemed to be planning something. There was that air about him.

Outwardly, though, Rem merely hummed and sharpened his axe with a top-quality whetstone he had acquired somewhere. It was said to cost more than most Valeri steel, but he used it without a care.

Ragna sensed something like grim resolve in Encrid. At a glance, he looked like a man enjoying his everyday life, but he also seemed to be preparing to take up his sword and perform a sword dance alone. It would hardly be surprising if he suddenly grabbed his sword and attacked.

Audin prayed in silence.

'My Lord Father, bless the undertaking of our little Brother Captain.'

He did not know what it was, but Encrid clearly intended to do something. Audin wished him well with all his heart. And yet he felt a trace of unease.

Why? He did not know. It only seemed that the Lord Father was telling him that his little brother was about to do something reckless.

Audin continued his silent prayer.

'Lord Father, that brother has always done so.'

Not a single moment of the path he had walked had been free of recklessness.

Had the god of strife and battle descended, he might well have asked why Audin was giving him shit after he had answered his prayer with a revelation.

Of course, no god came down to speak, so Audin simply continued praying for blessings, wishing Encrid well.

'Help him.'

His unease faded. The Father would help. Audin offered a prayer of consecration.

Jaxon sat with his arms folded, a dagger in his right hand and a book in his left. His posture was so natural that no one looking at him would imagine he held a weapon. That dagger was the weapon he had carried on his first mission. It bore no remarkable enchantment, but holding it put him at ease.

He had actually finished that mission with a single high kick without ever using the dagger, but it still meant something to him.

'Death.'

Jaxon had witnessed and played a part in countless deaths. His Sixth Sense and intuition warned him that what Encrid was doing was dangerous. It might kill him.

'Why?'

It was a reasonable question to ask himself. On the surface, nothing was wrong. By Encrid's standards, this was simply ordinary life. Yet the fact that it filled Jaxon with such foreboding meant Encrid was indeed up to something.

So he watched, despite having work to do elsewhere.

Eating, drinking, sleeping, shitting, washing, resting. What was strangest about it?

All of it. He ate more, drank more, slept more, shat more, and washed more than usual.

'No, I haven't checked the shitting.'

Naturally, what went in had to come out. He was only assuming.

Eating more, sleeping more, resting more than usual. And he seemed to do every bit of it as though fighting for his life. That was how it looked to Jaxon.

Of everyone watching, Sinar was closest to Encrid. She sat in a chair facing him, three or four paces away. She might have been studying and admiring his face. Her own expression was as sculpted as ever as she regarded him.

"Come back soon, my betrothed."

When enhancing her spiritual essence, or more precisely, when joining with the spirits of the forest, Sinar had gone on a journey. A journey within herself, with little chance of survival, though she had believed she would succeed.

Encrid seemed to be preparing for such a journey, so she had casually spoken. If he asked what she meant, she could simply pass it off as a joke, as usual.

Encrid looked at her and smiled. His eyes crinkled, and his lips curved upward.

Had he thought Sinar's smiles rare? She felt much the same about his. She thought this might be the first time she had seen him smile so gently, as though to reassure her.

"I'm not going anywhere," Encrid replied.

The sun was slowly sinking. Before the sunset colors appeared, Esther the Black Flower approached. Witch would have suited her better, so it was an odd nickname to have acquired. Still, she did not care.

All sorts of things happened when you lived out in the world. Reacting to every little thing was a waste of time. She knew what she had to do, and where to direct her concentration to accomplish it.

Watching Encrid was among those things.

Was it something she had to do? No. It was closer to something she wanted to do. What she wanted came before what she had to do.

Esther acted accordingly.

She gazed steadily at his smiling face. Black hair and blue eyes, much like her own.

"What are you waiting for?"

Whatever he was preparing for, whatever he intended to do, Esther looked past all that and asked about the Encrid before her. He seemed to be waiting for something.

"The sunset," he answered.

"Why?"

"I want to see it."

So that was it. Esther nodded.

BRRRR.

Odd-Eyes approached from behind Esther. Still seated, Encrid reached out to stroke its mane. The horse lowered its head into his hand, circled him once, then moved aside and stood still.

Off to one side, Teresa felt moved to sing. It was a hymn she had recently begun learning. Her voice was both husky and clear. Carrying those two contradictory qualities, her song did more than merely please the ear. It sent something tingling through the heart.

Teresa, effortlessly working with her voice the magic an instrument ought to perform. Luagarne, not blinking once, even suppressing the urge to puff out her cheeks. Roford, swallowing as he took in the atmosphere. Pell, feeling defeated by everything about this moment, this scene, yet wondering why he was here at all.

They all watched Encrid.

As the sun dipped beyond the west, the world slowly began to turn orange, from the cloudless sky to the earth below. Sunset light touched Encrid's face. He drew a long, even breath, then began to exhale.

Something was going to happen. They all reached that conclusion.

A little time passed. Rem's hand stopped its rasping strokes along the axe blade. The precious whetstone he had acquired in the south dropped to the ground with a soft thud.

"What?"

Rem spoke, and Ragna rose. Audin stared at Encrid with widening pupils. Jaxon was already at his side.

Encrid had been breathing very slowly and deeply. Jaxon placed his hand beneath his nose. He had already sensed something happen within Encrid's body in an instant. He simply had not predicted that it would end like this.

"He's dead," Jaxon said.

An impossible death. Why so suddenly? For no reason?

And today ended.

* * *

Just before beginning it all, once his preparations were complete, Encrid waited for sunset. It was his favorite time of day.

The sun tilted westward, turning the world orange. Giving himself over to the breeze, Encrid sat on the stump used as a chair beside the barracks. To one side, Rem sharpened his axe and Jaxon read a book. Ragna sat half-reclining, his gaze vacant.

Sinar watched him from a little distance, and Odd-Eyes stood off to one side, watching the sunset with him. Esther cast a seemingly indifferent glance his way, then found a spot on the ground and sat down any old how. Her posture resembled a countrywoman resting by the roadside. She might look like a lady from a ducal house, but her manner was unpretentious.

Audin prayed, and Teresa sang. Her voice could fairly have been called an instrument in its own right.

"Lord, Lord, my Father does not retreat from battle, but aids judgment. Lord, Lord, my Father does not suffer injustice, but aids judgment."

Listening to Teresa, Encrid drew out his Will and sent it to the tips of his toes.

Rem, Ragna, Sinar, and Jaxon had all advanced to a knight's level. Naturally, that could have raised any number of questions, starting with whether improving was really so easy.

Examined closely, it was a combination of Encrid's galvanizing presence, their circumstances and talent, and the effort inspired by watching him. But Encrid could not know all that. Nor did he think it mattered.

He only asked about the method.

How?

That was what Encrid asked.

Rem said that, as he learned spells, he had realized from childhood that his constitution was different. His explanation of how that constitution had allowed him to expand his ability to wield spells was difficult even to comprehend.

["It just came to me, so I tried it, and it worked."]

That was what Ragna had said.

Sinar had said a short journey was necessary. Through it, she had come to understand spiritual essence and spirits. Not a journey in which the body actually moved, but an experience of the mind becoming detached from the world. The challenge, she said, was maintaining one's sense of self through it.

What about Audin?

He claimed he had not reached a knight's level, but Encrid thought he understood now.

'His vessel is different.'

In other words, the vessel was already complete. He, too, was hiding something. If he revealed it, he would fight like a knight as well.

So Encrid had asked, and this was the answer he received.

["I merely followed the revelation the Father granted me."]

Frankly, so much of what he heard was incomprehensible. These were questions and answers following on from his earlier inquiries. He had already heard and organized them; now he was going over them again.

Then how had Oara done it?

He did not know. Even if he wanted to ask, she was no longer in this world.

What about the Mercenary King? The knight from Aspen?

They would all have their own methods, and talent would have helped most of them along. It just happened. That was how it was for all of them.

You had to be born with it to make it possible.

You had to be born with it to walk that path.

You had to be born with it to advance.

You had to be born with it. That was talent.

Encrid had no talent. At least, he was not knight material. He knew that well himself.

So would he give up? Would he stop here, trapped in frustration and despair? Would he settle for crudely stitching together his torn and faded dream?

'I know that, too.'

That he lacked talent? He knew. He knew it better than anyone.

That the limping mercenary, his first sword teacher, had not told him the truth when he was young?

Perhaps he had half suspected it even as he listened, and turned away because the truth was too harsh. He could not clearly remember every thought and feeling he had back then.

But he had never believed becoming a knight would be easy. That had been true from the beginning, right up to this moment.

Dead ends had always stood before Encrid. If a blocked path meant he could go no farther, he would have stopped long ago.

But he had not stopped. Because all the time, all the years he had lived through, had planted determination within him.

'If I have no talent, isn't there another way?'

He had seen side paths. Chimera knights were one. What about help from spells? That seemed possible, too. But he did not want to take a side path, so he had devised another way.

His idea was simple. What did he need to do to keep the door open? To make Will dwelling throughout his body a constant state?

If it would not happen naturally, what if he forced it?

That was what he did. Starting at his toes, he drew out Will bit by bit and made it stay.

What he had realized through learning a knight's strike. Everything he had gained along the way helped him in what he was doing now. Everything, from the repeating today when he had practiced his stab, all the way to the present.

One by one, those things flashed through his mind.

Drawing on all that experience, he brought forth Will and spread it from his toes throughout his body. As it reached every part of him, it shook his body. Then some force he could feel but not see seized his heart and stopped it.

It was a quiet death. A death with little pain.

But it was also a death brought about by the wall called talent barring his way.

That death spoke to Encrid.

"You built this wall yourself, but it is a wall you cannot surmount."

He opened his eyes and saw the ferryman. The ferryman had repeated what death had said.

"Is that so?"

And Encrid answered just as he would on any other day. His voice never wavered.