“You’re wondering about all your hard earned facts on the fascinating history of the Sixth Order and its innumerable blood-baths.” Dendrish Hendril, the fat man, spat a cherry stone into a delicately embroidered handkerchief. “Your masters have been misleading you, boy. We have no questions on long dead heroes or best forgotten battles. That’s not the strain of knowledge we seek.”

Elera Al Mendah turned her smile on her fellow Aspect. “I think we should explain the test in greater detail, dearest brother.”

Dendrish Hendril’s eyes narrowed slightly but he gave no reply, reaching instead for another cherry.

“The Test of Knowledge,” Elera went on, turning back to Vaelin, “is unique in that all brothers and sisters in training in each of the Orders must pass it. It is not a test of strength, skill or memory. It is a test of knowledge, self knowledge. To serve your Order you must have more than skill with arms, just as servants of my order must know more than the arts of healing. It is your soul that makes you who you are, your soul that guides your service to the Faith. This test will tell us, and you, if you know the nature of your soul.”

“And don’t bother lying,” Dendrish Hendril instructed. “You can’t lie in here and you’ll fail the test if you try.”

Vaelin’s uncertainty deepened further. The lies he told kept him safe. Lying had become a necessary act of survival. Erlin and Sella, the wolf in the forest and the assassin he had killed. All secrets shrouded in lies. Fighting panic he forced himself to nod and say, “I understand, Aspect.”

“No you don’t, boy. You’re shitting your pants. I can almost smell it.”

Aspect Elera’s smile faltered slightly but she kept her attention on Vaelin. “Are you afraid, Vaelin?”

“Is this the test, Aspect?”

“The test started the moment you entered the room. Please, answer me.”

You can’t lie. “I am… worried. I don’t know what to expect. I don’t want to leave the Order.”

Dendrish Hendril snorted. “Scared of facing your father more like. Think he’ll be happy to see you?”

“I don’t know,” Vaelin replied honestly.

“Your father wanted you returned to him,” Elera said. “Doesn’t that tell you he cares about you?”

Vaelin squirmed in discomfort. He had avoided or suppressed memories of his father for so long this kind of scrutiny was hard to endure. “I don’t know what it means. I… barely knew him before I came here. He was often away, fighting the King’s wars, and when he was home he said little to me.”

“So you hate him?” Dendrish Hendril enquired. “I can certainly understand that.”

“I don’t hate him. I don’t know him. He is not my family. My family is here.”

The thin man, Corlin Al Sentis, spoke for the first time. His voice was harsh, rasping. “You killed a man during the test of the run,” he said, his fierce eyes locked onto Vaelin’s. “Did you enjoy it?”

Vaelin was stunned. They know! How much more do they know?

“Aspects share information, boy,” Dendrish Hendril told him. “It’s how our Faith endures. Unity of purpose, unity of trust. Our Realm was named for it. Something you’d do well to remember. And don’t worry, your sordid secrets are safe with us. Answer Aspect Sentis’s question.”

Vaelin took a deep breath, trying to still the heavy thump in his chest. He thought back to the test of the run, the snap of the bowstring that had saved him from the assassin’s arrow, the slack, inanimate mask of the man’s face, his gorge rising as he sawed at the fletching with his knife… “No. No I didn’t enjoy it.”

“Do you regret it?” Corlin Al Sentis persisted.

“The man was trying to kill me. I had no choice. I cannot regret staying alive.”

“So that’s all you care about?” Dendrish Hendril asked. “Staying alive?”

“I care about my brothers, I care about the Faith and the Realm…” I care about Sella the Denier witch and Erlin who helped her run. But I can’t say I care much for you, Aspect.

He tensed, waiting for rebuke or punishment, but the three Aspects said nothing, exchanging unreadable glances. They can hear lies, he realised. But not thoughts. He could hide things, he didn’t have to lie. Silence could be his shield.

It was Aspect Elera who spoke next, her question the worst yet, “Do you remember your mother?”

Vaelin’s discomfort was abruptly replaced by anger. “We leave our family ties behind when we enter this house…”

“Don’t be impertinent, boy!” Aspect Hendril snapped. “We ask, you answer. That’s how this works.”

Vaelin’s jaw ached with the effort of biting back a furious retort. Fighting to control his anger, he grated, “Of course I remember my mother.”

“I remember her too,” Aspect Elera said. “She was a good woman who sacrificed much to marry your father and bring you into this world. Like you she had chosen a life in the service of the Faith. She was once a sister in the Fifth Order, highly respected for her knowledge of healing, she was to be a mistress in our House, she may even have become Aspect in time. At the King’s command she travelled with his army when it moved against the first Cumbraelin revolt. She met your father when he was wounded after the Battle of the Hallows. As she tended his wounds love grew between them and she left the Order to marry. Did you know that?”

Vaelin, numb with shock, could only shake his head. His memories of childhood outside the Order were dimmed with time and deliberate suppression but he recalled occasional suspicions of his parents’ dissimilar origins; their voices were different, his father’s lack of grammar and clipped vowels a contrast to the even precise tones of his mother. His father also knew little of table manners, often ignoring the knife and fork next to his plate and reaching for the food with his hands, seeming genuinely bemused when his mother sighed a gentle rebuke, “Please dear. This is not a barracks.” But he had never dreamed she too once served the Faith.

“If she were still alive,” Aspect Elera’s voice snapped him back to the present. “Would she let you give your life to the Order?”

The temptation to lie was almost overwhelming. He knew what his mother would have said, how she would have felt to see him in this robe, his hands and face bruised and raw from practice, how it would have hurt her. But if he said it, it became real, he couldn’t hide from it any longer. But he knew it was a trap. They want me to lie, he realised. They want me to fail.

“No,” he said. “She hated war.” So it was out. He was living a life his mother would never have wanted, he was dishonouring her memory.

“She told you that?”

“No, she told my father. She didn’t want him to leave for the war against the Meldeneans. She said the stench of blood sickened her. She wouldn’t have wanted this life for me.”

“How does that make you feel?” Elera persisted.

He found himself speaking without thinking, “Guilty.”

“And yet you stayed, when you had the chance to leave.”

“I felt that I needed to be here. I needed to stay with my brothers. I needed to learn what the Order could teach me.”

“Why?”

“I… think it’s what I’m supposed to do. It’s what the Faith requires of me. I know the sword and the staff as a blacksmith knows his hammer and anvil. I have strength and speed and cunning and...” He hesitated, knowing he had to force the words out, hating them even so. “And I can kill,” he said, meeting her eyes. “I can kill without hesitating. I was meant to be a warrior.”

There was silence in the room save for the soft wet sound of Dendrish Hendril chewing another cherry. Vaelin stared at each of them in turn, appalled by the fact that none of them wanted to return his gaze. Elera Al Mendah’s reaction was almost shocking, looking down at her hands clasped in front her, she looked as if she was about to cry.

Finally, Dendrish Hendril broke the silence, “That’ll do, boy. You can go. Don’t talk to your friends on the way out.”

Vaelin rose uncertainly. “The test is over, Aspect?”

“Yes. You passed. Congratulations. I am sure you’ll be a credit to the Sixth Order.” His acid tone spoke clearly that he did not consider this a compliment.

Vaelin moved to the door, glad for the release; the atmosphere in the room was oppressive, the scrutiny of the Aspects difficult to bear.

“Brother Vaelin,” Corlin Al Sentis’ cold rasp stopped him as he reached for the door handle.

Vaelin swallowed a sigh of exasperation and forced himself to turn. Corlin Al Sentis was giving him the full benefit of his fanatical gaze. Aspect Elera didn’t look up and Dendrish Al Hendril gave him a brief, disinterested glance.

“Yes, Aspect?”

“Did she touch you?”

Vaelin knew who he meant, of course. It was foolish of him to think he could escape without facing this question. “You mean Sella, Aspect?”

“Yes, Sella the murderer, Denier and student of the Dark. You helped her and the traitor in the wild did you not?”