“The city.” Men, women, children… screaming in the flames.

“Yes. It haunted them both and it ended their union. She turned away from him. He began spending more time away from home, how he met the woman who would give him a daughter I don’t know. But when your mother died and you were placed in the Sixth Order they were brought to live in his home. He asked for permission to marry and legitimise the girl but the King refused. The Battle Lord must be an example, a model for the people to follow. It was not long after this that your father left the King’s service.”

“Did my mother know? About the girl.”

“I don’t think so. Her health began to fail about the same time. She concerned herself with your future.” She reached up to smooth the hair from his forehead. “She had many hopes for you. All the good she did, all the people she healed, but you were the proudest achievement of her life.”

“Then I am glad she did not live to see what I have become.”

The slap was slow by his standards but so unexpected he failed to block it.

“Don’t ever say that!” Her voice was heavy with anger as he rubbed his stinging cheek. “What have you become? A brave young man who saved my life. Not to mention Sister Sherin’s. I know your mother’s spirit sings with pride at who you are.”

“I am a killer. It’s all I know how to do.”

“You are a warrior in the service of the Faith. Do not forget that. It may mean nothing to you now but it will in time.”

“It’s not what she wanted. Putting me in that place so my father could move his whore into her house…”

“It wasn’t his decision.”

“Another King’s order, then. A symbol of his devotion…”

“It was your mother’s dying wish.”

He felt he had been slapped again, only worse. His head spun, mind reeling. LIES! She’s lying! My mother would never have wanted this.

“Vaelin?”

He rose from the bench, staggering away from her, nausea and confusion boiling inside him, but his weakened legs could only carry him a few steps before he collapsed, crushing precious orchids and finding himself blinded by tears.

“Vaelin.” She was holding him, cradling him as he sobbed. “I’m sorry. You had to know.”

“Why?” he whispered into her breast. “Why would she do that?”

“Because she was brave enough to look into your heart and see the man you were meant to be. She prayed to the Departed you would inherit her gift, that you would spend your life as a healer, but as you grew she knew it was your father’s skill that ran in your blood. As your father’s son you would have had a very different life, a life of service true, but service to the King, not the Faith. The King had plans for you, did you know that? In time you would have been very useful to him. Your mother had lost her husband to his plans, she wouldn’t lose a son. As her health worsened she realised she would not be there to protect you and your father would always obey his king. She knew Aspect Arlyn well from her time in the Cumbraelin wars and asked him to take you. Of course he agreed although he knew it meant conflict with the crown. Your father raged when she told him, his anger was terrible, but your mother was dying and as his final service to her she made him promise he would give you to the Order when she was gone. It was his last act of loyalty to her.”

Loyalty is our strength…Loyalty to a king… Loyalty to a betrayed wife…

His voice came in a whisper, secrets rising from deep inside. “I heard her once, my first night in the Order as I lay shivering in fear. I heard her say my name.”

Her arms tightened around him. “She loved you so much. When I placed you in her arms she seemed to shine with it.”

He drew back a little, puzzled.

She smiled and placed a kiss on his forehead. “I delivered you Vaelin Al Sorna, and a big, squalling mass of flesh you were.”

Questions. Still so many questions. But somehow he felt content to leave them unasked. For now the answers she gave were enough. She held him for a while longer as his tears subsided then helped him back to the Order House. He left two days later amidst fond farewells from the brothers and sisters of the Fifth Order. Sister Sherin wasn’t present, her Aspect having sent her to the southern coast the previous day where fresh rioting left many people in need of healing. It would be nearly five more years before Vaelin saw her again.

Chapter 6

He recovered in a few days with no lingering ailments save a tendency to cough on cold mornings and a life-long suspicion of overly amorous women, something which did not concern a brother of the Sixth Order with any regularity. His return to the Order was greeted with studied indifference from the masters, a marked contrast to the joyous farewells he received from the brothers and sisters of the Fifth Order. His brothers, of course, acted differently, fussing over him with an embarrassing level of concern, confining him to bed for a full week and forcing food down his neck at every opportunity. Even Nortah joined in, although Vaelin detected a certain sadism in the way he tucked the blankets in and held the soup spoon to his mouth. Frentis was the worst, spending every spare minute in their tower room, anxiously watching over him and becoming agitated at the slightest cough or sign of ill health. He earned his first caning from Master Sollis for failing to appear at sword practice because he had been fretting over a slight fever Vaelin developed in the night. Finally the Aspect decreed their room off limits to him on pain of expulsion.

When he was strong enough to leave his bed without assistance Vaelin’s first call was to the kennels where Scratch’s greeting was aggressively ecstatic, knocking him off his feet and painting his face with his stone rough tongue as his rapidly growing brood of pups milled around them yelping with excitement.

“Get off you brute!” Vaelin grunted, managing to heave the dog’s weight from his chest. Scratch whined a little at the reproach but laid his head affectionately on Vaelin’s chest. “I know.” Vaelin scratched his ears. “I missed you too.”

When he visited the stables he found Spit also had a welcome waiting. It lasted a full two minutes and Master Rensial stated confidently it was the longest fart he had ever heard a horse produce.

“Bloody nag,” Vaelin muttered, holding a candy up to the stallion’s mouth. “Test of the Horse soon. Don’t let me down, eh?”

He found Caenis at archery practice, loosing as many arrows as possible in the shortest time, a skill crucial to the Test of the Bow. To Vaelin’s eyes Caenis hardly needed the practice, his hands seeming to blur as he sent shaft after shaft into the butt thirty paces away. Vaelin had steadily improved with the bow but he knew he could never match the level of skill Caenis displayed with the weapon and even he was outshone by Dentos and Nortah.

“You’re a few points off,” he observed, although in truth the inaccuracy was barely noticeable. “The last few drifted to the left.”

“Yes,” Caenis agreed. “My aim wanders after forty arrows or so.” He drew the bowstring back, the finely honed muscles of his arm straining before he sent the shaft into the centre of the target. “A little better.”

“I wanted to ask you about the assassin you killed.”

Caenis’s expression clouded. “I’ve told the tale many times over, to you, the others and the masters. As I’m sure you’ve told your story many times.”

“Did he say anything?” Vaelin pressed. “Before you killed him.”

“Yes, he said ‘Get away from me, boy, or I’ll gut you.’ Hardly worthy of a song is it? I was wondering if I should change it when I write the tale.”

“You intend to write of this?”

“Of course. One day I will write the story of our service in the Faith. I feel our Order has been sadly remiss in recording its history. Do you know we are the only Order not to have its own library? I hope to start a new tradition.” He loosed another arrow, then two more in quick succession. Vaelin noted his aim had worsened.

Killing a man is not an easy thing to bear, or talk about, he realised. “You liked him, this Brother Nillin?”

“He was an interesting man with many stories, although when I thought about it later I realised he had a fondness for the more ancient tales. The Old Songs they’re called, from the time before the Faith was strong, sagas of blood and war and the practice of the Dark.”

The Dark… A wolf in the forest, a wolf howling outside my window. “Once there were seven. Do you know what it means?”

Caenis had drawn his bow once again but slowly relaxed the tension. “Where did you hear that?”

“Sister Henna said it before she took poison. What does it mean, brother? I know you know.”

Caenis took the arrow from the bow and returned it to the quiver at his hip, laying the bow down gently on his pack. “It’s a story. A tale like the Old Songs, but it concerns the Faith. Truth be told I’d never given it credence. It’s rarely told and the archives of the Orders make no mention of it.”

“No mention of what?”

“In our time there are six Orders serving the Faith. But once, so some say, there were seven. In the early years of the Faith, when the Orders were first formed and the first Aspects chosen it’s said there was a Seventh Order. The Orders were formed to serve each of the principal aspects of the Faith, and so the brother or sister chosen to lead an order is called the Aspect. The Seventh Order, so it’s claimed, was the Order of the Dark, its brothers and sisters would delve into the mysteries, seeking knowledge and power to better serve the Faith. Traditionally practice of the Dark has been ascribed to the Denier creeds but, if this tale is to be believed, it was once part of our Faith. The tale has it that after one hundred years a crisis arose. The Seventh Order began to grow in power, using its knowledge of the Dark to seek dominion over the Orders, claiming their knowledge brought them closer to the Departed, claiming they could hear their voice, interpret their guidance more clearly than the lesser Orders. They said it was a privilege that gave them the right to lead, to have ascendancy in the Faith. Such a thing could not be tolerated of course, the Faith must have balance between the Orders, one cannot be set above the others. So there was war between the Faithful and in time the Seventh was destroyed but not before much blood had been spilled. It is said that so great was the chaos caused by this war that it brought the fracturing of the Realm into the four fiefs not united again until the reign of our great King Janus. Whether any of this is true cannot be told. If true it would have happened over six hundred years ago and the few books to survive the centuries say nothing of these events.”