“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?”
“I didn’t know who they were until later, Aspect.” The truth, hiding a lie. He felt himself start to sweat and prayed it didn’t show on his face. “They were strangers lost in a storm. The Catechism of Charity tells us to treat a stranger as a brother.”
Corlin Al Sentis raised his head slightly, his unwavering glare taking on a calculating cast. “I didn’t know the Catechism of Charity was taught here.”
“It isn’t, Aspect. My… mother taught me all the catechisms.”
“Yes. She was a lady of considerable charity. You haven’t answered my question.”
He didn’t have to lie. “She didn’t touch me, Aspect.”
“You know the power of her touch? What it does to men’s souls?”
“Brother Makril told me. Truly I was fortunate to escape such a fate.”
“Truly.” The Aspect’s gaze softened, but only slightly. “You may feel that this Test has been harsh but you realise what awaits you will be harder still. Life in your Order is never easy. Many of your brothers will succumb to madness or maiming before they are called to the Departed. You know this?”
Vaelin nodded. “I do, Aspect.”