Tired… He slumped against the corpse, a weight of exhaustion greater than any he had known pressing down on him. The pain in his chest receding, displaced by this overwhelming need for sleep. So tired…

“You don’t look well, brother.”

The voice was anonymous, without source or owner, lost amidst the shadows. A dream? he wondered. A dream before death.

“She found you, I see,” the voice went on. There was the faintest scrape of a blade tip on stone.

No dream. Vaelin gritted his teeth, grip tightening on his sword hilt. “She’s dead!” he shouted into the dark.

“I’m sure.” The voice was mild, devoid of accent or recognition. Neither cultured nor coarse. “Pity. I always liked her in that guise. She was so wonderfully cruel. Did you bed her first? I think she would have liked that.”

It was only a slight note of tension in the tone, but Vaelin sensed the owner of the unseen voice was about to make his move.

Shaking with the effort, he got off his knees, standing, pulling his sword free of the corpse. Waited too long, he realised. Should’ve killed me when I was vulnerable. Is he waiting for the poison to complete the task for him?

“You’re afraid,” Vaelin grunted into the darkness. “You know you can’t beat me.”

Silence. Silence and shadows, broken only by the drip of blood from his sword ticking on the floor. No time, he thought, his vision swimming, a dreadful, icy numbness creeping into this limbs. No time to wait.

“Once,” he said, his voice a dry rasp, making him cry it out. “Once there were seven!”

There was a clatter of locks and latches followed by the creak of hinges as the Aspect’s door opened behind him and her comely, faintly annoyed face appeared shrouded by candle light.

“What is all this noise…”

The knife came spinning out of the dark, end over end, a precise throw, its tip certain to take the Aspect in the eye.

Vaelin’s sword arm felt like lead as he brought his blade round in an arc, the blade meeting the knife, sending it spinning into the shadows. He never saw the assassin follow up his attack, he felt it, knew it, but he never saw it. His counter was automatic, unconscious, immediate. He spun, both hands on his sword hilt, the last vestiges of his strength in the blow, he never felt it meet the man’s neck, heard rather than saw the geyser of blood painting the ceiling and walls as the headless corpse continued for a few steps before collapsing. All he knew was the inescapable, dominating need to sleep.

The floor tiles were cool against his cheek, his chest moving in a sedate rhythm, he wondered if he would dream of wolves…

“Vaelin!” Strong hands gripped him, shook him, many feet thundered on the floor, a babble of voices like a raging river. He groaned in annoyance.

“Vaelin! Wake up!” Something hard smacked across his face making him wince. “Wake up! Don’t sleep! Do you hear me?!”

More voices, tumbling together in a barely decipherable clamour. “Fetch Sister Sherin, now!… Get him to the teaching room… Forget them, they’re dead… What was he infected with?… Looks like a knife wound, where’s the blade?”

“She wanted to apologise,” Vaelin said, deciding he should be helpful. “Came to my room… Would’ve got me but for the wolf…”

“Check his room!” Sherin’s voice, more shrill and panicked than he knew it could be. “Look for a knife, make sure you don’t touch the blade.”

There were more voices, a vague sensation of being carried, the coolness of the floor replaced by the hard smoothness of a treatment table. Vaelin groaned, his befuddled mind perceiving the pain to come.

“Dead?” the Aspect’s voice. “What do you mean dead?”

“Looks like poison,” Master Harin’s deep rumble responded. “A pellet hidden in one of her teeth. Haven’t seen the like for a long time…”

Vaelin decided to open his eyes, seeing only a murky collage of shadows. He blinked, his vision clearing long enough to make out Sister Sherin, nostril’s flared as she sniffed Sister Henna’s knife. “Hunter’s Arrow,” she said. “We need Joffril root.”

“That could kill him.” Vaelin knew he should have been shocked by the alarm in the Aspect’s voice but found his mind filled with a question he had to ask.

“He’ll die if we don’t!” Sherin snapped, her face stricken, fearful, but determined. “He’s young and strong. He can stand it.”

A pause, a sigh of deep frustration. “Fetch the root, and plenty of redflower…”

“No!” Sherin cut in. “No, it diminishes the effect. No redflower.”

“Faith sister.” Master Harin’s hulking form moved into Vaelin’s view for the first time. “Do you know what that stuff does to a man?”

“She’s right,” the Aspect said, her voice tight.

“Aspect?” Vaelin said.

She moved to him, her hand clasping his, fingers smoothing his brow. “Vaelin, please lie still, we have to give you a physic to make you well. This will hurt… You must be strong.”

“Aspect,” he fought to keep his vision stable, locked on her eyes. “Please, what was my mother’s name?”

Vardrian.

It sang in his mind through a tumult of pain. Vardrian. Her name. Her family name. Sweat bathed him, his chest was a furnace, darkness clouded his eyes, but her name held him, an anchor in the world.

Sister Sherin had tied a leather strap around his arm and injected the tincture of Joffril root directly into his vein with a long needle. The agony was almost instantaneous. The room fractured and disappeared, the Aspect’s soothing words fading away, Sherin’s stricken face a pale smudge in the descending shadow.

Vardrian.

It was a curious effect of pain that time became infinite, every instant of agony prolonged to the ultimate. He knew that his back was arched, his spine tensed like a bow, strong hands holding him to the table as he raved and raged incoherently. He knew it, but he didn’t feel it. It was far away, somewhere beyond the pain.

Ildera Vardrian. His mother. A plain name, a name without nobility or notoriety, a name that came from the fields or the streets. She was like his father, elevated by her talent. She was special. Suddenly he could see her face so clearly, the darkness fleeing before the brightness of her smile, the compassion in her eyes. She was a beacon in the pain, a focus for his will, his will to live.

He never knew how long it lasted, how long it took him to exhaust himself. They told him later he injured several of the Fifth Order’s stronger brothers, that he even tried to bite the Aspect, that he screamed the most foul and terrible things, but he had no knowledge of it. All he knew was the name. Ildera Vardrian.

It saved him.

Chapter 5

In his dream there was no pain. In his dream soft golden light streamed through the window and Sister Sherin’s smile was radiant as she gazed down at him.

“You lived,” she said. “I knew you would.”

A dream… a dream allows you to speak your heart. “You’re beautiful,” he told her.

Her smile became a laugh. “You’re delirious, brother. Try to sleep, you need to rest. There are a number of dangerous looking young men outside who will be very angry with me if you don’t recover.”

“We should go away together,” he went on blithely, rejoicing in the freedom of the dream. “We should escape. Find a quiet part of the world where you can heal and I can learn to be something other than a killer…”

“Shhh!” Her fingers were on his lips, her smile gone now. “Please Vaelin…”

“I felt nothing when I killed those men. Nothing. That isn’t right…”

“You saved the Aspect. You had no choice.”

The man in black clutched at the wound in his leg, when Vaelin’s sword cut into his neck a faint, childlike whimper escaped his throat… “I have shamed my mother. Compared to her I’m nothing…”

“No.” Her hand caressed his brow, her face came close to his and a soft kiss played on his lips. “You’re a guardian, a warrior who fights in defence of the helpless. You are strong and you are just. Always remember that. And always remember that I will be here whenever you need me, whenever you call for me, my skills are yours.”

The dream began to fade, exhaustion dragging him to oblivion. “I’d rather we just went away together…”

He woke to pain, not the agony of the Joffril root but the mingled ache of strained muscles and dehydration. Oddly shaped red brown stains discoloured his bed sheets and the cut on his arm retained the sting of poison. His eyelids began to droop, the welcoming arms of his dream beckoning… when he noticed he was not alone.

Master Sollis sat in the corner of the room, arms folded, his sword resting on his knees. The redness of his eyes told of a sleepless night. “Took you long enough to wake up,” he said.

“Sorry, Master,” Vaelin croaked.

Master Sollis rose and went to the table beside the bed to pour a cup of water from a large clay jug. “Here.” He held the cup to Vaelin’s lips. “Small sips, don’t gulp it.”