Suddenly preoccupied he rose from the table. “Sleep well, sister. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“It’s your last day tomorrow is it not?” she asked, looking up at him. Oddly her eyes seemed brighter than usual, it almost seemed she was tearful but the idea was absurd.

“It is. Although, I still hope to learn more before I leave.”

“Yes.” She looked away. “Yes of course. Sleep well.”

“And you, sister.”

Sleep was beyond him as he sat, legs crossed beneath him, and pondered the realisation that he knew almost nothing of his mother’s past. She was a sister of the Fifth Order, she married his father, she bore him a son, she died. That was all he knew. For that matter he knew just as little about his father. A soldier elevated by the King for bravery, later Battle Lord, city burner, father of a son and a daughter by different mothers. But who had he been before? He had no knowledge of where his father had been born, whether his grandfather had been a soldier or a farmer or neither.

So many questions, raging in his mind like a storm. He closed his eyes and sought to control his breathing as Master Sollis had taught him, a skill no doubt learned from the Aspect of the Fifth Order which in turn raised even more questions. Focus, he told himself. Breathe, slow and even…

An hour later, the beat of his heart slowed and the storm in his mind cooling, he was roused by a soft but insistent knock at his door. Pausing to pull his shirt over his head he went to the door, finding Sister Henna there, smiling shyly.

“Brother,” she said, her voice little above a whisper. “Have I disturbed you?”

“I wasn’t sleeping.” Surely she can’t want another story. “The hour is late, sister. If you require something of me, perhaps it could wait until morning.”

“Require something?” Her smile broadened a little and, before he could stop her, she stepped past him into his cell. “I require your forgiveness brother, for my thoughtless words this evening.”

Vaelin’s calmed heart was beginning to thump again. “There is nothing to forgive…”

“Oh, but there is!” she whispered fiercely, moving close to him, making him step back, the door forced closed behind him. “I am such a stupid girl. I say such silly things. Thoughtless things.” She moved closer still, pressing against him, the feel of her ample breasts against his chest provoked an instant sheen of sweat and an unwelcome stirring in his groin. “Say you forgive me,” she implored, a faint sob in her voice as she lay her head on his chest. “Say you don’t hate me!”

“Erm.” He searched urgently through his mind for an appropriate response but life in the Order had failed to equip him for such things. “Of course I don’t hate you.” Gently he put his hands on her shoulders and eased her away from him, forcing a smile. “You shouldn’t worry over such a trifle.”

“Oh, but I do,” she assured him breathlessly. “The thought of offending you, of all people.” She looked away, ashamed. “It’s more than I could bear.”

“You care too much for my opinion, sister.” He reached behind him for the door handle. “You should go now…”

Her hand reached out, touching his chest, feeling the muscle beneath his shirt. “So hard,” she murmured. “So strong.”

“Sister.” He put his hand over hers. “This is not…”

She kissed him then, pressing close, her lips on his before he knew what had happened. The sensation was overwhelming, a torrent of unaccustomed feelings washing through his body. This is wrong, he thought as her tongue probed between his lips. I should stop her. Right now… I must end this… Any second now…

The sound that saved him was faint at first, a plaintive note on the wind seeping through his window, almost missed by his preoccupation with Sister Henna’s lips, but something in it, something familiar, made him pause, pull away.

“Brother?” Sister Henna asked, the whisper of her breath caressing his lips.

“Can you hear that?”

A slight frown creased her brow. “I hear nothing.” She giggled and pressed close again. “But my heart beating, and yours…”

The sound grew, an unmistakable siren call.

“Wolf’s howl,” he said.

“A wolf in the city?” Sister Henna giggled again. “It’s just the wind, or a dog…”

“Dog’s don’t howl like that. And it’s not the wind. It’s a wolf. I saw a wolf once, in the forest.” Just before an assassin tried to kill me.

It would have been easily missed had he not spent years studying his opponents’ faces on the practice ground, searching for the ticks and subtle changes in expression that warned of an attack. And he saw it in hers, a brief flicker of decision in her eyes.

“You shouldn’t worry over such things,” she said, her left hand coming up to caress his face. “Forget your worries, brother. Let me help you for-”

The knife in her right hand came free of her robes in a blur, the steel shining bright as it arced towards his neck. It was a practised move, executed with the speed and precision of an expert.

Vaelin twisted, the knife leaving a scratch on his shoulder, his right arm thrusting open handed into her chest, propelling her back to collide with the far wall. She rebounded quickly, a look of feline hatred on her face, leaping, spinning a kick at his head and bringing the knife round to slash at his belly. He dodged the kick and caught her wrist, twisting, hearing the crack, forcing down a spasm of revulsion. She’s not a girl, she’s not a sister, she’s an enemy.

Her free hand came round in a punch, palm flat and fore-knuckles extended, aimed at the base of his nose, a blow he recognised from Master Intris’s lessons, a killing blow. He moved his head, taking the punch on his brow, shaking off the sting of it and gripping her hard on the neck, forcing her against the wall. She thrashed, hissing, nails scraping at his face. He forced her head back, the bones of her neck straining, lifting her off her feet, tightening his grip to subdue her struggles.

“You are very skilled, sister,” he observed.

A grunt of pained fury escaped her throat. Her skin felt hot against his hand.

“Perhaps you could tell me where you learned such skills, and why you felt the need to practice them on me.”

Her eyes, shining bright amidst the flushed, red mask of her face, flicked to the rip in his shirt and the shallow scar beneath. A smile, ugly and full of malice, twisted her lips. “Feeling… well, brother?” she grated through spittle. “You don’t… have time… to save her now.”

He felt it then, the heat rising in his chest, the fresh slick of sweat washing over him, a faint greyness creeping into the corners of his eyes. Poison! Poison on the blade.

He leaned close, his face inches from hers, meeting the hatred in her eyes. “Save who?”

Her horrible smile widened into a grotesque laugh. “Once… there were... seven!” she told him, the hatred in her eyes shining like a lantern in the dark.

Suddenly she jerked her head back, forcing her mouth open, then clamping it shut with a loud clack of colliding teeth. She began to writhe in his grasp, shuddering uncontrollably, froth spouting from her mouth. He released his grip, letting her fall to the floor where she thrashed, feet slapping the tiles, before laying still, eyes wide and unblinking, lifeless.

Vaelin stared at her, sweat beading his forehead, the heat in his chest building to a fire.

Poison on the blade… You don’t have time to save her now… Once there were seven…You don’t have time to save her… Save her… SAVE HER!

The Aspect!

He went to where his sword was propped against the wall, tearing it free of the scabbard, dragging the door open, sprinting along the corridor to the stairwell.

Poison on the blade… How long did he have? He chased the thought from his mind. Long enough! he decided fiercely, leaping up the steps three at a time. I have long enough.

The Aspect’s rooms were on the top floor. He got there in seconds, running along the corridor, seeing her door ahead, finding no sign of a threat…

The blade was a sliver of light in the shadows, a half-crescent of steel, fast and skilful, it should have taken his head off at the shoulders. He ducked it, going into a roll, feeling the wind rush as the sword bit the air above him, coming to his feet, forming the parry stance in the same movement, the sword blade clashing with his own. He whirled, going down on one knee, sword arm fully extended, his arm jarring as his blade met flesh, drawing a stifled shout of pain and brief rainfall spatter of blood on floor tiles. His attacker wore cotton garments of black, a mask over his face, soot smeared on the brows and eye lids. His eyes glared up at Vaelin from the floor as he clutched at the deep gash in his thigh, not in anger but shocked surprise.

Vaelin killed him with a slash to the neck, left him writhing in a welter of arterial blood as he ran on, the fire in his chest now an inferno of pain, his vision blurring, losing focus, fixing on the Aspect’s door, no more than a few feet away now. He stumbled, colliding with the wall, pushing himself onwards with an angry grunt of self reproach.

SAVE HER!

Two more blades shimmered out of the darkness, another black clad figure, a short sword in each hand, attacking in a frenzy of slashing blades. Vaelin parried the first two slashes, moved back to let the others whistle within an inch of his face, stepped inside the reach of the man’s kick and killed him with a thrust to the sternum, guiding his sword blade up under the ribs, finding the heart. The black clad man went into a brief spasm, blood gouting from his mouth, then sagged, doll like, devoid of life, hanging on Vaelin’s blade like a rag. The weight of it dragged him down, sword buried in the body up to the hilt, blood covering his arm in a thick red slick, bathing the floor. The smell would have made him gag but for the toxin raging in his blood.