The only negative aspect to his time in the Fifth was the constant attention of the other brothers and sisters. He had continued to take his meals with Sister Sherin late in the evening and they soon found themselves joined by a cluster of novices eager for Vaelin’s tales of life in the Sixth Order or a retelling of what they termed his ‘rescue of Sister Sherin’, a tale which seemed to have become a minor legend in only a few days. As ever, Sister Henna was his most attentive audience.

“Weren’t you scared, Brother?” she asked, wide brown eyes gazing up at him. “When the big brute was going to kill Sister Sherin? Didn’t it frighten you?”

Beside him, Sherin, who until now had borne the intrusion on her meal time with stoic calm, pointedly let her cutlery fall onto her plate with a loud clatter.

“I… have been trained to control my fear,” he replied, instantly realising how conceited it sounded. “Not as well as Sister Sherin, though,” he went on quickly. “She remained calm throughout.”

“Oh she never gets bothered by anything,” Henna waved a hand dismissively. “So, why didn’t you kill him?”

“Sister!” Brother Curlis exclaimed.

She lowered her gaze, a flush creeping up her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

“It matters not, sister.” He patted her hand awkwardly, which seemed to make her blush even more.

“Brother Vaelin and I have had a long day,” Sister Sherin said. “We would like to eat in peace.”

Although she wasn’t a Mistress, her word evidently commanded obedience because their small audience quickly dispersed back to their rooms.

“They respect you,” Vaelin observed.

She shrugged. “Perhaps. But I am not liked here. I am envied and resented by most of my brothers and sisters. The Aspect warned me it might be this way.” Her tone indicated little concern, she was simply stating a fact.

“You could be judging them too harshly. Perhaps if you mixed with them more…”

“I am not here for them. The Fifth Order is the means by which I can help the people I need to help.”

“No room for friendship? A soul in whom to confide, share a burden?”

She gave him a guarded glance. “You said it yourself, brother. Things are different here.”

“Well, although you may not welcome it, I hope you know you have my friendship.”

She said nothing, sitting still, eyes fixed on her half-empty plate.

Was this how it was for my mother? he wondered. Was she so isolated by her abilities? Did they resent her too? He found it hard to imagine. He remembered a woman of kindness, warmth and openness. She could never have been as closed to emotion as Sherin. Sherin is formed by whatever happened to her beyond the gates, he realised. Out there in the southern quarter. My mother would have had a different life. A thought occurred to him then, something he had never considered before. Who was she before she came here? What was her family name? Who were my grandparents?

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.