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Yet Kalan sensed sympathy in her as well. She had overlooked the stolen hours that he had spent with Brother Belan, listening to tales of the great Derai heroes. Belan, the oldest of the priests, had known all the stories of the priestess Errianthar and her twin, Telemanthar, and how they had beaten back the Swarm of Dark. Telemanthar, the old priest would mumble, had carried a hero’s sword, but Errianthar had called the Golden Fire with her mind and hurled it against the onslaught of the Swarm. Belan could recite the Saga of Yorindesarinen, too, despite his faded voice, and would whisper that Kerem the Dark Handed, Kerem of the subtle mind, had also wielded the old powers as well as a sword.
    Back in the good old days, Kalan thought bitterly, when warriors had the old powers and priests trained in the fighting arts—before the civil war and the schism between the Houses.
    Brother Belan had died three years before and his stories, the brightness and solace of Kalan’s life, had died with him. Since then, Kalan had retreated further into his own company, exploring the less-used parts of the Temple quarter and discovering the warren of storerooms at its lowest level. The warren made it easier to absent himself at will, although he tried to time his disappearances to avoid unwelcome attention. But lately, Kalan had found his moods of despondency becoming more frequent. It was not just his exclusion from the life of the wider keep, although that galled him deeply, or even the tedium of temple life. Soon he would complete his seventh year as a novice and be required to take the initiate’s vow; after that, there would be no going back.
    Until recently, Kalan had indulged a fervent hope that his powers might disappear again as suddenly as they had emerged. Dogged but determined, he had continued to practice the beginnings of the warrior training, learned in his father’s house, in secret. But as his fourteenth birthday drew closer he had begun to despair, knowing that he was bound, whatever his personal aspirations, into a life that promised to be narrow, circumscribed, and dull. He did not know if he could bear it.
    Kalan knew from Sister Korriya’s lessons that there had been other temple dwellers who felt they could not bear it. Some had taken their own lives while others sought to flee the Wall. It was not easy, however, to hide the old powers from other Derai. Most were returned to the temples, sometimes with the “R” for renegade branded into their forehead or cheek to prevent further escape attempts.
    As if we were criminals, Kalan reflected angrily. Or slaves.
    The Earls of Blood were renowned for their implacable pursuit of such renegades, and Kalan wondered whether the Earl of Night would be similarly relentless. Even in the Temple quarter, the current Earl was known for his justice, but there were some nasty stories told about his father, the Old Earl. And the schism between priest and warrior ran very deep in Night, which Kalan found strange, because in all the long history of the Derai, only the House of Stars had produced more heroes with the old powers.
    Sister Korriya had shaken her head when he shared this thought. “Strange,” she replied, echoing his word. “Perhaps. But then again, perhaps not. The line between love and hate can run very fine, as we have seen time and again in our history.”
    Kalan had not been quite sure what she meant, and he still wondered why the temples were so feared when most clerics only had minor powers. Once, Derai temples had housed sibyls, with their talent for prophecy, and mindspeakers who could communicate across vast distances, as well as thoselike Errianthar, whose powers allowed them to move objects and to bring fire with the touch of their minds. Such powers were difficult to hide, particularly when the one bearing them was startled or threatened, although temple tradition held that with training, natural instinct could be overruled. Even so, there were stories