"Have you killed anyone?"
It was a simple question.
VERY simple, really.
Most knights answered it without hesitation. Some with pride, some with discomfort, some with quiet acceptance. Even Silas, shaking and stuttering as he was, had managed to answer honestly.
Because honesty, in this case, was normal.
It was normal for a knight to have killed a human.
It was also normal for a knight not to have.
What wasn't normal was lying about it.
Why?
Because lying meant hiding.
And hiding meant there was something worth concealing.
If a man lied about a kill, then the nature of that kill was likely wrong. Not just ugly, but wrong in a way that couldn't be justified even under the excuse of duty.
Killing was never moral. Ezra had never pretended otherwise.
But there were reasons that could be understood.
