In the months following his return from Rome, the thoughts of Nico de Corella had become increasingly occupied by roads. They seemed magical to him, linking disparate parts of the Italian peninsula together, like blood traveling through the pathways of a great heart.

An ancient road ran along the coastline from the town of Grosetto to the villa that rested next to clear blue water. Pale and crumbling, the road hugged the cliffs before branching off to a separate path that lead north, past a hill where the remains of a pagan temple stood. Many more roads led from Grosetto. To the north where wars still raged. To the south and Rome.

Nico knew that he would have to take his own road soon. The need for it was an itch between his shoulder blades.

It had been an eventful day. After concluding a trip to the market, he had wandered through the town, gathering news of far-off kingdoms, scandals and alliances, the deeds of great men. The merchants of Grosetto had smiled and waved at him, the slim, boyish master of a fine estate, and brought out their pretty young daughters to serve him. Along with gifts for his mother and aunt, he purchased a dark traveling cloak from a peddler to be used in the next winter, his own bright garb no longer suited to his mood. Head down, he crossed to the tavern after a final stop at the butcher's stall.

The moment that Nico stepped through the doorway, the sounds abruptly ceased, as though they had been severed by a blade. The silence was so abrupt and complete that his muscles clenched, and he felt the sudden alertness of danger. He whipped his head about, expecting to see the approach of enemy soldiers, but the grimy door behind him was unoccupied.

Then Nico felt the press of every eye upon his back, and he sensed the change in the air. It was he that they watched with eyes grown round and terrified. Something had caused the people who had known him for years to fear him. A quick glance around the room showed him the likely cause.

Acting on instinct, Nico dropped the basket he clutched and pitched forward, catching his hip on the heavy table so forcefully that it shifted, spilling the drinks. He went down in a flurry of limbs and landed with his face squashed against a trussed chicken. The splendid cut of lamb his mother had ordered rolled from the basket and landed amidst the clods of dirt littering the floor.

The girl serving drinks gasped, and looked at Nico with a pulse hammering in her throat. From his position near her skirts he could see her trim ankles, dotted with the marks of flea bites. She had let him under her skirts only the week before and would blush when he entered the tavern.

Nico rose unsteadily to his feet, conscious that no one had offered him an arm. He rubbed his sleeve against his nose, which had begun to run after hitting the ground, and said, in a voice that broke with strain, "My mother will skin me."

It eased the tension, and the inn exploded into a chorus of laughter and good-natured taunts. Stefano, the miller's son, rushed forward and began helping him to dust off the meat. Fiora, the tavern keeper, offered him a rag to wipe off his face. He grinned up at her, keeping his expression open and trusting. With his red hair and slim build, he could choose to appear younger than his twelve years.

"What foolery," Fiora muttered, and tapped his cheek with her large hand. "You are a good lad, Nico."

"Aye, your cousin spins a wild tale," Stephano laughed, and clapped him on the back.

"A tale?" Nico asked, bright eyed. "The one he tells of the two nuns traveling from Florence…"

Fiora clapped her rough hands over her ears and then shooed him away. "Oh, not that one!" she laughed. "Else the priest will hear of it and set me a stern penance!"

Despite his apparent calm, Nico felt the icy bite of rage as he made his way to the corner, where his cousin sat with a group of ragged young men. They had not joined in the laughter, and eyed him with suspicion.

There were four men around Vitello, and they were older than his cousin, scarred by battle and a life that burned away what little kindness they might once have known. Glancing at their stained garments and hungry expressions, Nico suspected they were mercenaries returning to the wars.

"I must go back to the villa," he murmured to Vitello, keeping his voice pitched low.

Vitello did not look up from his drink and grunted. "I'll come later." Heavy shoulders hunched under his tunic and he carefully avoided Nico's gaze.

"You would walk back?" Nico asked with raised eyebrows. The cart loaded with food from the market waited outside. Flies buzzed, and from the open door of the tavern Nico could see the swish of the pony's tail from side to side. The heat of late afternoon lay oppressively on the village, rising in shimmering waves from the stones and the fields. The gold garnered by his trip to Rome had fed his family through the months of the spring, and the time of danger had passed. Summer blossomed, and the fish from the sea and the fruits of the garden filled their bellies. A noble from Siena had paid well for the wine that had matured in the cellars, and his mother's face no longer creased in worry.

As expected, Vitello downed the rest of his drink in an enormous swallow and rose. The past season had not been kind to his cousin. Once tall and strong, his handsome features had softened, with layers of fat now clinging to his frame. More than once his mother had remarked upon Vitello's resemblance to her father, and such was her tone that he knew it to be an insult.

After placing his basket in the back, Nico climbed into the wagon and sent the pony to trot with a flick of the reins. They rolled down the path that led to the villa in silence broken only by the occasional shouts of those that journeyed in the opposite direction.

When the Villa could be seen in the distance, Nico smacked his forehead and cursed. "I have forgotten the salt," he muttered. He turned and handed the reins to his cousin. "Continue on. I will run back."

Vitello grumbled unintelligibly. He took the reins and urged the pony into a trot. Longish dark hair fluttered in the breeze as he disappeared. Watching the retreating form, Nico desperately hoped that he was wrong.

Shaking himself, Nico turned and hurtled back down the road until sweat began to pour down his face. Instead of continuing south, Nico took a path that led into the surrounding hills. When he reached a rocky outcropping that looked down on a small valley lined with vibrantly green grass, he found a spot in the shade of a tree and waited. No more than an hour had passed before he saw them coming, sheep that moved like fluffy clouds among the dense vegetation. A boy walked with them, older than Nico by less than a year. His exposed arms showed wiry strength and his face was beginning to bear the marks garnered by a life spent beneath the hot rays of the sun.

Walking quietly, Nico descended from the hill, keeping to the hollows where shadows gathered. The boy's face was concealed by a large brimmed hat and his attention was so focused on his sheep that he did not hear Nico approaching.

"Eh," he called when he had drawn near, and caught Piero's arm.

Piero sprang to his feet. He saw Nico and flinched.

"What did my cousin say?" Nico asked. "I saw you there before you ran off. Tell me."

Piero tried to pull away but Nico held him firmly. With a resigned sigh, Piero stepped close and whispered, as though afraid the sheep would overhear his words. "He said your father served Il Valentino. That he killed with great skill and that he trained you to do the same. He said your mother was a whore to the Borgia, and that your sister was sired by…"

Although he felt a white-hot burst of rage, Nico dropped the boy's arm and doubled over in a fit of laughter. "Who is Lucia's father? The dead Borgia Pope, or the Lord God himself?" he asked, laughing as though it were the most preposterous thing he had ever heard.

Piero crossed himself. "Do not blaspheme," he cautioned, and pointed to the cerulean blue of the sky. "Or God will punish you."

Nico shook his head. "My family served the Antichrist. What have I to fear?"

Cringing, Piero crossed himself again. "Do not speak of such things." He glanced up at Nico, who had spent many afternoons on the lonely hillside watching over his flock. From the time of their earliest youth, they had been friends. There was a question in the boy's eyes, and Nico cursed silently even as answered.

"My cousin is a drunken fool," he said. "Do you remember when your father thrashed us for letting one of the sheep fall into the river?"

Piero rubbed his backside and winced. "I could not sit for days."

"And when the Widow threw her piss pot into my face?"

A small smile stretched Piero's face, lightening his expression. "That was last week. She found you with her only daughter!"

"Or when I hit my head and you had to pull me from the sea?"

"That was also last week. You drink too much."

Nico raised his hands in a gesture of frustration and waited with an expectant look on his face. Eventually, Piero nodded.

"Vitello is a fool," he conceded. "Come and help me with the sheep. There is a wolf about and I must wait with them until my father comes home."

After the furore of the past hours, Nico settled into the rocky hillside with a relieved sigh. Piero brought out a jug of wine that he had hidden and they drank together, laughing at the antics of the young lambs frolicking in the grass. The sun was fading behind the hills, painting the sky with vivid shades of scarlet and gold.

"They seem so small," Nico marveled, watching a snowy lamb born only weeks before nursing off its mother. Its tail twitched and danced with happiness. "Aren't you afraid for them?"

"Sometimes," Piero said, then turned so that he could look back at Nico. "But then I remember that there are many sheep in the world, and only a few wolves."

From his friend's face, Nico could see that Piero had guessed the truth. The hours Nico had spent at practice, the swords, the visits from nobles who would have no other reason to frequent the home of a simple farmer and his wife. Piero knew what he and his family were. The secret so many had died to protect had been exposed by the ramblings of a bitter fool.

A treacherous sheen of moisture welled in Nico's eyes, and he turned so that the other boy could not see. Sea birds screamed overhead, and Nico could faintly hear the crashing waves as the tide moved in.

"I will leave soon," he said.

"I know," Piero replied, and passed him the jug with an amused smile. "Good hunting."

Nico wiped an annoying trickle of blood from his nose and crouched beneath a white stone pillar. For the last hour, it had bled intermittently. Three of the four mercenaries who had waited for his cousin in the temple had died easily, their reactions slowed by wine stupor and surprise. It had taken no more than two thrown blades and a single thrust of his sword to bring them down. The last man had fought like the devil, and his fist had caught Nico in the face as he fell.

Loading the dead bodies onto the cart had proved more challenging than the act of killing. Nico felt nothing as he rolled them down the cliff and into the sea, their bodies spread wide as though to take flight. No grief, no fear, nothing.

Vitello had taken his leave of the Villa in the pre-dawn hours, struggling with the weight of his pack. The announcement that he would leave with the mercenaries the next morning had been greeted with cries of horror by his family, who could imagine no life more pleasant. Though Vitello had asked to be given one of the horses, Nico had refused, resulting in thinly veiled threats that Nico had chosen to ignore during a farewell dinner where an enormous quantity of wine was consumed. The next morning Nico had slipped away as his aunt clutched her son in farewell, and felt his mother's dark, knowing eyes follow his movements.

Nico waited until his cousin had pulled the pack from his shoulders before emerging from the ruin. Wiping at the sheen of moisture on his face, Vitello looked around, expecting to see his companions. He said nothing, merely waited until Vitello noticed him leaning against a pillar, a sword held in each hand.

His cousin laughed, the sound edged with bitterness. Turning his head to the side and shrugging his shoulders, Vitello crouched down, as though he meant to grapple. "Hmm. The bitch's little whelp. Why didn't you just try and slit my throat? That old cripple taught you how. I saw him. I saw everything, heard even more."

Nico said nothing. He circled his wrists and the gleaming blades sparkled as they caught the morning rays.

"I waited for you to try something," Vitello said, and he moved closer to the road, as though he meant to run. "Think you are so mighty, don't you, you and those two whores." Sweat was pouring off his beefy face. "I shoulda let that bitch burn, all the good it did me."

Nico moved, blocking escape. He would allow none of his anger and disappointment to propel him into rash action. "My mother gave you everything, and this is how you repay her. You are nothing but an ungrateful dog, cousin, who thought himself superior because he lived among the sheep."

An uneasy chuckle burst from Vitello's lips. "And what would that make you, cousin? A worthless shepherd, like your friend?" he jeered.

Nico stalked forward, ready to strike. The scorn of his cousin held no meaning for him. He knew what he was. For the love of the family that bore him, he had tried to hide from the knowledge, to give them time to let him go. But he was done hiding. The last vestiges of his innocence burned away, taking with it the boy he had been. He brought his swords up and smiled at the light of fear dancing across his cousin's face.

"No, cousin. I am the wolf."