I am very sorry for the long absence! School kept me very busy, but I am confident I'll have more time to write from now on. If you enjoy my work, please leave a review, it means a lot to me! :)

The sky had finally calmed down on our twelfth day of navigation. After a rather plain morning, the wind was beginning to blow again, tousling my hair with its airy fingers and gently filling the mains so that the Morrigan was beginning to take up some desirable speed.

"So what are you planning to do once we reach land?" Haytham asked me.

I didn't hear him at first, as I was too busy sticking out my neck to look at Hope walking up and down the deck.

"I see. You have set your eyes on her"

"It's been years now. Everyone knows it" James teased me.

"Shut up"

"The poor boy is right. It is meant to be a secret" John added playfully.

"Well, it is not, apparently. Everyone seems to know, except..."

"Except her?"

"She does know, Haytham. I have been rather explicit once, but she has avoided the topic skilfully"

"Who doesn't know, then?" James kept on asking with his mouth full of whatever he was eating.

"Achilles doesn't"

A burst of laughter followed. I turned back to see my friends enjoying the statement with surprising interest.

"Why are you laughing?" it was the Templar's turn to ask.

"Well, you would laugh too if you knew our rather silly woman policy. And how much our Mentor is protective towards Hope"

"Do tell me, please. One at a time"

I shook my head and stirred the ship left so to avoid one of the numerous rocks that stack out from the sea. I was indeed enjoying myself.

"Well, Hope is like a daughter to him. He gets mad when men even look at her. And if he knew it was Shay, who fancies himself a playboy!"

"Hey! Don't talk nonsense!" I tried to protest, but I knew too well that they were going to bring out the story.

"... and it all comes to the woman policy" John started. It was the first time he was speaking directly to Haytham in days.

"... or boy policy in my case" James added.

"Well, whatever. Women are *ahem* forbidden in the house. In the house where we live"

"And why is that?"

"Because we live- nevermind, you Templar. Well, one day Shay comes back from this fancy expedition in Havana-"

"Oh, boy. Not that again"

"You need to understand, dear Templar, that he was still a boy. And I mean it: a boy with a stump of beard on his callow face. I doubt he had even talked to a real woman"

"So what?"

"So he comes back home all so proud of himself and goes bragging around that he has made conquests. You can imagine, no one believed him"
"Liam didn't and he was there with him. We had little or no reason for concern"

"Then, a few days later, it was inspection day, which means everyone lining up- well, these are Assassin details I can't give you. Anyway..."

"Anyway" James resumed, lowering his voice to a whisper and forcing Haytham to lean forward to hear him, "Shay was absent. He hadn't answered the call, and voices where heard that he was with a woman in his room. A terrible scandal was to happen"

"Only?"

"Only it wasn't a woman. It was a 12-years-old gypsy that had followed us on the ship and that I was hiding in my room waiting for her to find a way to leave" I concluded, curtailing the conversation as I saw Hope approaching.

"What is this little assembly?" She asked.

"Only remembering the time when Shay and his alleged lover were found in the same bed, soundly sleeping and totally clothed"

"Thanks for that, James"

"I remember, too. Liam was publically shamed for having covered you up, Shay"

"I know"

"Well, that doesn't change the fact that... well, be careful where you decide to take your stroll around the Manor grounds late at night... if you know what I mean..."

"James!" we all snapped. Why was he always so embarrassing?

No one spoke for quite a time after those words, and deep in my heart I knew everyone was thinking about home, about all the smiling and the grieving we were missing because of the distance from our friends. As our mood darkened, so did the sky: in a matter of an hour, threatening clouds began to appear at the horizon and the wind started blowing hard and angry. I had often heard about these sudden changes in the weather that occurred in that slice of sea, but I could never imagine how fast it could happen. The worst thing of all were the currents, uncommonly irregular because of the rocks hindering their course and so strong that no man could have survived long in the midst of the water.

Without asking a second opinion, I decided to stop the ship and wait for the situation to calm down.

"Drop anchor"' I finally shouted to my crew, ready to leave the helm and join my men in closing up the mains.

"Impossible, sir!" came a shout from the crowd's nest, "there's a ship following us , and she looks pretty huge, too!"

"What? That is impossible! How come we didn't spot it before?" I shouted back, creeps slowly climbing up my spine.

"I couldn't say, sir, the fog is too thick. No flag visible, either".

Just as my man had finished speaking those words, a loud blast was heard just a few feet away from the hull of our ship. So it was true. Someone was following us.

"A warning shot!" Shouted Haytham from behind my shoulder.

"Here comes Captain Obvious" John snapped, but I motioned him to be quiet. Truth be told, I felt completely unprepared for this. We had of course contemplated the possibility of an attack, but not like this. Not now. Not with this weather.

"What do we do now?" Hope asked, coming closer to the helm and waking me up from my thoughts.

"James! You take the wheel!" I shouted, then I motioned Hope to follow me on the deck. Without wasting a moment's time, I unfolded the very old and crumpled map I had of the waters we were sailing through.

"According to what we can see around us, we are here" I said, pointing a finger on the yellow paper. The Morrigan was currently in a rather clear area, but right ahead and right behind us there were countless rocks and little islands perking from the sea.

"No surprise they managed to follow us though all this mess" she commented, frowning with concentration as she analysed the document, "the currents must have pushed her forward, but now..."

She never made to finish her sentence, for in that very moment a second blast echoed thought the sea.

"Listen, Hope. This is what we are going to do" I began. "We are going to keep sailing forward. It is not going to be easy as the passages narrow from now on and the manoeuvrability is very scarce" as I spoke, I traced the path we were going to take on the map, "but eventually the vessel following us won't be able to pass. But we will"

Hope nodded. "We'd best get to work, then".

The time that followed was one of the most memorable of my entire life. Every one of the men onboard was busy: getting off water from the deck, tying up the ropes, straightening up the mains. Slowly, I steered the Morrigan through the bends of the path we had to follow. The lands surrounding us were by most chances uncontaminated and lethally dangerous because of the closeness to this raging sea. It was no surprise to us when I had to guide our vessel around a shipwreck and then away from another. Inside of me, I prayed not to end up like that. Not in these waters.

"End of the road! Stop the ship! We are going to collide!"

Suddenly, everyone stopped, and I was sure I could feel everyone's blood freezing in the very same moment that screamed was heard from the crowd's nest.

"What did you say? Could you please repeat?" Asked Haytham, turning his hand upwards.

Luckily for us, my experienced hands had already steered the helm so that the ship could not hit whatever we had in front of us.

"I said, stop! The passage is closed. The rocks close the passage!"

By the time we reached the end of the trail, the fog surrounding us was so thick that I could hardly spot the bowsprit. So here it came another surprise. At least this time we were sure it was going to be the last.

"What now?" It was John to talk this time, his voice as calm as usual. As if we weren't about to die in a foreign land among foreign waters.

"At least we are sure the ship is not following us any longer" Haytham commented.

"Not so fast, friend. I am sure the damn thing is just behind us after all. It is cutting the wind out of this damn circle of land enclosing us!" James said with extreme cunning.

'Right. It cuts the wind out...' I repeated in my mind. Damn.

"Listen, everyone" I raised my voice and called up all the team. We still had some time to talk before the enemy reached us. With a certain relief I also observed that no one was accusing Haytham of having betrayed us. Not so far. "We need to stop the damn ship at the entrance of the channel. This area is surrounded by very small but tall heaps of rock. The only way the wind gets in here is though the opening we came from"

"Why would we even need to stop the wind?" Hope asked, looking straight at me.

"I thought that..." I began, but my plan to flee was never heard. Instead, James took the reins.

"This ship doesn't intend to destroy us" he said. "If that was its purpose, it wouldn't have allowed us to get in here. And it wouldn't stop right there" he said, pointing his finger towards the ghastly figure of a man of war which had appeared just behind our backs.

For a few moments after that revelation we remained silent. I thought about what my friend had just said, but his words felt far, like a distant echo into my mind. The only thing my brain focused upon during those moments of desperation was the image of the Morrigan in flames and my friends, screaming and drowning around me.

'I have deserved this. This is God's punishment for Lisbon' I thought as the world around me blurred and looked strangely black and white...

It was Hope's firm grip to bring me back to reality. After a little hesitation, I recognised that she hadn't noticed my dark moment, but she was rather anchoring to someone to chase away her own fear. For a long moment, I was tempted to stretch my arm forward and stroke her hair away from her face. I didn't. I spoke my mind instead.

"James is right. The ship is waiting for something"

"Maybe they want the Templar returned before they kill us. But you won't go, will you, Haytham?" James asked with a small smile, trying desperately not to appear offensive.

"No. I... They... They won't. I won't say. You won't say..." Haytham stammered, unable to conclude any sentence.

"These aren't Templars" the voice from the crowd's nest announced again. It seemed like James II (that's how we called the man staying up there all day) had news.

"How would you know?"

"Their flag is different. I have never seen one like that before"

"It looks like you should teach your man some geography" the Templar commented joke-fully. I could read relief on his face.

"Shut up. You're a sophisticated snob" I laughed back, but then I turned serious again. "Could you describe this flag for us?"

"It... It has a bird on it. A pink and light-blue bird. It looks like..."

"Looks like what?"

"Looks like a heron"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Haytham snapped, "there is no such flag. Not in the known world"

"Maybe you don't know it all. Even aristocrats can be wrong" John said, "or is it that your Templar friends like a good costume?"

Haytham turned towards him, and this time I could see that he looked angered. He was about to snap something bad. Very bad. The John's face lightened us all at once.

"Of course! How could I not have imagined! It is them!"

"Who is 'them'?" Hope said impatiently, "hurry up and explain!"

"Shay got very interested in some singular guys who were by the harbourmaster when we docked. I remember now: they were exhibiting badges with a curious long-legged bird on their bags. I remember that well. And their colours were..."

"The colours of the flags are orange and green, sir!" James the Second screamed again.

Perfect. It was all my fault.