This is the earliest version I could find of these chapters - here we switch from First person to Third.
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Jessica was woken the next morning by Petruccio shaking her urgently, his brown eyes filled with concern. "What is it, kid?"
He said nothing, but the feral screaming which filled the room was answer enough. She scrambled out of bed and rushed to balcony overlooking the main hall. There she found Claudia and Federico locked in a heated match. They were shouting in fast Italian and she couldn't understand a word between them. Jessica looked to Petruccio in frustration. "What's going on?"
"Ezio and Uncle Mario had a fight this morning. I heard Uncle Mario shouting, and then he left and Ezio followed him. They didn't come back."
"What was Mario shouting about?"
"H-heritage? I think that's what he said."
This didn't help answer her questions but she smiled at Petruccio comfortingly and hurried back into her room to change into her usual dress. Barefoot and hair in disarray, she told Petruccio to go play in his room and he did so eagerly, gently closing the door behind him. Jessica descended the staircase and faced off the quarrelling siblings.
"What's going on?" she demanded, and the shouting stopped. Federico stood with a glower on his face as Claudia sneered at him.
"Why not ask my dear brother? He is after all the one keeping all of the secrets from we, his family."
Federico growled, "What is going on does not concern you, Claudia."
"How can you say that? It concerns all of us. What is going on is that we have lost our lives, our friends and our home. What is going on is that Father is dead. And now Uncle Mario and Ezio are missing and you will not tell me where they are!"
Federico faltered and flinched at her tone. After a long moment of staring solemnly at the ground the man sighed, "Ezio has gone with our uncle to San Gimignano to fight the Pazzi. Vieri has been harassing Uncle's forces since our arrival. He has gone to put a stop to it."
"Is he going to kill him?" Jessica demanded.
Federico said nothing, but his eyes answered her question. Her stomach rolled and her face distorted in disgust. Assassins. They were assassins. Murderers.
The world seeming suddenly a lot less tolerable, she wandered away from them to the kitchen where she busied herself preparing breakfast. Don't think about it.
The men returned late that night, laughing and drinking and shouting. From the window of the workshop, Jessica clenched her jaw and glared. Their clothes were red with the blood of men, none more so than Ezio Auditore.
The linen of his robes once white, was now a dark rust colour. He himself looked relatively unscathed but for a thick bandage around his left hand which was spotted with blood. She found herself shaking. How could they look so happy? So pleased with themselves?
Claudia came to stand by her side as Federico and Petruccio ended their mathematics lesson and rushed excitedly out the door, clearly eager to join their male kin in their celebrations. "Oh, what a relief. Thank God they came back safe. And victorious as well, it seems!" Claudia laughed.
Jessica stared at the woman as if she didn't know her and left the room, feeling angry and sick. This was not okay. This was not a victory. She heard Ezio call out happily to her as she stormed up the stairs to her room but she did not stop. Jessica slammed the door on their confused voices and leaned against it, her heart fluttering and tears in her eyes.
Blood. There was so much blood.
This was so far out of her comfort zone that it wasn't funny. The food and the hygiene and the clothes she could take. The lack of technology and pads and hair-ties and bras. She could handle all of these things. But the glorification of battle? Of war? Of the taking of lives? That was all good and well in games and movies, but real life was different. People had died, horribly and painfully. And Ezio was the one who had done it. He had killed.
And he will kill many more.
Oh god. How could she think of becoming his friend? How could she have become so preoccupied with taking care of him? She had been encouraging of his lessons in fighting and agility so that he would have the means to defend himself and the ones he loved, not to use them to end the lives of people with families and lives of their own. How could anyone be morally okay with that?
Jessica spent several anxious minutes waiting to shout at whoever came to the door to leave her be, but there were no knocks. She took a long, deep breath and locked the door before she moved to the entrance to the secret tunnel to Mario's study.
"...powerful men in all of Europe and Master of the Templar Order."
"Which makes him responsible for the murder of our father."
"Yes, and he will not have forgotten you. He will not have taken kindly to our siege upon San Gimignano, nor to your part in capturing it. He will have you killed the moment he gets the chance."
"Then I must stand against him if we wish to be free..."
"And what of Marietta? Her action in saving myself and my brother was surely unforgettable. Do you suppose that she too is in danger?"
"Of that I cannot be certain. But she is safe here, nipote. Now, look," From her position, she could not see what it was the three men were gazing at, "I have added the names you told me of in San Gimignano. It is time for you to begin your work."
"Every Templar named shall fall to my blade." She frowned and shivered at the darkness in Ezio's tone.
"Begin with Francesco de Pazzi," Federico suggested, "He should share the fate of his son."
"Si. And he shall. I will make for Florence."
"A sensible next step. No doubt he intends evil for the city," Mario agreed. "But first, recognise these?"
Jessica shrank into the darkness around her as the men turned to face in her direction, their attention set on something on the wall beneath her. "Other codex pages."
"Yes, our father managed to decode these before he..." Federico trailed off.
"And here is the one Giovanni left you, which your clever friend managed to decode."
"Leonardo da Vinci."
"The painter?" Federico asked in amazement.
"Si. The same man Marietta continues to write to regularly," Ezio jeered. Federico make a low sound of displeasure.
"Enough, you two. Look. Do you see how the words cross from one page to the next and how the symbols join?"
"There is something underneath it. Some kind of map. Where is it supposed to lead?"
"Your father and I managed to make out bits of a prophecy scrawled across these pages. It was written by an Assassin like us, who long ago held a 'Piece of Eden'. His name was Altair."
A sudden shot of heat screamed up her arm and she hissed in pain as her palm throbbed and excitement that was not her own filled her mind. Jessica tried to remain silent, pressing her lips together and squeezing her eyes shut. That was intense.
"He spoke of something ancient and powerful hidden beneath the land."
"What is it?"
Another spike of hot agony tore through her muscles and her hand trembled violently. Her eyes streamed with tears of pain and in fear of another bout, she scrambled away down the tunnel.
"What indeed..."
Jessica clambered out of the tunnel and flung the secret door closed, gasping and puffing as her heart pounded in her chest. Her left palm burned. Shakily, she gazed down at the skin and saw that the circle was glowing deeply.
The light seared into her eyes and she pulled her hand into a fist, holding it away from her. The muscles of her arm shook as a terrible ache throbbed through the bone to her shoulder where it spread along her collarbone and across her ribs. The agony extended up her neck to the base of her skull, through her jaw and into the nerve of every tooth. It spread across her cheekbones and delved into the depths of her eye sockets. It encircled her spine and seeped within her pelvis then down her legs. She was sure her bones were splitting; the marrow was leaking into muscle and organs splintered with bone. Her lungs constricted around her heart as her stomach lurched and bile flooded over her tongue. The Voice's presence was loud in her head, like a dark shadow in a brightly lit room, profound and ominous and uninvited.
The world spun and she stumbled to the bed, easing herself onto her back on the soft, rich covers. Behind her closed eyes, images flashed in a nauseating sequence. Two people. Naked. Bathed in silver light. Running toward a building. Her stomach lurched.
A Piece of Eden.
Golden streams of light. A ball of gold. A map.
"Stop!" she cried at last, unable to take anymore.
With a final heave of emotion, the Voice retreated, the visions fell away and the pain in her hand ceased. Exhausted and thoroughly terrified, Jessica curled into a ball and sobbed.