I regaled Vee with tales of Leonardo's last week in Venice. She had been hoping for more details on Ezio… But alas I could not satisfy her desires. It was during this time that she told me that what I had thought to be a couple of hours had in fact been closer to fourteen. Which is why she had gone to the trouble of bringing food to me… Because, apparently, I had shown no sign of coming back to eat. After I told her about my time in Venice, she asked me about Yusuf.
This was a more difficult topic, but it was one that after we spoke about it for a while, I began to feel lighter… Like I had after talking with Emmett. Telling her about him kept bringing up more and more memories of my time with him. It had been so short, but to me it is one of the brightest periods of my time.
"I wish I could've had a chance to meet the man who so completely stole your heart. I've wanted to feel love like that since we were kids and I saw mom and dad helping each other, not just because they were married but because of how much they love each other." Venus confesses.
"I wish you could've met him too… I did tell him as much as I could about all of you though. He wanted to meet you too."
"It's strange to think that a Master Assassin from the sixteenth century wanted to meet me. I didn't even exist yet…"
"You think it's weird that someone wanted to meet you then, I still think it's weird that I ended up this way…" I confess to her.
"I'm not sure that I find it all that weird… I always knew you were special. I think all of us did. Everything we all learnt always came so much easier to you. Almost as though it were second nature." Venus turns to face me again, "Maybe the end result is a little hard to wrap your mind around, but I always knew somewhere inside that you would be special." She leans in and hugs me.
"I remember you guys singling me out a lot as kids… I guess that must have been why… I mean you were kids, so I don't really consider any of that to be genuine to how you feel now, but maybe that feeling was something you all kind of had… And it affected how you treated me."
"You know… I think you might be right. Especially when we went into that new house once and we made you take the attic room… You did some amazing things with that space, but we would leave for our classes without you, and other little things… I never recall starting them, but I had felt… I don't know, threatened I guess, by your talent and I went along with everyone even when I knew I shouldn't have… I know I wasn't the best big sister for a long time… But I hope that trying later on made a difference."
"Yeah, it did, I remember in late middle school you did start trying to include me… But I think the damage had kind of been done. I had already left behind all those classes and lessons, but I think your effort as I went into puberty helped." I recall.
"Yeah… I'm really sorry that I didn't step in sooner… I guess when we were kids, I felt stuck between loving you as my sister and feeling obligated to listen to Nyx… She more often than not led us, but you would never listen to her. I imagine she resented that, but I would think that she doesn't feel that way anymore." I look up at the dome's lights and think about it. I guess I do remember some of how they treated me when we were younger… But most of the outwardly bad treatment stopped after Nyx had moved away for college. I remember that time they had all led me down the hall of the second-floor giggling to each other as they led me to the attic door. They had opened the door told me that none of them wanted to share a room with me since Nyx was the oldest, the twins were already sharing, and Venus was old enough to need a room of her own. So they had said I could have the whole attic to myself and they closed the door, locked the door, and laughed all the way back down to the moving truck. Our rooms had always been so close together, but this time they made a point of sending me to the lonely attic. Usually all of their supposed bullying had basically just bounced off of me, never having the desired effect. Even though that may have been Nyx's last family move before she went to college her treatment remained, and I always ended up in the most isolated room in each of the following moves.
Then everything clicks.
The arrangement of the symbols for all of my adoptive siblings on the floor…
"Holy shit." I breath.
"What? Did something happen?" Venus reacts worried.
"That's it…" I stand up and walk to the middle of the room.
"What's it? Our bullying you as kids is the answer?" I laugh at her response.
"No, but I might have figured it out… Can you make sure that no one comes over here in the next couple of minutes?"
"Oookay… Why?"
"Because I'm going to do something. You're going to freak out; please keep it quiet. And I'm not sure I'm ready to have the rest of them know yet. And I need to make sure that I'm thinking of this right before I act on it."
"Alright… Be strange then." She strolls over to the entrance and peers down the passage, "You're all clear."
"Great." I get ready to summon the ethereal wings, "Keep any freaking out quiet. Please." I remind her as I look at her and she shrugs like nothing is going to surprise her.
Then I bring them out and launch myself up to the top of the dome. I had already examined the dome itself, but I hadn't yet looked at the floor from the top. And sure enough there it is. The way that all the symbols on the floor have been arranged the same as whenever there had been a meeting. This is the way the symbols for all of us that would be on the banners held by the humans accompanying us. The only one missing is mine. I let myself sink back to the ground and walk over to one of the many blank circles on the floor where my symbol should be.
And Venus marches up to me.
"You weren't going to tell us you can fly?" She restrains from shouting.
"No, it draws too much attention, so I barely ever do it."
"Oh! 'Draws too much attention'… Yeah! Because people don't fly…" She whispers harshly as she get closer, "Okay… Okay… I can see why you wouldn't want to tell us. But still. That is fucking amazing."
"Thanks. You might want to come stand over here."
"Oh, sure…" She hops over to me.
"Right on the circle here." She scooches in a bit.
Then I concentrate my power into the floor at this spot and my symbol lights up on the floor. Then the whole room begins to rumble as the floor in the center of the room begins to sink and rotate. The movement shakes loose some small rocks and dust that fall from the dome. As floor turns the moving spreads almost to where we are and when it stops the room has sunk to reveal a grand entrance just below the pedestal holding the riddle.
"Of course it was that simple… Athena was probably laughing her ass off telling them what to do." I say cynically. That took about five minutes… I imagine the others are probably running this way now…
"Oh, simple, huh?" Venus quips.
"Guys! Are you okay?" We hear shouting and stomping coming from the passage behind us. Yup, there they are.
"Venus? Astraea?" Mom's voices echoes down the passage.
"We're fine," I call towards them, then a minute later they all come rushing into the space panting from having sprinted all the way through the tunnels and they gawk at the new appearance of it.
"So… You figured it out?"
"Yeah, I was the key." I grin as Vee elbows me a little.
"You just wanted to say that. You had to stand in the perfect spot, then you did something, and bam! New door." Vee spouts next to me.
"Either way… Shall we?" I gesture down the new steps towards the door.
"Uh… Sure, yeah…" Lio says and Zeph nods before they both start heading down the steps.
Zeph and Lio both wait at the threshold of the door for me to go in first, and when I do step in the whole room bursts to life around us.
As the space lights up, I recognize the general look to be similar to how Eos had always designed her dwellings and outbuildings. Astraeus always liked to say it had been a team effort, but I once saw this team in action it consisted of Eos creating the designs and supervising while Astraeus watched over the whole area and those involved in the work. The space creates an immense feeling of nostalgia. The biggest difference is that they've decorated the ceilings with the night sky, the way my spaces had always been.
The space is a long hall with a sort of semi-circle ending, like a church's apse.
"Looks like there are even more rooms connected to this…" Zeph says looking to the sides of the space where there are smaller doors.
"It's almost like a sanctuary…" Vee sighs. We walk towards the end of the main room and find a real Isu console. With a beautiful circular mosaic on the floor flowing with light.
"This is a console…" I say as I hover my hands over the smooth surface, I have seen so many Isu ruins this the catastrophe… And that's what most were… Ruins. But this… Eos outdid herself with this. It has outlasted many other Isu structures…
"This has to be the most intact Isu construction I've ever seen…" My mom breaths exactly what I was thinking.
"Yes… Eos outdid herself. Her designs were always amazing… But I didn't think having it underground would have made it survive so… Completely." It certainly says something when Ilios' lab, that had been similarly built underground, had fallen into irreparable shape during the times of Ancient Greece.
A place my hands on the silent console and just as the space did before, it springs to life.
Then a shimmering begins in the middle of the circular mosaic just behind me. It starts low and builds up into two figures.
"Astraea… Our Astraea… You've found our final gift to you at last…" Eos says, or least the shimmering projection of her.
"We are sorry we couldn't find you then… But after we spoke with Minerva, we decided it was best. You didn't have to witness the terrors of the Catastrophe or any chaos that bloomed in its wake. Minerva said that Dike would find you, but only after some semblance of peace had been reached." Astraeus apologizes in his typical long and drawn-out way.
"It's okay… It wasn't your fault. I mostly regret not getting a real chance to say goodbye to you both… Or thank you. I recovered my memories while I was in Ilios' device…" I say to them and they just smile.
"Yes… Minerva with all her gifts was fairly certain that you would get your memories back." Eos starts, "She also told us that once you found this place you would have rejoined your family…" My family all step in behind me, "I bid you welcome. It gives me great happiness to see you all." She opens her arms. My mom places her hands on my shoulders.
"Eos, Astraeus… This is my mom, Aurora. Mom, these are the Isu, Astraeus and Eos… The Isu who took me in and cared for me as much as they did their own children." I start introductions, "These are my brothers Aquilo and Zephyr… And this is my sister Venus."
"So you are the youngest of four?" Astraeus asks.
"Five actually… Our oldest sister isn't here right now." Zeph says and immediately shrinks once Astraeus' attention is on him.
"It's no wonder you fit in so well amongst our family… Your brothers remind me of our Zephyrus and Boreas. And your sister reminds me of Eosphorus, even though they were a little less feminine." Eos chuckles as she observes my siblings.
"I want to thank you for taking care of my little girl… Although, it seems she isn't so little anymore." My mom steps forward a bit, and Eos gives a glowing smile.
"It was my—our pleasure. I only wish we could have protected her longer." Eos leans down and puts a hand on my mom's shoulder and then she looks down at me, "We built this place so that you can have, not only a chance to say goodbye to us, but a sanctuary that you can return to later on as well. We made a secondary entrance that can only be opened by the people you give access to. You can put your family in as people able to enter and use this space freely. Now I must deliver some unfortunate news. You will have to block off the other exit because your enemies will be finding your hiding place above soon."
"Shit…" Aquilo curses almost under his breath.
"For real? How?" Vee exclaims.
"We all know that Abstergo is persistent, they were going to find that cave sooner or later." Zeph reasons with them, I look over at Astraeus and Eos to see them watching my siblings as they once watched their own bickering about this and that.
"Aquilo, Zephyr. Go and collect the things we need. Venus and I will find a place to set up in here while Astraea gets things worked out on the… Computer?" Mom takes charge quickly.
"Yeah, computer is about as accurate as you can get." I confirm for her. They all go about their business and Astraeus and Eos begin to teach me the specifics of the consoles, but as I always did then, I pick it up quickly. Then they tell me the other things I will find here. Like my armour from Hephaestus, my weapons from both Hephaestus and Hermes. They also tell me about the systems in here. All the things they wanted it to do, and what they made available… Like the program I had designed to help me remember to do things, that I had made in Dike's image. She hadn't liked that at first, but she liked it more once she was able to tell it to remind me of certain things that I would often forget to do. She liked that it effectively ordered me around. They also told me about how they constructed this place using a copy of my power signature, which is why it responds to me so readily.
"There is also a standing console in the next room with your belongings… It holds messages." I look at Eos, "We were not as talented with programming as Minerva or the Betrayer, so our consciousness programs won't last long… But the last thing we wanted to tell you is in a brief message there."
"And this is where we must say goodbye. We are glad to have seen your family and how much you've grown into your power. We will always love you as our daughter." Astraeus says.
"We truly will. Goodbye, Astraea of the stars." Eos breathes as her shimmering hand reaches down to touch my cheek.
"Goodbye…" I place my hand over hers before they both fade into nothing, returning to the special place in my memories where they have been for millennia now… Only this time, I wonder if it doesn't hurt more.
We make a game plan as soon as Lio and Zeph get back with the first round of stuff. I show Venus and Zeph the basics on the using commands in the system, and I tweak the aid program that looks like Dike to speak in English and be able to help with them with the more complicated processes… Because I know that bringing down the caverns is going to take a lot out of me. It may even cause me to lose consciousness. But my priority is making sure that they are safe, and if that means collapsing a mountain, then so be it.
All-in-all it takes about five hours to move everything, stock up, and get settled on what to do. Aquilo and Zeph had argued that we could use explosives, but I managed to get them to realize that if I use my power not only will it be more precise but less detectable once Abstergo finds their way into the tunnels and to where the collapse will be. So far as they will be able to tell, the mountain shifted causing a cave-in that closed the path, and the Assassins who had been hiding there are either dead underneath the mountain or were gone before it happened.
Once Aquilo and Zephyr finish moving things from the hideout above into our new space and fetching new supplies from town, I work on using my power to turn the path to us to rubble. I go up above and very carefully thread my power through the cavern. I weave it into the stones of the area where we had been sleeping, into the walls of the labyrinthine passages to the domed area, and then once they're all out of harm's way, I prepare to bring it all down. Eos had assured me that the domed space would survive because they had used my power signature in the very heart of the stone they used to build this sanctuary. And from the inside of the sanctuary we would be able to close the door to the domed space so that even should Abstergo find that space. They will have no way in.
I stand and take a deep breath in. I can feel the threads of my power throughout the spaces above us. Shaking my hands I prepare myself before beginning. Then I pull, delicately at first, and then a little stronger. Like pulling a single thread out of a tapestry without ruining either the thread or the remainder of the tapestry. Keeping the delicate pace as I pull power through the caverns will help to minimize the backlash once I finish; I do want to live to see tomorrow after all. As the last power is tugged out of the stone, I feel exactly what I expected begin. It starts with a low rumble, then a shattering crack sound. Then I race into the sanctuary where Zephyr is ready to close the door.
Just as I pass the large door, I help Zephyr close it, and then he activates the seal returning the domed room to the state that it had been before.
"Wow. I… I'm speechless." Aquilo shakes his head a little and pats my arm.
"That was really something… Apparently we need to add mountain-mover to your resume." Zephyr says as he walks up to me. But I'm just trying to get to where they've set up the cots… Because I know what happens when I push myself too far. And literally moving a mountain is pushing myself too far. I see Venus and mom begin to walk over to us, but the ringing in my head has already pushed out all other sound, then the world gets blurry.
"Hey, are you alright?" Zephyr asks from beside me his voice warbled and echoing.
"I'm fine…" I lie, then I feel moisture at my nose. I touch it and look to see blood on my fingers before falling to the ground.
Then the ringing consumes everything.
Then there is only black.
I open my eyes slowly, and immediately there is a sharp pain that shoots through my head. I bring my right hand up and rub my temple.
"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty." I hear from beside me; I glance over to see Zeph which cause another jolt of pain throughout my brain.
"Ugh…"
"You look like you've had a bad night of drinking?" He asks before holding out a bottle of water. I slowly sit up, my entire body aching and stiff.
"How long was I out?" I take the water and look at Zeph who has obvious bags under his eyes from exhaustion. And I see him thinking heavily about what to say, his jaw is clenched tightly as it does when he has a lot to say and is struggling to control his emotions… But why?
"Only about thirty-three hours… But who's counting? Your mom? Who nearly had a heart attack when you fell over and definitely hasn't slept this whole time… Venus? Who tried to wake you, unsuccessfully, of course, and is now only asleep because she was the one who stayed up longest next to mom. Aquilo? Who carried you to a cot and spent at least the next fifteen hours next to you despite exhaustion and had to be carried away after zonking on the floor… Or maybe me? Who has been trying to not only hold everyone together but has also been sick with worry because I know you told me that despite you being more durable than most humans you are not indestructible. So when you started to bleed from your nose after moving a mountain, what were we all supposed to think? Are we supposed to assume you would just be all fine and dandy afterwards? You never told us otherwise. Were we supposed to just know that you were pushing yourself? You need to tell us these things. Otherwise what is the point of us knowing about you? If you can't tell us this kind of thing then why tell us anything?" He stands up, his fists clenched at his sides and stalks away without letting me say anything.
Oh boy… I hadn't even thought about it that way… I have been so used to handling everything on my own that… That it hadn't even occurred to me to let them know what might happen… Even if it would've stopped them from worrying as much. I should have said something. I guess even after all this time, there are still things I need to learn… Mom was right about me always holding onto my burdens alone… I thought that I had shared the truth with them… But all I did was tell them a little nugget of the truth to ease my own guilt of lying to them.
I sit in the bed for a while drinking out of the water bottle little by little as the throbbing in my head settles down.
Then as I swing my legs over the edge of the bed, my mom walks around the corner.
"Mom…" She looks completely drained… "I'm really sorry… I…"
"It's alright…" She starts.
"No, it's not alright. I should have told you that I was pushing myself too far. I knew I would be… I… I just wanted to protect you all… And I ended up hurting you instead." I look down and she puts her hand on my cheek.
"We haven't had much time to settle into how to be a family with everything going on. None of us can expect this to happen instantly." She sits down on the bed beside me, "It will take time. I know you… And because I know you, I know that you probably haven't leaned on very many people in the past. It will take some time," She repeats, "But I hope that someday you'll have told me everything about your life." She puts her arm around my shoulder and pulls me against her, "Now… I heard from Zephyr that you were effectively married, is that true?" I suck in air too quickly and end up choking on my spit. So once the coughing recedes, I look at her and she smiles the 'if you lie to me, I'll end you' smile that I remember so well from all the times I was I in trouble as a child.
"Well… We never really got married… But we did handfast." I place my right hand on her lap so she can examine my ring.
"Your favourite stone… And these?" She touches the two turquoise stones.
"His favourite." I pull his ring from under my shirt and let her take a close look.
"Did he have them both made to match?" She asks.
"No, we each had one made for the other, he had mine made and I had his made. They ended up matching." I laugh at the memory of us presenting the rings to each other in front of the handful of Istanbul Assassins, the initial shock of how similar they look, and the laughter that filled the hideout that afternoon.
"It's definitely going take some time getting used to the idea that I wasn't there for some many firsts in your life… Things I was hoping to experience with you, like your wedding. And of course everything leading up to it. I'm sorry you had to be alone for so long." She hugs me again.
"It may not have all be sunshine and rainbows… But it wasn't all bad. His name was Yusuf Tazim." She then does exactly what I did and ends up coughing for a few minutes.
"Yusuf Tazim? The Assassin from sixteenth century Istanbul?" Right. A historian. A historian who is an Assassin… That's what my mom is. Of course she knows who Yusuf Tazim was.
We talk like that for a while and then Venus comes in yawning, shortly after Aquilo also shows up. But Zeph never comes back. We all sit and chat, mostly about the past.
Two more days pass before my head is feeling back to full working order. Zeph slept for most of it, but late yesterday he woke up and pointedly ignored me.
Today, I have decided to approach the one room I haven't been to yet, but in wanting to make up with Zephyr I go out to find where he has hidden himself today.
It doesn't take long; we may have gotten more space moving into this sanctuary but there is still only so many spots to be.
"Hey…" I say when I find him sitting up on one of the structural beams about twenty feet up.
He doesn't answer right away so I just stand underneath him for a while before I bring up what I hunted him down for.
"There's something I wanted to show you… It's the only room I haven't gone into yet. I've been nervous of what I'll find, to be honest. And if you can accept an apology from me, then I'd like for you to come with me…" He doesn't answer right away, so I start to walk away to give him some time to think it over. Then he deftly lands next to me.
"You? Nervous? Now this I have to see." Then he puts an arm around me, and we walk to the room holding my Isu life inside.
I open the door but hesitate. The room slowly comes alive from the door having been opened, beckoning me inside. Then Zephyr takes my hand and tugs me as he walks into the room. I take a breath and let him pull me in.
My weapons and armor have been carefully hung on the walls, there are a couple of closed chests and in the center of the room, just as Eos said, there is a standing console glittering with Isu text and symbols.
"Wow… These were all yours?" Zeph gapes as he strolls along eyeing up all the weapons.
"Yeah, Hephaestus and Hermes really enjoyed making things that would harness or grow with my power. So I ended up with a lot of weapons… and armor. These are just some of my favourites." I say as he gets along to the stands with my armor sets, all of them looking worse for wear, but were I to put them on, being reintroduction to my power would likely return them to the state in which I received them. I turn my attention back to the console and place my hand on it.
Eos and Astraeus give a little introduction and then the video moves on to a handful of the Isu I had become closest to. In the introduction Eos says how Minerva spoke to each of them before so that their message could be a brief as possible but with as much meaning as they could get into the short messages. Minerva did all that? She had already been so busy trying to make sure that humans could have a future. She had never been the best at showing her feeling, I guess I must have meant more than I realized.
I just sit on the ground in front of the console watching the messages, feeling the loss I had felt after Dike had woken me up wash over me again. But this time… With more closure. When Dike had found me and woken me up, almost all the other Isu who had initially survived the Catastrophe had already passed on and I had gotten no chance to say goodbye. At least now I know that they were able to say goodbye to me, leaving them with hopefully less regret when they faced death.
Then the videos seemed to have finished so I stand up. Then I see Dike.
"I was told by Minerva that I would be the only one of all of us, besides herself, to see you again. So she wants me to be the one to deliver this message to you… I guess knowing that I will find you makes me happy, but she said it won't be for a while yet. Not that her words have ever stopped me from trying before, so I'm going to keep searching for where that maggot, Ilios, left you." She makes a disgusted expression as she says his name.
"So first, I miss you. And I hope I find you soon… Without you everything seems a little less lively and warm. And I regret that. I'll probably tell you this when I see you, but I'm sorry. I feel so responsible for letting that maggot snatch you away. I can't believe he dared feign friendship with you, and Astraeus and Eos. I'd kill him if he hadn't died in the onslaught of solar fire. I often feel cheated that the sun robbed me of my opportunity to run him through. There is no justice in what he did or how it ended up." She pauses, most of these things she did talk to me about, and I had the opportunity to assure her that I shouldn't have been so trusting of him, and that it wasn't her fault at all. Her eyes look up past the device capturing her likeness, "Minerva is telling me to finish up… I guess I have to listen to her after all…" She smiles in the way she often would when she knew she was causing trouble. "But she did want me to say something here, I'm not to repeat this to you after I find you though… She said it will mean nothing to you when I find you… But that it would mean everything to you by the time this message reaches you. And I'm sorry I don't know the meaning, apparently there is an explanation from Minerva about it in the main computer." She shrugs, "I don't know what Astraeus and Eos are plotting only that I have one thing to say to you… But I've said a lot more. I'll see you soon, I hope." She smiles and looks at me through time.
"Your Light yet lives."
