My heart goes silent for a moment.

I take in the scene as carefully as I can; trying to battle down a growing rage.

The earth has been piled away from the space below the tree. The pile is almost covering another gravestone. I can easily see that what had held Yusuf is gone. The hole left in the ground says it plainly enough.

And the headstone, carved so beautifully with the stars and his name… Cracked and broken, leaning against the trunk of the tree as though it had been shoved aside carelessly.

The world closes in around me, becoming tinged with red as rage begins to take over my senses. Then I feel my power, usually so docile and malleable, become sharp and unyielding as it permeates the world around me. A low rumble begins in the ground below me.

The sound of someone approaching from behind causes me to go on the offensive. I turn to face the person approaching, expecting to see the one who surely did this, only to see a disheveled young woman approaching.

As rain extinguishing a wildfire, my rage slows.

"Miss Astraea? Is that you?" The woman shines a small flashlight at me.

"Sefa?" I ask after hearing her voice, "What are you doing here at this time of the night?"

"I was going to try to beat them here… But then I wasn't even sure what I could do…" I hear her voice break as she speaks.

"Them?" I repeat her word.

"Yes… I—" She stops with her voice shaking and her words getting caught in her throat, "I did not heed your warning from last time… You told me not to look further into the ideas of the Templar Order and the Brotherhood of Assassins, and the possibility of them still existing today… But… I did and I found too much." Shit. This is why I asked her not to. Because I knew, as capable as she is, that she would be able to find the truth, "And what I found… It scared me. Then before I knew it they were at the university; they were interrogating my professor. They asked her about Yusuf Tazim's gravesite and where I was. I only got away because she lied to them about where I was while using her body language to tell me to run… They almost caught me twice. And when I went to my home there were strange men everywhere. So I ran from there and came here… But I don't know what I was hoping to find…" She trails off and then falls to her knees and begins to sob. I go over to her and put my hands on her shoulders kneeling down to her level.

"Abstergo…" I state more than ask and she nods her head a little bit, "I wasn't completely truthful last time, I should have been more honest with my warning… If you are willing I can take you to people capable of protecting you. But… This will mean a significant change to your whole life. There is already no going back… But I can lead you to a way forward if you want…" She looks up at me tears streaming from her eyes.

"Do you mean the Assassins?" She whispers.

"Yes, as it turns out I am connected very thoroughly with the Assassins… Which I was unaware of when I met you before." I let it trail off before scaring her further.

"Do you really think they would help me?" She asks, her voice shaky at best.

"You are exactly the kind of person they like joining them. You have a serious skill and talent in rooting out history. And that is exactly what they need when it comes to a lot of the endeavors they go on."

"Alright…"

"Great, I'll take you there. Come on…" I stand and pull her up from her knees, I hadn't noticed before, but her clothes are tattered at the bottoms, "Have you been running all night long?" She nods a little.

"It was around sunset that the Abstergo people had come to the university. It had everyone all excited because they've recruited from our program before, so they were all hoping to be selected, because it makes a very appealing opportunity to finish school with all expenses paid by Abstergo… But my professor was refusing them at every turn. Then I heard them shouting at her about my research and that's when everyone else cleared out. But I couldn't just leave her, but then she spotted me and mouthed to run… I hesitated but when she did it again, I ran." Poor girl, it's well after midnight now.

"Your professor must really care about you to protect you like that… It sounds like she knows about the whole Abstergo business." I comment as we get to my bike and I pop the seat up to get the small spare helmet, "It isn't much, but it'll protect you." She puts it on and buckles it while I slide mine back on and reconnect it to my phone.

While Sefa's appearance may have doused the outward flames of my rage, I can still feel it like a wildfire staying alive over winter by burning through the root system of a grand forest. It's a rage that now simmers just beneath the surface. A rage I fully intend on using as a fuel to hunt for whichever of Abstergo's arrogant whelps was behind this.

"Hold on." I tell Sefa as she settles on the back end of the motorcycle.

I direct a call to Zeph before taking off towards the roads and back to the warehouse.

"Raea? That you?" He answers.

"Yeah. Change of plans. I'm on my way back, with a friend. She may be able to help us, but mostly she needs protection." I state briskly as we fly through the city that has been the Crossroads of the World.

"She? What happened?"

"I'll let you know when we get there. Get a computer set up. Mine should be in my bag. Have it ready for when we arrive." I tap the side of the helmet to cut off the call, he's gonna have words for me when I get back but for now they can wait.

We arrive at the warehouse with no problems. I suspect that the prize they found while graverobbing had them too excited to care about a young historian.

Sure enough though, Zeph was waiting next to some folding tables they must've set up with my computer open and powered up but still locked.

"You. Hung. Up. On me. After ordering me to turn on your computer, which by the way has locks tighter than Fort Knox." He stands tapping his foot with irritation, "But who is this? And what did you find? Obviously not what you meant to." He gestures to Sefa as she removes her helmet and Aquilo strolls over to us.

"This is Sefa Aldemir, she was actually researching Yusuf and his role in what happened while the Byzantine-Templars were trying retake Constantinople for Byzantium from the clutches of the Ottomans." I say and she nods, "Sefa, these are my brothers, the twins, Zephyr," He nods at her, "And Aquilo." He steps up beside Zeph and looks around.

"Where is… You know…?" Lio cautiously asked.

"That's why I had you get my computer ready. Hey, Sefa, do you think you could give the run down on what happened to you and what we found? I need to get on finding out where they've gone." Sefa nods as I canter over to the computer and the three of them sit down on the camping chairs that Zeph and Aquilo managed to scrounge up. Sorting through it all, I find there had been three groups. One had gone to the university. Another had gone to Sefa's apartment. And the third had been on standby until one of the two groups had secured the location of the gravesite.

I clack on the keyboard and sift through everything. Video from cameras at the university, the roads around the graveyard, and after Sefa is done with the twins I have her tell me her address so I can watch them there too.

"Tsk." Following the two groups I find they had regrouped in the cemetery after the third had found what was presumably a considerably less dead looking assassin than they had expected. Then after they leave the cemetery, they split into two groups with two identical convoys of vehicles leaving the city different ways. Unwilling to draw this out any longer than necessary, I whip out my phone, I plug in a number, and it rings until I hear exactly the person I was hoping for.

"Hello? Who is this? It better not be some tele-market scammer." The cynical voice comes through.

"Shaun? Excellent. I need your help. I hope your close enough to a computer."

"Would this be Astraea then? My help? What on Earth could you need my help with?" I can already heard the clacking keys on the other end.

"Abstergo visited three locations in Istanbul earlier. A university, an apartment complex, and a graveyard. I have two teams leaving the city and I need you to follow this one." I send him the videos featuring the team I want him to track.

"And what exactly will this do?" He asks more out of formality than anything.

"A, it will help you level out some of your debt to me, and B, they've robbed an Assassin from his grave. They will likely use it to see if he's ever been in contact with any artifacts."

"Wait… They just up and took a whole dead Assassin? Right out of his grave? Who?"

"Yes. Basically. And Yusuf Tazim."

"Well… That's not good, we already know he was in contact with Ezio Auditore, but he had a full career as an Assassin leading up to that as well. I'll get looking for this one."

"Thanks, Shaun. I'll let you know if I find anything first." I reply before hanging up.

I then focus all my energy on finding the other team, I gave Shaun the team that left via a highway, and I begin the hunt for the one that seems to have dropped off the face of the Earth.

At some point of the night—early morning? — Aquilo went to Sefa's apartment with her on the motorcycle to see if she could pick up some of her life. I had okayed it because I had looked at all the video feeds already and once the team from the university had found Yusuf's grave they all cleared out.

When they got back Lio had been talking about how her apartment had been completely ransacked. Top to bottom. They took anything that could have been research on Yusuf, including her computer and most of her reading material. She informed me that included within the confines of her research materials taken were the journal entries I had provided her from my journal. Not that she knows it was my journal in the first place.

"I told you earlier. It's fine, those were just scans of it anyway." I reassure as she slumps away again, she feels so guilty about losing it, but I imagine part of it is also her trying to cope with how her life has just been upended. And I wonder if I'm not at least at partly at fault for it. I imagine if she hadn't gotten those pages from me, she might've given up and gone for someone less interesting to Abstergo, like Sulieman.

Then Zeph sits down at the plain table across from eyes, not leaving my face.

"What is it now, Zeph?" I ask, he has been on my case all night long.

"You should get some rest. I know you were just passed out for almost two days, but seriously it's been almost forty-eight hours and you barely had forty minutes on the plane ride. And for the record I didn't buy that it was just a nightmare." He whispers harshly at me without even pausing for breath.

"Have I ever told you that you can be too observant?" I say without taking my eyes away from the screen in front of me that is switching rapidly between lines of code and video feeds from various areas around Istanbul and near by towns and smaller cities.

"Yes. And don't think it got past me that you asked her to find help you find your boyfriend's grave and then paid her with scans of your journal." He teases.

"For the record, I also actually paid her in cash, and he wasn't just a boyfriend. We were handfasted. Just not married." I hear a clang behind me, and I look to see Sefa standing there wide-eyed just staring at me, she had just come from inside the sea can where we had set up a couple of cots and she had been sleeping. The clang had been her dropping a metal water bottle on the edge of the sea can.

Did she just hear me say that? Oh, for fuck's sake. Like I need more complications.

"I don't understand. 'Your boyfriend'? 'Your journal'? That's impossible! I had experts look at those journal scans, and the letter of authenticity that you sent with them. They were legitimate. Even my professor was impressed with the quality of the preservation. They can't have been yours!" She hysterically speaks at, at least, triple her usual speed and I just look across the table at Zeph. I raise my eyebrows and slowly shake my head back and forth. He just puts both his hands up. She begins to prattle on in rapid Turkish, mostly trying to convince herself that we're pulling her leg.

"That… Is…" I start, so cut off by Aquilo, also emerging from the sea can.

"Why not just tell her? She's a historian, right? Plus, it kills to tip toe around it all the time." I take a slow breath in and out to calm myself down.

"Just imagine—just for a moment— if you had to tip toe around it for ten thousand years! Oh, the horror!" I shake my hands on either side of my face for the full effect and Lio just narrows his eyes at me and Zeph snorts a little in attempt to hold in laughter. Sefa then snatches up my notebook next to me and opens it, her eyes widening as she looks at the writing from the perspective of a historian identifying similar, or in this case damn near identical, penmanship. Her hands tilt the notebook down before setting it back on the table.

"I read those entries enough to recognize how impossibly close your writing is to them. Earlier, you said you hadn't been fully truthful with me when we had met. But you also said that you didn't know until recently that your family were all Assassins. So what weren't you truthful about the first time? And then if it's really all true… How are these two your brothers? Are you a family of vampires or something?" She rattles off question after question as she sits down in the chair next to me, so I grab her shoulders.

"Look at me." Her eyes come up to meet mine, "Unlike how Zephyr and Aquilo make it seem, this is very privileged information." I shoot a look at the both of them, who immediately look away, "I am their sister, I don't really know what happened, but it happened. And I had to live for thousands of years to get back to this moment. Yes, I was the person that was supposedly married to Yusuf Tazim, no it wasn't actually a marriage. And his body has been taken by Abstergo. Now, I'm going to get back to finding where they took it, so please either hold onto your questions for later, or ask one of the buffoon set over there. I'm sorry for lying to you, but I think you'll see given the circumstances, why I did." I release her shoulders and turn back to the computer and restart my barrage of keystrokes in the hunt to find where they've taken Yusuf.

Almost right after that unwelcome scene I found a similar convoy arriving at a military style airstrip a fair distance outside the city. Then after nothing for another few hours, Zeph comes over and stands next to me with his arms crossed.

"It's now official. You are the only one of us who hasn't had any sleep yet. I bargained with myself that if you had made enough progress I'd let you continue. But you haven't, have you?" He asks and when I don't answer him he takes it as the truth, which is no. After all this time, it's like they erased all traces of whatever they did to leave Istanbul. "Alright. You said Shaun was also looking, right? Maybe you should ask him to look at both while you rest. You should also consider that maybe you're too close to this to see it clearly. Or perhaps that you are getting too close to exhaustion to figure it out. You. Are. Still. Human. And humans need rest." Then Aquilo steps up to my other side.

"I'm fine." I bite out harshly.

"We are your older brothers, and we are not afraid to use force if we have to. Now… Close up whatever it is your doing, we'll contact Shaun and ask him to look into both teams." Aquilo berates me. Then, just as though sheer mention of exhaustion summoned it, the screen doubles in my vision as I slump forward a little bit before catching myself, "See! Now. Rest."

"Fine." I seethe from behind clenched teeth. I click a few keys to close everything and shut the computer down. I close the lid of the laptop and stand up. Only, too fast. I wobble as I straighten my leg and almost fall backwards and Aquilo ends up having to steady me.

"Woah… Alright, that's that." Lio says as he pulls the chair away, scoops me up into his arms, and carries me to one of the cots inside the sea can, "You keep saying you're fine, but I'm not seeing it right now. You may be super-sister, but you're still our sister and you're not invincible. Please, take care of yourself. And before you say anything about me not knowing how much this means… I do know. I can see it in your eyes. Now, and then. Remember, I saw you with him through Ezio's eyes. Now. Get. Some. Sleep." As Aquilo walks away from me my eyes slide shut and I drift off into sleep.

A family smiles and waves as I walk down the dirt path away from their home.

The smiles are as bright as the sun.

A group of soldiers all smack my shoulders after I saved them from a group of tigers that had been stalking the small troupe of unwitting Greek soldiers.

Sharing stories around a fire. Such nights full of laughter and jokes.

A fisher feeding me at night as payment for protecting him while he crossed the edges of known pirate territory.

Meeting the families of some trainee soldiers I'd saved.

The Greek sailors from the triremes who drink all night with me to celebrate a decisive victory against a fleet of pirates trying to gain more territory.

Endless nights of drowning in laughter.

The whole town gathering to thank me for fending off a bandit attack.

The bandits trying to ambush me in a canyon later, only to all be slaughtered. Blood paints the canyon walls. The scream of a child who comes across the scene echoes in the surrounding chasms.

Happiness cannot last forever.

Sailors turning their backs to me and sneering as I approach.

The fishers focusing a little too much on their haul when before they had welcomed me. The missing jokes and laughter leave a stinging cold in the air.

Soldiers keeping their distance from me on the roads, their gazes avoiding me.

The smiling family rushing inside their small home at the sight of me on their dirt path.

The taunts of people as I enter towns and the sting of rocks hitting my skin.

The palpable fear in the air wherever I go.

The jeering.

The insults.

The curses.

My decision to leave that place, only to be headed off by the Greek army.

The army whose leaders had listened to the fears of the people living under the tyranny of a cursed demon escaped from Tartarus who sows death wherever she walks. Who can steal the light from a day, and the warmth from the sun just by looking your way.

They flank me within the high walled canyon to cut of any escape.

The feeling of them surrounding me and the perfect strategy they had devised to exhaust me.

The sensation of falling to my knees in exhaustion because those soldiers I know are bearing weapons against me.

The finality of waking up enclosed in a box while they shout their victory to the heavens and jeer downwards to the Tartarus as they cast me off into the depths of the sea.

And the heartrending ache in my chest from not knowing if anyone cares enough to try and find me as my world gets colder and darker.

The relentless fear of not knowing how long I will be condemned to this dismal prison.

The forlorn hope that maybe it will be long enough to be forgotten entirely by the world of man.

And at last, the desolate realization that they were right.

I am a demon.

A monster.

I shoot up from the cot so abruptly that the whole thing topples over causing a harsh metallic crash to resound throughout the whole sea can.

I just sit there looking but only seeing the flashes of swords until there's a sharp sting across my cheek.

I blink a few times to see Zeph's eyes full of worry.

"Are you okay? What happened?" He asks quietly.

"I'm… Fine." I whisper, more to try to convince myself than anything. Then Zephyr hugs me tightly.

"You are not fine. You didn't even respond to me until I slapped you. Please… Talk to me." His voice sounding desperate. I sigh… I'm not fine this time.

"You were right it wasn't just a dream… How long was I asleep?" I leaned away from him and just sit among the toppled bed things for a few minutes to center myself.

"Almost four hours. Do you want to talk?" Zeph cautiously approaches after I stop talking.

"I think so… But… Remember when I said this wasn't all sunshine and rainbows?" I look at him and he sits down at the edge of my bed mess.

"Yeah. History isn't exactly all fun and games either, what's bothering you? You can tell me, but I've realized I need to be patient, you've held all of this alone for so long that you need to learn how to share your pain sometimes. But I'll always be ready to hear you when you do want to talk." He always sounded so wise, and even now to the effective immortal his words bring a surprising comfort.

"It was around the time of Alexander the Great's rule. Near what is now the Caspian Sea. I had been too conspicuous in my heroics, too often, and for too long. I imagine people had become wary of me already but then a child saw me after I had killed some bandits that had ambushed me. Then People began to hate and fear me for the power I evidently commanded with fighting, they were scared that I was a demon escaped from Tartarus trying to gain their trust before taking them all to Tartarus to exchange them for my own freedom or something." I pause and take a breath trying to calm my erratic heart, Zephyr just sits and waits patiently, "The people of the towns went to the army and the army acted, soon soldiers I had rescued previously were turning their blades on me, and they had surrounded me completely. They were switching out their comrades so there was always a fresh group fighting me. This continued for hours until I was utterly spent. I had tried to run, to escape, but the army had cornered me completely. At the end, I had collapsed. When I woke up I could hear them shouting, cheering, and the general of the army was making a speech. He was jeering at me, saying that Zeus had favoured them, that rather than my not wanting to kill them it had been Zeus' favour that got them out of the conflict with the demon without a single death." I swallow. And I bite my lip.

"Where did they take you?" He asks quietly and I take another breath.

"They had put me in a wooden box. They had carved words on the inside pleading to the gods and the heavens to return the demon to the custody of Hades and his jail. Then… They pushed the box with me inside into the sea." I run a hand through my hair snagging a few knots on the way through the long tresses, "I remember it getting darker and colder… I remembered all the faces of the soldiers who had done this, the soldiers who I had saved, the soldiers who I had shared meals with, the soldiers I had drank with and laughed whole nights away with. I thought about why they did this. And I'd had a realization just before I fell into a deep sleep… The realization that they had done it because they could see what I could not. That I was a monster. At that moment I had fallen asleep… that was the first time I had ever called myself a monster. Leading up to that there had been many other remarkable people the descendants of the hybrids… Like Kassandra, who had shared something of a spotlight with me. Who, just by being there, made my existence less offensive to regular people. It took a long time for that box to be broken by the sea and release me back to the surface."

"And you're dreaming about that? Being trapped in that box sinking to the bottom of the sea…" Zephyr breaths the realization of what time has happened.

"Yeah, for me, it had been that… Event that had turned my world dark. I slowly lost interest in almost anything. I had gone to the mountains where Tajikistan is now. I stayed there for a few centuries. Then I followed my instincts back to Europe and ran into Kassandra in Rome. Kassandra did her best to help whenever we met up, but I think she knew there was nothing she could do to help me… Not really. Because she was more similar to me than other people so her accepting me wouldn't have made a difference. I let a lot of people die in front of me for a long time. If anything what happened made me a monster. After some more centuries, I had grown away from what happened and let myself start mixing with people more often. Art was something I had been desperately clinging to for that time, but I had started to lose it too… It was slow though, and I hadn't realized it, until I saw Leonardo drawing one afternoon in Venice. Leonardo had helped me bring art back into my life… And Yusuf… He cleared away all the rest of what I had become, looked at me, and still was able to smile and say he loved me."

"It was easy to see how important this is to you… But now I can see why you were so desperate to get here… Because you've been trapped in a box without air and Yusuf…" Zeph starts.

"Was in that position. And now, I find out that because I was stupid, he is in Abstergo's hands. I need to get him out of there. I don't think I will be able to really rest properly until I can get him away from Abstergo. This is mostly my fault. He is going to live for I don't know how long now, and that is entirely my fault. I won't be surprised if he finds it in him to—" Hate me. I had meant to say it, but my voice couldn't make the words. I have loved Yusuf all this time and to think that what I've done is enough to make someone hate… It's too much for my heart to bear. Zephyr puts a hand on my shoulder.

"Hey, don't go guessing what he is going to feel. You can't know that just yet. We'll get him back. And then you can ask him yourself what he thinks of what you inadvertently did." Zephyr stands up and holds his hand out to help me up, "Now, Shaun said he had an update for us just before you woke up. Let's go see what he has."

"Why didn't you lead with that?" I ask bitterly.

"Because you looked like a ghost. And apparently you had a dream about being drowned in a box, you looked like you needed to talk more than anything." He smiles a little before we walk out of the sea can into the bright warehouse.

We open up my computer and I open a video line with Shaun, he picks up a squints at all of us.

"Well… You lot have seen better days, haven't you? You all look like you've been trampled by a herd of wild animals." His face as straight as ever.

"Ah, ever the candid, glad to hear you haven't changed at all in the last week or so Shaun." Lio quips back.

"I hear you've got an update?" I ask.

"Yes, after your caretakers asked me to do even more work, I couldn't find anything about a coffin, a cadaver, or anything of the sort." He pauses because he knows he's got us, "I did however find something about a coma patient being moved to a special facility in Vancouver. But… That definitely does not fall into the category of moving an Assassin that has been dead for five hundred years."

"That's probably it…" I say. And Sefa can no longer hold back.

"But a coma patient is definitely a living person. Not someone who was under the ground until only a day ago." Sefa blurts out in frustration. Probably still grappling mentally with learning about my situation.

"Oh, I see a new face? Does everyone get to know about Assassins now? I must have missed that bulletin." Shaun chides.

"Oh, a new person? That's great!" Rebecca's voice comes over the chat as she comes into view just behind Shaun and waves at Sefa.

"Hi, new person!" Sefa waves back slowly.

"Shaun and Rebecca this is Sefa. She was the history PhD student who uncovered Yusuf Tazim's burial site. Abstergo tried to nab her but her professor managed to help her get away." Sefa gives a little bow as I move slightly to the side.

"Pleasure. Regardless we are still up one live person in a coma and down one five-hundred-year-old dead Assassin body. Care to fill us in?" Shaun clips right back to where we were.

"That is a long and incredibly involved story. Next time we see you, we'll explain. Can you send any information on this facility you found our way?"

"Absolutely! I managed to fish up a basic floor plan. It seems that it is in a taller building that uses a few of the higher floors for Abstergo's… Less public research. These floors don't actually show up on the floorplan of the building…" Rebecca goes into a basic run down of the facility on the other side of the world from us that supposedly has Yusuf inside, essentially right back where we started.

Then we prepare to go there ourselves.