Chapter 17: The Night's End

Haytham had what he wanted.

The amulet was in his palm, but his eyes were on the street ahead. His mind lay further: with the woman who'd threatened to end his life, which wasn't even remotely sensible.

He moved a hand to his face, where the blood from his nose still tainted his lips with salt and the ever-sour reminder of his fragility. He dragged his knuckles through the thickness of it, examining his fingers in the weak light like a catalogue of mistakes he'd made. The crude smear of crimson was already drying- darkening to match the ruddy tones he'd acquired throughout the night. A minute or two more and his blood would be indistinguishable.

He didn't think any of it was the Assassin's, but he couldn't be sure. The more he thought of it, the more vehemently he detested the notion that it was, which was completely absurd. It was shewho had attacked him. She wore his blood too, wherever she was. Wherever she was, a small part of him was marking the pale of her hands and her oh-so-coveted purity. She probably enjoyed it: a souvenir of his weakness on her skin.

Petty violence born of even pettier emotion. He was almost proud.

He had hurt her, though, and in ways that wouldn't bruise in the morning. She'd lied to him, but he could forgive that- could shrug it off like a winter coat- because he'd always expected her to. He had thought the sentiment reciprocated, but it wasn't, was it? She had threatened him, fought him, stained her hands with the red of him.

All because he lied, which meant she hadn't expected him to. That weight was altogether harder to slip from his shoulders and let fall down his back.

Haytham pocketed the amulet with a sigh and withdrew a handkerchief instead. He pressed it to his nose, the stench of iron searing his breath, clawing at his throat like a mouthful of smoke- but he didn't mind. He stared down the street to where Kira had disappeared, her voice in his head- always in his head:

There are worse means of hurt than violence, Mr Kenway.

Guilt gnawed at him, striving for bone. Even now, with his blood still conceivably wet on her fingers.

He ought to kill her for it, but he didn't want to.

…

Kira lowered her hands into the basin and watched as the water turned pink.

She moved them about, rubbing them solemnly in a ritual that had long become habit. Her fingers worked the crevices of her skin, dislodging what mud and blood had dried cold there. She scraped at the edges of her nails. She'd never get all of it, but she'd get enough. Enough to avoid suspicion. Enough to forget.

Bands of purple were already starting to brand her wrists. She thought of Haytham, and she scrubbed her hands a little more fervently.

When she was done, she made her way over to her bed and slumped onto it. She lay back and ached: from the tautness of her muscles to the very centre of her chest. Her wrists tingled, and she caressed them thoughtfully as she gazed up at the blank space of her ceiling.

If only she could scour her memories of this day like the blood from her hands.

Achilles had lied to her, and the balm of his reasoning did little to relieve the sting. 'For you,' he'd said. For you. To keep her from straying too far from the path that had always lain before her. To keep her from gazing off into the dark woods either side and wondering what she'd find should she ever dare set foot there.

It would have been nice to have a choice, she pondered, as she turned onto her side and buried her face in her quilt. She wished she could drown in the softness of it. So much for liberty.

Haytham had lied to her too, and she toyed with the fact like a child grown tired of a worn-out doll. Haytham was supposed to lie to her; he would always lie. It never should have come as a surprise.

Her head lolled to the side as she watched the rain pound ceaselessly against the glass of her window. It had been falling so long that it had assumed the countenance of music playing from another room: infant waves lapping against the shores of her consciousness, stirring nothing.

There was a knock at the door, and Kira rose on instinct. She waited, breath bated until it came again, and she blew a lock of hair from her face with a huff of disappointment.

It wasn't a figment of her exhausted imagination. She had hoped it was a figment of her exhausted imagination.

She slipped to her feet, collecting her robe on her way to the stairs and tugging it over her bare shoulders as she wandered down them. It was Connor, surely: seeking word of everything Shay had told her. He would want the truth of why Achilles had lied. The truth:

That she would have once followed Shay to the ends of the earth, let alone to the other side of a war she'd inherited. That she could have been another name- another portrait- for Connor to hate and hunt. That she could have been a Templar if things had only fallen a little differently.

It was the truth Connor was owed.

She ought to tell him, but she didn't want to.

…

The door swung open without a trace of the tentativeness Haytham anticipated. He had been taking a half-step forwards- hand raised to strike it a final, presumably futile time- when it did, and all at once, the Assassin was standing before him.

"Mr Kenway," Kira spoke, quiet beneath the drum of the rain: more a declaration of her surprise than a greeting.

He took a short step backwards. "Miss Lawrence," he returned, regardless. He had more to say- more to do- though his mind strayed with a heartbeat of a downwards glance: she was dressed in her nightclothes, one arm of her robe sliding to reveal the curve of her shoulder. She really hadn't been expecting him.

He cleared his throat, refusing a smile as he waited for her to become aware of herself; the hint of one defying him as she did. She fixed the collar of her gown with an urgency that was almost charming. Propriety between killers. Etiquette- of all things- from the woman who'd spilt his blood.

"Why are you here?" she asked.

Why was he here? Ah, yes.

He reached into an inner pocket, numb fingers fumbling beneath the watchful guard of her eyes. When he withdrew the amulet they'd fought for- that he'd tricked her into fighting for- suspicion still ruled her stare. He couldn't blame her. "Here," he said, holding it out, "I want you to have it."

He didn't, but there was no simple word for 'for reasons I'm sure I will later regret, I feel as though I owe it to you.'

Beads of rain trickled over the grooves of his closed fist, racing down the cord of the amulet and gathering to adorn its pendant. They dropped from its base: transparent pearls marking the passing seconds with each shattering on the ground below. One. Two.

Kira retreated a step, her eyes on the floor as her arms crossed. Haytham moved closer. "No tricks," he reassured, and it was odd: hearing his own voice dressed for comfort. "Please, just… take it."

The look he received in turn was unjustly cold. A little too unjust, a little too cold. His gaze dropped to where the threshold of the woman's home was dampening, and the lower half of her skirts were meeting a similar fate. She'd been retreating from the rain- not from him.

Wearing the threat of a smile, Kira reached to take the amulet. She turned it about- dried it on the cotton of her gown. "Why are you giving this to me?"

Haytham's jaw clenched. She knew why. She'd scarcely believe it, but she knew. It was a cruel form of torture: to ask him to put it into words. "Does it matter?"

She stared back at him, the pendant swaying rhythmically beneath her fingers. "You tell me."

A challenge: always a challenge from this one. A few moments alone with her, and he remembered how they'd come to fight. To lie, to hurt. For someone who claimed to resent the worst of him, she made an awful habit of trying to drag it from his depths. But it was late, and he was tired. "No," he said: a relieved sort of surrender. "It does not."

He'd come to apologise, not to martyr himself. He turned to leave, his boots breaking the puddles stretched like mirrors below- the sound scoring every step he took away from her. It was a necessary precaution. Distance would withstand what his patience might not.

"Mr Kenway?"

Haytham stopped. He resented himself for a fateful moment, then looked back.

Kira's head was slanted- inquisitive, tentative- like a cat pawing its prey with the hope it might still be alive. She hesitated as his gaze met hers. He had waited. He was waiting. "Come in, won't you?" she offered in reluctant reward.

Water seeped along the rim of Haytham's hat, falling before his face in large droplets. Some infiltrated the collar of his coat, carving icy paths down from the back of his neck, and he flexed his hands; they had lost even more of their feeling in their idleness.

The Assassin watched him, arms folded once more. Unreadable. Warm.

It would be nice to get out of the rain.

Haytham acquiesced with a smile, rolling his shoulders in a casual shrug. His coat felt heavy- damp sleeves clinging to his arms as he reached to remove his hat. He shook it once- then again- as he reapproached the house. It still dripped at his side as he passed Kira by.

"Want to kill me, Miss Lawrence?" he asked, slowing as he drew level with her.

Her arms tightened around herself. "I want to understand you," she said.

"Ah." He glanced back. "I think that's rather the same thing, don't you?"

…

Kira stalled for a moment as the Templar disappeared into the next room. She closed the door with a sigh, the house all too quiet with the rain shut out. She didn't know what she was doing. She was acting on impulse, and absolutely nothing good could come of an Assassin doing that.

Absentmindedly rubbing an arm, she made her way to her sitting room, where Haytham was setting aside his sodden belongings. She watched as he draped his coat over the back of a chair. "Can I… get you something to drink?" she asked, more habit than kindness. "Tea, perhaps?"

He looked up at her, straightening his shirt sleeves. "Have you anything stronger?"

A short laugh escaped her lips. "Yes," she replied. "Yes- I may join you in that."

She strolled to the kitchen, bending to retrieve some glasses from a cupboard. A half-full bottle of brandy was located just as quickly, and she poured it with rehearsed proficiency. She then took a long drink of it. The glass was topped up: still rehearsed, still proficient. She was well-practiced in fear and the methods of dulling it.

Her mind still raced, practically tripping over itself. She had invited a dangerous adversary into her home, and for what? A friendly chat?

She squeezed her eyes closed. Let Achilles never find out about this.

Taking a deep breath, she returned to the sitting room, drinks in hand. Her skin prickled, the glasses cool against her fingers. It was much too cold. She hadn't noticed until now.

Haytham had; he was crouched by the fireplace, halfway through the process of lighting it. He glanced up at Kira's approach, taking his drink with a soft word of thanks when it was offered to him. She nestled into her armchair to watch him work- grateful for his initiative, though she wasn't quite ready to say so. She nursed her drink, the alcohol sweet on her tongue and warm in her throat. Within the fireplace, orange flames began to bud and flower.

Kira relaxed, calm bleeding through her like spilled ink through parchment. Then she frowned: Haytham had raised his drink in inspection, and he rotated it thoughtfully beneath a wary stare.

She rolled her eyes. "I haven't poisoned it."

He met them. "You would say that regardless."

A stalemate commenced, and the fire crackled alongside it. Kira held the man's gaze, tension urging her to break, but she wouldn't. Her fingers tightened around her glass. For him to even suggest she would poison him- to suggest she would ever be so dreadfully obvious. A log cracked from within the fireplace. Her patience splintered.

"Give it to me," she scowled, reaching out for his glass.

He studied her hand dispassionately for a moment. Then he chuckled, low and deep, as he brought the drink to his lips. "I trust you, Kira Lawrence," he spoke between two mouthfuls. "If I am to die by your hand, it will be in more riveting circumstances than this."

The fire's glow began to wither beside him, and he turned his attention to it once more. Kira sat back again, the idea that she had been toyed with like a thorn in her side- but she could endure it. Flames flickered, and the rain still echoed from outside. She thought about how she'd lain on her bed and listened to it, head full of regrets. If only I could scour my memories of this day like the blood from my hands.

"I wanted to apologise," she spoke, scouring in a sense. "For what happened earlier."

Haytham was silent- his focus fixed on his task- and Kira shifted uncomfortably. "You should not have lied to me," she said.

"You lied too."

"I know." Both hands clutched her glass now. Deceit was an old friend; deceit had been unfaithful. Was that the feeling- betrayal? She released a breath. "I had only hoped-"

"To make things right?" The man spared her a glance brimming with irony. "Tell me- what is it exactly you think I fight for?" He turned his back on her: stoked embers. "You think I want-"

"I don't know what you want," she snapped.

The fireplace tittered. The rain bawled. Haytham straightened slowly, time stretching with him. Then he looked at her at last like she were fire in need of tending. "Ask me, then."

She wouldn't; he must have known she wouldn't. He was not the sort to bare his throat, leaving softness exposed. He was not the sort to offer a dagger hilt-first, with the tip angled precariously towards himself. But then maybe he was, and she didn't want him to be. After all, what could she do with a dagger like that?

"It was wrong of me to attack you as I did," she diverted, tearing her eyes from his, because she was not fire, no matter how much she wanted to be. "I lost my temper, and I-" she faltered reflectively. "We are enemies, yes, but we should not fight needlessly. We should not fight at all, except-"

"Except what?"

The Assassin stared down into her drink. "Well that is the way of the world, isn't it? The cost of peace is always blood." She took a sip, her throat dry. "I only wish to live to see it change."

"You won't." It was not a threat, though Haytham was quick to add: "None of us will."

There was no pleasure in his tone- merely acceptance. It was the weathered sort: the kind that came with experience. "I hope you're wrong," Kira muttered, but he wasn't. He wouldn't be.

"As do I."

She looked up in surprise. "We can agree on that, then. If nothing else."

Haytham smiled. "Oh, I am certain we would agree on many things should we ever care well enough to discuss them. We are alike- you and I- and in more ways than one, I'd wager."

The woman laughed a little, swirling what remained of her drink around amusedly. She wouldn't deny it. He could keep his morsel of optimism as far as she was concerned- it might even do him some good.

At the edge of each of their vision, the fire blazed, heedless of its neglect. Haytham strayed back to his belongings. He brought over the chair they were strung upon, setting it tactfully down by the fireplace before settling into it himself. His hair was still dark with rain; he was cold, though he was trying to hide it. It was minute details that betrayed him: a lingering glance at his coat, a subtle flex of his fingers as though they were numb.

He had been watching the fire, though he soon picked up on her observations. "May I ask you something?" he said.

She consented with a hum.

"Do you hate me, Miss Lawrence?"

His tone was light for the weight of the question. Kira contemplated it; she wasn't entirely sure she had ever hated anyone. "I hate what you stand for," she deflected with a sigh, "and I do not care particularly for you either."

"Why?"

"Why?" she scoffed, regardless of how casually it had been asked. "You have threatened me. Deceived and manipulated me. Hurt me. Made a prisoner of me twice, now- though the first instance did make a wonderful first impression, I'll grant you. And then you…" she trailed off.

Haytham was laughing quietly. It might have been her enthusiasm. It might have been that save for the final charges she'd levelled against him- she'd been guilty of all of them herself. It was a strange world they shared: one where they could wrong each other in so many ways. Stranger still: that they had survived it all. That they were fine- drinking and talking by a fireplace.

"I entertain no illusions of your regard for me, Mr Kenway," Kira continued. "I know you must think very lowly of me indeed, but-"

"On the contrary, I think very highly of you," he interposed.

The woman fell silent. To return an insult was second nature: to receive a compliment was utterly disarming. She fumbled for clarity. "You do?"

Haytham frowned slightly, almost as though he were bored. "Naturally. You are talented. You possess a great many skills and qualities: intuition. Resilience. Intelligence. Why shouldn't anyone think highly of you?"

He had discovered a weakness. Kira could feel the blush rising in her cheeks- warm and treacherous. All because the man across from her was no ordinary man: he was Haytham Kenway. The villain of Achilles' stories. The infamous Grand Master behind every warning, every lesson. Everything she had ever been taught was for him- for the explicit purpose of matching him. Of challenging him.

And she had.

She could hold it no longer; her gaze slipped downwards. "That is kind of you to say."

"It is certainly kinder than what you have said of me- yes."

Kira's complexion reddened. "I never meant to-"

"Offend? Yes, you did," Haytham grinned. "Although I do find it difficult to believe you despise entirely everything about me. Come, humour a man his vanity-" he lounged back in his chair, eyes locked with hers as he took a deliberately slow sip of his drink. His voice was low: "There must be something you like."

It was an invitation for many things: conflict among them. The woman's lips parted, a number of acerbic remarks threatening to spill from them, but none did. No- he had compromised her with honesty, hadn't he? Two could play at that game. "Your voice," she said finally.

"My... voice?" The playfulness was gone.

"Yes. It makes me think of home. Of London."

"You miss it?"

She hesitated. "I miss being able to miss it. The truth is that it has been so long that I can scarcely remember it at all. The look. The feel." Her throat was aching again. "I should like to go back, I think. Perhaps- perhaps one day, when I am not needed here. When everything… settles."

Haytham was quiet- his face sombre. He didn't need to say it; it was the same look as before. The same understanding: the cost of peace is always blood. There will always be conflict here. We will not live to see it change.

Another log fractured in the fireplace, the sound of its surrender drawing both pairs of eyes. Kira was glad for the silence. It was a pleasant sort of pretending.

"You should go back to London," Haytham said.

"Why? Because you are here, and that makes everything so very hopeless?"

A corner of the man's mouth lifted in a smirk. He finished the last of his drink- set his glass aside. "It has nothing to do with me."

There was an insinuation to the words that sparked a cinder of dread. Possibly because Kira could already predict what it was.

"Do you know the tale of Sisyphus?" Haytham asked. It was rhetorical: he knew she would. "Condemned to an eternity of the same senseless work. Breaking his back on that boulder- working his fingers to the bone- and all the while tortured by the knowledge that it would always be for nought." He paused pointedly. His arms folded. "Sound familiar?"

Kira glowered, the fire's light accentuating the brown of her eyes.

"You will never change things so long as you are roped to the whims of that bitter old man you serve. He will condone all manners of violence for the sake of liberty- only you won't, will you? You want to protect people, and that is different. It is a conflict of interest and one he has been forced to entertain. Now, though? He has his new student- my son. Younger. Stronger. More… impressionable."

Any fight in the Assassin's eyes was gone.

"Indulge me, Miss Lawrence. How much more time do you think he is going to waste on you?"

Kira's breath caught. It was nothing she had not told herself before, but to hear it voiced aloud was something devastating. Something real.

Achilles was all she had left of her childhood: the sole survivor of a family long buried. He loved her, didn't he? He knew her like scripture- every page, every paragraph. He'd been there for half the writing of it. They had each other when they had nothing else, and how could you not love a person after all that time? He wanted the best for her. He wanted her happiness, surely.

But he had lied about Shay. And there were sentences of herself she kept hidden from him.

Achilles did not know her, not really. She had been careful.

The woman stared into the fire, where all she could see was the memory of her mentor's face, twisted with disappointment. She heard Haytham stirring- was vaguely aware of movement as he stood, pulling his coat from the chair and threading his arms through it; he was preparing to leave. She could not look at him for fear of resenting him. His honesty had been cruel, but it was honesty all the same.

"Go to London," came his voice again with some finality, passing her on his way to the door. "Or better yet-" he appeared at the back of her armchair, leaning in close- "join me. And we'll see if we can't have all this resolved by year's end."

His arm rested a short way above her head, and Kira smiled, despite everything. Despite her heart being trapped in the cellar of her chest. "I would sooner be dead," she uttered, neck craning as she looked up at him.

He smiled back. "What a dreadful waste that would be."

It was late, and the night was drawing to its inevitable close.

Kira forced herself from her chair, following her guest to the door and watching him step out into the rain. It was violent still; he was soaked through in seconds, though he didn't seem to care. He thanked her for her hospitality. Bade her goodnight. Then he was gone, leaving her to the bittersweet company of her thoughts once more.

The air was cold, but the woman stayed for a few moments, watching the rain and the darkness: the monotony of it all. Morning would bring a fresh bouquet of troubles, but she could stave it off so long as she lingered. The weather would change. The night would recede.

Not yet, though.

Her fingers ghosted over the bruises on her wrists. With a sigh, she retreated inside.

Author notes:

Wow. Ok. It's been a while, and I feel particularly bad as I had promised to get this chapter out months ago. Unfortunately for this story, the holidays happened, (and didn't they go quickly?), and in the last few weeks I've been settling into college. So yeah, I've been super busy. But hey, I hope it's been worth the wait.

As for the next chapter? I want to say I'll get it out soon, but if you've been following this story for that long, you know that when I say that, it usually doesn't happen. Who knows, though? We'll see.

Thanks again for your patience! :D

Kittycat312