AN: Altair's journal entries, except for the last, are taken straight from the Codex. Chapter title is from the bible via skywalker05: "When they were only a few men in number, Very few, and strangers in it. And they wandered about from nation to nation, From one kingdom to another people. He permitted no man to oppress them, And He reproved kings for their sakes."

Very Few, and Strangers in it

Sef is only seven, but he has always known his place.

In his first years he was the Younger Son: not quite the heir, loved but easily forgotten. He had the freedom to roam the fortress unmolested and the nervous respect of Masyaf. His father, great and important man, pale-skinned where others were dark and alone where others sought company, watched him often but rarely spoke. His mother was stern and practical except when in her private quarters, where she would sit slumped by the day's insults (Christian Templar unnatural bitch) and fuss with her things. She let Sef sit with her then.

While he was Younger Son Darim was Older, and the duties fell harshly on his shoulders like hail instead of rain. He was always being thrown into the training ring. Their father was always finding fault. Mother, saying she could not baby him forever, was not much different. Their Dai-Uncle Malik was kinder but also sad, and it was tiring even for Sef to have to meet those heavy eyes, especially on sunny days when the world was hot and sweet. Darim didn't act as though he missed the affection. And he mocked Sef for getting it and giving it both.

Sef was Young-Old next, still a child but less so, changed in ways without words to describe them. Father had little understanding or patience for children, even his, especially his, and he avoided them both now when not watching them spar. Swords he carried and cared for. Offspring, less so.

Mother was weary, Sef at this age could see, tired of having to fight for her place. But it was harder for him to care, because she pushed him out of her room whenever her eyes began to glaze.

He trained a lot more now. He fought with Dai Malik, his instructors, and his parents. While Darim looked on from the next ring over and frowned.

After came the Year Away, traveling with his mother to Acre. Darim didn't come, because he was too old, and Father wanted him to stay in Masyaf and prepare to be the Order's leader. That's what Mother said. Sef took in the Brotherhood with his mother's milk when he suckled. He never knew there could be other ways of living, other choices. He accepted this answer and assumed Darim did, too.

Acre was scary and fallen and wonderful. Surrounded by her once-kin in the ruined churches and sacked monasteries and sprawling refugee slums, Maria Thorpe glowed. She sent messages back to Masyaf often, but never asked Sef if he might want to add a greeting to the letter. And there were never any in the letters returned, except the occasional courtesy when Malik was the one to respond.

Through all of it, all the stages of his life, Sef as youngest son and Grandmaster's heir and Acre novice—through all of it, there were rumors.

Rumors about his father. Rumors that he hated for the way they gouged chunks of life from his mother. Rumors he asked Darim about once, before Acre. Darim called him names for insulting their father and wouldn't talk to him for a week.

Now Sef is back in Al Masyaf, far from Acre's old stones and black-market crowds buzzing like flies around a carcass. As always, he knows his place.

His place this afternoon is sparring with his brother, but it's a sweltering day, winter not so far but feeling like an impossible dream. Darim is scowling and swinging his weapon with more bad humor than Sef feels like dealing with. It's hot. He finds a scrap of shade to claim and claims it stubbornly, sprawling his limbs out to steal all the room. Masyaf is always hot, except in the winter when it's freezing, and there's ice crusting the sides of all the wells, and the stables down at the bottom of the village are cloudy with the horses' steamed breath.

Acre was also cold, in a dank, salty, moldy way. But at least it didn't snow and the ocean never froze, and his mother covered her head to keep her hair dry, which was a relief, because even in Acre there were stares and one seven-year-old boy could only fight so many people for his mother's honor. But he didn't have to do that as much in Acre, home of winter mist and Christians.

Sef prefers Acre to Masyaf, all in all.

"Come on, lazy." Darim bangs the hilt of his sword against his thigh. "We're supposed to be training."

"It's hot."

"So? You think Father will care? He'll beat you for disobeying."

"He never has."

"Then the instructors will."

"They never have." Darim bangs the sword hilt against his leg again, and Sef thinks that the only one bruising his brother is in fact his brother. "No one ever hits you outside of the ring. I don't even know what you're talking about."

"Stand up and train with me already, would you?"

Ten-year-old Darim, all huff and anger. He makes Sef tired.

"Lazy. This is why you're nothing special when you fight. Just another novice."

"So?"

"So? We're Altair's sons. The Grandmaster's sons! And it makes him look bad when his sons are nothing special."

"I dunno. You're pretty good."

"I'm very good. I'll run missions soon, wait and see."

"Ok." Sef sits up, shrugs. His sword is out of its scabbard, on the dirt. Uncle Malik would scold if he saw. He's always telling Sef to show his weapons their proper respect.

But some people in this village treat their weapons better than they do their Master's wife. That's what feels wrong. When Sef cuts himself he can see the blood and feel the sting. When he dings his blade he sees and feels neither. He asked Darim about that too, once, and Darim called him a baby.

"You're good for nothing if you can't fight. Father says that all the time."

"Not that often."

"How would you know? He doesn't tell every secret to some kid. And you've been in Acre for a year, while I've been at his side."

Sef pouts. Darim pronounces Acre the way their mother pronounces plague. "I'm back now," the younger boy says. "I have tons of time to practice with you and Father. Today is too hot."

"Are you stupid?" Darim throws his sword down in a pout their father might smack him for. "Don't you ever pay attention?"

'"Course I do. Don't call me stupid." Sef turns his head against the ground to watch a crawling ant. "Uncle Malik says you're supposed to be nice to me 'cause you're my brother."

Darim snorts, "What does he know? His brother's dead."

"Well, I'm not gonna die," says Sef, biting his lip through a sudden chill. "Neither are you."

"I really hate when he gets all big-eyed about family. He's always talking about families should do this and be that. But he's not our family. And how can we do anything when you and Mother are off in Acre?"

"We're back, Darim."

"See? You don't listen. You think you're staying?"

Sef sits up. Dirt clings to the back of his grey tunic. "Aren't we?"

"No. I heard Father and Mother talking—"

"You shouldn't do that, Darim! You shouldn't listen in on them, you're gonna get in trouble."

"If I didn't listen who would tell me anything? You?" Darim pins him with a look. "They were talking this morning. Mother's not staying here."

"Why wouldn't she? I mean…I guess Acre might need her back…"

"She's not staying because she doesn't want to. So she won't. She'll go back to Acre and run its bureau. And I'm sure she'll take you with her again. Not me. I'm the elder son. I have to stay with Father."

Sef tries to picture the man. Tries to remember him warm or cold, loving or strict. Mother—well, he loves her, of course, as much as Uncle Malik must have loved his brother, with clingy strength. But his father? Sef respects him. Respects the man who on occasion used to run a hand over his youngest son's head and look almost afraid. But he doesn't know him well.

If Mother goes to Acre, will it be worse for Darim if she takes Sef or if she leaves them both behind? The boy feels sick. Either way, something will be wrong.

He picks up his sword, stands and parries with it a few times, but he's distracted, and Darim must see it, because the older boy finally jabs the back end of his weapon into his brother's gut. Hard. Sef hits the ground with a solid plop, wincing and gulping.

"Ow!" he says. "That hurt."

"It's supposed to. You're training."

"Yeah, and training's just pretend."

"Nothing here is pretend. If you don't know what you're doing Father'll send you out on a mission and you'll die."

Sef hunches over, his stomach still smarting, his vision swimming with tears. "Will not," he mumbles. "Assassins don't have to die."

"But you're not an assassin, are you, when you're only playing pretend. Mother going to Acre must be pretend too! I don't care. Go with her and pretend to be an assassin there."

"I like Acre. It's dirty and crowded but people really need the assassins there. It's good for Mother. And everything smells like the sea."

Darim slams his sword back into its holster. "I. Don't. Care," he grits out, "about Acre. You're too young to know what's good or useful. You're just a kid."

"Mother's happier there," Sef says quietly.

"Liar!"

"She's happier there even without Father, even without—but I don't think she'd go back. She wouldn't 'cause you couldn't come and you're her son too. And 'cause we're brothers, and everyone says we should stay together so we can, well, train and stuff."

"She wouldn't," Darim mocks, hands clamped to his hips. "She wouldn't, she couldn't, she didn't say. Of course she's going to go back to Acre if she's happier. And she'll leave me behind again. And this time maybe she'll leave you."

"No. You're wrong. I know you are."

"You don't know anything. She's going to leave both of us here. And Father's too busy training me to bother with you."

"Father doesn't even bother—" But Sef stops himself at his brother's curled lip. Darim is his older brother, and stronger than him too. And brittle in ways Sef can't fix.

He says instead, "You're so wrong. Mother's not gonna leave, not by herself. I'll show you. I'll ask them."

"They won't tell you."

"I'll ask anyway!"

And the younger boy marches off on stiff knees, sick-scared and swollen from Darim's derisive laughter chasing him out of the courtyard and into the fortress. This might be his first mission, his next place: the sensible, the Wise Beyond Years. The one who will remind them all that they are a family, even if assassins rarely have families, and they belong together. Maybe he is the one who must make Mother cover her hair and keep Darim from nagging like an old man. Maybe he is the one who must remind the Grandmaster that he is a husband and a parent, too.

Sef feels very small. The fortress ceilings are high even in the offshoot hallways, and the ones he's walked all his life seem different after Acre. He could be lost. He'll get lost and starve and his body will be found a year later by a novice skipping lessons. His lip dips into a tremble.

The problem is Acre! Acre and the sea that churns up noise, hiding gossip. Or the problem is Al Masyaf, and the river that isn't noisy enough to do the same. The problem is the Order, and the Creed he's known since before he could say it: Nothing is true. Everything is permitted. But it is not permitted for Sef's family to be so unhappy. And it's true that Father is a good father, and Mother a good mother, and Darim the best brother of all. Sef only has to remind them.

The problem is that Sef knows his place, and his place is hard to reach.

The fortress wraps around him. He heads not for the main hall, wide and crowded, but for the hallway he suspects he's not supposed to know is there. The one that narrows at the end before butting into a windowless wall. The one with the trapdoor. He's always been slightly scared of that trap door—so high! so dark!—and he knows he'd be banned from using it if anyone realized he'd seen his father slip inside.

But no one's realized, not even Dai Malik. Sef tugs open the cover, sweaty fingers slipping at the metal handle, thin arms bulging with the weight, until finally he's pried it open. Darim would be proud of his instincts and his strength. But Darim is back in the courtyard cursing rocks.

The space beyond the trapdoor is black and musty. He gulps, peering down at it. But his father goes down here often, and Sef must ask his father if it's true that they're to be separated again. It isn't true. But if it is then Sef must stop it right away.

He sits down on the lip and dangles his legs into the murk, half-expecting some green-skinned ghoul to reach out a rotting arm and claw his flesh. The fortress is haunted with tons of dead novices, Darim always says so. Other people say so too.

A few years ago Sef had wandered bored from Masyaf's gates and found some peasants sitting around a fire, and they told him that his father could command ghosts and raise the dead. Everyone knew it. Dai Malik found him then, smacked him upside the head for leaving the village and brought him back, so he never learned which ghosts exactly his father used. Whoever they are, they're probably at the bottom of this hole, waiting for seven-year-olds to devour.

He drops through the hole with a gulp.

It isn't as far down as the gloom suggested, but he lands awkwardly, and his ankle throbs. Sef hops a few steps on his good ankle, bent with one hand on his bad one and the other hand flailing at the air. Probably not the smoothest jump ever made by an assassin. But here he is, facing down the dusty cobwebs and whatever monsters lurk in the corners. Bravery is worth a stiff ankle.

There's only one door in this stubby hall, a wooden one sharp with splinters and sagging with the weight of the stone ceiling it bears. When Sef tries the handle, he finds it latched, but that's a minor hindrance. Sef is the son of the Grandmaster. He's been picking latches since he was four.

Nervously he pushes the wooden slab ajar. "Father?" he whispers, peering in.

The room is something of a letdown.

No ghosts, no strange creations, and no Father either. Just a low ceiling and a giant desk stained with spilled ink. A mounted candle sputters, the wick burned down to the last. There aren't even any interesting spiders.

Nonplussed, Sef wanders in. The Assassin Grandmaster ought to have all sorts of secrets, but this is just a room. There are scrolls tacked to the walls, many flecked with dripped candle wax and smeared with soot, but none of the drawings mean anything to Sef. Weapons, most of them look like; Darim would be entertained. But Sef still has trouble lifting swords not made of wood.

The scrolls on the desk are no less enlightening. Nothing about Mother going to Acre or her sons staying behind, only endless scrawls about Mongols and barracks and promotions for novices. Sef can practically hear Darim snorting in his ear, This is all important work. You're a lousy assassin if you don't care. But he doesn't care. Not as much as he cares about his family and his home.

The desk is swamped with layers, newer parchment weighing down the old. It's like digging through a muddy field, trying to get to the bottom without the top oozing in. Sef finds some doodles of Masyaf's gates and the fortress ramparts, some design sketches of journeyman armor and hidden blade braces. He finds a drawing of his mother: she's younger in it, and wearing her old Crusader armor. Her eyes don't look so pressing. Sef frees it from its pile, holding it carefully to keep it from creasing. His mother is really very pretty, he decides.

Bored now, he's half-forgotten the urgency that drove him to this forbidden place. He rushes through the piles, no longer bothering to keep things organized as they were. His father won't notice one mess over another. A little book slips into his hands, loose paper leaf pressed into a tanned leather casing. It must have been expensive. Perhaps his father has noted the movements of his family in here, the way he notes the movements of his men?

It's hot in the small room, and Sef's brown curls droop into his eyes with sweat. He hefts them back with one hand and begins to read at random:I have spent days with the artifact now, Altair has written in an uneven hand. Or has it been weeks? Months? I can no longer be certain…

Sef frowns. The artifact?

The others come from time to time - offering food or distraction. They say I should separate myself from these studies… Malik has even suggested I abandon them entirely. But I am not yet ready to turn away. …'He who increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow…'

None of it means anything to Sef. He turns the page.

Those subjected to its glow are promised all that they desire. It asks only one thing in return: complete and total obedience. And who can truly refuse? It is temptation incarnate.

But Altair is the Grandmaster. He doesn't have to listen to anyone. Not his wife, not his men, not Dai Malik. He doesn't even have to remember his sons.

The Apple has a tale to tell. I sense the flickers of something - great and dangerous… We are all at risk. It is my duty to do something about it. I must not - cannot - turn away until I've found the truth.

The boy shivers. "We are all at risk?" he says, startling himself by his own voice. But it's much too airless and quiet here now. He needs to hear someone familiar speak. "We can't be. We're assassins. Father's an assassin. Ugh, I don't know what any of this means."

He's tempted to stamp his foot. All he wants is to keep his family whole! Instead he gets riddles and frightening words. The little book is a hateful thing, a vile thing, he wishes he'd never picked it up. If there were a proper fire he'd burn it! Instead he turns to the last page, to see what truth his father found.

Him again, the Master's written. I see him more and more. A taunt? A curse? It's useless to fret over illusions.

The middle of the page is blank, but at the bottom, in a half-legible scrawl, Sef reads, Malik. I won't tell you. How Kadar talks to us both. I won't let you want to leave.

Sef throws the book to the floor and runs from the room. The door bangs shut behind him but he doesn't bother with the latch. It's not easy to scramble back out of the trapdoor, he's not tall enough and his fingers can't get a good grip, but he manages it and hoists himself panting into welcome daylight. Then he keeps running, for the courtyard and Darim.

His speed is better than his vision, his eyes smeared with sun and fear. He flies past older assassins who murmur at his haste, but there's no way for him to slow down. Not until he bumps into someone who almost seems to walk into him deliberately. But Sef, desperate for Darim to call him a baby and explain it all away, doesn't notice. The assassin he's banged into kneels and holds out a steadying hand. "What's wrong?" he asks.

Sef knows he shouldn't say. But this man is his Brother, if not his brother. "It doesn't make sense," he gasps at him. "Father doesn't make sense. Everyone knows that Kadar is dead."

"They say your father can raise the dead. Who is Kadar?"

"Dai Malik's brother. I know they do. I know he can! But why would he? He shouldn't do that. It's wrong."

"You shouldn't worry," says the assassin. "I'm sure you've simply misunderstood."

"But he wrote it. Not about me or Darim or Mother. About seeing Malik and his dead brother!"

The assassin asks, "About the Apple? About that too?"

Sef squints at him. "How can apples raise the dead?"

But the assassin straightens up with a shake of his frizzy-haired head. "Don't worry about that," he says. "It's not something for children to fuss over. Your father's problems will soon be solved."

"Will they?" Sef hesitates, peering up at this smiling stranger. "'Cause if Mother goes—and if we don't go with her—"

"The Order is here to help your father. Isn't it?"

"I guess so. Yeah. I've got to find Darim."

The assassin waves him off. Sef feels better for telling him, despite the low-ranking robes the man wears. He will feel better still for telling Darim…but what will he tell Darim? How will he explain it? Their father is too busy with ghosts to notice the living exist.

-i-

Abbas is at prayer when Ali comes in. He ignores him, keeping focused on the holy act. He can hear Ali shuffling behind him, the sound of impatience, made magnified by the acoustics in the small side room where Abbas often goes to pray.

"Finally," says Ali the minute Abbas stands up. "This is important."

"Nothing is more important than prayer." Abbas can't help but wonder, if this thing—this thing he can't even admit to in his mind—if this thing Ali has contrived comes to pass and they together usher in a better world, will Ali then become a better person? Abbas can help him. The prayers, the behaviors, the peace in knowing even the Assassin's Order is smaller than God, Abbas can teach him all of this, and they can be true friends. Not like Rauf, weak little friendships that curdle at the first harsh word from others. They can be true Brothers, devoted to the Order and each other, like, say, like Malik and—

"It's all come together," says Ali. "We have to wait for the right moment, but that moment is so close."

"We'll be found out and killed long before it happens. With all the talk you've been doing, the secret messages you send. Nothing is secret here, I keep telling you."

"Who can kill a rumor? Or pinpoint where it started? It works best in a place of no secrets, don't you get it? And this place…I've found out something, Abbas, something fantastic. This whole Order is built on rotting wood and I know exactly what will send the termites into frenzy."

"All your snooping will be for nothing when they put your head on a pike."

"I've done almost nothing. The men do most of the work without realizing. They're unhappy, I've told you."

"Oh, fine, unhappy, many people are unhappy, but unhappy enough to start a—"

The door behind Abbas opens. Malik, in full and majestic Dai regalia, frowns in the doorway.

It's never a good thing to have Malik frowning at you. Abbas stares at Ali until the idiot lightens his grin.

Malik asks, "What are you doing in here?"

"The evening prayer," says Abbas. "As usual."

"I didn't realize you were devout," Malik says to Ali.

"Abbas is teaching me. It's good to have something to depend on, don't you think? Allah won't let you down even when your friends do. And your family."

Malik looks at the novice with no expression whatsoever. "We have the Brotherhood," he points out in a voice just as toneless. Abbas could cry.

"Yes. I'm learning about the Brotherhood too."

"How has your training been going?" Malik continues without waiting for an answer, "Normally we would have tested you for higher ranks already. Things have been distracted here."

Ali nods. "Of course. The Templars, the Mongols. People have been saying they're the same thing, is it true?"

"Assassins should only repeat worthwhile rumor," Malik says evenly. "That at least you should already know."

"Well, people have been saying it. Between the Templars and your son, it's no wonder you're so busy. But you still have time to check up on this novice!" Ali is so cheerful he sounds practically deranged. "You must know everything," he says, and Malik might be Altair's whore but he's no fool. Surely he hears the taunt. It's only the door's creaking open that saves Ali's scrawny neck.

"Dai?" says the black-hooded assassin peering inside. "It's the Grandmaster's wife. She's leaving. The Grandmaster wanted you to know…"

"Leaving?" Malik flashes his eyes at the man, once, then looks back at Ali and Abbas. Neither says anything, though Ali's still grinning and Abbas is hazy with uncertainty.

"Is she gone yet?" Malik asks the assassin. "Was this planned? Why am I only being told now?"

"I don't know, Dai. Master Altair didn't give me any details, he…but I think she's still here. In the courtyard, packing her things."

"She leaves alone or with Sef and Darim?"

"Alone."

"Fine." Malik waves the man off. His eyes are still brushing between the other two, but whatever answer he's after he seems not to find there. Finally he turns and lets them alone.

The minute the door shuts behind him, Ali bounds over to Abbas and takes him by the shoulders. "You see?" he hisses. "Soon they won't check up on you and call you traitor. Soon they'll bow to you as Master."

Abbas hears himself say, "And you? You'll stay with me?"

"Of course," Ali promises. "Until we both get what we want."

And what do you want? Abbas almost asks him. But the answer is clear already. Abbas wants respect, and piety, and he wants to save his Brotherhood from the depths to which it's fallen. Ali is his closest, his greatest friend. Even without being devout. Ali will stand with him. Ali will stand by him. Abbas is thankful, and assured.

-i-

Malik finds Maria in the courtyard as the journeyman said. She's brought a horse into the enclosure; it kicks a hoof against the cobblestone path as she ties bundles to its saddle. He watches her in silence, though from his first footfall her shoulders stiffened and he knew she realized he was there.

The silence stretches. The courtyard is empty except for the guards at its edges, the training ring barren of novices at work. When it becomes clear that she will let an hour go by in awkward quiet rather than be the first to speak, Malik shakes his head. His shoulder is aching again, in restless spasms. He rubs it, pressing fingers over the bumpy stitching. "You're leaving in a hurry," he says. "Where to?"

"Acre."

"You just returned from there."

"Altair and I decided there's more that needs to be done. I thought when I left that we had secured the city's bureau, but…" Maria sounds her normal practical self. Though there's something mottled in the way she says Altair and I. Something that could almost be a challenge. "You must have heard the rumors, Malik." He nods. "Something is brewing, not just in Acre. In every city. In every far-flung bureau, people are talking. And not just about the Mongols. About something coming from within."

"There have been rumors since the day Altair killed Al Mualim," Malik says. "Lately they've been louder, I agree. But what fool would stand against him? Look at how our numbers have grown in even the past two years. We've had sultans send emissaries, we've treated with kings. The Brotherhood is stronger now than it's ever been."

"But it doesn't feel like a Brotherhood. Not everywhere. And then there are the village raids—they keep happening, Malik, for all our forces, when the war is supposed to be over. And this business with the Mongols. The people are tired of war and we tell them another is coming, we tell them that a horde of furry barbarians who may or may not be Templars are going to loot and pillage except we don't really know why, so could they please still send us their sons?"

"The Mongols are coming. And somehow I doubt it's to treat with us."

"I know. You're not wrong for siding with Altair. You're his second-in-command. It's to be expected."

There it is again: that undertone when she says his name, when she says it's expected. Malik listens to what she isn't saying, and he knows.

She says, "Whatever the future holds, we need Acre. Need their weapons and their bodies, and their port if we can ever get it fully reopened. And Acre trusts me. So I'm going."

"For how long?"

"As long as I'm needed. A month, a few months."

"It will be a shame not to have your skills closer at hand. It'd be nice if Altair let me know you were leaving."

"I'm sure he will eventually," Maria says primly. "Right now I think he's sulking."

Malik chuckles. "He does that."

Then again there is silence, though this time at least Maria's watching him. He thinks he sees something desperate in her gaze.

"Your children won't be happy. Darim especially. He's…he's needed a mother."

"I'll be back." She hesitates. "Thank you for watching out for him, before. Now that you've your own son I shouldn't ask you to do it again…"

"Of course I will. I couldn't trust Altair to do it alone," Malik says, but Maria is hardly listening.

"You've your own son," she repeats, faintly, and then she is fiddling with her horse's saddle again, readjusting the bundles if only to keep her hands busy and her face clear. "You do. And you have respect. Your name is Malik, not Maria, and everyone trusts you for it. And this has always been your home."

She's wrong, but Malik lets her believe it. Lets the wave froth and curl above his head. In a way he's been waiting for it since Maria first took off her Templar garb. It's almost a relief to see it come.

"You have everything," Maria says. "Is that not enough? Do you need my husband, too?"

Malik says, very gently, "My lady."

"Don't call me that." She whirls on him, eyes blazing. "I was a soldier! My father taught me from the moment I could speak how to fight for what was rightfully mine. It's not easy for women to challenge men. But I was a Templar. Do you know how hard it was to get them to accept me? To get Robert to look me in the eye?"

Malik swallows what he thinks of Robert. She says his name with unconscious tenderness. Perhaps it's true that she loved him.

"I did all that. And I've done it again here. And every second of every day I've faced down the rest of them, made them hear me, made them listen to me. I've given Altair his children! Could you have done that?"

"It would have been difficult."

"It would have been impossible. It is impossible! Altair—he doesn't look at me like the rest. I never had to grovel for his respect. I earned it! And he knows it's deserved." She shakes her head. "So did you. I thought you did."

"Maria," Malik says, "I've never doubted you deserved your position here. You've been a fine assassin. A loyal Brother."

"But that's not enough, is it?" Her eyes aren't wet…no, she isn't that sort of woman. If her lips are thinned and her cheeks pale but for two high spots of color, that shows her righteous fury, not her sadness. "Not enough for you to stop. Though you never treated me like the others did, though you made me think I was a part of this Order."

Malik puts his hand to the back of his head. "I wish I knew how to explain it to you," he says, "how to give you what you want," and it's true. He does.

"Can't you? Just stop! Just leave him alone. I'm asking you, as his wife. As your sister-in-arms."

Malik casts his eyes about the courtyard. Rauf is in the training ring now, with some students, too far off to hear anything. From across the courtyard he scolds, "Don't throw your weapons about so carelessly."

The Dai says, "I think you should talk to your husband."

"My husband." Maria smiles at him, says something in English that's too fast for him to catch. It strikes him at random moments, her foreign nature, her other-ness. It must do the same for Altair. It must drive him mad, to have someone in his arms he can't fully understand.

Or maybe it turns him on. Maybe that's why he's drawn to Malik, to the Apple of Eden. Maybe it's tiring for him, being so far ahead of the rest of the world.

"My husband," says Maria. "Before God. In both religions. Without religion. But that doesn't stop you either."

Malik looks longingly back towards the main hall's wide window. This conversation is doomed to go in endless circles, and he won't-…

"I did talk to my husband about this," Maria says.

His stomach clenches, just for a moment. "I'm glad," he says, and is ready to turn his back on the whole thing, but Maria is smiling at him again, daring him to face her, and so he must.

"I asked him to set you aside. As his wife, as the mother of his children, I asked him to send you back to Jerusalem, or else remove you from the Order altogether. I told Altair I would never ask him for anything again if he would do this one thing, this one thing for the woman he chose. I told him we didn't need you, that others could take your place as his second." Her hands, fidgeting at the cuffs of her riding cloak, still. "He laughed at me," she says.

"Well. At least you got him to laugh."

"He said he doubted he could make you leave, or do anything else. And he said there was no one else who could replace you, not in the whole Order. He said even the Piece of Eden agreed with that."

"It's no joy to hear he discusses me with that thing. That's one thing I couldn't do, get him to put it down for longer than a day."

Maria says derisively, "Men and their golden toys. Robert was the same way. You'll fight wars over gold and land and magic tricks."

"And you wouldn't? If you knew what it could do?"

"I know what it does. It corrupts."

"Not in the way you're thinking. I'm sorry. It…Altair and I…this started long ago. Long before the Apple. Long before you. With or without it he would still…"

"Why tell me what I already know?" she interrupts. With her arms folded against her chest she taps her foot, considering. "I'm ready," she says. "I should leave while there's still light."

"Will you say goodbye to Sef and Darim before you go?"

"They'd hate me more for trying. I'll say goodbye to you, and let you pass it on to them."

"Oh, my lady, let me thank you for this kindness."

"I'm allowed some revenge, aren't I?" she shrugs. "Here, be a gentleman and help me on my horse."

Maria takes his hand with no consideration for his injury, allowing him to bear much of her weight as she swings her legs over her mount. Malik accepts the compliment.

She adjusts herself, lets the horse canter forwards a bit to settle the bags against its flanks. "I'll send word from Acre," she says, "and watch for word from here."

"I'll do my best to explain it to your sons. But don't linger there forever, Maria. It'll be worse for them the longer you're gone."

"So chivalrous," she laughs at him. "Tell the truth, you'd love it if I were to vanish forever."

"I don't believe in separating families," he grins back.

Maria trots her horse in a wide, messy circle. "You know," she calls to him, "I asked Altair something else, after he said he wouldn't send you away."

"Oh?"

"I asked him to kill you."

Malik looks at her.

"I told him I didn't understand what you were, or what you made him into. It's the truth. I told him about the rumors, which he's ignored like a real arrogant fool, and I know you've heard that gossip too. I told him how every time you look at him you blame him for…I don't, I can't understand it, Malik. Why he puts up with your looking at him the way you do. It's dangerous. You're dangerous. So I told him to do what any leader would have done."

She pulls her horse to a stop. "Well?" she says. "Don't you want to know what he said?"

"I'm still alive." Malik considers it. "No, I don't think I need to know what he said."

"It isn't fair," Maria says, "how much faith he puts in you."

"Nothing's fair. Not him, not me. Not you either. But I will protect him if I can, while he sacrifices himself to some orb to protect us all. That much I can promise you."

"Nothing else?"

Malik tries very, very hard to sound kind. "No," he says. "Nothing else."

Maria says nothing for a long moment.

"Safety and peace," he tells her. "Be safe on your journey."

She smiles at him for that, kicks her heels and sends the horse at a fast trot for the main gates. ""I want to spar with you next time I see you," she calls. "I think I'll try to kill you myself. I think I could."

"We'll see," Malik calls back. He lifts his hand in a wave, and holds it, until Maria rounds the road's bend and falls out of sight.