Chapter 41: The Valley

The Gates were as unforgiving as I expected. In the times that I had spent there before, I would only be there for a day at maximum. Food was scarce, and the wildlife untamed and feral, so to anyone else, this would be a death sentence. For me, I would survive, but I would not truly live.

Far on the southern edge of The Gates, I found that the Assassins had managed a cabin there. It wasn't far where they had dropped me, so I figured that it was now mine to live in; It was also marked on the map of the region.

Following that, my testing years of exile began.

*Cue "Terrible Tommy" by Ryan Horne*

Harsh winters of no warmth or comfort. No real food to hunt for.

Dry summers avoiding wildfires and bears, looking for water.

I cut my hand off, only to have it reattach the first time I chopped a tree down for firewood. Some skills leave you over time, I guess.

Only so many times was I allowed to go to Kamloops, and even when I did, I could never seem to bring back enough to keep me going for more than a few weeks.

Those trips to the town only made me feel more and more lost. I was just another cog in the giant machine of this world. After everything I had done, after everything I had been through, I was condemned to spend the rest of my life here while the rest of humanity went on with their lives. And all that time, I wondered where Ingrid was, and why this all had to happen from the start. Violence led to violence, which led to more violence, and then death, which led me right here, at the bottom of a hole.

I walked into Kamloops from the Gates. Didn't remember which day of the week it was at the moment, but the clerk at the grocery store told me it was Saturday morning when I asked. She and I had seen each other for the last few months as summer was running along. She went to school in the town, and was making some pocket change, as I had been told before.

Hooting and hollering from the street opted me to turn to the window overlooking the parking lot. I saw a group of kids stumbling across, one bumping into a red minivan and falling down, laughing. Still drunk from the antics the night before.

They weren't really kids. They looked to be mid-twenties. I looked to be mid-twenties, too, but I should have been fifty-something in that moment. Instead, I was trapped between seconds for the last lifetime thanks to the freak.

The girl at the counter made a rude sound, which surprised me as I turned around. She was also looking straight out the window.

"Sorry." She said, noticing me again. "I saw them all half-ass their way out of high school when I started there. Now they just get drunk every other night. No aim in life."

"And you?" I asked, too curious for my own good. "Any aim for you?"

She chuckled a bit, running a hand through her short blonde hair. Not cut overly short. Just barely brushing her shoulders. I think I remember her saying that she was sixteen last time I was in.

"Anywhere but here. Maybe Edmonton or Calgary. This place will just suck the life out of you."

I nodded as I handed her a roll of twenties, then grabbed my bags from her. I didn't ask for change, and she didn't offer it; we had already had that exchange before.

"Really and truly." I replied.

The grocery bags were heavy, and I knew I had to carry them a long distance. I had bought a camping wagon in one of my early trips into town. Dark green, with dirt wheels meant to carry camping shit. I left it in the front of the store chained up, and luckily, it had been left the way it was.

The group of kids were still shambling across the parking lot, which was somewhat large. It held a gas station on the other side from the grocery store, and a fast food place.

I just stood by my wagon, my eyes drifting back and forth between my supplies, and the kids. They were wandering towards a diner on the other side of a set of bushes at the edge of the parking lot, probably going to go get breakfast. A boy in the group hooted and hollered as I grabbed the handle.

They had their youth to spend getting wasted and everything. I knew I still looked it, but I was anything but young. I was tired. Ready to die, long ago. I wished so many times that I had the Bullets of Eden within my reach. I had forged them with the instructions from a Piece I held years ago, but I didn't know what had ensued with my weapons after Abstergo captured me. I often wondered if one would be enough to end my suffering for good.

I felt hungry as I stood there, the morning sun shining onto the pavement of the parking lot from the lowest angle possible, just over the mountains that surrounded the town like a bowl of jagged granite and stone. A nearby mountain still had the snow at the top, despite it being sometime in the middle of August.

I looked over at the diner on the other side of the bushes. Then across the street. This street was part of the Trans-Canada highway. A large vein in the body of Canada, cutting across the entire country on its way to Ottawa and the Atlantic. And I was one man, standing right on the edge of this vein of grit and tar. Worn down to its roots, I could easily make out the gravel exposed from the age and countless vehicles going up and down its domain.

There was another diner on the other side of the street. I hadn't gone in there, but I knew I was hungry for breakfast. And wherever I was, I did not want to be reminded of the time that I had lost, or the time that I was stuck in.

This was my life. Caught in the middle of nowhere in a country that didn't even know I was there, didn't want me, or likely didn't even care what I did or where I went. The cuff on my leg beeped on occasion, and I wondered if that was automatic, or if it was a signal from the Assassins that there was still someone out there watching me, still caring if I left this hellhole. Some days and nights, I'd even just lay down in the woods, staring up at the bright sun, or the sparkling stars. Wonder what the next day would bring me, or the next week, or the next month, or year. Only more of the same. Just waiting for the Assassins to come down from wherever they were hiding and finally put me out of my misery.

Then, in December of 2011, I found a box at my door. There were no signs of someone leaving it at the cabin. No tire tracks, or foot prints. Then came the Year Walk. And after that, nothing. Everything just seemed to cut off, no proper ending. All of it, no resolution. Just the piece of a story.

September 3rd 2012

Wildfires were reaching record highs in the Interior. While I was the only living soul around for as far as I could see, I still heard the familiar buzz of planes and helicopters overhead as they rained water down from the lakes onto the forests.

Regular supply trips were made as I headed back and forth from the Gates to Kamloops. That was all that Bill allowed me to do with the cuff attached to my leg. I couldn't stay there more than a day, or he would know.

Something new began with my exile: After the Year Walk, I began to actually enjoy the isolation. There was some sort of acceptance I felt as I walked among the pines every day, finding new ways to pass the time. I read what books I brought back. I wrote. I hunted, or tried to. But more than anything, I began to feel more and more content. Vidic had escaped, but I was sure that someone else would finish that job. Maloy and his family were dead, which was good enough for me. As for Ingrid, she was gone. Not one trace left of her anywhere in this world, not one. There was no point in trying to find her if she was gone. She had lost as I had lost, and like Maloy's fate, that was good enough for me.

The days were shorter and shorter. The sky became splashed with orange and red every evening thanks to the wildfires still burning across the province. Somehow, every season of fires didn't end up touching The Gates. I knew that it would, eventually. But not even fire would kill me.

This wasn't the hardest I had lived before. That had been when I was first set on the run and we became a Nomad branch. I had what supplies I really needed here, and I knew I could survive it all. But what would happen if one day, Bill dropped in one day to tell me that he had finally found how to kill me, and next thing I knew, my body would be getting tossed into the rapids of the valley below?

These things were far in my mind, though. That hot day in September, I spent walking among the pines. The dry grass and dead needles crunched under my steps. It was a peaceful late afternoon. Crickets chirped, and a pond that I had found months ago was filled with the sound of frogs croaking. I even decided on some self-indulgence, and took some of the canned crab I had been saving from one of my last supply runs.

The sun was going down a lot faster than I was expecting, which in that moment, I cursed myself lightly. I should have remembered the sun going down a lot earlier, so now I had to circle back to the cabin and head back faster.

Suddenly, my heart began to beat. Rapidly, the rate at which it began to go was so fast, it felt as though I had run a whole seven miles. And I felt something I hadn't really felt in… fuck… I hadn't felt panic in years.

And I was panicking. But not because of what was going on around me. I was starting to remember something.

A twig snapped. An owl screamed up in the tree. I yanked a flashlight out of my bag, and shined it up into the branches. But it was no use. I felt more and more panic hitting me.

I looked down, back through the trees. Far through the woods, I saw a light. A light on at my cabin? Was I that close by?

No… no…no… my cabin was miles away. It had to be my estate. Gist was close by. We had the household guard there. The Assassin would be no match for them. These years I had spent in exile, in fear would come to a head tonight. I could think of no better night than tonight.

In that moment, I stopped. The woods suddenly felt a lot colder around me. It wasn't late summer, anymore. It was fall, when the harvest time was at its peak. The fear I was feeling was not my own. It was…

I thought they were done with me. All this time since the beginning of the New Year, I thought they all had abandoned me. The Watchers, who the Masters had told me had a story to share with me. All I got for my trouble was reliving the horrific events that brought me here, and see how Shay brought the Templar Order to Arendelle. And the box.

That box… a small wooden box about the size of a Rubik's Cube, with a combination dial on one side, and the five symbols of the Watchers carved on the other sides. Shapes adorned all around the dial, and as I had examined the dial, I realized that some of the shapes had come out of the flashes of memories I had received from the other reality.

There was some kind of convergence here. A hole within the very foundation of time. A hole that the Gates stood on. Was this hole inside the box? What would happen if I somehow opened the box?

I tried many times to open the box throughout the nine months I had it. Every one of the four symbols, input in every combination that I could. I even tried entering it in a different way, when I noticed that the dial would snap back to the neutral position after I lined the dial up with the pointer at the top. Nothing. It would not open, no matter how much I tried. I even wasted a few precious bullets to try to break it open, and nothing. The box was broken, but unbreakable. Just like me.

I stood there in the chilly autumn air, the box now in my hands, out of my backpack. Convergence. The hole that I could feel within whatever warped reality I was standing on the edge of. The very idea of seeing the past, or the future with the help of these Watchers. Was there one more symbol for me?

That cabin through the trees was not mine. But there was no other within the valley. So, what was this? Another memory?

I felt another wave of panic strike me like lightning. Shaking with the thunder of anxiety, I sprinted for the lit windows, and ran up to the cabin.

The cabin's build appeared to be that of Arendelle's time and place. Was I back there? What year was it? The Assassin was coming for me. I needed to get inside, now. So, I slammed the door open, and ran in, ignoring the reality changing in front of me, along with my appearance and voice.

October 1805

An empire's fall can take just one day. Or in this case, three months. I ordered the men driving the carriage to take it back to the Arendelle palace, then they were relieved of service as I tossed the both a large bag of gold, each. No loose ends.

Running up the stairs from the foyer, I called for my best friend. Age had been catching up to me, but I wasn't done, yet. My chest burned, and my legs ached, but I would not stop here.

"GIST!"

His wide brimmed hat was hanging on a nearby door's knob, which swung open to his bearded face.

"Captain?"

"Get away from the windows!"

Leaning into the hallway, he obliged, closing the door behind him and grabbing his hat. His once brown beard was highlighted with streaks of white and grey, but like me, he showed just as determination to stay kicking as long as possible.

It was just a few killings at first. A lower ranking Templar shot in a nameless village. A local Lord with his home broken into by a few disgruntled subjects. But then it became clearer and clearer to me and Jannika that these killings weren't random. The sightings confirmed my fears soon enough; a white hooded figure seen for a brief moment before vanishing as the phantoms they were.

I sent her and our son north to our safehouse. No one knew where it was aside from myself and Gist, ensuring that they would be safe.

But after receiving the letter at the coop in Arendelle's village, I felt my weakening heart begin to give way to the fear.

Baron Linus had been killed in his own home. Roscoe had his head caved in by a rock in an alley. And the current King, a good friend of ours, had fallen down the stairs, leading to his heir taking the crown before we could induct him.

The last three months started calm, but now Gist and I were at the heart of a true maelstrom, with no hope of escaping as the only two Templars left in Arendelle.

Gist and I hurried down the hallway. We both had become too old for the climbing and the running, but as we headed back down the stairs and reached the bottom, all of those worries of old age slipped away, and the hope that we would live just a few more days became the priority.

The candelabra on the wall by the staircase opened a hidden door. A bit inspired by Achilles and his own manor, when I had this place built. Though he never let me down there, I had the men in charge build it as I imagined it looked like below the ground.

Gist didn't say a word as I filled him in, handing him the letter I was given. Encrypted in our usual cypher, but he had memorized it long ago.

"Stabbed?"

"In his own manor, Gist." I said. "There was only one witness, the servant who wrote this letter to us. Said he saw a white hooded figure runnin' into the woods from the walls."

"Assassins." Gist breathed. "Bloody hell, Captain. What are we going to do?"

"We must run." I said. "It was slow enough that we didn't notice, but the Assassins have now followed us to Arendelle. We need to make our way to the safehouse."

"The Morrigan is there, right?"

"Exactly. The crew, as well. We take 'er and we get as far away from here as we can. Misthaven, or even the Southern Isles."

"Places with our friends."

"Precisely, Christopher."

Not taking notice by what name I called him, Gist got up from his seat at the table over to the weapons rack. He grabbed his hunting rifle, and his cutlass. I myself had left only one weapon here, and I knew I needed to take it with me.

From that mission Achilles sent me to intercept a package meant for Lawrence Washington, I had held the mysteriously advanced air rifle. Not a noise to be heard from it, which let me put it to great use. It was a glorious weapon, and I had been speaking with an engineer on how to improve and replicate the design. But as of that moment, the only one in Arendelle was the one in my hands.

"Captain?" Gist said.

I looked up. It must have confused him, standing at the bottom of the stairs as I remained, contemplating and reminiscing of the rifle in my hands. I had been the one to burst in with panic and fear in my voice as I walked in.

"Christopher." I said again.

This time, he did notice what I called him.

"Sir?" He said, surprised.

"You've been a good friend, Christopher. The best I could ever ask for."

"It won't come to what you are thinking, sir." He said, gesturing to the upstairs. "As long as we get going."

I nodded, but instead of going to the stairs, I headed deeper into the hideout. Gist continued to protest, but he didn't know that I had at least prepared for this. Only a fool makes a hideout with only one way out.

A forgotten shelf lay at the back of the hideout, laden with various trinkets and other junk. I shoved it sideways, tipping it over and sending it crashing to the ground, where another door was unveiled.

"Always good to have a back door, Christopher." I said, grinning at his bewildered expression. "If the Assassin is in the woods outside, we'll be far from here by the time he breaks in." I opened the door to the revelation of darkness. The wind whistled faintly, the air thick, stale and smelling of mulch and soil. The tunnel would go on for kilometers by the time we would reach the exit. Then a straight shot to the safehouse.

Gist could hear that I had a plan, but in truth, it was only a short term one. The reality was that I knew how we were to escape, but to rebuild ourselves up from the damage that the Assassin had done would take decades. I would not live long enough to see Arendelle return to the guiding hands of the Templars. My successors and my son would have to do so.

With only my eyes set on a few steps forward, and none facing back, Gist and I set off into the tunnels.

The tunnel opened up to a hatch in the roof after two hours of walking. From there, we would continue the trek Northwards to the safehouse. It was built as a farm for hiding it's true purpose, but it did ship crops and other goods back and forth between the other villages. It was also where a lot of our finances were hidden, and from there we would take them, load them onto the Morrigan, and head south to never return. Master Haytham had left a lot for me to do, but I knew without a doubt that he was long dead. If not from the hands of the Assassin Connor, then certainly from old age.

Gist and I continued north, the both of us on a very tense edge. Neither one of us could feel even a slight sense of ease, opting instead to try our best not to piss ourselves as we leapt at every shadow we came across. But I got ahold of myself, eventually.

"Enough of this, Christopher!" I suddenly cried as a rabbit that had caused him to scream hopped away. "This is what the Assassin wants! They thrive in the shadows! They play on our fears! We cannot let our fear get the better of us. Let's keep movin'."

"Aye, sir."

The safehouse was set along a mountainside by the water. It was reaching the midnight hour, the moon rising into the top of the night sky. When the trees began to thin out, I could make out the familiar shape of the Morrigan tied up at the dock. I could hear the hustle and bustle of the crew as they went back and forth from the dock, moving crates onto the ship. I had sent a bird ahead to dispatch the crew to prepare to take off by the time we got there.

The plot of the safehouse held a manor like the one we had left, but much smaller. My family would be inside, waiting to see them and have us finally leave this place. All these familiar sights at least restored some of my ease, and Gist noticed a smile adorn my face for a few minutes as we entered the perimeter, and opened the large doors in the front.

"Lady Cormac!" Gist called as we walked in.

Jannika came from a room behind the staircase, dagger drawn. As Gist and Roscoe would find out one day, she knew very well how to use one of those, and she was as dangerous as she was beautiful. Her regular colors of black and purple adorned her as she smiled, and leapt into my embrace.

"Beloved. What has happened?" She said, her expression darkening.

I didn't want to beat around the bush. I knew her heart could take it.

"Baron Vollan is dead. Roscoe is dead. The King is dead." I said as calmly as I could.

She narrowed her eyes. "Assassins?"

"Indeed, milady." Gist said. "We must get you and Young Master Cormac to safety."

"I will fetch him. The crew has been preparing the ship all afternoon." She said, gathering her skirts and heading up the stairs. The top of the stairs held an indoor balcony that curved into a hallway. The hollow ground of the above floor let Jannika's steps give a loud thumping sound as she walked.

Gist looked up at she turned the corner.

"The boy will be our last hope, sir." He said. "It'll take years for this to be fixed."

"Aye." I replied. "We can't take Arendelle by force. Our forces in Misthaven and the Southern Isles might provide an edge, but we won't see Arendelle return to our hands."

He would do good by me. I had taught him our ways, even at his young age, and he proved that his belief in the cause was genuine. He might go on to become an even better Templar than I was.

A loud, piercing scream suddenly shattered the conversation. "NOOO! NOT HIM!"

Gist and I leapt in shock as we heard Jannika's rapid footsteps come down the hallway upstairs. She was at the top near the balcony when-

*BANG*

Jannika doubled backwards, falling against the railing of the balcony. It was too low to keep her standing from the angle she fell at, though. I could only watch in horror as she tumbled down from the balcony, and fall flat onto her back onto the ground in front of Gist and I.

"JANNIKAAA!" I screamed, rushing to her side.

Her neck was bleeding heavily from the shot he had taken. The fall was ugly as well. Gist drew his rifle as he aimed up at the balcony. I just stayed by her side, feeling her life ebb away from me.

"Stay with me, love!" I sobbed. "Please!"

But she was already choking on her blood, and I would never forget her last words.

"Shay…" She gasped. "It's t- As…"

Dread filling my lungs, I knew what she meant as I drew my own flintlock and aimed with Gist up at the balcony. It was the Assassin. He had killed my boy up there, and now my wife.

With fury, I gestured Gist to accompany me upstairs. I did not know if I could bear the sight of seeing my son's dead body, but anger for the Assassin who took what mattered most to me in this world greatly overshadowed my grief in that moment. The Assassin was here, now, and he had to be finished. He had crippled us nearly as greatly as I had crippled the Assassins many years ago. There was no coming back from all of this.

His bedroom was torn up. Blood covered a few of the sheets on the disheveled bed, but there was no sign of his body. Gist and I kept our guns raised as we looked around.

"Did he take his body, sir?" I said.

"I don't know why he would." I murmured. I looked over at the open window. "The Assassin might have yanked him out the window, though. With a good enough pull on a rope dart, and an unprepared target."

"Sir… You don't think the Assassin could be…?" He and I both knew the name.

"Aye." I replied. "Connor."

The boy had followed us here, somehow. He destroyed the Templars in America, and he had followed me here to finish the job by destroying them in Arendelle.

"He yanked him out the window, climbed up, and shot Lady Jannika." Gist said. He started for the window, and looked out.

"HE'S THERE, SIR!" He hollered, and we both jumped out into the farm.

From around us, a yard containing a well, and paths to two warehouses on the plot were around. A field of various crops that were in the middle of being harvested that afternoon lay between the warehouses. And the white hooded figure that had caused me so much trouble for the last few months now stood before us, two swords drawn.

"Connor." I snarled. "You just couldn't let us be, could you. Was it not enough to kill all those good men?! What about your own father?!"

Connor did not respond, instead twirling the two swords in his hands. He raised one, his fingers loosening into a gesture to us.

Come here.

We both obliged. Gist and I drew our weapons and the battle began.

Connor was a good hunter from what I heard, but he could not take us both on at the same time. Even with two swords in his hands, he had two targets to keep his eyes on. Gist and I, on the other hand, had only one.

Connor gave a tricky parry against my dagger, then sweeping with his sword and attempting a slash at me. Gist tried to use the opportunity to get him, but Connor seemed to be prepared for that, using the other blade in his hand to deflect the blow and strike him in the face with his fist.

He was better than I was expecting. Achilles couldn't have trained him like this. He had experience taking on more than one opponent at once. How could this be?

I took a sweeping attack at his legs, but he had both his swords free, and was able to block, crossing both of them against my own. The red cross on the pommel gleamed as the sparks flew. It disgusted me in that instant how I could see he was holding his own with a pair of rusted cutlasses.

What monster was Gist and I fighting? Every attack he parried with almost perfect ease. And the times that he didn't parry perfectly, he had a savage counter attack coming back for me.

One attack he blocked with one sword at a strange angle. I could sense that even he felt a few muscles in his arm go off at the angle. But then he slammed his foot into my shins and began to slice in amazing accuracy and savagery. Just as the people he was a part of, I suppose. Quite appropriate.

I could feel that I was getting tired. Connor didn't seem to show any exhaustion, but clearly, he was noticing that Gist and I, the older and slower, were starting to back off. His slashes and cuts became more and more vicious as the fight went on. Then Gist attempted a swing at him.

He had left all of his defenses open, and I could only scream a warning to him. But it was too late. Connor shoved the sword right through Christopher's eye, and I screamed in horror again.

Twitching and choking, I saw Gist turn around as Connor backed away from my dying friend. Somehow, the knife through the head was not an instant kill. I felt tears well up in my eyes as Gist choked out his words. My heart sunk and turned to a cannonball in my belly as it reached my ears.

"C-Captain-" My First Mate sobbed.

Connor twirled his cutlasses, still with no words, or empathy coming out. I couldn't even see under his hood, but I knew it was him.

"You…" I groaned, feeling the anger build up. "You…FUCKING SAVAGE!"

Connor twitched, and suddenly I was on him. Every block he attempted, I swung hard and fast, knocking him off balance. I slashed him twice, once in the back, and another in his leg. Then one of his blocks proved to be a fatal mistake.

I swung down from above, the moon glinting off the blade of my Templar sword. Connor tried to block with one of his cutlasses, and instead, it broke clean in half. He looked down at the top half of the blade as it fell down into the dirt below our feet. I looked down on it as well, then chuckled.

"Don't bring a rusty blade to my face, Assassin. Now I'll kill you for it."

Connor tilted his head, his hood lightly rustling in the night air. Then he bolted, sheathing his broken sword's twin to his belt. I sheathed my sword and dagger and took off after him.

The work grounds served many different purposes, but it was found that the buildings Connor was running into would be nothing short of a maze for him to navigate. Every turn he made led him deeper and deeper into the warehouses and plantations that surrounded the large manor for my family and I. But he seemed to know his way around. It wasn't until he was in the center of it all that I realized he was cutting across the property to another field. One with a-

I pulled my flintlocks and began to shoot at him. There was a toolshed close by, stored only with the bladed equipment for the harvest. All of it was in fine condition, and any of them would be a suitable replacement for the sword I just broke.

Connor took two excellent dodges of the shots I took, then spun around, unsheathed the other rusty sword, and tossed it straight at me. It didn't flip or spin. It flew straight at me like an arrow from an avenging devil. I dropped to my knees, sliding, bending backwards through the dirt as it flew right above my face, and embedded right into the dirt behind me. I didn't turn back. I just kept running as Connor rammed right into the door of the toolshed and went inside.

I followed in. The shed was not very big, only meant to hold tools, and one person to go in to fetch them. As I turned the corner into the shed, I felt a strike to my frontside, throwing me backwards. I backed away on all fours as Connor raised the tool he had taken out of the shed.

A large scythe, with a chipped wooden handle about four feet long. Like a white hooded reaper straight out of hell, Connor raised the scythe and began to strike it into the ground, hacking and slashing, dirt kicking up with every hit. I kept backing away, finding it hard to get up and run. He was getting closer and closer with every strike, and I was unable to keep moving fast enough to get away.

My friends were dead. My son was dead. My wife was dead. Now, Gist was dead. I was the Last Templar alive in Arendelle. What would be the point to keep going? I didn't know to get up, or give up.

Connor took a moment, then twirled the scythe and held it back, the blade peeking over his shoulder.

"Stand and fight, Rogue. I won't kill you if you refuse to fight."

I got up. "Why? Because honour drives you? Don't be a fool, Assassin. Every one of Achilles' branch were scoundrels, cutthroats, and murderers. They made poisonous gases to kill the Redcoats, but it would mean innocents dead at their hands, too. One of them tried to level an entire forest of Assassins just to kill me. I sided with men that believed that they could better the world in what they did. And you sided with an old man who was too caught up in his own grief to understand that his actions cost the world countless lives. There is no honour among the Assassins.

"Tell me, boy. Did Achilles admit to any of that to you?"

"No. Because I never met Achilles."

"What-?"

I screamed suddenly as pain shot through my back. It was sudden but then I saw the arrow sticking out my chest from my back. I looked down at it, and then the Assassin in front of me. No bow in his hands. Who shot it?

Footsteps slowly came up behind me. The Assassin in front of me drew a flintlock from his belt as another figure came up from behind me.

He wore a similar hood, but with hints of blue with the white. A bow in his hands with another arrow nocked and ready to fire. But his hood was down. And I could recognize him, even with the hints of wrinkles in his face, and the touch of grey. But it confused me even more as to who was standing before me.

"Connor!" I snarled. "You just couldn't take all of us down alone, could you? I should have known from the start. You had help."

Connor looked over to the other Assassin, who twirled the scythe again.

"End his suffering cleanly." He said.

I closed my eyes, and felt the white-hot pain go straight through my chest.

The Assassin then pulled it back out, and then tossed it aside in one fell swoop.

"Guess this was how it had to end, eh?" I said, glaring up at my killer. "No Templar can ever be safe from the Assassins."

The Assassin paused, and then pulled his hood down. "No, Father. They are not."

No... No. Not him. It couldn't be him. Connor just murdered him... But it was him. I could see those eyes. They were the same I had raised myself to become an even greater Templar than myself.

Father could barely believe it. All this time, the traitor to the Assassins could not believe that his own son was capable of doing the exact same thing to him. His eyes widened to the size of moons. "No… Please, son. I taught you that we better mankind. How could it have been you to kill me?! How could it have been you?!"

I scoffed. "'Better mankind?' How? Through pulling the wool over their eyes and telling them what to think? We don't have the right to decide that future."

Horror filled my father's eyes as he began to cough up blood.

"I'm truly sorry it had to come to this, Father." I said, kneeling down to him. "You thought you were doing what was right. As do I."

"What has this world come to when it's a father's own son who murders him?" He snarled. "No… no… you're no son of mine, Asgeir. You're just a stupid boy who murdered every one of his family because the wrong person led him down the wrong path."

"It's alright, Father." I said, placing a hand on his shoulder as his breath became more and more labored. "I do apologize it came to this. But I will be leaving the world better than you left it. I can promise you that."

Father held fury in his face for a few moments, but then a small smile appeared on his face.

"If that truly happens, then know that I am proud you did it, Asgeir."

Father collapsed backwards into the dirt, the arrow in his back breaking in half. The Rogue of the Colonies, dead after seventy four years of life.

Beside my Father's body was the scythe I had used to kill him with. I picked it up, rolling the shaft of it over my extended fingers. The blade rocked back and forth, glinting in the moonlight

Connor walked up behind me, placing a hand on my shoulder. He had given me the hood I now wore, and now my father was dead at my hands. "I am sorry, Asgeir." He said.

I sighed, holding onto the scythe tightly. "Shay barely was a father to me. He would look back on his life, far from realizing I was a soldier in his army before I was a son to him. It was all about his legacy, and I leading the Templars of Arendelle to a bright future."

From Father's hand, I noticed something. I knelt down and slid it off his finger, turning it over. Blood covered the silver and the grooves in it, but it was the same Templar ring that had passed to him from Colonel Monroe. He told me the story many times over, hoping that it would be enough to convince me of his ways of the world. It was not. But I could fool him, Mother, Gist, and all the others into thinking that I was one of them.

And strapped to his back, his prized weapon from the Colonies. The air rifle. I'd put this to good use as well, as he let me shoot with it a few times.

I had my own idea of the world in mind, and it wasn't until Connor came to this one that I realized that at heart, I was an Assassin. With my face in the light, but my ideas in the dark, I secretly worked to undo the Templars' efforts here in Arendelle. They thought it was one Assassin killing all of them, but in truth, it was both of us. I fed the information to Connor, and we both killed the Templars as we could.

He did not seek me out to turn me against my own kind. I asked him to when he told me that the Templar ideology could not stand here. This was a fight I could not stand beside as a supporting player in this game. It was one where I myself had to fight in.

Connor and I walked back up to the manor. We took the back entrance. He had been the one who shot my mother, and I refused to bear the sight of her for the moment. I would mourn for my mother, father, and other family. But I would not mourn for the Templars. They were schemers, snakes, and tyrants. And my Father believed that they were the ones who could lead the people to a better world. Laughable.

A barrel of ale was tapped on a counter in the kitchen. I poured pints for Connor and I, then we sat there at the table in silence. Everything had changed in months, and even more so in the course of this whole day. My Mother had only just received the letter of my father's urgency about Connor's killings this morning.

Eventually, he broke the silence.

"I can't stay here, Asgeir."

"I know." I replied. "Your people need you."

I couldn't look him in the eyes. He gave me a purpose by putting the hood on me, but my family was dead because of him. I hated him as much as I felt a sense of loyalty and duty to him. My life would never be the same. I would be lying to all, especially myself if I didn't say that I would miss the luxury that my life as a Templar afforded. But it would be worth it in the end.

"I'll find the rest of them." I said. "Every Templar in this world, I'll kill them all. And I'll find others to join the cause. I don't know how I'll teach them the Creed, but I'll do what I can."

Connor kept quiet, looking down at the table, before taking two items from his belt. A tomahawk with the blade shaped like the Assassin insignia, and a book with the same symbol engraved into it. He took the tomahawk back, and placed it onto his belt, apparently only needing to take it off to reach his pack.

"This book is written with the teachings of former Mentors, Asgeir." He said. "Not unlike a Codex another Mentor wrote before us. It will serve whatever Brotherhood you form here, well."

I glimpsed up at him. He told me stories about his "kind" in the other world. People who lived out in the woods and built villages that respected the balance of nature. He even told me his name a few times, which I still had trouble pronouncing. Yet the men in their stone castles called them savages. I heard my own father call me one when he thought that I was Connor. But I looked at him, with his lightly tanned, olive skin, and only saw another person. He was no "redskin" or "slave" in my eyes. He was just another Assassin, fighting the same battle that I did.

"Thank you." I said.

Connor finished his pint, then got up from the table.

"You may stay the night, Mentor." I said. "Mother had the guest room made for Gist if they were going to leave in the morning."

He gave me a nod, and then turned, and walked out of the room to the upstairs.

Taking the book from the table, I walked to the open doorway of the kitchen, which led out to the fields of the farm. From where I stood, I could see the dead body of the Rogue lying among the tall grass. I could still see a bit of the arrow sticking out of his chest. From the doorway, I could see the Morrigan sailing away. Father and Mother believed that the crew was preparing to take all four of us, but in truth, I had paid them off. Told them to take the ship as far south as Corona, and then dismantle or sell her. I didn't know where she was going, nor did I care. She had become as much of a symbol for the Templars' dominion over this land as Father had. Even her sails bore the Red Cross of the Order.

"Farvel, Far." I murmured in the Ancient tongue of Arendelle.

Trees began to sprout from the field as I suddenly found myself lying on my back. I looked down at my chest to see not an arrow sticking out of my chest, but a dagger. A very old looking dagger, with a stained mahogany handle. I put my hand to it, and pulled.

A familiar flash of memories flooded my mind. And suddenly, I felt all three lives converge into my mind. Not memories, not pieces. I could remember all three of these lives as though I lived them all myself, and I was the one who was there the whole time.

This alternate reality. One where I was a killer for a twisted shadow of the Brotherhood, off on a one way mission to kill Elsa, who she too, had become a shattered version of herself. I saw two people who looked like us, fighting to the death in a hall of cracked ice. The ice around us cracked and shattered until I saw the final shape I knew I needed: a semicircle downwards, faced like a canoe.

Then I saw Shay. Every bit of his life from his times in the streets of New York as a runaway, to his time in the North Atlantic as captain of the Morrigan. From his brief tenure as an Assassin, to his reputation as the Rogue, and as a true Master Templar. Then in his time as Grand Master of the new branch started in the Land of Magic. Right in my home country of Arendelle.

And his son… his name… if… if that was his name… it couldn't be a coincidence.

"You know it isn't, Asgeir."

I got up from the ground, looking through the dark of the trees. The laughter and the cracking of memories all around me echoed. The pieces were all falling together.

And suddenly he appeared before me. The smirking, Irish bastard, with his black coat.

"You knew it all along. That little splinter at the back of your mind. Every bit of you was itching with the truth that you had no idea was real. It's the truth your father hid from you. The truth that Matthew kept hidden. The truth that has been living with you since you took your first breath in this world."

"No…" I breathed. It could not be true. "Please, no."

"Say it." Shay chuckled. "Say it."

I fell forwards, my face planting itself into the dirt. Dread, anger, horror, resentment. Every one of these swept me under it's current as I looked up, and saw the sky begin to glow orange as a new day began to dawn on the valley. Not unlike the dawning realization on my own self. Not just a bastard, but of the blood of a traitor. I felt my hand gush boiling hot blood as I clutched the blade of the dagger with anger and horror.

Cue Lea Moonchild "Through the Valley".

My name is Asgeir Daniel Cormac. I am the last living descendant of Shay Patrick Cormac.