A/N: "The enemy advances and you tremble. They've better numbers, you say. Better weapons. Better training. But I do not fear, and neither should you. For what they have in material, they lack in conviction and care. But not us. We have discipline. We have order. And most importantly, we have passion. We believe! So maintain vigilance. Conserve your ammo. Ensure a proper line of sight. And above all else, friends, do not fire until you see the whites of their eyes!" Where other men blindly follow the truth, remember: Nothing is True. Where other men are bound by morality and law, remember: Everything is Permitted

Chapter 41: What Has Been Sowed…

Much like when he found out about the dead girls, Jason only sat there in the dank cell across from me. Rory and Matthew were the only Assassins in town who knew the truth, and now he did as well.

"You're… You're Shay's last descendant?"

"That's right." I said. "All this time, Swortssen was just a pseudonym adopted by my ancestor, Asgeir the First. Then Matthew told me the whole truth: That every one of Shay's descendants knew their heritage, and

kept it secret from their brothers. My father was different. He saw a lot of great pain with my existence, with me being nothing more than a bastard. He could take care of me, and raise me as his own, but I would never have been his trueborn son. And what would I think once I learned the truth, that I'm also of the blood of the man the Assassins view as their worst traitor."

Jason struggled to get his words out. Every time he began a sentence, he stopped it. We only sat there, the stink and the dankness of the cell all around us.

"Ingrid knew as well?"

I shook my head. "I doubt she knew it all along. But if what you say is true, and she knows everything that happened to me for the last thirty years, then she likely knows about my encounter with the Watchers."

"Jaysus… fuck…" He cursed. "Bet she found that amusing."

"She needs to die, Jason." I said, as calmly as I could. "Elsa and Emma won't do it, but it needs to happen."

"I know." He replied. "Which is why I'm gonna help you."

For a second, I completely refused to believe it. He was the obedient soldier here in town. Why was he going out of his way to defy Matthew like this?

Jason chuckled a bit at my expression. "C'mon, brother. Like I'm gonna leave you here. We're both former Assassins, and the tools and skills are all within our reach. You up for one last kill?"

I nodded. "You know I am." I replied, getting up.

Jason knocked at the door as I backed to the wall, holding my hands behind my back. They had cuffed me when they threw me in here, but now the cuffs were discarded and thrown into the pile in the corner.

Two guards that I realized had been stationed at the door walked in, but were caught by surprise as Jason slammed his pistol into the face of the one on the left. The other went for his rifle, but my brother was quicker. The back of his fist went right into the guard's nose, breaking it, sending him halfway to unconsciousness. A few more punches to the face, and he was out of commission.

"Let's go." He said, hurriedly.

Quickly, I headed to right in front of Jason, where he grabbed my wrists behind my back and started pushing me for the stairs.

"What's the latest on Ingrid?" I asked.

"As far as we know, there may not be any way for us to stop the curse." He said. "She's probably got all the components needed, so time's not something we have."

"Alright. What's our story here? Why am I being let out?"

"Haven't thought that far ahead, actually."

"You taking the piss? You always think ahead."

"Quiet down, and I might think of something."

Jason guided me up the stairs. I felt another wave of coldness hit me as we went up into the kitchen's freezer.

"Your hair's turning, mate." Jason said. "We're out of time."

"Understatement." I replied. "Let's haul arse."

We were just reaching the top of the stairs, when alarms started to go off. I felt my entire body clench as Jason nearly pissed himself.

"Busted." He groaned.

But that wasn't it. The intercoms in Cormac's were screaming something else.

"Western perimeter! We got an intruder!" We heard. "Oh shit… IT'S THE SNOW QUEEN!"

"Activate sentry guns!" We heard orders being barked over in the pub as we heard stomps coming from the inn, and Assassins began running up the stairs to where we stood.

I felt my heart stop. My forearms felt as through thousands of tons were holding them down, and they were filled with nothing but helium. Jason glared over to me, but not at me as he put his baseball cap on. He passed the pistol in his hand to me.

"End her, Asgeir." He said, pulling another out of his sweater.

"Fuck! Sentry guns have been destroyed! Primary target is still approaching!"

Jason and I ran out into the pub, where every person there wore a white hoodie and held an assault rifle.

Marc noticed me. "What are you doing out of your cage?" He cried.

"Ending this." I replied. "Only one person needs to die, now. No one else."

"Speak for yourself." Another Assassin replied. "You killed Sidney Glass!"

"We'll talk about who did what later!" Jason shouted. "In case you idiots haven't noticed, we have a maniac approaching the doors!"

Kevan suddenly popped up from under the bar table with a shotgun, looking like some barkeep out of a Western. "Don't count on those doors holding, lads! She's a right old beastie."

I pulled back the rail on the pistol. "Like you wouldn't believe." I snarled.

The reinforced door suddenly slammed open. Snow and ice filled the air as it crashed down onto the bar floor.

"OPEN FIRE!" Kevan screamed.

Bullets flew everywhere. The sounds of gunfire shattered every bit of silence left in the pub. For twenty whole seconds, every bullet should have found it's mark at the figure that filled the doorway. When every rifle was emptied, the only thing I saw was a pile of icicles, and the evil bitch who caused all this pain and suffering smiling. Ingrid had frozen every shot that came her way. Unbelievable.

"Come now. Why so much violence with you?"

Kevan had also emptied his rifle, but he kept it aimed right at the freak. "What reason have you given for anything different?" He snarled. "This town is facing certain destruction as long as you're in the picture."

"Ah, but I am not the one who will do it. This town will do it themselves, leaving me with my sisters."

I felt the blood in my head reaching a boiling point. This wasn't that far from how I felt with Maloy's family in front of me, but I had to stay rational.

"No one else needs to die here, Ingrid." I said, lowering my gun. "Only one of us."

She glimpsed over at me as she slowly walked into the pub.

"We can end this. Just you and I. Face to face."

The tension and silence crackled through the air. All my reckless violence these last few weeks, I doubted anyone was expecting what I just said. I still held the gun on her, but my words tried a different approach. One I hadn't tried in decades: diplomacy.

"My dear nephew, why would I indulge that request? You've given me no reason to expect you'd honor me. Show me what I deserve." The ever-present smirk on her face.

"At this point, there's very little good that either of us deserve." I said, feeling that familiar itch at the back of my head. She was trying to control me again with the curse. "We've both killed people who didn't need to die. I killed Maloy and his family, you killed my Aunt Helga."

Her eyes narrowed. "I did not do that, and your mother still turned on me. Your father, too. They couldn't accept what I am."

"So, in return, you decide that no one else is worthy of living?" I snapped. "What kind of justice is that?"

"And what about you? The girl you loved and two others die, so in return you slaughter an entire family? A newspaper reporter? What about those two children you let die? Who will fall next because of you?"

I felt my fist squeeze the pistol even tighter. Then I loosened my grip, and lowered it. Time to face facts.

"Fine." I said. "I killed them. Christian Maloy, his wife Margaret, and his girls, Emily and Kayla. But I didn't learn their names until two months ago. I looked them up so I can put names to my conscience instead of just faces. I'll have that guilt and that blood on my hands for the rest of my life. And I'm ready for whatever fate awaits me because of what I did. Thanks to you, though, it won't be death. Instead, it was thirty years of the same thing. Becoming close to others, only to watch them all suffer and die at the hands of people like…" The words caught in my throat. "People like you."

Ingrid smirked as she paced around, Assassins still with their rifles raised right at her.

"Make no mistake, Asgeir. You will die. Only after I am certain Elsa knows you for the monster you truly are, and that her so-called brother is long dead." Then she turned to the rest of the Assassins in the pub. "You all will die for the betrayal that Daniel Cormac inflicted on me so long as his son lives."

"Who?"

She cackled. "Oh, please. Isn't it so obvious? Asgeir comes from a whole line of traitors. Starting with his ancestor, Shay Patrick Cormac. And his grandfather, Norik Cormac, and his father, Daniel."

"What is she talking about, Asgeir?!" Kevan cried.

"Daniel Cormac hid behind the moniker of Swortssen, as did every other Cormac who came before him. And here we have the last living descendant of Shay Cormac right here. You knew him as your true enemy when he wiped out the Colonial Assassins. And now his own flesh and blood murders innocents at every turn. I am not the real enemy. He is."

I started to walk forwards, but Jason stepped in front of me.

"No." He shot back. "Asgeir is not our enemy. He is our true Mentor. He may have taken souls who didn't need to die, but Assassins before him have lost their way as well, and gone on to become legends. Asgeir would atone for what he did, and I will help him do so. Matthew is not my Mentor. Asgeir is, and I will stand with him."

Other Assassins in the pub stood in silence. They saw what violence I was capable of, yet they also saw this longtime friend of mine still believe in me.

Kevan glared over at me. "Is it true? You're the Last Cormac?"

I sighed. "It's true."

Kevan kept his eyes narrowed at me, then turned his rifle back towards Ingrid. "He may have the blood of the Rogue, and he may have done those things, but he is still the Mentor I will follow. If he would atone, I will stand with him before I follow the command of a crazy cunt like you!"

It was not working the way that Ingrid had wanted. She hated me so much for what both my parents did to her that she would have me be killed by my own brethren. Just so I could feel what she believed she felt before she was sealed inside the urn.

Ingrid glared hard at us. "None of you know what you are doing. He will lead the Assassins to ruin. Worse than Matthew or Daniel did."

This would be the moment I'd draw my sword, but I didn't have one.

"You'd expect us to turn on each other by your own hand, Ingrid. But you're all alone." I said. "You always have been. You always will be."

Ingrid's eyes flashed, then she raised her hands; She hated that word. From the ground, from the walls, from the ceiling, icicles shot out. Many of them shot right through Assassins with the rifles, blood flying through the air. Kevan ducked under the bar as Jason and I charged her.

"Enough." She said, holding her other hand up. The both of us hovered in the air, in her magical grip. "You can't hope to defeat me, Asgeir. What you want cannot be accomplished, because I have already won."

"I…Say… When you've won." I struggled to say.

"No." She whispered. "You've fought enough. Now is where I put you out of your misery."

Her hand flew forwards, and Jason and I were thrown backwards in different directions. I felt myself fall against the wall, up against an icicle that stuck right through my back and out the front of my abdomen. It hurt, but I'd taken more than enough. Jason lay on the ground among a group of overturned tables, meters away from me.

"You want to die so badly, I can give you just that. If the Assassins won't do it, then I'll make sure Elsa finds the truth out soon enough after she finds your body."

Snowflakes filled the air as Cormac's became a freezer. I forced myself forwards, away from the icicle in the wall. Blood squirted out my front. And it kept flowing out, turning the ice around me red. I started to feel faint. Why wasn't the wound healing? I was feeling pain I hadn't felt for a lifetime. Unless… no…

"Ah… Looks like you do bleed after all, Reaper." She cackled. "How does an icicle through the neck sound?"

She started to step forwards, raising both her hands high. I would have fought more, but I was unarmed now. And bleeding for the first time in a lifetime. I closed my eyes.

"Ha Det, bitch!"

*BANG*

I opened them back up. Ingrid was holding onto one of her hands in pain. Shock filled her face as she looked down at the wound, which began to bleed unlike any other wound I had seen before. Deep blue, like melted sapphires. Jason lay on the ground a few feet away, his pistol still raised up at her.

Ingrid turned around, her unhurt hand beginning to raise up. Jason suddenly took another aimed shot, but his hand was shaking badly. And I could barely believe what I saw after he took it.

Ingrid gasped in pleasant surprise. "You missed!" She whispered.

Jason's face filled with horror as Ingrid raised her good hand. He began to float up into the air above the overturned tables. Dead or dying bodies were all around us. I wasn't sure who was still left, but I felt no more of my voice left.

Ingrid gave her evil smirk. "I told you that you'd regret speaking to me like that."

Jason only grinned as he struggled to breath. "Joke's on you: I don't."

Ingrid cocked her head threateningly, then flung her hand forward. Jason flew back across to bar to the back wall. It was covered it sharp icicles.

"NO!" I hollered.

Too late.

I slumped down, the ice on the ground filling my body with the cold. I held on tight to the wound on my frontside as Ingrid clutched her wounded hand. A mix of fury and dread filled her eyes as she turned on me.

"What did he do?!" She screamed.

I spat loudly at her feet. "Rot in hell!" I tried to get up, but she slammed her foot on my chest.

"You never know your place. You are a monster, Asgeir! Every Assassin is."

I groaned, feeling her foot bending my ribcage. First, I felt fury, and then I felt despair. "I'm done fighting. Just end it, now."

Jason was pinned right up on the wall. Dead right after he missed for the first time in his life. My best friend gone. All because so many years ago, I didn't take the shot for the sake of my sisters.

"No. I changed my mind." She whispered. "Your brother ruined my hand. So now, I'll take away everything from you before I give you that mercy. You will watch as this town tears itself apart at the seams, while you and your precious brotherhood will be unable to do anything about it. This town will know the despair I have felt, and then everything will be left for my perfect family. Emma and Elsa and I. Sisters forever."

The very idea still sickened me to no end.

"I was prepared to let you go, Asgeir. I was coming here to offer you the chance to escape. It was an offer that I know is more than what you deserve."

I coughed, feeling warm copper fill my mouth. "Fuck you." I said.

"Defiant and disrespectful at every turn. You see now why you won't get that chance. I'll make sure they all see you for the monster you are."

Outsiders looking into our struggle would have thought that I hated her much more than me. But I saw that it was at a very mutual level as I saw the anger in her own eyes. I could only crawl as she turned, leaving the entire pub a frozen tomb, the bodies of many dead Assassins all across the floor. And in the center of it all, my best friend displayed out against the wall, icicles impaling every part of his body.

Matthew and the others returned not long after, finding the death and carnage around. The survivors were counted and brought around. Blankets and hot drinks were passed out, and those that still could use their hands were instructed to patch themselves up as well as many of us that they could.

The bodies were brought out to behind the building, laid out and prepared for pyres. Most of the dead were never given the rank of Master, but all of them would still be burned by the custom.

In my silence, I saw Willis and Susie, both of them weeping as Keaton showed them the dead body of Marc.

Matthew and Keaton led a full head count, and by the end, got the tally of who was left of us. We had over fifty troops in Cormac's at the start of all of this. Now we were down to no more than twenty-two. All dead because of Ingrid. I furiously felt my blood boil against the ice in my heart. She was a mass murderer at this point, and no psychotic reasoning by how she was the victim could save her now. Helga might have been an accident, but this was as deliberate as they came.

Kevan himself wasn't as hurt as the rest of us; Ingrid wasn't interested in hurting him as she was me. He was ordered by Matthew to stitch up the wound in my abdomen.

"When you're done, throw him back in there." He said, turning his back towards us. "And we don't let him out of our sight again."

Kevan did as he was told. For about ten seconds. Then he angrily stood up.

"And then what awaits our young Master Cormac when this is over, Mentor?"

Matthew spun around, exactly as shocked as I expected.

"Begging your pardon?"

"This is not Asgeir Swortssen. He's a Cormac. The Last Cormac. And were you ever planning on telling him, or the rest of us?"

I groaned. "Save it, Kev." I said. "He wouldn't do anything of the sort. Because my father ordered it."

Zar sat down. "What are you talking about, Asgeir?"

"Remember back when we were fighting Zelena? I blew up the farmhouse and you guys threw me in the cell. Matthew and I had a talk during that time and he told me the whole story. My father wanted the Cormac name to fade completely, and the best step he saw of that happening would be to never tell me the truth.

"Then there was an… encounter I had while I was in the Gates. Precursors or ghosts, I don't know. But these deities told me the rest. Showed me Shay's memories, which I now understand were buried within my ancestors' lives all along. The Templars have my DNA and will be able to find the truth soon enough. All official records show Shay disappearing after he murdered Charles Dorian. But in reality, he was given a secret mission by Haytham Kenway. He brought the Templar name, symbols, the whole Order here. It may have been existing as an ideology in Arendelle already, but he gave it the name there. No Shay, no Templars in The Land of Magic.

"Then came his son. Asgeir Cormac. Shay raised him to be the next Grand Master, but he was found by an Assassin instead, and taught the truth. Not just any Assassin, but Connor Kenway. Somehow, Connor followed him to our world, and was able to save Asgeir from the brainwashing. With that, Asgeir and Connor both wiped out all of the Templars from Arendelle before finally killing Shay."

I sat there as the rest of the surviving Assassins around us kept the silence going. They'd either kill me right here, now that everything was laid bare, or I would end up getting through this by some skin of my arse.

"We're out of time, Matthew." Zar said after a moment. "More than half of us are now gone because we took our best guy out of the fight."

"Aye" I heard a few responses.

Zar glanced at me. "He's of Shay's blood. He always has been. We just never knew. And now we do. So, what?"

Matthew nodded. "Aye. I saw it that way. What did it matter? But all this time I was doing what I did to honor Daniel's memory. Do what he wanted me to do."

"He's not around anymore, Matthew." I said. "So is Agdar and Gerda after they killed him. Hell, the maggots that ate his corpse are long dead. Most of who would have cared are long dead."

I got up, feeling the pain shoot through my side as Kevan backed away.

"I accept whatever comes to me for all that I have done, Matthew. But before that happens, I'm the only hope for our survival. Only one needs to die, Matthew."

He narrowed his eyes with anger, looking around. Jason's body was still pinned up on the wall, the sight out of some horrific church.

"Take him down and put him with the others." He snapped to a few others. "But please be careful. He'll be given a proper burial. All of them will." He glanced over at me. "After he does what needs to be done."

The air became thick with surprise. I said all of this, but very halfheartedly because I didn't think he would actually listen.

Matthew then turned to the wall closest to him, not far from where I had been stuck with the icicle. The display case with Shay's air rifle inside was shattered and splintered.

"It's fake." He said. "This place was formed by Regina to remind us of who betrayed us, and all this time, his own iconic weapon was a fake here."

I nodded. "Asgeir the First took the real one. And put it in our weapons vault."

My old Mentor turned, realization filling his face. "You mean-?"

"Yeah." I replied. "My air rifle was the one Shay carried all along. I saw that in my visions as well."

Matthew said nothing for a moment, then turned to Keaton.

"Everyone we have left, we start rounding up and putting into the cages. We can't lose any more men. Not here, and not now."

"Understood." He replied. "And Asgeir?"
"He goes free. Something tells me the Curse won't affect him the same way."

I silently agreed, and Keaton began to bark out his orders to the rest of the Assassins throughout the pub. Some started filing towards the inn, with others heading down to the Bunker. Matthew beckoned me to go with him downstairs as well.

I didn't understand why, since I had been locked up for the last few weeks, but soon enough I saw what was going on. Cells of various kinds had been put together to imprison us, and try to stop us from killing each other.

"Ingrid has started the spell, Asgeir." Matthew explained as we kept walking, Assassins running around to their positions. "If you look outside, you'll see we don't have much time left."

"How long, you reckon?" I asked.

"Sunset tomorrow, at the latest." He said, opening the door in front of him. It was a room I hadn't been in since I arrived in Storybrooke, but it obviously had been set up to be Matthew's office here.

"Why change your mind now?" I asked. "Over a month of trying to hold me back against killing Ingrid, and suddenly it's almost as though what I did meant nothing."

Matthew glanced back at me. "You making the case against yourself? Do yourself a favor for a moment, Asgeir, and shut your hole."

He walked around to the other side of his desk, and opened the top drawer.

"Whether you see yourself hanged for what you did or not will depend. It will all depend on what happens out there." He pointed to the door. "In less than twenty-four hours, this town will turn into complete anarchy. Not all of us will make it out of here."

Old memories started to rise up from his words, and I found myself disobeying Matthew one more time. I couldn't stay quiet.

"You're wrong."

The old man twirled the loop of a set of keys he pulled from the drawer on his finger. "Which part?"

"Anarchy." I replied. "It's the word that the fat cats and kings use to describe what happens when order and law fall out of proportion, and we all find ourselves choking for that last breath. That grey place called No Man's Land, where every heart beat is considered a victory. But that's not anarchy. That's chaos."

"And what is anarchy to you, then?" He said, crossing his arms.

I looked down at my hands. They were still red from all the blood spilled in the pub only an hour ago. But truthfully, they'd be red for the rest of my life.

"A village." I said. "One not unlike the town I saw my grandfather Norik live in. Or the Davenport Homestead. A place with no lord or king, but there is no need for one. Because everyone works together, plays together, and lives together without the need to be better than each other. It's a village far from the touch of any tyrant or rich entitled cunt with a purse. I knew what it was from an early age, and then I forgot it all. I forgot it because of what I lost, but now that I'm about to lose it all again, I can't help but find myself remembering what it really meant, what I believed in."

Matthew's face lifted a little. Almost as though a hint of a smile appeared there, but disappeared just as quickly.

"Are you ready to atone? To remember again?"

I didn't hesitate this time. I lost so many people along the way, but I would not stop fighting. "Yes."

"Good." He produced a thick, yellowing envelope from the desk drawer, and handed it to me across the table.

"What's this?" I asked.

Matthew didn't respond, only instead turning to the wall to the right of his desk, and inserting one of the keys into a slot there. I looked down at the letter. Asgeir was written on the front in deep red ink, and a wax seal with the Assassin logo was pressed onto the flap. Completely sealed, and unopened, not even by my Mentor. Quickly, I ripped open the letter.

Asgeir,

So many times, I've found myself starting and restarting this letter, not knowing exactly how I am to tell you the truth. I hid many truths from you, but the reality is that I made a horrible mistake to do so.

I know my death is upon me soon enough when the Templars find us. But somehow, I can only feel a sense of peace. Your mother and her husband will be the ones to kill me, but I do not care for my life anymore, as long as you are safe. You, and Troy, and Jack. You might not call them what they are to you, but to me, they will always be my second and third sons.

There will be a chance that you will grow up called a name that your grandfather Norik hated. The White Reaper of Arendelle. You might grow up thinking that the name is nothing more than a nickname, but the truth is that it's a title. It's passed down through our family for the last hundred and fifty years, and will pass to you, along with the artifact where the name comes from.

But there is something you must eventually know the truth about, Asgeir. Our bloodline is on the verge of extinction, and you will be the last one to carry it. On my father Norik's side, and his father's side, and his father before him, we have all had one ancestor who stood out from the rest. You are not a Swortssen, for there are none truly left. You are Asgeir Daniel Cormac, soon to be the last living heir of Shay Patrick Cormac. For every generation since Shay, his descendants have had only one son, keeping the bloodline compacted to one soul. If the rest of the Assassins knew the truth, I fear that some will try to kill us, based only on the foundation that our ancestor nearly wiped out the whole of the Assassins in the American Colonies.

Matthew has been given instructions by me, Asgeir. He doesn't know everything I am putting into this letter, but has been told that if you ever say these words to him, he is to follow my last orders: "All Debts Will Be Paid."

Enclosed in the letter is one last gift for you, Asgeir. You may do with it whatever you wish, as you may the truth of your lineage. Only know that my deepest regret is that I'll never see you become the greatest Assassin of Arendelle.

Your father, Daniel Cormac.

I felt my grip loosen on the letter, and it slipped from my fingers, fluttering to the floor, the envelope it came in still in my hands. My life I lived for the last thirty years, it spat on more than the name of the Assassins. It spat on my father's memory, and here I now knew that all along, he meant for me to know the truth. But Matthew didn't know that I needed the letter before all of this happened.

"Why give me the letter now?" I asked, even if I knew what he might say.

"I didn't know what was in it." He said, opening a large hidden door next to the slot on the wall. "Daniel wasn't clear to me when to give it to you. He only said, 'when he's ready'. And now that we're all likely about to die, it seems I may never truly get another chance."

"Shit…" I groaned.

"Cryptic to the end, your father. Thought he was being clever, did he?"

"Maybe." I replied. I opened the envelope further, and peered in to pull out the gift.

A ring. And not just any ring. Tarnish and rust covered it, but the silver it was made from was unmistakable, as was the red cross that adorned it.

I glimpsed over at the corner. Shay's ghost stood there, but no words came from him. Only a respectful nod. This was no ordinary ring like the chains of trophies I had taken.

"What is it?" Matthew asked.

"It's… Shay's Templar ring." I said. "The one Colonel Monroe passed onto him, and the one Asgeir the First took from his body as a trophy."

Matthew eyed the ring with interest. "What will you do with it?"

"Father said I could do with it what I wanted. Same with the truth inside the letter. He wrote here all along that I was Shay's descendant."

Matthew reacted as badly as anyone would. "I kept that information from you this whole time, and he was going to tell you all along? The fool!"

"We're all fools here, Matthew." I said. "We got played by ourselves just as much as Father played us. He also gave me a sentence to say to you. All Debts Will Be Paid."

Matthew sighed. "I had a feeling that old code was in the letter. And you are ready for it."

He beckoned me over, flicking a switch from the inside of the secret door.

A set of Assassin armor and robes stood before us in the doorway as it lit up. It looked to be welded together from pieces of a shredded battleship, but I soon realized what it was meant to look like. The chest plate held the Assassin insignia where the wearer's heart would be, and the metalwork in its intricate design made it look as though the wearer's skin was gone, down to bones of pure metal. In fact, the whole of the protective parts of the armor made it look like the wearer was a skeleton. And the hood… the hood of the robe was torn up and frayed in several spots, like it had been adorning a rotting corpse for years, and the moths had gotten to it long ago. It looked hideous to me, but then a new aura came off it to me. An air of…

"Terror." Matthew said. "This armor was held by every Cormac after Asgeir the First. It's where the name of the White Reaper comes from."

"Who made it?" I said, closely eyeing the detail. I couldn't tell what kind of metal the armor was made of. The hood was unlike one any Assassin had worn, looking more like a poncho with a long cape on the back, torn at the end. The standard red sash was present at the belt level, though.

"That part was kept to secrecy by one of Asgeir's closer heirs. Either his son or grandson. Their names are lost ever since Daniel destroyed the records to hide your name. Either they made it, or some highly skilled wizard did. My money is on the wizard."

I started to reach out, when I felt another cold spell hit me. Matthew looked over with concern.

"Are you alright?" He said. "There's frost gathering on your face."

"I'll be fine." I growled, shaking it off. "You're giving me the Armor of the White Reaper?"

"Yes. It's unlike anything any Assassin has worn before it."

He nodded to it, and it began to…move? Ever so slightly, it moved closely.

"We don't know who made the armor, but we have heard the legend; Myself, Keif, and the other old Masters. The one who forged it made a pact with Hades. He said that the wielder would keep sending souls to him to suffer in Tartarus, as long as he would be granted full protection from death itself."

Matthew looked uneasily at the armor, and then me. "I'm certain that you've spilled enough blood to keep that pact going for a while. Hades will protect you as best he can with the number of souls you've sent his way, and Ingrid will have to fight pretty fucking hard to kill you."

I scowled. He could easily say that, but I could still feel the pain of the only wound I sustained for the last thirty years, and it was at her hands. I'd be more hoping the armor would be as strong as any other, and that might be enough for me.

"One more thing." Matthew said. He reached over to his desk, and passed over a long box to me.

I looked down at it, slowly taking it in my hands. Looking down, I lifted the lid off.

It was a long shiny black stick, about two feet in length. It had a loop at one end, and was flat on the other. It felt like a short practice staff in my hands, and I could feel the finish coating on it, slick and new.

"You know I'm not down for the blunt weapons, Matthew. Clubbing someone to death isn't my style."

"No, it's not. That's why you need to press the button. Twice, I'll add."

Turning the stick over in my hands, I found the button in the direct middle, dividing the staff in half. A simple metal push button, typically engraved with the Assassin insignia into it. I pressed it.

In an instant, I felt the jolt of feedback as the stick extended into a staff of proper length, extensions shooting out both ends. It nearly stood as tall as me from this length.

I curiously pressed the button again, and this time, like a snake's fang, a giant blade unfolded from the top end of it, and from the other side from the button, a small handle extended at a ninety degree angle from the staff. I rolled my eyes, but chuckled as I realized what Matthew had just given me.

"You think a scythe will kill Ingrid?" I asked.

"Maybe. Maybe not. It'll definitely surprise her if you use it at the right time." He said. "Keif's the best smith I know, so I worked hard to find the components to make it, and he put it all together. Take a look at the blade. This weapon is meant to be used with the armor. Your other stuff is on the table right there."

I looked closely at the steel of the blade, and knew what he meant. Another lifetime, years ago, before I even knew Ruthe, I had seen a metal like this. There was no mistaking the ripples and grooves in the steel, folded back on itself a thousand times.

"Is this Va-?" I began.

"Yes, after our little talk and my digging around in your things, I thought you'd know what this is. Nothing cuts like it. And it's very, very rare. Very few smiths know how to rework it, but Keif is one of them."

I was amazed. But also, very saddened by all of this. All of these gifts, and I still knew what would happen by the end of this.

"The noose is waiting for me when I get back, right?"

"That'll all depend, Asgeir. If it were anyone else, they'd have been hung a lot earlier. If you could have died by anyone hands long ago, you would have. But I'll have to make a tough decision when Ingrid is dead. I hope you understand."

I nodded. "Yeah." I said. "So, I put this on, take the scythe, and shove it right into Ingrid's chest, right?"

"Finish what we started, yes. Now, go. And make your father proud."

I almost started for the door, but then I did the last thing that felt natural in the moment. This man, who raised me as a father since I was six years old after my father was executed, stood before me. And I embraced him.

"Wha…oh…" He sighed. "I forgot how much you gave them to me when you were just a boy. I thought he was dead."

"I don't know if I will be coming back, Matthew." I said. "Or if you and the others will still be alive when I do."

"Have faith, Asgeir." He replied. "It might be the only thing that'll make the whole shitstorm make sense now."

I pulled away, and with our last solemn gaze to each other, Matthew turned for the door and headed out into the Bunker.

Slightly disturbed by the appearance of the armor, I could only imagine the kind of shadow I would cast if I put it on. I ran my hand over the chest plate, feeling the bumps where the metal ribcage was. With this armor, I would truly become the White Reaper.

Right over the heart of the ribs, I felt my hand on the Assassin insignia. My cursed self spat on the very meaning of the Creed, leaving me to have to fix what I broke. Like Altair, like Arno, like many other Assassins before me, I had to fix this. Jason was dead, but even he said in his last minutes that he believed that I could be saved. Time to prove him right, and end Ingrid once and for all.

I pressed the insignia, which apparently, I was meant to do. Instantly, the front of the armor folded away to leave an opening for me to step into it. I turned my back towards it, and stepped in. Feeling my foot slide into the boot of the armor, I took a deep breath. I felt cold all of the sudden, but not because of the ice beginning to complete its spread throughout my body. I was about to don an armor forged on the very foundation of death. I felt colder than ever. And almost as though I could… I don't know… feel the souls of everyone around me. How close they all were to death. How close I was.

I slipped my hands into the gauntlets. My hands were now made of steel bones. I turned my wrist over, and looked curiously at the mechanism. Hidden blades were built right into the armor, but there was more. An Assassin symbol not unlike the mechanism on my Rope Blades was present, but with an array of different symbols around it. Ancient runes that I could not translate. I would have to learn their functions later. Right now, I had to get out before the curse descended and I'd be trapped in Cormac's with a bunch of raging Assassins.

The rib cage had opened up like a pair of doors, so once I had my feet and hands inside, I pressed the insignia on the right half of the cage. It closed in, and I felt my breath escape my lungs. I took in a deep breath, and felt something new encase me like a cloak. I cracked my neck.

Among my swords and Shay's rifle, I found my dagger, my ammo pouch, and my flintlocks. Matthew had also left a carabiner among them, which I realized would be a good way to hook the scythe onto my belt. Looking down on the desk where I had placed Shay's ring, I thought hard. Then I knew exactly what I would do with it. But only if I came out of this alive.

I took every weapon on the table. Even the bastard's air rifle. Some of the people out there would be raging out of control. No one deserved to die like that. I would need to knock a few of them out.

I looked over at the doorway, and I saw the smug bastard's ghost. He had his arms crossed over his front, but gave a respectful nod as I raised my hood.

"I'll make my own luck." I said to him.

I wanted to say goodbye to Zar and the others. But it was too late for that. Everyone was getting filed into their cells to stop the curse. I heard guards shouting about some of the rooms in the inn potentially working as cells as well if they were reinforced enough.

The lighting system throughout the Bunker began to flicker as I walked out into the main area. The few Assassins who weren't rushing into their cells noticed me, and began to keep their distance. I could feel exactly what was scaring them, because every soul I had claimed was feeding the armor. This was not a precursor artifact. This was made out of dark magic, and a whole lot of it. Something told me that if I didn't take another life soon, it would be starving enough to…

I couldn't think of that. It would get exactly what it wanted once I found Ingrid. I headed over to the stairs and hurried up.

The pub was completely empty. Nothing but the snow and ice we couldn't clean up, and still much more of the blood and flesh that Ingrid had left behind. At least twenty-five people killed in the span of two minutes. I felt something different as I walked through the mess.

I could hear the screams. I could feel the pain they suffered. Someone's arm was severed by a blast from Ingrid. I could feel some of the souls of the dying still trying to find their way out. Could Elsa be even capable of this horror?

"No…" I murmured.

Ingrid may have claimed to have the same magic as Elsa, but hers was now at a whole different level. One only for the blackest of souls.

I looked out to the smashed doorway. It wasn't until I looked out it, and every window in the joint that I realized it had begun to snow. But I stood there. I stood there in contemplation as I remembered something that I had left to do before this began.

I told Jason my encounter with the Watchers, and what it all meant. The Huldra, the Brook Horse, the Myling, the Night Raven, and finally the Church Grim. They left behind the symbols and the box for me to open to find whatever was inside. It ate me from the inside out to know what was inside. So, after 4 days of drinking as much rum as I could physically consume, after learning the truth, I put the last symbol into the box.

It was empty. Something about the recurring theme of opening things with nothing inside them didn't surprise me. But then why was it given to me? A useless box, unable to be opened by anything aside from the five symbols I put into its dial, filled with nothing but cold air. The memories of three other lives that were not mine, but now felt like they were. And the dagger…

The only thing those visions left for me that came back to the real world was the box, and the dagger. It had been the arrow that Connor shot into Shay's back, but then it turned into this old dagger with a chipped, wooden handle.

I began to think back to those memories as I walked into the inn, instead of to the broken door. The ones that did not belong to me. This other Asgeir, off to kill Elsa. That version of me knew one thing as he walked into the ruins of the town: I would not survive. Would the same be true of me in this reality?

My backpack lay at the foot of my bed, exactly where I had left it. The window had not been replaced since I had broken it in my attempt to escape. It was then that I got a much better view of the oncoming destruction that was awaiting the town. Snow was coming down in a blizzard, but I could clearly make out the sky of the day. It was turning dark purple with the clouds of the curse, shards of mirror floating throughout the sky.

The guard that had been stationed at my door the night I had escaped had turned his two-way up way too loud. The sounds of reporting on Glass' betrayal had echoed out of the box at his belt, and reached my broken ears. Then it was all a matter of breaking the window and setting off to deal the…

I cursed at myself as I saw Shay's ghost stand in the corner. Glass would have died by our hands, but instead, I did something much worse to him before finishing him off. All I could reassure myself was that he wasn't suffering anymore.

I opened by backpack and began digging around. It was not left in the state that I had left it in, which meant that Matthew had had the Assassins go through it. But luckily, nothing was missing. I found the box. And the chain of rings.

Turning the box over in my hands, I pressed two fingers to the face of the dial, and turned. The dial felt to be spring loaded, where I had to let go of the face to let it reset it's position from the pointer.

Upside down triangle, half circle, square, right side up triangle, crescent.

The box clicked open, and it's two halves separated. Just as empty as the day that I had first opened it. Not a splinter, nor scratch to be had within it. Nothing.

But there had to be something. Some point to this box having been given to me. I closed my eyes as I turned the two halves of the box in my hands. What of these three lives did the box connect to? I knew all three of them as if they had been my own. There was some sort of convergence of one of these lives, and it involved the box.

Shay was the first I thought of. But in his entire life, he did not come across any box of the sort. He lived out the rest of his life after marrying Jannika and having Asgeir as his son. The box was not meant for him.

Asgeir the First was the same. He began our branch in Arendelle and married one of his recruits. The branch began in the town that would later be named Yurness, where my grandfather Norik led the Assassins in his time. No such box appeared. I couldn't remember such a thing in either of the lives of my ancestors.

But what about the other Asgeir? The other me? I could only remember so much of his life. The last thing I could clearly remember of that life was taking a jump off a cliff into the valley of snow below, where the ruins of the castle town were. Anything later than that were cloudy memories, pieced together only by threads.

This other Asgeir… he knew he wasn't going to survive Elsa's wrath. I could tell that. So then, with all the tools in front of me, I filled the box with what it was meant to be put with, and closed it for the last time. I put it into the satchel at my belt, and moved on.

Taking the air rifle off the holster on my shoulder, I laid it beside the chain of rings in front of me. A chain of Templar rings, all killed by me in the twenty four years before I had met Elsa and Anna. Trophies, every one of them. But now the newest addition to my collection was one that I held because it was my own by birthright. My father left it for me. To do with as I wished.

"So… I'm just another trophy on your chain." Shay said as I rolled the ring in my fingers.

"No." I replied. "I don't know what you are to me, anymore. We're both traitors to the brotherhood, Shay. I come from a line of traitors."

"That's the Brotherhood talking after over two hundred years of propaganda." The Irishman shot back. "Now ask yourself, and be truly honest: Am I a traitor?"

The memories filled my head. I closed my eyes, perfectly remembering everything as it happened, and how Shay felt when it did. Every one of them judging Shay, already making their decisions about what they thought of him. Hope and Le Chevalier in particular disgusted me.

"Not at first." I said, the truth finally being released. "You wanted to prove yourself to Achilles. You wanted him and the others to stop judging you as a screw up. They were cruel, monstrous people who spat on the meaning of the Creed, but you still wanted to prove yourself to them. And then Lisbon happened.

"You returned, convinced Achilles sent you to destroy that city, and they themselves could barely believe you. They believed in mind controlling Apples, and another world before our own, but a temple causing an earthquake was simply out of the question. And Achilles. He grieved too long and hard for his family. He was not in his right mind to make that judgement on you."

Shay began to grin. But it was different than the one that I was remembering him taunting me for the last two months.

I continued. "You made the right choice to take the Precursor box from Achilles. But they had already made their decision about you, Shay. You were never meant to be an Assassin, in their eyes. But when Colonel Monroe found you, he showed you that not every Templar seeks to rule the world. Some want to use their positions to do good.

"That doesn't mean that Haytham was a good man. He's… complicated. I don't know much about him as I do of you, but I know that he was a brutal man whose vision of mercy was to cripple Achilles to stop him."

"So… am I a traitor to the Brotherhood?" He asked again.

I shook my head. "No. You only betrayed the Colonial Assassins for the greater good. You joined the Templars to help people. You made a right choice, if not the only one. As did Asgeir. He killed you because the Templars were going to bring Arendelle to ruins under their rule when you were gone. You didn't know everything of what was going on in the Order before you died, Shay."

I looked down at the ring between my fingers, then knew what I was going to do.

"I'm not proud that Shay Patrick Cormac, the Rogue of the Colonies, is my ancestor. But likewise, I am proud that Shay Patrick Cormac made the right choice after knowing the whole story. But as for me, I'm going to atone for what I did, no matter what happens tonight."

I place Shay's ring down, and brought my blade down on the chain, cutting it in half. Four of the Templar rings clattered to the floor as I took the other ones left and dumped them all into my backpack. The chain was now half its previous length, but with the clasp on it still intact. I took Shay's ring, and looped it through the chain. This was not going on my neck. I had a better idea.

Shay still stood off to the side, grinning madly as I zipped my backpack shut. Then, I took the chain with Shay's ring on it, and picking the air rifle up, looped it through the ring around the trigger on it. The ring swung back and forth as I held the rifle up, now adorned with my ancestor's ring on the chain.

The smile on Shay's face was not a taunting one. Rather, it felt like a smile of pride. I aimed the rifle in his direction, but not at him as I looked down the sight.

"So, what's your name?"

I stood up, feeling the chill of the White Reaper's armor around me. "My name is Asgeir Daniel Cormac. And I am an Assassin."

"Aye." Shay replied. "That you are." He said as he faded away. His voice echoed through the room, and I realized that I would never see his ghost again.

"I am an Assassin…" I sighed, heading for my door.

I pulled my hood up as I walked to the door. Smashed open by the very monster responsible for most of this misery. But I had to at least be honest with myself. I had become just as bad as she had. And now, with Matthew finally giving me the clearance to end her, I wondered if I really deserved any mercy from the Assassins when I got back if she didn't deserve any from me.

Snow came down harder and harder, mist and fog surrounding the town. The storm was rising in intensity with every passing moment. I had to get moving, and I had to do it now.

"Okay, Ingrid." I said, cracking my neck. "I call 'check'."

The lights from the streetlamps cast an orange glow on the streets. It looked to be dark, as if it was dusk, even if I knew it was approaching midday. And even if I saw snowy mists all around me, the only thing I could see clearly was the sky above the town, cracking and shattering in its purple glow.

Two figures were coming out of the fog. I reached for the scythe at my belt, but cautiously called out.

"Who goes there?!"

The figures stopped, then one rushed for me. A flash of blonde hair, and I felt Elsa's comfortably cool arms around me.

"Asgeir!" She cried. "Matthew… He and the other Assassins went for Cormac's so fast… I didn't know what was happening." She pulled away, but noticed my face. "What… happened?"

I felt a sting in my sinuses and eyes as a few tears shed. "Elsa… Jason's dead. And more than half of our forces to go with him. Ingrid killed them all."

Emma suddenly came up from behind her. "What?"

I narrowed my eyes. "Ingrid engaged a full assault on us. Broke through our defenses and slaughtered most of us inside. There's little more than twenty of us left in town, now. We're going to be digging mass graves when this is all done."

I walked up to Emma. I could feel something, gnawing at the back of my head, under my moth-eaten hood. It was now that Emma and Elsa both saw what I was wearing, but would not dare question what the armor meant or why I was wearing it; I was marching to a one-man war against the Snow Queen.

"Ingrid has murdered over thirty people in the span of less than five minutes, Emma. Almost all of the rest of us are seriously injured. I have a stab wound in my abdomen she left there that isn't healing. There can't be any due process for her. She must die."

The Savior crossed her arms as we stood, eyeing each other as the snow came falling down. It was already beginning to pile up in drifts on the sidewalks.

"Are you in control?" She asked after a few moments.

I shrugged. "I am, but I don't know for how much longer. I doubt Ingrid will let me keep control over my mind when this Curse hits." I cried out in pain, clutching my stomach as another chill wave hit me.

"Asgeir!" Elsa cried. "There's frost on your face!"

"Doesn't matter!" I shot back. "Stopping Ingrid is the priority!"

"And what if you die? What then?"

I shook my head, straightening up my stance as I stared at my sister. "It's what I signed up for." I said. "I did not become an Assassin only to hide behind other people and watch them die in front of me at the hands of monsters. I became an Assassin to protect people with my blade. And if Ingrid kills me, whether with an icicle through my chest, or a frozen heart, I will die fighting to save this town from her wrath."

Elsa stared at me, her eyes tearing up as she sniffed. "Let's go, Emma. Belle might have an answer for us."

The news was not good. Inside the pawn shop, Belle filled us in with what research she had been able to find on the Spell.

"Any luck?" Elsa asked.

"No, it appears to be pretty much unstoppable." She said, grimly. "The one thing I did find is there may be a way to undo the effects of anyone it touches."

I raised an eyebrow. "You serious?"

Belle nodded. "It seems that when somebody's been touched by the spell, that you can use them to undo it."

Elsa glanced at me. That was easy enough. I could still feel that knife slicing its way through my eyes.

"With a strand of their hair, you can make some kind of counterspell, like a vaccine."

"Asgeir…"

"Right ahead of you, sis." I replied, extending my blade. It felt strange how the blade was built into the armor itself, but I would get used to it. I raised my wrist to a few strands at the back of my head, took them in my fingers, and cut. I pulled them out from the back of my head, white as the rest of my head, where Elsa and Emma grinned. But then I felt the hairs become wet, and then…

"Son of a bitch!" I yelled as the hairs melted and turned to water on the floor, slipping through my fingers. "I'm a walking ice cube at this point! I'm not gonna be of any help." I shivered again.

Elsa scowled, just as upset as I was. But then another idea struck her. "Anna." She said. "Ingrid said she put me in that urn. I didn't believe her because Anna would never do that."

I understood. "Because she had been under the spell, as I have said! If we find her, she can save us."

"But you still don't know where she is." Belle said, puzzled.

Elsa grinned. "No, but now you can help us find her." She said, pulling out a small blue sack I never noticed was in her hands. I also noticed, in that moment, that a yellow ribbon had been tied to her wrist. Emma, too. I swore in that moment that it had to have been Ingrid.

"You said if I had something of hers, you could use this locator spell. Well, now I have something of hers!" She turned the satchel over, and I felt my stomach do a somersault as she pulled the object out.

The necklace. From day I had returned to Arendelle, eager for the forthcoming wedding, Elsa made that necklace for Anna. And she held onto it as if it was the most precious treasure she had ever been given. Then she handed it to Belle, beaming at me and Emma.

"Sometimes sentimentality pays off."

"I thought you lost it in the ice caverns." I said.

"Yes, but we went out there. Hoping to find a way out of this town before the Spell comes. No luck, but I found the necklace."

"Point Elsa." Emma admitted.

Belle held the necklace under the magnifying glass at the desk, examining it. "There's… mirror dust in this." She looked up. "Actually embedded in the metal."

Elsa grimaced. "So, I was right. She was under that spell."

"She wanted you to kill her and me, Elsa. In her eyes, it would have been self-defense." I shook my head. "But if we find her, she can save everyone."

"I'll round up the fairies. They can set up shop somewhere close, and figure out how to make the counterspell." Belle said.

Normally, I would have argued against trusting Blue. But there's that old saying about desperate times.

"Thank you! Let's go."

"Elsa, you realize this is a long shot." Emma said, uncertainly. "I was time travelling when I brought you here, and when Anna disappeared it was-"

"Thirty years." I said. "And some of us haven't aged a day. I saw Anna and Kristoff become frozen by that monster, Emma. I doubt they're older."

"And Anna is okay, she has to be!" Elsa said, trying optimism for a change.

"Okay, then." Emma sighed. "We're relying on mirror dust and fairies, but now we have a plan, which is progress. Let's go find your guys' sister."

We turned for the door, and headed back out into the cold.

Elsa pulled the necklace out, ignoring the snow piling up around us, or the icicles starting to form on the pawn store's sign right above us.

"Okay…" Emma said, pulling out the vial. "Here you go…"

She dripped the potion onto the necklace, which began to glow purple.

"Ha!"

"That supposed to happen?" I asked.

"Yeah, I know this spell. It gets brighter to your goal. It's how my parents found each other."

Elsa held up the necklace, and began to walk with its glowing. She eagerly cheered with the first few steps as we walked westwards from the pawn shop. Down the street.

Ingrid despised Anna. We were both reminders of Father and Mother, the two people who sealed her into suffering. We were Daniel and Gerda reborn in her eyes. As if that would mean anything from the start. Of course, I mistrusted her at first glance, but that was who I was. And she held that against me and made it clear that whatever she did to me, I deserved it in her eyes.

Elsa followed the glowing, which then gave us a building as we walked across the street.

"The library?" She said, confused. "But I've been inside before, and Anna wasn't there."

"The library's… well, it's a funny place." Emma explained. "There are all these tunnels underneath."

"And you think Anna could be down there?" I asked.

"Regina kept a whole dragon under there for twenty-eight years." She said. "I'm sure you can fit a small princess, too."

"How 'bout that." I chuckled.

"Yes. Asgeir, you said she was frozen by the Snow Queen." Elsa said, opening the doors. "That's why we never found Anna. But now we will."

A large set of doors off to the side of the main floor led us to an elevator. Emma seemed to have known about this area, hitting the button that took us down. Deep into caverns right below the library. The armor's magic seemed to react to this place, and in my satchet, even the box didn't like this. There was an irregularity in this place. Holes in the very fabric of reality right in this place. How appropriate for it to be below a library, where all the fairy tales are kept.

Elsa kept holding onto the necklace like a compass, using it's glowing to point us down the caverns, following sets of mine tracks leading us deeper and deeper. But then we hit a snag as we turned a corner to find a wall. Even though the necklace glowed brighter than ever before.

"What?! NO!" Elsa cried. "How can there be a barrier?! Look how bright the glow is! She must be practically right on the other side!"

"ANNA!" I yelled. "Are you out there?!"

Emma looked at the boulders blocking the way. "Look at this dust; it's just recently fell." She said. "All the new ice spiking and earth shaking that the Snow Queen's been doing must have caused it."

Elsa stepped back, raising her hand. "I can move this."

"No, Elsa, stop!"

Emma stepped in front of us as I pulled my rifle. The ring tinkled lightly against the metal, swinging back and forth across the chain.

"As much as I enjoyed our last cave-in, I don't wanna do it again!" Emma said.

"Out of the way, Swan! Our sister is right behind you!"

"But we'll find another way." Emma said. "Just take it easy!"

The dwarves. Last time I saw all of them I held a shotgun right in their direction. That was thanks to Ingrid manipulating me with the curse to try to turn them all against me. She wanted this town against Elsa to prove a point. But for me, she wanted them to execute me so I would be out of her way.

The Charmings and Regina brought Grumpy along with them, who ignored me as I stood off to the side, him examining a map of the underground.

"Sure, me and the guys can clear the tunnel." He muttered. "We'll have to work careful, but we can do it."

"Let's go now." Elsa said.

David's cell rang, and he excused himself as he went outside to take the call.

Regina was not impressed. "Look at this mess." She growled. She turned to Snow. "A good mayor checks that these things are kept up to code."

"Yeah, well, if the mayor only has to worry about one villain, and it's herself, that frees up a lot of time for infrastructure." Snow snapped. "I've had other issues."

"Leroy, how long to clear the passage?" Emma said, getting back on track.

"Couple hours, maybe." He said. "We can get right on it."

"Alright. Easy enough." I said.

"We don't have a couple hours!" Regina said. "Have you guys not been watching the clock? It'll be sundown before you Munchkins finish!"

"Dwarves, sister."

"Like I care. Let's just blast through and take the risk."

David walked back in. "That was Belle over at the diner." He said. "It turns out they can possibly make the counterspell, even if we don't find Anna. They can pull the mirror dust out of the necklace and try to use that."

"It's exactly the same?" Snow asked.

"It should be. Ingrid put both of us under that spell, and I got nothing that could work." I said.

"Almost." David said. "It'll take a little longer. The process is difficult, and…" He paused. "It will destroy the necklace."

I wasn't for sentimentality in that moment. We were out of time. But I could respect Elsa's look of protest.

"So, the necklace can either save all of us, or Anna." Emma said.

David nodded.

"No, it can do both!" Elsa protested. "We have time!"

"We don't!" Regina snapped. "Exploring these tunnels could take days."

"So, what'll it be, folks?" Grumpy said. "Save the town, or find the sister?"

As the others talked it over, Grumpy started for the door. I tapped him on the shoulder.

"If we get out of this alive, Dreamy." I said. "You and I have some air to clear."

He glared at me, which I realized was just how he was. "Agreed, Assassin. Don't shoot me." He chuckled, lightly.

I smirked a bit as I walked back to sit beside Elsa. She held the necklace in her hands.

"We never should have left Arendelle, Elsa." I said. "I realized that, the moment we came back and found our aunt, alive and well."

She glimpsed at me. "Why do you hate her so, Asgeir?" She asked. "Despite all her faults, she's still family. Anna never gave up on family. And you want to kill the only other person like me."

"She took that curse, Elsa. She took the worst bits of the curse and formed it into a knife. She sent the shards into Anna's eyes, but she cut my eyes to deliver the worst version possible of the curse." I explained.

Elsa began to understand what I was saying. "The man that came to our castle after the gates opened. The one who became my Spymaster… he's dead, isn't he?"

I wanted to tell it all to her. Everything that had happened in the thirty years since. I couldn't.

"In the span of five minutes, brave men and women who chose to fight for the freedom of humanity lost their lives because they stood in the Snow Queen's way, Elsa." I said. "She hates me and Anna because we look almost exactly like the two people who sealed her inside the urn. I was told by Matthew before he locked himself and the other Assassins deep beneath Cormac's that I must kill her."

Elsa was about to give her usual protests, but Emma came up to give us the bad news.

"It's an entire town to save, guys. Anna will have to wait."

"But… this necklace!"

Emma shook her head. "We need to give this town their best chance." She said.

I glared over at Snow and David. There was no chance of stopping the curse all along. Yet they would insist to keep trying by destroying the one thing most precious to Elsa in that fleeting moment.

Elsa handed Emma the light blue satchel she had made for the necklace. Then, when Emma and the others went for the door, she turned, and went for the elevator. I knew why in that instant, and followed her through without any words.

The necklace didn't need to be destroyed. We just needed to keep trying. Elsa and I sprinted down the caverns.

"I thought killing Ingrid was more important than Anna." Elsa said.

"She's our sister, Elsa." I replied. "She's our real family."

We rounded the corner to the blocked entrance when we heard another voice.

"ELSA! ASGEIR!" Emma cried.

"I'm sorry! I have to try this!" She replied.

Emma rounded the corner as Elsa began to work on the rocks blocking the way. Within moments, the cave was clear, but led out to somewhere we were not expecting; the beach. The three of us walked out, looking up and down. I could see Cormac's further up the way, likely still the horror and carnage inside as the Assassins locked themselves in the cells and rooms to stop themselves from killing each other. The beach itself was already covered with snow, no sand to be seen below our feet.

"The beach? That map couldn't have been anymore wrong!" Emma said.

Elsa was bewildered. "I don't understand it, she should be here!"

She ran down the beach, looking all around her. Emma and I followed, but the passing seconds made things look bleaker and bleaker. I could see the purple storm clouds closing in around the town from the water, and the mountains to the south.

"Elsa, Asgeir, I'm sorry, magic isn't always perfect." Emma said.

Elsa looked down at the necklace. "So, even though it's still glowing, because she's not here, it means…"

I dreaded to say the words, as did Emma.

"The search is over." Emma said. "Thirty years is a long time."

Elsa turned to Emma. "You think something's happened to her, and this has all been a mistake?"

"No, sister." I replied. "We need to deal with the problem at hand."

"I'm sorry." Emma said.

Elsa wasn't having it. We walked up the beach as she held onto the necklace tighter than ever.

"I'm sorry, Emma. But I still have faith." She said. "I still believe she's…" She stopped.

"What is it?" I asked.

She looked up at us. "It's stopped glowing." She said.

Emma sighed. "I'm sorry."

Apologies delivered from every party present. But the time for talking was over.

Elsa looked like she was going to cry. I wish I could have, but Anna died thirty years ago to me.

"She's really gone." She said.

She looked down at the necklace. "This was my present for Anna for her wedding." She said, reminiscing. "It was among my mother's things, but to us, it was new." She sobbed. "And I turned it into the last gift I ever gave her."

Even I began to feel a few tears. "I was going to walk her down that aisle." I said. "Share in this beautiful day with her and Kristoff. I spent my whole life on the run, but you and Anna gave me a family.

"Guys, I am so sorry." Emma said. "But it's almost sundown." She looked out to the storm clouds. "That cloud is gonna hit anytime. We have to go; everyone's gonna turn on each other, and something tells me that being immune to the curse is not gonna stop them from attacking us."

I was then beginning to understand just what I was carrying. I had a whole arsenal's full of weapons, and to top it off, armor forged with the help of Hades himself. I needed to get away from Elsa if Ingrid was going to make me go insane with this curse.

"I failed. I deserve to be attacked." Elsa sobbed. "This… this is all I have left of Anna! Now I'll never know what happened to her!"

I don't know if it was Elsa's tears, or my own sadness at the hopelessness of it all, but even I couldn't stop myself from crying. I placed a hand on Elsa's shoulder as I began to sob.

After a few minutes, Elsa turned to the necklace, making a fist with it. "Anna, wherever you are, whatever happened to you all those years ago, I'm so sorry I didn't find you, or Asgeir."

Far too late for that. I became a tortured soul after all I had been through. I fell down, falling into the snow and ice that caked the beach.

"I still have faith. I know you're out there somewhere. I won't give up hope."

I had hope, once. Then an Evil Queen unleashed a Dark Curse that banished an entire realm to this place. I still had hope. Then my friend, the son of the Dark One, went missing. I still had hope. Then my love walked away from me as I tried to keep finding the monster than took everything from me. I still had hope. And then I watched as a psycho with a shotgun murdered her, and two others in front of me, and I was left in Hell to suffer and die.

"I just wish… I wish you were here with us now!" Elsa cried.

Emma came up, trying to get us to move. But then I heard something. Some sort of spark as I got up, and saw the necklace in Elsa's hand begin to glow again. Magic pulsed out from around us.

"What's going on?" I said.

"Do you think it's Ingrid's spell?" Elsa asked.

"I don't know." Emma said.

We looked out to the sea. A whirlpool began to form before us. Not unlike the one that brought Shay to Arendelle.

"What is that?" Elsa cried over the noise.

The answer we got slung the three of us back across the beach. I groaned as I got up from the snow, and looked down. A crate had appeared.

The crate opened and…

Two people came out, coughing, gasping for air. Two people I had…

"Holy… fuck…" I swore.

Anna.

Elsa and I got up, the two of us unable to comprehend what we saw. She and the other stood there, still coughing and gasping for air. I remembered that dress she wore. It was her favorite. So innocent and happy. I took a step. Was this even real? Ingrid had been playing me with what I could and couldn't see for so fucking long.

"Anna?"

She looked up, along with her fiancé. Even Kristoff was back!

"ANNA!" I hollered, running down the beach.

"ELSA! ASGEIR!"

No force on Earth could have stopped the three of us as we embraced. Even Kristoff joined into the incoherent yelling as the three of us cheered. We were back together. But something Emma said stopped it all.

"It's like you wished it." She said.

A look of understanding filled Anna's face. "My necklace." She whispered. "It was the Wishing Star!"

I didn't understand what she meant, but I didn't care. I had my family back. Something I always believed couldn't have happened in a thousand years.

"This is an amazing miracle!" Kristofff said. "But it is a cold miracle, and we're all wet, so…"

"Yes." Emma said. "If we can get Anna to the fairies right away, she might be able to stop the spell."

"Wait, there's something I have to do, first." Elsa said. Then she hugged our sister.

There was a tender moment, but then Anna pulled away, looking at me. She clearly noticed my whitening hair, but didn't notice. "Oh, come here, Asgeir!" She laughed. "Hey, that rhymes!"

I laughed as I grabbed her in a massive hug. "I've missed you, little sister."

Quickly, the four of us hurried up Main Street from the beach, passing Cormac's. It was no longer a snowstorm, or a blizzard outside. It was what came after.

"So, this spell can't affect Anna or Asgeir because it's already got them once?" Kristoff asked.

"Exactly." Emma said. "Though we're not sure about him. Might wanna be careful."

"Agreed." I replied.

"And… the two of you?" Anna asked.

"We're immune." Emma explained, skimming over. "Long story. We just gotta hurry."

I kept close to both my sisters as Anna whispered to us.

"What a funny looking world." She exclaimed.

"Right?" Elsa said.

I only chuckled. "Welcome to Earth."

We hurried down the street towards the diner. Emma led us, in opening the door as we walked inside.

No one was inside. Not a single fairy. Not even Blue. All their equipment was, but not a soul to account for.

"What happened here?" Elsa said.

"What the fucking hell else?" I snapped, knowing who. "Ingrid."

"What does this mean?" Anna asked.

"It means that even with you here, we can't protect everyone." Emma said.

"So, what do we do now?" Elsa said.

It was obvious to everyone, but no one would say it. Everything Ingrid had done was beyond redemption, or a fourth chance.

"Prepare for the worst." Emma said.

No one else said a word as we headed back out into the snow.

The five of us headed back over to the Sheriff's Station. No one else would listen to me, so I had given up. Elsa had let go of Anna for a moment, leading me to take her arm, instead.

"What has happened in thirty years, Asgeir?" She asked.

"Too much." I responded, truthfully.

We rounded the corner into the main office.

"Mom, Dad, we're running out of time." Emma said as we came in. "You said you had a plan?"

David, on the other hand, was more concerned with our new additions.

"Kristoff?!"

"David?!"

"You cut your hair!" David said.

"So did you!" He replied as the old friend embraced. I would have smiled, but Emma was right.

"And I see you brought your lovely fiancé, Joan?" David chuckled.

"Joan?"

Anna shrugged. "It was a…code name." She turned to the Prince. "David! I like your short hair. Not that I didn't like it long or that I thought it was…" She stopped. "It's good to see you!"

"Likewise!" He laughed, embracing her, as well. "This is my wife, Snow, our son, Neil, and our daughter Emma."

Anna was understandably confused. "Wait, what? How can she be your daughter?"

"Long story." Emma said, again. "Once we survive this curse, I'll be happy to tell you all about it." She turned to her parents. "The plan. What's the plan?"

Snow and David gave their answer as they looked at each other with uncertainty. Then they headed for the jail cells.

"This is the plan." She said.

"What?" Emma said.

"You, Anna, Asgeir, and Elsa are the only ones immune to this Curse." Snow said. "So the rest of us need to protect ourselves." She handed the keys to Emma.

David nodded to Kristoff. "You might wanna try that, desk, old friend." He said. "It's sturdy, cuff keys are in the top drawer"

Kristoff nodded as Elsa grabbed him a pair and the key. But Emma wasn't taking it.

"I'm not locking you in there." She said.

"Yes, you have to." Her mother said.

"We won't be able to hurt anyone from in here." David said.

"Take the keys, Emma." She said.

Anna silently obliged to the previous orders, handcuffing her own beloved to the desk.

"Asgeir." David said. "We will need to talk when all of this is done, but do what you have to do."

I would, David. I gave him that assurance with a pitiful nod.

"I don't know what's gonna happen, I don't know how long it's gonna last!" Emma said, her voice breaking. "I don't know what's gonna happen to me, I mean, what if, what if you starve to death in there?"

"No, Emma, you're gonna fix this thing, and then you're gonna come back and save us."

That was what heroes did. But heroes would not do what was necessary to destroy the evils in front of them. I had claimed so many lives to this moment where I stood, nearly all my friends dead, and the entire bracing themselves to be taken by this dreadful curse.

"You think?" Emma asked her mother.

"We believe in you." David said.

Emma hesitated, then took the keys from her mother.

"Now, you know Henry's in a safe place, and Regina and the others can take care of themselves." Snow said as Emma closed and locked both cells.

"What about the baby?" I asked. "Lad's not gonna last the night in there."

"No, don't worry." David said. "Neil won't be with us."

"Who's gonna take him?" She asked.

Snow put him into her daughter's arms before the door closed. "You are." She said. "We don't fear your magic, Emma. It's what's gonna allow you to take on the Snow Queen, and win."

"And when you do, you'll be right back here, unlocking these doors"

Emma would spare her. I could not allow that. At least thirty lives had been claimed by her. That was beyond something that would mark someone a target for the Assassins. Even the Templars didn't allow that kind of murder.

"We trust you." Snow said. "And Henry's right. You are special, and you are going to use that specialness and save us. Both of you!"

I looked back as Elsa smiled. "You have wonderful parents, Emma." She said.

She sobbed. "I know."

"Swan? A word."

It was Hook. He stood in the doorway to the office. Emma looked over at me, as I was the closest.

"Elsa? Can you hold my brother?" She sobbed.

"Of course." Elsa replied, taking him without any hesitation.

I stood off to the side. This boy would not know anything about what was going on around him, and yet, I had to remember something in that moment: everything that we Assassins did, we did it so that they could live in a world where tyranny and terror could not happen. I could see storm raging on and on outside. Anna and I glimpsed out the window. Almost all of the Assassins were dead, and I could reckon that the rest of them would be by morning. I put my arm around Anna as we looked out the window.

"Not long, now." Kristoff said.

No, brother. No time left at all.

"Looks like one more adventure, together." Anna said.

Glass shards began to rain down from the sky. Shards that I could hear. Shards that brought back memories. Old, happy memories, tarnished by that mirror. I closed my eyes as I felt the shards break through the window along with the snow outside, and force themselves right into my eyes. I cracked my neck in that split second.

"Hello, Ingrid."

Pain shot through every inch of my body. I screamed loudly through the room as Anna and Elsa jumped back in surprise. I fell to the ground, hearing the voices shoot through my head.

"-not my son. Only a failure. You spat on the Creed as you spit on my name!"

"Those girls are dead because of you! Not Ingrid. You are as treacherous as they come!"

"You are a Cormac! You were meant to betray us from the start! You were born for it!"

"Asgeir?"

I held up a hand. "I'm alright!" I cried.

I opened my eyes, looking up at my sister. The pain was too much. I was… afraid. Afraid I would hurt her. Hurt both my sisters. They didn't deserve all of this misery forced upon them. It was because of me and Ingrid that they suffered for so long.

I was alright, aside from brief moments of pain similar to the pain I had felt back in Arendelle, but the same could not be said for Snow and David.

"Prince… Charming." She sneered. "Finally, I'm seeing you clearly."

"And what do you see?" He snapped.

"A fraud. A shepherd, who has now business being royalty."

"Well, I see a spoiled little princess, who ran away from her troubles! WHO ALWAYS RUNS AWAY!" He snarled, standing up, and advancing on his wife. Only the bars separated them, but that might not be enough.

"I can't believe I had a child with you!"

"Oh, who knows? Maybe you didn't." David snapped. "Could be Whale's!"

Surprisingly, I had control over myself. I assumed Ingrid didn't have enough influence over me, since she had already used the Spell on me once before. But that didn't stop the ice in my heart. It was going to kill me within hours.

"You know, if this is what marriage is like, I'm glad you keep postponing ours." Kristoff said to Anna.

"You don't mean that, Kristoff." Anna said. "It's the spell."

"No." Kristoff said. He sounded nicer, but his words said otherwise. "I'm seeing clearly now, too. I'm beginning to think that this haircut wasn't my only bad idea."

I stepped back. "Bite your fucking tongue, man!" I said.

"I know this isn't really you, I know it." Anna said. "But it's still upsetting, so… I'm just… I'm gonna go see my sister, and you just stay here handcuffed where you can't hurt anybody… but me… with your words."

I went with her to the other office. "I can knock him unconscious if it stops him, Anna."

"Not yet, Asgeir." She replied.

"It's like when Anna put me in that urn." Elsa said from the other room. "She didn't mean what she said, either… I hope."

Anna shook her head. "I didn't." She assured her. "That doesn't make any of this less horrible." She leaned into her sister's arms.

"It's okay." She said. "You're immune. We all are. And we're together."

"It's gonna be alright." Emma said, cradling her fussing brother. "Remember, I'm the Savior."

"Is that, like, a real job here?" Anna asked.
"Apparently, it is." She said. "I promised all these people I'd give them their happy endings. And I will. I'm just, not sure how at this moment."

Realization suddenly filled Anna's face. "I think I might have an idea." She said. "Do you know how the Snow Queen got the idea for the Curse? It's from a legend called the Trolden Glass."

"Never heard of it." Emma said.

"You never would have." I replied. "It comes from our corner of the world."

"Its origin isn't important. What matters is how they broke the Curse."

"What was done?" Elsa asked.

"Um…" Anna strained to remember. "To break the spell…" She squirmed. "Oh…"

I knew what that meant.

"They had to kill the King." I remembered.

Anna nodded. "So, in this case, that would mean Ingrid."

"I don't believe killing is ever the answer." Elsa said, shaking her head. "Are you sure we can't reason with her?"

I actually did something I hadn't done in ages; I burst out laughing. My sisters looked in discomfort as I laughed out loud.

"Ingrid?" I chuckled. My expression darkened. "No. She's gone above and beyond to show anyone that she is far beyond reason or mercy from her side. Why should she be spared when she slaughtered more than half of the Assassins last night?"

Anna put a hand to her mouth. This was the first she was hearing of this.

"We all want another way, but if it comes down to her, or the town, I'm gonna do what has to be done."

"No, Emma," I snapped. "I have been the one who saw everyone taken away from me because of that monster. I must be the one to kill Ingrid."

"Anna, how are you with kids?" She said, ignoring me.

"I love kids." Anna said.

Emma replied by handing her brother right over to Anna.

"Wait, I'm the babysitter?"

"Elsa, Asgeir, we need to get going." She said.

"The Snow Queen's my aunt too! If this is what has to happen, I wanna be by your side!" Anna protested.

"Anna, sorry, but someone has to stay here with everyone else." Emma said.

"Emma's right, stay with Kristoff." Elsa instructed.

"But this was my plan!" Anna said.

"I know it was." Elsa said. "You're the smartest person I know, and you're my sister, which means you need to stay safe. Ingrid is a problem that Emma, Asgeir and I have to solve."

Anna looked out over by Emma, who was heading for the door. "Do you trust Emma?" She asked.

Elsa gave her affirmative just as I said "No". We both looked in surprise at each other, but brushed it off.

"Then, go." Anna said.

Elsa nodded, then looked to me. "Asgeir?"

"Go on, Elsa." I said. "I need a moment."

Both my sisters looked puzzled, but rolled with it. Elsa went off with Emma while I stayed here with Anna.

"What is it, Asgeir?" Her questions directed to me then came out at rapid fire. "Where did you get the armor? It's super scary! What's happening to your hair? Is your heart frozen?"

"Anna!"

She stopped. "Sorry."

"Ingrid did this to me, Anna." I said. "The Spell of Shattered Sight and my frozen heart were not meant to be put into the same person. I could not die or age for the last thirty years, but I have at least been able to resist the ice in my heart for that long. But my time is almost up."

"You're going to die?" She cried.

"It serves that bastard right for ruining our life!" I heard Kristoff yell.

"SILENCE, REINDEER BOY!" I yelled out to the office. "Or I have a dart with your name on it." I tapped my rifle. I shook my head. "I don't know what's coming over me. Sorry, Anna."

"Where did you get the armor?"

"Matthew gave it to me, Anna." I said. "It belonged to my ancestors to reinforce their status as the White Reaper of Arendelle. It might be able to protect me from Ingrid."

"And you mentioned dead Assassins?"

"Yeah." I replied, swallowing my sorrow. "More than half of the fifty-six Assassins that lived in this town are gone. Including Jason."

"No!" She cried. "He was a nice guy!"

"Ingrid killed them all, Anna. Only because they wouldn't turn on me when it was revealed who my ancestor was. Shay Cormac."

"Wait, what?"

I needed to tell her this. Because I wasn't sure I was going to get out of this alive. "Anna, all this time I was led to believe that my surname was Swortssen. But it turns out that I have the blood of the traitor Shay Patrick Cormac running through my veins. All along I have been the blood of the traitor to the Brotherhood my whole life."

Anna didn't know how to react to the news. She was taking it as well as she could.

"There is so much more that I need to tell you." I said. "So much you deserve to know about your treacherous, bastard, half-brother. And I will tell you the rest when I come back from killing the monster that has brought so much misery upon us."

I pulled the scythe from my belt, the carabiner clicking off. I turned for the door, and began to make my way out.

"Shay was your ancestor, Asgeir." Anna said. "You told me he was the worst evil to have ever existed in the world. But then, someone in his line must have redeemed themselves to have let you become an Assassin."

"Yeah." I said. "It was his son, in fact. Asgeir the First."

"Then, no one is beyond redemption, Asgeir." She said. "And no one is beyond deserving mercy. Just don't forget that!"

I stopped, and looked at my sister in the eyes. So innocent. She had no idea of the horrors that I had inflicted on others to fight my way to this moment. She would soon enough, and she would likely hate me for it. And with that, I turned for the door.

The snow was coming down harder than I had ever seen in any lifetime. Shay, Asgeir, or even this alternate version of myself had never seen such a… maelstrom. I shivered as I pulled my hood over my head, and began to walk through the snow.

I couldn't see more than a few feet around me in any direction. This was a suicide mission, likely to end with my neck on an icicle at the hands of that monster. But I had to keep going. I was outgunned, and out of my fucking mind.

From my satchel, I pulled the box. I had filled it with exactly what I needed to put inside it. With every muscle in my body summoning every inch of conviction I had left, I chucked that box out into the pale storm, and continued to walk. It was time to kill the Snow Queen.

Elsewhere…

In all of the five years I had spent in this winter, where no warmth, or life could be felt, I had never seen such a… maelstrom. I shivered as I pulled my hood over my head, and began to walk through the snow. My robes were as black as the very night that surrounded me, as was the soul within my chest.

I couldn't see more than a few feet around me in any direction. This was a suicide mission, likely to end with my neck on an icicle at the hands of that monster. But I had to keep going. I was outgunned, and out of my fucking mind. But I had to do it. I remembered what that girl had been through, and how lonely they had both been throughout their lives.

Kristoff had given me the assistance. Hans was the last man I had killed before this all would be over. Now I had only one life left to take…

Suddenly, I felt my foot kick at a hard object, buried deep within the snow. It was launched forwards a few feet, thanks to the kick I had given it. Curiously, I ran over to what I had hit, wanting to know what it was.

It was a wooden box, not very big, small enough to fit right into my palm. Strange symbols adorned each side of the box, except for one, where a strange dial with even more simple symbols decorated it. Something… familiar lay about this box. Almost as though I knew how to open it. Because I did.

I turned the wheel to line up with the symbols I seemed to know. Upside down triangle, half circle, square, right side up triangle, crescent.

The box suddenly snapped open, breaking clean in half. Two objects spilled out of the box, and I picked them both up: a piece of parchment, and a dagger.

"The bloody…fuck?" I asked as I read the paper.

It only said one thing.

"You know what to do."

I eyed the dagger in my hands. Who sent this to me? What this meant to be used on her? What would happen if I did? I had no idea. But whoever sent me the box clearly did.

I tossed down the paper, and the two pieces of the box, but slid the dagger into my belt. It was time to kill Elsa.