Hiatus still going...

Thanks for being so patient guys! I know it's a pain to leave Everbound right at a very critical moment. Exams are about 45% complete and now I'm on half term (week's holiday). Sorry it's taken so long...exams are going alright though. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

OH MY GOODNESS HOW STUPID AM I? I just realised I've got Aaron and Alexa's ages wrong. I've been saying they're 15 at this point, but they aren't – they're 16 (nearly 17 in fact)...so that was silly. If my adding up was wrong or seemed wrong, there's why.

Glad to see some shocked reactions from the last chapter...although I know SOME of you clever bunch had your suspicions all along. Shocked by the revelation of the last chapter? Well, it's historically true! Go onto (the father)'s Wikipedia page and it says: "During this time in America, he married the daughter of a Mohawk Indian chief. His wife (name unknown) gave birth to twins."

OK, so the rape bit may not be true but...I didn't choose (father's name) for the sake of it. In fact, it was finding that out that made me invent Aaron and Alexa in the first place. This story would have been a LOT shorter without that fact. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing ;) but thank you for the reviews from that chapter; I couldn't stop smiling like a deranged idiot when I read them...

I love you all, I miss you all and here's to make it up to you all...chapter 10.

HAYTHAM

We ate our dinner cold that evening.

Needless to say, it was a deadly silent affair. The quietness was filled with our own thoughts. Nobody in front of me looked at each other. It was only my eyes, surveying the twins' faces. I was still trying to make sense of the horrible truth.

Now that I thought of it, yes...Aaron did have Charles' nose. He had the narrow head, and so did his sister. Alexa's eyes were a different shape to Ziio's. Their hair was black, but not of the glossy kind like Connor. No. I didn't want to liken them to that monster. The very notion made me sick.

I knew Charles was a bastard, but I never, ever suspected him of something so horrendous. He was the reason for Ziio's nightmares; for all the moments when she simply froze. Froze in fear of the past, and the future, and zoned out from her life for a short while. It was Charles who played such disgusting mind games with her. And was proud of it, judging by his final comment: "I have every right to be here."

Yet at the same time, I had him to thank. Good Lord, I retched at that thought...the reason I had a family was because my worst enemy raped the woman I loved. Even worse, he was my closest friend and brother when this happened. I knew nothing of it. In a whirl, I struggled to remember the night of Johnson's party.

Where had Charles been? I had not seen much of him. We'd had a couple of drinks together (with him outlasting me by a long margin), then he'd disappeared. If only I knew. If only I knew what was going through that sick, sadistic mind of his...I could have prevented this. Maybe I would be the twins' true father, and we would have lived a trouble-free life.

Created in the image of the angel and the devil...

How could something so pure come of something so diabolic? Aaron and Alexa were beautiful. There was no other word for it – they were beautiful children, and I was fortunate to have watched them grow for three years. Were they still children, with all the innocence they'd lost? Besides, Aaron was taller even than me, now.

Tall...because Charles is tall.

It was like a fairy story, twisted into something dirty and disturbing. How could they owe half of their beauty to him?

Too many questions; not enough answers. I still had not apologised to Ziio for setting her off. My anger never usually made me irrational; my father had taught me to control my temper. I had only ever been that furious three times: earlier that day, fighting Church on aboard the man-o'-war and that argument with Charles in the tavern.

That argument with Charles in the tavern...

Suddenly his words came crashing into me like fists of fire. "You had a guilty secret all along...you raped that Mohawk woman, didn't you? I knew it! That savage was more than your heart-throb. She was your concubine. Your animal. Your whore, whom you could leave with a half-breed child, that she might raise him in the dirt."

Those statements were not only false and graphic, but hypocritical. How dare he accuse me of raping Ziio, when he had done exactly that twelve years prior! There were so many things I wanted to say to him now...but he was gone. If only I'd known he was the father earlier. Perhaps I would have shot him. There and then. Ended this madness.

After dinner, Ziio announced that she wanted to go on a short walk alone. She needed some time to recuperate and clear her mind. I was uneasy: it was dark by now, and had started to rain outside. But she did not seem unduly worried. Charles was surely long gone by now. And so I let her, hoping she would answer my questions later.

Aaron and Alexa promptly disappeared upstairs without a word. I assumed that they went to converse upstairs about the event. Did they know? If so, how long had they known? And why the hell did they keep it secret from me?

I sat in the drawing room with my hands in my lap, listening to the crackling fire and the splatters of rain against the window. Connor was silent, rigid, in the armchair opposite. me. Neither of us had spoken, not even whilst washing the dishes together. Both of us were enclosed in our own melancholic, pensive bubbles.

"I...I think I should go now," Connor murmured. "You deserve some time alone."

"No, don't be absurd. You don't have to go."

"No. Really, Father..." He pushed himself onto his feet. "I have already outstayed my welcome."

I was about to make a spiteful remark about Charles outstaying his welcome (as if he'd had any at all), but thought better of it. "Are you sure?"

Connor nodded tiredly. "Achilles may be wondering why I am late."

"Very well." I stood up to accompany him into the hallway. Deep down I didn't want Connor to leave: I was already disturbed by my own thoughts. How would it be when I was alone? Connor thought I was like him. He thought I functioned best when isolated. But the silence only ever scared me. "Will you be alright out there in the dark?"

At any other time, he would scowl...but this time the danger was very real. He waddled into the hallway, turned around at the coat rack, and nodded earnestly. "If Mother is, I will be."

I nodded, reaching to help him into his coat – or Assassin hood, in this case. Connor's muscles were incredibly tense, though I could not speak for myself. When he turned around, I saw that there were no weapons in his belt. He must've spotted me staring at it, since he wrapped his robes around himself tightly.

"Why did you carry a gun?" he asked, eyes burning brightly. "Were you expecting this?"

I sighed. "I don't know what I was expecting. Trouble, certainly."

Connor nodded in understanding. Living with Achilles Davenport, he knew cynicism all too well. He shuffled closer to the door slowly. "Thank you for dinner, Father. Pass on my best to Mother."

We hugged, and it was for longer than usual. Even when he returned from a two-month mission, I had not kept my arms wrapped around my son for this long. It was a sense of comfort. It was a silent sign, saying the words we lacked. I would protect our family no matter what Lee threatened us with. But even with my chin resting on his shoulder, with the familiar scent of earth on his robes, something was bothering me.

"Connor, did you know about this before? About..." I jerked my head in the direction of the twins' chambers.

Connor's lips parted, but it was several seconds before I received a response. "I'm sorry. I was sworn to secrecy by Mother."

I'd been expecting a no, but covered this up rather well. I rose from the hug, patted his shoulder and said: "Godspeed, son."

"Thank you. Goodnight, Father."

Ziio came home half an hour after Connor left. Her face was streaked with dry patches – whether she'd been crying or it was rain, I could not say. She stood expressionless by the door, hands wrapped in the wet fabric of her dress. I grunted to acknowledge her, took a sip from my drink, and watched warily as she sat down.

Despite it being dappled with water, Ziio's face did look a little refreshed. Enough to answer my questions? That was a different matter. I'd have to approach this extremely carefully.

"Alright?" I mumbled.

"Better," she replied.

There was a silence in which we looked away from each other. It wasn't that I suddenly thought Ziio unclean; far from it, but something had certainly changed. A breach of trust. Why tell Connor and not me? There were likely matters she wanted to settle with me, too. But I was going nowhere with this before apologising.

"Sorry...for overreacting," I sighed. "I never knew it would have such an effect."

Ziio tried to smile, but looked tired as she did so. "You weren't to know."

Because you never told me.

"Did you expect Charles to come?" she asked warily. "Is that why you carried a gun?"

"I've had the gun with me for a week now," I admitted, aware of how juvenile it sounded. "Although I doubted Charles would visit me personally. I only wanted to be ready in case he pulled any more heists. We've already lost three of our finest. God knows what will happen next."

Ziio acknowledged this silently, shuffling to be closer to the fire and to me. "I never noticed you carrying it."

"Nor did you notice the letters on my desk."

"What did they say?"

"Oh, the usual." By now I was keen to have my questions answered. I placed my drink on the floor, sat up and placed my arm around her. "Ziio?"

"Hm?"

I waited until her head had fallen lazily onto my shoulder blade. "Connor...Connor said he knew already. About Charles."

"He did."

"Well...for a start, who else knows? Did Aaron and Alexa?"

I felt a short sigh shoot from her nostrils; the cold air seeped through my shirt. "Of course they did. As did Eva and George...Soyala knew...Jack knew...everyone knew."

I was astounded. "Everyone except for me."

"Sorry."

I was not angry with her – I couldn't be, for something so traumatic. But it did not seem to fit. How had this stayed secret from me for so long? Was it something rarely talked about? How had the likes of Toby Collins; or Rose – who worked for me when this happened – kept such a secret?

"What of Rose? Surely she would have told me otherwise –"

"I did tell her, but only after she moved to Virginia. I could not risk revealing that I was alive."

Ziio didn't seem reluctant to discuss this. Perhaps that was what the walk was for: to brace herself for the questions. I didn't want to harm her, but I had to know the truth if I was to keep our family in one piece. I couldn't let anything like this happen again. Next to me lay this beautiful woman – and not just any woman, mine. More than worth protecting. I stroked the root of her hair; finding that is was soaked, I massaged the water droplets out gently. She closed her eyes in satisfaction.

"Why withhold the truth?" I marvelled. "I wish you'd told me."

"I wanted to, Haytham. I was waiting for a right time."

"That...that is not like you at all."

"I was..." Ziio stopped to gather her thoughts, but had no reason to give. Her head sank further into my chest. "No, you're right. It was not like me."

"Why, then?"

"Why did I not tell you? Because...because I had a plan for our family. I hoped that – when you met Ohitekah and Imala – you would see them as your children eventually. I had a vision of the five of us...you, me, Ratohnhaké:ton and them. If you knew that they were descended from Lee, I feared that you would reject them."

And it suddenly dawned on me: would I have rejected them, if I knew by whom they were conceived? Probably. But I was a different person then – I was still becoming used to this concept of a complete family. Aaron and Alexa were my children; nothing could annul that now. Oftentimes I'd have visions of Ziio's assault, but the culprit was always a faceless white man. Now I could complete the picture with a face, nothing had changed. I was more disturbed by the thought, but it altered nothing.

How could I gather the words to explain that?

It was at that moment when Aaron decided to knock on the door. Ziio slid off my chest and sat up. "Come in."

He entered...tentatively. It was as if he was tiptoeing around the truth; around me. He flinched as the door closed, and I noticed that he was already dressed in his nightshirt. I half-smiled, but it was not returned.

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Ohitekah," said Ziio, reaching out to embrace him. "Sleep well."

He barely moved when she touched him; his freckled face was fixated on the floor. I attempted not to study Aaron's face; to compare him to Charles. He resembled Ziio far too much, anyway.

Then it was my turn. Aaron hesitated, his tall shadow falling over me dolefully. He thought I no longer loved him, or at least, he thought I saw him differently now. There was only one way to prove him wrong. I stood up and took my son into my arms. Aaron did not tense at all, even when I cupped my palm over his head. He was my son...and that needed no analogy or questioning at all.

"I'm sorry." His voice was deeper even than mine.

"What for?"

"For lying to you."

"Aaron, you never lied." My sentimentality rarely showed; before it could be whisked away from me, I decided to make use of it. "Is your sister outside?"

Aaron nodded, still transfixed.

"Alexa? Come in. I want a word with you both."

She, too, wore her night garments on entry. She did not look quite as catatonic as her brother, but her first instinct was to glance at Ziio worriedly. I beckoned her over to where we stood and – before she could refuse – she was caught in the hug, too. Alexa was taller than her mother, but it was a wonder how she and Aaron had ever been the same height. It mattered little to me. To feel the fabric of both their nightshirts next to me was fulfilling.

"I thought...I thought you would no longer accept us. We thought it best to keep Mother's promise. Although..." She laughed, and it lifted the shadow over my heart. "It was difficult at times, with a brother like Aaron."

Aaron nudged her...but much more gingerly than usual. I chuckled along with them to prepare myself for these difficult words. "Then you weren't fully aware of the kind of father I aimed to be. Listen to me, both of you: I'd accept you if you were conceived by Satan himself. You're still my son...my daughter...and not even death can reverse that. Do you understand?"

They nodded, glanced at each other, glanced at a smiling Ziio, then hugged me again. I was almost certain one of them was crying; the water drops on my shirt were an indicator.

"Don't you dare tell Connor I went all sentimental on you. He'd never let me forget."

All four of us laughed; this showed me that we might just have put the evening behind us. To new beginnings, and all.

Charles' visit made me both forget and realise it: the Brotherhood was in shambles.

There was no clear leader now, nor an established base after Eva's move to Boston. There was a debate over whether she should take the role, or Connor should replace Jack as our leader. I loved my son; really I did, but I knew he was only twenty-five. That was far too young to govern such a large organisation. He had experience, yes, but it could not match forty-one-year-old Eva's time as an Assassin.

Another thing I had forgotten was that Achilles was dying. Taking care of him was Connor's top priority...and he was struggling. As a Brotherhood we tried our best to help him, and – simultaneously – to rebuild the lost huts.

Three days after the Charles Lee incident, I stood at the Davenport Homestead shifting timber with François. We had just received a delivery of supplies from Connor's contacts (paid for by Mister White and Jasmine). The freedmen had made a start with the building process; some were unloading and transporting the carts of timber. While Rose and Ziio went to visit Connor and Achilles, we made a start by helping.

"Impossible," François breathed, when I told him of Charles' entry. "How did he gain access to your door?"

"I don't know," I replied, heaving a pile of logs over my shoulder. "And it troubles me that I don't know. I assumed that one of the children let him in...they weren't to know who he was, after all."

François hauled the other end of the log pile; we began walking down the hill. "What was zeir story?"

"He let himself in with a spare key. But I do not keep it in the same place now. I removed it altogether, just in case. Aaron and Alexa weren't aware of that, I don't think."

"Hm...perhaps one of them is lying. Zey may have felt guilty for letting him in, and so covered it up with a story."

"It is possible." I was too occupied with the cargo in hand to consider this, but once we laid it down at the bottom of the hill, I savoured the possibility. "Actually, no. Long after Charles left, we had an honest discussion. Surely they'd have opened up to me then?"

François scratched the stubble on his chin thoughtfully. "Maybe, only a possibility, zere is more to the visit than you think."

"What do you mean?"

It was not me who spoke, but Ziio. She had appeared from the front porch; her borrowed blouse sleeves were rolled up and ready to help. It struck me (it always did at random moments) that even in my clothing, she was so goddamn beautiful.

"N-nothing," I mumbled. "We were just discussing –"

"Charles? I heard." She stepped down from the porch, and stood between myself and François. Her eyes wide, she beckoned for us both to lean in: "Rose and I just went upstairs to see Achilles. He does not look well. Not well at all."

François sighed. "It is a shame. Such a wise man..."

"How long?" I murmured, a little insensitively.

"It is difficult to say. Ratohnhaké:ton says the doctor came yesterday. Achilles' life is a matter of weeks. It could be one, it could be six."

"Did he have a diagnosis?" I asked, and when Ziio shook her head: "I see. Age, most probably."

I couldn't help but feel guilt seeping in the back of my mind. If I had not shot his knee all those years ago, he would have a few years left in him. Enough to put the Brotherhood back together; enough to spare Connor of another loss in this difficult time. Achilles had been like a father to him...and the bitter irony was, I had shortened his lifespan.

"How is Connor doing, Ziio?" François cleared his throat to ease the tension. "He certainly looks in good shape, all things considered."

"He's a warrior," she chuckled softly. "But he is struggling. He'll be alright...he just needs a little assistance. Ratohnhaké:ton manages a lot for a boy his age."

"He isn't a boy, Ziio," I said half-jokingly. "He's a man...quite a man, too. You can barely call Aaron a boy now."

"Where are the ze other Kenways?" asked François, reaching to help Ziio with another load.

"At home," I replied. "Their tutor had to alter the time he arrived today. I trust they'll be fine on their own."

The fact that I had to say 'I trust' nothing would happen was a tragedy in itself. As far as Rose and François were concerned, they could leave their children alone at home without questions. But on so many occasions were Aaron and Alexa dragged into our work – from their own doorstep – and it more than disconcerted me. It distressed me. Clearly it had its effect on François as well; he looked away awkwardly and carried on down the hill.

"Isn't it concerning to you? How much information is thrown at zem both?"

"It is," I sighed. "I have tried to lock it out. Although...it would seem that not even a key can do that, now."

"The spare key?" Ziio piped up. "Yes. That was not something you fully explained, Haytham."

"There's hardly anything to be explained," I grunted. "There was a spare key by the porch; I moved it elsewhere in case Charles paid us a visit. He knew its initial hiding place, you see."

"Do you think he'd have made copies of it?"

"No," Ziio answered quickly. "We would have seen someone steal the original key. It is a possibility, but...if he had the key all this time, would he not have broken in already? Stolen the Precursor box and amulet?"

"Always the alternative perspective," I purred. That at least got me a flirtatious grin back from Ziio.

"It must have been some inside source..." François frowned into the distance. At first I thought he was studiously ignoring mine and Ziio's public affection, but the look in his eyes was deep. "This is not the first case of strange things occurring in the Kenway household. We're no closer to finding out who is causing this."

I thought he was being facetious. "Oh, I know. The Templars, perhaps?"

Ziio rolled her eyes, laying down the timber carefully. "Ignore Haytham's sarcasm. What do you mean? What other examples are there?"

"Well –"

"Hold on...François?"

He stopped in his tracks at my voice. "Yes?"

"You served in the Continental Army."

He frowned at the somewhat obvious statement. "Oui. And?"

"Why did you leave? Was it because of Charles' command?"

"There were many factors in my choice to resign," François said after a brief pause. "One was that – when I joined – the only reason was my longing for adventure. I wanted to help the country I called home...although I was young; I did not understand the politics. Ask Rose."

"Ah," I hummed. "Because when you left...when was that, two years ago?"

"Three years," he corrected. "Seventeen seventy-eight."

"Why do you ask this?" Ziio scowled at me.

"Because, Ziio, that was around the time when the Continentals began attacking your village."

"I know. What are you implying?"

"That François detected this sort of anarchy long before we did. Else he would never have left the army."

"Not strictly true. Here, Ziio...lay it down here." François dusted small wood chips from his palms and turned to face me. "I feared zat Charles would turn on the natives eventually. I never knew when, and I was hesitant to warn Achilles in case he unnecessarily prepared ze villagers for war."

I sighed. "You certainly have an eye for such things, François. I should think all our Assassins are envious."

He smiled gratefully, but his pleasure was quickly quashed by reality. "Well, we no longer have Soyala to do it for us."

For the first half of our journey, Ziio and I rode home in silence. Side by side our necks caught the amber glaze of the sunset. The light fragmented our faces; it made us seem shattered.

We were.

That would probably explain why Ziio felt so closed. Her grip on the reins was unusually tight, and her lips were pursed uncomfortably. That either indicated she was stressed, or deep in thought. After gazing for an unnaturally long time, I looked away at the path ahead.

"Are you alright?" Ziio asked, clearly sensing my eyes on her.

"Yes, fine actually." My tone was convincing enough – or so I presumed, until I felt her glare searing the side of my head. "Well, fine as you could possibly expect in the circumstances. Why?"

She re-gripped the reins and sighed. "Don't you think that all of this is wrong? Incident after incident, chaos after chaos?"

I was taken aback somewhat. As usual, there were several ways in which I could interpret Ziio's question. "Do you mean to say...that it makes no sense? Or that we allowed such things to occur? I don't understand."

"No, I don't mean us or the Templars. I mean, if fate is punishing us for something, why all at once?"

This was the sort of question I usually tried to avoid with Ziio. She seemed to be obsessed with fate; how beautiful it was. I thought it only as illusion. Life was not a list of predetermined phenomenons. It was a ceaseless strand of glassy beads, one for every outcome of our choices. But the strand was fickle; it could be restrung by decisions we made or cut by the blades of others. Nothing was ever bound in our short, stationary lives.

I wasn't prepared to rattle all that off to her. "I don't know," I mumbled instead. "What makes you think we're being punished?"

"That has always been how I feel. I go riding through life, always waiting for something to happen. But after some time – maybe two or three years – I feel comfortable in the saddle. Then life senses how safe I am, then throws something at me...hard. Hard enough to knock me from my horse."

"Ziio –"

The reins became slack in her fingertips; her actual horse halted to eat some grass. Ziio made no attempt to stop her. "Of course, there are people who lift me onto the saddle once again. You. Our children. Soyala...but no more."

I halted my mare next to hers. It was a bitter irony, that Ziio's most beautiful analogies were also her most tragic. Soyala had only been dead for two and a half weeks, and Ziio had wept far more than was natural for her. Now, instead of tears, her pain came tumbling as a bleakness some could mistake for passion.

"I miss her," she despaired, staring off into the distance. "I never knew how much I depended on her."

The orbs of sunset floated on Ziio's eyes, but didn't quite meet them. I hated to see her deteriorate like this...but there was very little I could do. I did, however, reach across for her hand. She accepted it slowly; I squeezed what I thought was comfort into her confusion.

"I miss her, too," I admitted. "On your behalf. I miss her, too. And what you've seen in the past month has been nothing short of unfair." When she looked into my eyes – a little more focused – I felt aa bubble of pride and adoration. "But listen to me, Ziio: no-one is punishing you. You've done no wrong. If fate is the way you choose to see it, remember that you have never been unjust."

My right leg pained from leaning in the stirrup, but we weren't leaving until this was resolved. "You still have me. Our children still have us. I know none of them have ever known much stability, but we will see an end to this. All the injustice, the Templars...they will leave us alone. I will ensure that they leave us alone."

Ziio laughed at this; although the sound was hollow, it relieved me to see a smile on her sun-kissed face. "Konoronhkwa."

I was no expert at Mohawk, but I knew that this meant 'I love you' (or words to that effect). She was too far away for me to kiss her cheek, so instead I squeezed her hand and let go. "Come on, we'd better get home."

Only five minutes later, we mounted the hill on which our homestead stood. It faced west, so the setting sun was gleaming on the window panes as we approached. The stable door was still unlocked. I frowned: Robert was meant to lock that after he'd cleaned the stable. It was unlike him to forget, unless Aaron had helped him with the task. Tutoring only lasted two hours a day; Aaron and Alexa would fill the rest of their time with helpful tasks out of habit.

I put away the horses while Ziio ascended to unlock the door. When I came out from the stable, however, she was stood on the grassy slope a good hundred yards from the house. Her lips were slightly parted; her face pulled into a frown.

"The front door is open," she murmured as I approached. "Why is the front door open?"

She was right: our hallway was visible even from here. It shouldn't have, but the sight gave me a chill of discomfort. Ever since the incident with Charles, I firmly instilled on my children the importance of keeping the house closed. It took Alexa no instilling at all, but Aaron...

"Perhaps our son is behind the house. Aaron George Kenway!" I rose my voice into a shout across the clearing. "If you're out here, I've a bone to pick with you. How many times did I tell you to –"

The sunlight glinted on the grass unnaturally. I stopped; that something was reflecting it into my eyes. I squinted to see that it was in fact glass.

Glass?

As I approached the house, it became more clear. Icy shards littered the ground within five metres of the wall. I looked up, and had my answer.

"Look," I pointed out to Ziio behind me. "The window."

As I suspected, it was the attic window which now lay in pieces on the grass. That was Aaron and Alexa's bedroom. I felt aggravation build inside me: there had better be a good explanation for this. Door open? Window smashed?

"Unbelievable," I tutted, but to myself: Ziio had already disappeared to inspect the damage inside. I barely looked up from the shards of glass, until I heard her push the door open. And she gasped.

"What? What is it?" I asked, rushing to join her.

"Robert!" she exclaimed. "Robert...are you alright?"

Anticipation swelling in my gut, I burst through the front door to find Ziio knelt on the hallway floor. A pair of men's shoes protruded from behind her, their owner spread-eagled on the rug. Robert lay moaning in pain on the floor; Ziio murmured calm words of comfort to him. She flicked her head at me to ask for help. Not worrying to close the door, I knelt to where my butler lay and inspected the damage.

I grimaced.

Blood – dry as crust – gathered in an enormous stain on his suit. It appeared to have oozed from his nose: a flattened, unsightly mess. There was also a deep purple hollow around one of his eye sockets. Ziio and I exchanged a worried glance, then gripped Robert under the biceps to pull him upright. He continued to groan, but this time his voice was brittle and slightly more nasal.

The stable. The front door. The broken window. Now this?

"All right, Robert, all right," Ziio murmured, controlled. "Now, what happened?"

I wasn't sure what I expected my butler to say, but I understood nothing as he blubbered: "I...I...I cam't breave."

"Broken nose," I whispered to Ziio. Her cheekbones twitched in confusion, but she continued to support Robert in sitting up.

"Haytham, you take care of this. I will find a cloth and some alcohol."

Of course, I thought inwardly, like the time you soaked my wound in 1755.

I was surprised at how clam Ziio seemed about this, like she was hardly concerned about how this happened. Of course we had to see to Robert's wounds first (though what he really needed was a doctor). The other question, however, was: where were Aaron and Alexa? Had they gone to fetch a doctor? Surely they would have left us a note to explain themselves. Or perhaps they had. Perhaps they left in a hurry.

In any case, how did Robert's injury link in with the window and the doors? What happened to him?

Traces of blood had seeped into the floorboards, but that mattered little. Robert tried to open his deeply-bruised eye...and I saw that the ring around it resembled a fist. Then again, fists were not the only ring-shaped objects in this world.

"God, look at the state of you," I marvelled. "What happened here?"

"I...I..."

"Take your time," I hastened to add on seeing him struggle.

"Doe...doe time. Fin' der twins."

"Pardon?"

"Dere's doe time...fetch de doctor later."

"There's no time; fetch the doctor later," I translated aloud. "What do you mean? Why is there no time?"

"I-I-I tried to stop dem, Hayfam. Too...many...I tried...ow!" Robert twitched his nose, and fresh blood dripped from his nostrils.

"Stop whom?" A stroke of anxiety rushed over me.

"Here. This should help with the bleeding." Ziio rushed back into the hallway, bottle of liquor in one hand and a cloth in the other. Robert gasped – tried to protest – as she pressed the damp cloth against his face. Our butler took the cloth into his own hands, pulling it away from his nose. "Doe...dis can wait. Find de twins."

English being her second language, it took Ziio a split second longer before her face coloured with worry. "Where are they?"

"Dey...dey ran from de soldiers."

In unison: "Soldiers?"

"De...de Templars. Dey came a'd held us a'd questioned us...but...Alexa a'd Aaron got away. Went upstairs."

My heart plummeted into panic. I stared at Ziio in horror. A sickening stupor – reflected in her eyes – as we were forced to imagine the unimaginable. No. Jesus, no. How could we have let this happen?

"Oh my God..."

"No..." Ziio's spluttering grew to shouts: "No, no, no, no...when did this happen?"

In his delirious state, Robert answered a different question: "De twins went upstairs...might be...captured..."

Captured. As leverage. My own children.
I should've known Charles would try this. Play on my weaknesses.
Haytham, why didn't you see this? My God, how could you leave them home alone?

Ziio stood bolt upright. "The window. Smashed from the inside...they must have escaped. Right, Haytham? They must have."

"Wait!" I put a hand to her calf to stop her restlessness. "What did these men want, Robert? Try to remember. Please."

He breathed too heavily, spluttered, then said: "I-I-I can't say. Hour...doe, less."

"They could have escaped," I breathed. "If the window was smashed from the inside out then they must have jumped. But where would they go? Where would they go? Where would they go?" My voice rose with my body, as I worked myself into a state of panic. "Think. Where would they run to?"

"The woods," Robert gasped. "Heard Aaron say it...thought I did..."

I could barely think, pacing frantically alongside Ziio. But she stopped. She turned to me; her terror-stricken lips murmured: "We have to search the woods. They may have escaped the guards and hidden."

"And if they did not?"

It made both of us take a deep, but shaky breath. But it had to be considered. "I don't know. We will decide what to do next if it comes to that."

"Wait – who will stay with Robert?"

"Go," he said weakly. "Both of you. Go."

Without a moment's hesitation, without even thinking about Robert's broken nose, without closing the door behind us, we burst through the door. Feet swishing the blades of grass; wind making my skin feel flayed. I had never run this fast. My children could be...no. I didn't want to consider it. The thought clawed at my very soul.

But I knew. What were the chances of two sixteen-year-olds outrunning trained soldiers? Robert never said how many there were. There could have been two; there could have been twenty.

Oh my God, Aaron...Alexa...

Ziio tore slightly ahead, mighty biceps thrashing through the air. The determination; the sweat on her brow was like that of a predator. A warrior...but I could sense a deep terror; a mother's torture. She knew no better than I did how this would end...but she knew where to go. She knew which route the twins would take. She burst down the dusky hills on a seemingly random course.

I trusted her.

What I didn't trust; didn't want to trust, was my own logic. How long could they have run before they were captured? Would the Templars have the heart to kill them? No. No...Charles would gain nothing from that. Even a man that wicked would not kill his offspring. They could be too useful to him.

Useful. A shudder ripped through me even while I was running.

Blood in my mouth, tears in my eyes, heart slamming against my ribs. They could have been kidnapped by now...

Or would the Templars leave a ransom note? If they had not, perhaps they hadn't succeeded?

Ransom. But for what? Land? The amulet? The box? Or maybe this was another threat. A repeat of Soyala, Jack and Prudence's deaths. A repeat of the huts before that. The impact of the Templars was growing and growing; becoming more and more suffocating I believed Ziio now. She was right all along. This was no coincidence.

This was war.