Venezia 1486 CE

La Repubblica Serenissima di Venezia glowed in the night. The many thousands of bright paper lanterns and fireworks discharged into the air lit up the dark skies, obscuring the starts. The streets were bright as day and just as busy with colour and laughter. People danced and drank, sang and caroused. The city breathed like a fiery dragon, calling all to witness the glory of Venezia in the spring – the rich Queen of the Adriatic whose merchants sailed far and wide to feed her, whose women were known for their beauty throughout all of Europe. The lush, the decandent, the wealthy – those were the images that the Venetian Carnivale painted and celebrated. In the spring of hope, Venezia lived and let all know that fact – from God to common man. La Repubblica threw off its thrifty image and glowed as a matron with many children does, doting on them or punishing them as needed.

The sea could be brutal, disciplining the merchant ships and the city’s shores like a strict father but it also brought sweetness of life with every fish and cargo. Like the Greeks of old the Venetians dared the sea’s wrath all the same, somber, hard working. The money and jewels they brought to the city were all for her glory and their reward for hard labour. Venezia was not an easy city to live in. And during the Carnivale, when the sea and the winds turned about becoming warmer, the people could rest from the cold winter and bring out the colours that the city was famous for.

La Repubblica Serenissima witted not, amid her revels, that winter had not left just yet.


In a dimly lit tavern room, far back from the streets full of parties and laughter, a youth stared at a flickering lamp with a face made of stone. He did not hear the happy music, he did not pay attention to the raucous cheers coming from below him, from the common room where the Carnivale threatened to break out in brawls of happy men who for a whole week now had done nothing but celebrate their gains by eating and drinking them away. He did not join the blissful Venetians in their dances. He did not don one of the hundreds of masks that he’d seen for sale by the guild that made them, feathered, painted and set with jewels. Not for lack of funds, o no, for he too was noble and could easily afford such finery. But he had no interest in it. Had not for some months now. Revelry was for humanity. He was a hunter.

His gaze found the window opposite the bed he sat on. His black eyes were dead, empty of all feeling. Except in the deeps: where there lurked a spark. A spark of hate, a deadly purpose at variance with the Venetian love of the absurd. This man had not laughed or smiled in months. He had shed no tears – except the red ones of blood from those he’d killed on his way here. He was in deadly earnest. For he was an Assassin. Bred of Assassins.


The gondola slid along the canal approaching one of the squares that looked over the waters going throughout the city. Five men filled its gilded length that was hung with lanterns along the sides and on the prow. Three guards. Two nobles. One of the guards rowed the gondola past decorated houses, with banners and flowers hung from balconies and roofs. People cheered from the windows, wishing each other well, inviting one another inside to share the bounties of the sea and land, what little there was of it.

The gondola sped past it all under the crackling fire works but recently discovered thanks to the finding of a black substance known as gunpowder that could blow cities to smithereens. Not one man was afraid that the sparks would fall on them and turn them to screaming torches. All public displays were regulated strictly. One of the nobles in the boat, a big long faced man in black with a chain of office around his neck and a white mask on his face, curved his lips barely in a sneer. Bureaucracy. They wanted to predict everything and anything. They had no idea, did the Council of Ten, that such a mathematical calculation meant nothing. Chance ruled as it would. Perhaps it’d do so tonight. He knew that bastard Assassin was here. He could almost smell his presence. And he had baited his trap.

The man beside him, corpulent, complacent, looking about with a wide smile on his full cheeked face, had no idea what he was here for. He’d been one of the men who’d attacked the Auditore fool that night. He’d probably delivered the killing blow too. He did not know. Was not interested. He watched the dancing women instead, smiling at them as they blew kisses noting his Borgia crest across his chest and glove. Yes, the bull – the red bull. So symbolic. A sacrificial bull – this city teemed with pagan symbols – what was this Carnivale if not one of them? His trap was set and baited. Now he awaited the wolf. This time, Ezio Auditore would die and follow his meddling father to hell.


The leather brace slipped on to his arm easily. He’d worn it for so long and so often the leather was soft but not spoiled. He had looked after every single of his weapons well. For they made sure he stayed alive to complete what he had started. He buckled the gun in place under the blade, making sure that that the few bullets sat there securely and the trigger would not go off on its own.
He would wear no mask he decided as he stamped the boots into place and pulled his cape over the left shoulder securing it to the shoulder harness carrying his short blade. He had nothing to hide. No one to deceive. They both knew the other would be here today. He felt eager – like a hound about to catch its prey. Like an eagle who has sighted some snake on the ground to feed its hunger. Ah, and what a hunger he had. And not a physical one either. Food had lost all taste for him long since. This was a hunger of the soul: to feed, to rend, to kill. And tonight, he would let it all go. He would become what he was born to be. The Eagle sought the biggest prey yet tonight.


He barely made any sound on the roofs as he flew over the city as Altair must once have done. The dry shale under his boots cracked but the sound was lost amid all the fireworks and noise of the streets below. He did not stop to admire the views as he might have done long ago when life was happier. He did not spy on beautiful women he glimpsed in the open windows, some with lovers, some alone and sad of it. Such pleasures had not entered his life for months. The life he’d led before this was that of a stranger. This moment, what he was now – that was Ezio Auditore di Firenze. The careless boy of long ago was naught but a shade, wailing away, dead.

No one looked up to see him leap from building to building, climb up walls and slither along the railings if necessary. All were busy celebrating life. He was antithetical. He was death reborn. Death visited on the men who’d murdered his father, who had tried to kill him many times but failed. He was the Eagle reborn and had no equal.

He dropped down to the water edge, one of the canals of a system going throughout the city. No one in the crowd paid him any mind. They were drunk, most of them, for the wine flowed freely this night and befuddled men’s minds. Some had already gone under – his eyes noted several daredevils swimming in the canal unmindful of the passing gondolas and the dangers of a knock on the head. Those on the pier only laughed, calling out encouragement.

As he passed through crowd, no mask, no flashy costume to mark him out, the people melted out of his way. They felt the despair, the sorrow, and the resolve in his step and instinctively, without knowing why, stepped aside, leaped aside to let him pass. They forgot him soon after when his miasma had left their vicinity and resumed their loves and drinks and laughter. Such was the dissipation in this city on the sea, hiding him perfectly. He watched gondolas pass by, seeking his man but knew he would not find him here. That one would be dancing somewhere in one of the squares but first… for the bait that he’d brought with him, Ezio had  his own to offer back.

He turned aside into a dingy alleyway, with only the paper coloured lanterns to show that he was there. His white doublet turned first pink, then red, then purple as he passed by the swinging lamps and to a wooden door at which he knocked three times fast and then a dull thud of the fist as the signal. The door was opened, illuminating the lower half of his hooded face briefly as he entered.

Two visions of loveliness stood before him. Two lovely ladies. Who eyed him boldly, aware instinctively of his charm and maleness. One wore a red dress, the other a green. The red haired one approached him, sliding her hands along his shoulders, smiling enticingly at him. He took her hand and dropped a purse of coins there, in silence. At another time, in another place, he might have bantered, kissed her even, charmed her. But that was all dust. He’d not felt that way in months. Nor did he want to. Love was dead. Sex was only a tool. One he had used ruthlessly, seducing if necessary but not feeling at all. And that honed tool was not necessary tonight. He had helped them in other ways in his weeks here. He had let them know that despite their attempts he would not submit to the arts of love as practiced in Venezia. He had stopped being a man long ago. He was a hunter now.
She giggled as she stepped back, in no way offended at his rebuff, to her red-dressed friend, more shy than the other. They curtsied to him, looking none displeased with his reaction to their offers. Each wore a coquettish smile about her lips. They were practical women, educated well in many things besides sex. That was their value to him now though: that allure of feminine beauty that not many a man could deny a desire for. His grandmother had taught him well indeed. He had learned the uses of love and sex at her knee. She’d seen no reason for him not to know how to beguile a woman at need. For a woman oftentimes was a way to any man he hunted.


The square was crowded with finely dressed dancers. All were masked – identities unknown and unknowable. The silks, the brocade, the satin and the muslin – all moved with a sinuous grace, hiding, revealing things little by little or not at all. Over them hang more colour, the paper lanterns and the fireworks exploding in the night gave enough light to see any danger by. The black clad man surveyed the scene confidently. The Assassin would not dare to kill now. He wore no mask. He’d stand out. Only chance would kill him now. Some strange twist of that boy’s devious mind. How many times had he tried to kill him? How many times had he come close to sending his soul screaming to that same hell his father was in? How did the boy keep getting away, living and going on?

He dismissed such worries, watching his bait – the Borgia bull – look about him, appreciating the ladies. Fool. All he ever could think with… speaking of which, here were two approaching them, a brunette and a red head. No masks. His stare was flat. He was here. His work this. He exchanged a look with the captain of his guard, who nodded his understanding, as the brunette slid her hand along his cheek and shoulder. A courtesan he could tell – her move was very practiced. Full of a grace that was spontaneous yet beguiling and professional. Such moved him not. He flicked her hand away as if swatting a fly. Her look of shock and the pout of the pretty lips was not genuine but artful.

The bull he noted fell for it. His senile grin confirmed his companion’s contempt. Just as he knew – just as the Assassin had known – he would. The red head tugged him into the crowd. The Borgia was smiling, appreciating her beauties as the Assassin no doubt had too. Ah but the courtesans knew their trade well. And were well paid for it too. O yes, these two’s jewellery boxes no doubt jingled with money tonight. He had no doubt of that: the Assassin was thorough. But tonight he died if he took the bait. He was bound to make a mistake today: the man’s drive to kill him would make him reckless. He was a boy after all – but one not to be underestimated.

The watch began as the big man folded his arms and waited for the last dance to begin.


Ezio watched from the shadows as his plan worked. All too easily. Transparency was tonight’s password: the city too bright for sneaking about, the task too grim to be private. All would be seen and marked. Except his face.

He started moving through the dancing crowd towards the bait he knew he would take. The Borgia was here. Which meant the other one too. He’d seen them both. Marked them. Had seen the guards too. He sniffed. Only three – not much against him. No doubt the man hoped the crowd would cover him or that his guard’s pikes would impale the Assassin. How little he knew his enemy. Ezio shook his head, eyes focusing in on the Borgia. The sacrificial bull. Poignant that.

He danced his way to the centre, where the green clad courtesan spun away from the Borgia as the fireworks exploded in the night, giving light to this one spot in the city where powers converged. The Borgia bait spun in a circle, eyes distant as he looked up at the sky lit with colour – the last thing he’d ever see. Ezio carefully moved through the dancing crowd as the courtesan danced past him with a laugh and a wink and was gone, back into the crowd to join her friend. Gone from his life for good. The Borgia looked stunned as his eyes found his beautiful partner no longer. He turned about once, twice. And stared.

He saw nothing. Only a flash of a knife with a carved face behind it. He felt flaccid, weak as he was twisted once more to face his companion, suddenly understanding his role in this drama. His hand, the one with the crested glove, went to his throat as his heartbeats measured his shrinking world. He gasped for breath, felt the last twitch of his windpipe as he choked on blood. He dimly felt the Assassin holding him up – as if to give the priest one last look at the bull he’d condemned. He met the man’s eyes, that cold gaze, the folded arms of nonchalance. He gasped through a windpipe that had been torn – his last breath as his legs folded and his body slid from the Assassin’s grasp in bitter understanding of his role tonight.


The crowd had jumped aside, merriment gone, as they saw the blooming blood, faces shocked. Some screamed, others simply stood transfixed by the spectacle. They scattered out of the way of each other and away from the sudden death in their midst, disbelief in many a masked face under a bejewelled hat. This could not be real. Not in the Serrenissima. But it was, the blood said as much, putting lie to their hopes.


Ezio let the body drop, eyes on the other man whose calm acceptance of his companion’s death only confirmed his suspicions. Bait. A trap. He’d sprung it. As their eyes met, everything seemed to freeze, reduced to only the two of them. All the running screaming humanity ceased to exist as they locked, gaze to gaze – a narrowing of the world to just the two of them, the man in black, a Templar, and his hunter, a young Assassin. Neither surprised to see the other here, at the centre of the Carnivale. Both ready for what was to come. But only one could change the outcome. Only one could walk away from this meeting. The other would have to die. Ezio’s stony face left no doubt as to who would do the dying.
The hidden blade snicked back into its cradle as the moment of shock spread. Everything was slowed: the crowd, the exploding fireworks, the shocked flutter of the costumes. There was a momentary silence in which the only sounds were the firecrackers. Where every heartbeat was audible. Where every life hung in a balance as death stalked the merry city darkening the fires and the laughter with its presence. Death was young. Death was skilled. Death was fast.


“That’s him! Rip him apart!”

As the three guards made for him, one pike and a knife at the ready, Ezio was already moving. He leapt swiftly onto the base of a pole holding up the ropes with lanterns and then again onto the first man whose surprise at the Assassin’s speed proved costly to him. Ezio slammed into him, pushing the man to the ground, chance to act gone. His fist connected viciously and quickly with the man’s face, breaking his nose. The man wailed, hands on his face to stem the flood of blood and pain.

As panic spread and people ran from the scene of sudden violence amid the revel, Ezio watched the other guard’s knife go up as he prepared to stab the Assassin from behind. Ezio caught his wrists, strained against the other man trying to push his way with the long dagger, more like a short blade, down to the Assassin’s face. In the guard’s eyes the young Assassin saw the dawning of fear and chagrin at being unable to release his hold on the blade. The man was bigger than Ezio, older and more experienced. Yet here he found himself locked in a battle of wills as their eyes met and held in a battle all their own. He kept on trying to break the youth’s lock on his wrists. Damn! It was not going to work after all. Ezio saw the defeat enter the man’s gaze and finished it quickly. He moved with the man’s momentum. A dry gasp sounded as the man’s eyes opened wide in death.  The guard had been made to stab himself. At another time, in another place, the young man would have found it ironic… and somewhat funny.

That left only the one man left, with the pike. Ezio turned calmly to face him as the man lunged in a thrust. By now the square was empty and his quarry had vanished too. But not to worry. There were few places a man of that stature and reputation could go to hide. First for this: he dodged the thrust that was to have skewered him, then jabbed fast with a gloved fist at the man’s face. As the man reeled, Ezio snatched the pike from him, kicked him at the same time, then quickly reversed the pike and stabbed true. All this in a time so little, the man had no chance to recover. He froze, at first not recognising why he suddenly found it hard to breathe. He tried again but felt something move within him that should not have been there. Something scraped along his rib, sinking deeper, tearing more muscle tissue. Then his eyes found…

Ezio watched the light of life snuffed from the man’s eyes, then jerked the weapon out of the body, letting it fall free. He faced the one’d he’d punched first. The man was disoriented, shaking his head but in no shape to fight trying to get up from the ground, groggy. Ezio gave him a hard look to ensure he’d stay down for his life’s sake. He had no wish to kill unnecessarily. He had simply wanted to take the guards out, preferably alive but dead if they proved too aggressive.

He glanced around the square but knew that his prey was no longer here. The gondola he’d seen the two arrive in was still moored at the canal’s side. Good. The man had left on foot. His heavy black robes would not allow him to run far. Even better.

Ezio was on the roofs in a flash, following the screams in the streets. Chances were the man was hiding in the crowd, trying to shake him off. How badly he knew his pursuer, Ezio thought as he took a running leap across from one slanted roof to another and kept parallel to the street as he dodged past smoking chimneys and wind wanes.

He never slowed, even when he caught a glimpse of his victim branching off into a darker street. He had long since figured out where the man was running to. The great Palazzo Ducale. Where the greatest festivity was on this night. Where there would be a lot of guards to protect him. He must not be allowed to reach the Palazzo, or he’d lose himself in the crowd there.

Ezio ran past fireworks set up on the roofs, past gaping men who manned the cannons shooting them into the sky. At one point he hit a canal and stopped for a moment. The screaming throng had been left behind like a flock of clucking hens who suddenly found a fox in their midst. He caught his breath, looking about to see where the narrowest point of the canal was.


The sky was lightening in the meantime. A new day was beginning. Dawn was near.


The Assassin did not slow down, the prey once more in sights. He was at street level now, running lightly after the sprinting man in black who he knew was puffing now after running for hours. The end was near. And both men knew it.
The man fled along the canal leading to the Palazzo where the festivities were winding down. He had not made it in time to hide there after all his striving. He was too heavy. Too old. This chase could not last much longer. From the roofs, before he’d gone down, Ezio had seen the Palazzo in the morning light.

He slowed down just a little bit. His trek would be easier to mark now that day had come. He had to move with some caution, especially in this sleepy part of the city where the news of the horrors had not yet reached. The ground would serve him better now.

His fingers and feet finding footholds along blind walls with shuttered windows, Ezio landed lightly on his feet and ran on. He swerved aside to avoid a collision with an early morning wagoneer bringing produce to the market and instead took to the canal. He leapt from pier to gondola to swaying gondola, without stopping. The mooring posts were nothing but stepping stones for him. His momentum carried him upwards to grab the edge of the arch under which the waterway flowed and he pulled himself up after, not feeling winded in the least. His blood was young and hot. He could run and fight for hours on end. He’d trained long enough for this.

His eye was sharp too and that is why he saw the little running figure of the man in black in the distance, crossing the bridge over the canal. He was catching up to him. The shingle cracked under his boots as with a grim purpose he gave chase once more, straight into the morning sun. There barely was a cloud in the sky and the wind from the lagoon carried the fish smells from the wharfs and the salty tang of the sea that was just beyond the narrow lagoon entrance. Birds scattered out of his way, surprised awake at such an invasion of their domains. The flap of their wings was loud amid the stillness of the early morning.


But nothing was louder than the beat of knowledge in the nobleman’s head. The one sure thing he knew this new day: his heart was taking its last beats unless he challenged the Assassin. Unless he made him angry enough to commit a mistake.
So he ran, almost out of breath under his heavy festive clothes, into the square under the clock in the wall, spelling out the twelve years of the Zodiac and the hours of the day. He felt the Assassin’s eyes on him. And feared the look in his eyes. In the small piazza he’d seen death written there. Death for him. The last of the Templar Order, long driven underground, away from the public eye. But secrecy suited them better. Their actions were more insidious now that no one scrutinised them. That is, no one but the Assassins who somehow still knew of the Order’s existence. Somehow had stayed alive and true to their own purpose, even though their fortresses were all knocked down and mice rooted amid the stones. Their pride had been humbled too. And yet still they persevered. Still they interfered with the Templars’ work. To this day.

The Palazzo was near now – safety lay there. In the narrow street his defences were minimal. He wanted a lot of open space around him where he could see the Assassin coming. He would not make it easy for the Assassin to get him. None of the others had either. The Assassin had little defence against fully armoured guards, the elite that patrolled the Piazza of the Palazzo Ducale. The square opened wide before him with the Palazzo gleaming in the early morning. The Piazza was empty save for the leavings of the party the night before: paper lanterns scattered everywhere, lost pearls from necklaces and hats. And the ever present guards of the Doge’s Palace who heard his desperate cries.

“Guards!” He shouted, a stitch in his side, his throat raw from all the running. “He’s behind me! You have to stop him!”

Panting he spun around facing the long murky street he’d just ran out of. The Assassin had not caught him after all. He too must be flagging. A tired man made mistakes. He still had a chance, if he played the Assassin’s emotions and thoughts right. The boy’s relentless drive to kill every man who had so much as a nail in his father’s death.

Hands on knees in fatigue he commanded the guards, “To the entrance. Don’t let him see you.” And added as the guards, heavily armoured with pikes and feathered helmets on their heads, moved to either side of the arch, ”Wait for my command.”


Ezio watched the man run through the arch to the Piazza as he stood on the beam high above it. Fool. Open space would not save him now. Ezio did not have to get close to him to kill him. This last kill he’d hunted for months. The man’d been hard to find. But Ezio had known he’d get overconfident if he thought the Assassin no longer there. Ezio had even faked his own death once or twice to throw the Templar dogs off his trail.

Now the last of them appeared in the arch, eyes and head aswivel to see where the Assassin could be. But not afraid anymore. No, his posture bore confidence. He felt safe now. And that as Ezio knew was a big mistake.

Ezio’s nostrils flared as the man finally looked up, tightlipped. He was ready. The scene was set. Casually Ezio stepped off the beam into the air almost as if it were solid ground and fell, cloak flaring like an eagle’s wing to land solidly on the ground and rise unfolding to his full height like some nightmarish creature.

“O, bravo! What an impressive display,” the Templar crowed, taunting him and clapping his hands as if at a spectacle. His lip was curled in a sneer as he watched the Assassin rise before him, closer than he really wanted him to be. “A pity I could not let your father live to see it.”

Ezio stopped in his tracks, backing up into the shadows, his head coming up sharply at those words. The Hidden Blade retracted as anger filled him. He would dare..! Ezio sucked in a deep breath between his teeth, seeking that calmness preceding every kill he’d done, that Assassin’s mask of resolute will. The Templar would die, his words did not matter. His mockery was empty. But Ezio would not give him the mercy of a Blade. No, the gun should prove enough.

“As for your mother, once I’ve dealt with you I promise I’ll give her my full attention.”

His tone dripped venom and contempt. And lust. For a sheer second Ezio wanted to simply run him through for that. His training though was better than to let a few sneering words overcome his good sense and caution. Moreover, the Templar would not speak those words unless he had his back covered. Ezio knew there were guards in the Piazza: the reason he opted to show himself before taking il bastardo’s sorry life. He SMELLED the guards to either side – a pathetic defence, that. He’d danced circles around them before, in every city he’d visited where the Templars had tried to hide. Yes, he knew the betrayers of his family. Templars…. Just as it had been in Altair’s time: they always sought to undermine the Assassins’ task. Even after being disbanded over a hundred years ago they still survived. Gli stronzi still worked their devious plans.

Ezio took another calming breath at the Templar’s last words, remembering the grieving face of his mother. She would never recover. To hear the Templar mock her hurt, hurt deeply. But he would not let the words drive him into a mistake. Unlike the Borgia, he was no bull to go rashly into a set trap. He’d had Altair teach him differently. “Niente e reale,” he said softly under his breath. “Tutto e lecito.” The words, long unspoken aloud –for centuries in fact – brought clarity amid turmoil. He had found that inner calm where all thought was suspended, where only instinct remained.

He cocked the gun and fired in one single movement, not replying to any of the man’s words. They were like wind in an empty plain. Simply chaff, blown to every side by the stray gusts of air. He’d been dead the moment Ezio had laid eyes on him.

The shot rang in the quiet narrow street. Birds squawked. Windows banged open as people woke suddenly from the loudness of the gun. Peace was shattered. Ezio saw none of it. He watched the man stand still for a moment. His bullet had flown true. Il stronzo was dead but did not know it yet. Ezio’s eyes gleamed in his hood as the Templar fell backwards, eyes rolling up in his head, mask breaking as it fell from his face. Blood spread out from under him: Ezio’s shot had been true. He’d spent months mastering the gun that Leonardo had made for him, driven by one thought – finishing off those men who’d dared to lay their hands on his father. They’d thought the Assassins gone, weak, defenceless. They were anything but. And the arrogant men had paid for their presumption with their lives, one by one.
And so the last of them fell.


Ezio stared at the flame of the lamp as he unloaded his gun and Blades to prepare for rest. His gestures were absent, reflexive. He’d done this so many times. Today he hoped had been the last. Setting his equipment aside he sat down on the bed, face in his hands. His ears caught the sounds of the city, people going about their daily lives in la Repubblica Serenissima. Yes, it always did come down to the routine did it not? In life shocks were few and far between. Even here in Venezia, as the city buzzed with the man’s death, still somehow they managed to maintain a semblance of normality, that life went on as usual. They’d look for him for a week and then stop. He’d become so good at hiding his real self that no one could even say what his face looked like. Not even the women he seduced to get to the men he had laid low. Those who knew his face were all dead.

He held his hands out in front of him as the flame of the lamp flickered. It was over. All over. Done. He could rest now. His father’s ghost could lie at peace. His mother would never understand his actions. Grief had transformed her from a gentle yet firm woman into a silent spectre that wandered the corridors of the empty house, alone, abandoned. He had not visited her in months. He missed her terribly, changed as she was. But one thing he knew: she did not condone his deeds. That was on his conscience alone. The looks she’d given him when he’d come back fresh from a killing, full of sadness for an innocence lost so quickly, so irrevocably. He knew she saw a stranger – her son’s body yes but not the same man he’d been. A boy really. That had been one of the things that had driven him to revenge. He was no boy. No child. The day he’d touched his father’s cold face had been the day he’d grown. His actions, rash, impossible, were all those of a man. But she would not understand – so he had stopped trying to explain to her the reasons.

His grandmother understood. O yes, that old lady had a spirit of stone – she understood what had to be done. She’d read the books, had guided his studies. She had not sought to excuse his actions, nor to stop him. She had said nothing. And when he stopped by her apartments always had his favourite foods ready. A smile curved his lips at that. She’d probably have some waiting for him when he came back this time with the happy news. He missed them both, his mother and grandmother – all that remained to him of his family, his sanity, his peace. And he would let nothing get to them.

The Assassins would go on. The Eagle would never die.