The air inside the ruined outpost was stale and cold, thick with the scent of mildew and old blood. Stone walls, once proud, had surrendered to time and silence. Snow drifted in through the broken archways and settled on the warped floorboards, painting everything in a pallid hush.
I stepped in slow, ears straining for sound—anything living.
Nothing.
Just wind, threading through collapsed beams like a whisper.
Dimitri was already crouched near the far wall, his fingers brushing over a discolored patch in the stone. "Blood. Frozen. A few days old."
He glanced over his shoulder, and I met his gaze. "Come here."
I did as told, crouching beside him. He didn't say much at first—he never did—but then he spoke low, like he was teaching a secret.
"See this?" He tapped the dried patch. "Too much for a cut. Too little for a kill. Someone was hit. Likely panicked. Slipped here." He pointed to a scuffed mark on the floor. "See how the dust shifts differently?"
I blinked. "I would've missed that."
"You did." He stood and moved to a shattered crate, waving for me to follow. "Notice everything. Especially the things that shouldn't be there. Or should be, but aren't."
I followed, silently absorbing his rhythm, the way his eyes scanned without blinking. Like a wolf reading the snow.
"The scratch on the lock here?" he pointed. "Forced open. Not a scavenger's hand. Too clean. Someone trained."
"Another Assassin?" I asked.
"Maybe. Or a Templar. Or someone caught between." His voice never rose, but the weight in his words lingered.
We moved deeper into the crumbling outpost. The others remained near the entrance, keeping watch. Alban sharpened a blade lazily, Ivanna murmured low with Alada about whether to camp. Lucienne stood near the doorway, half-shadowed, watching us both.
"What else do you see?" Dimitri asked me suddenly.
I scanned the room again, trying to see as he did. After a pause, I pointed to a half-burned parchment caught beneath a rotted shelf.
"Someone tried to burn evidence?"
Dimitri's brow lifted, just a little. "Not bad."
He knelt, brushing ash away with care. "We recover what others overlook. That's our strength." He handed me the charred edge of the page. "Take this. Might be code. Might be nothing. But it's something."
I nodded, tucking it into my belt.
Then I noticed something else—faint footprints near the rear wall, half-covered in drift.
"Someone left… through there?" I guessed.
Dimitri followed my line of sight, his lips tightening. "Good. That's fresh. We're not alone."
Before I could react, Ivanna's voice rang low and sharp from across the hall. "What did you find?"
Dimitri answered, "Signs of a brief skirmish. Recent. One, injured, left eastward. Could still be close."
"Then we move," Ivanna replied without hesitation. "We camp when we're clear of the trail."
Alban gave an annoyed grunt, but stood. Alada had already gathered her satchel, the faint clink of glass audible beneath her cloak. Lucienne said nothing, but her eyes lingered on me again, unreadable.
As we stepped out of the ruined outpost, snow crunching underfoot, I kept the charred paper in my hand. My first real clue. My first lesson in tracking shadows.
Dimitri leaned in as we walked. "Learn to see, David," he said. "It'll keep you alive longer than any blade."
I gave him a faint smile. "Then I'd better start paying attention."
The trail led east, curling around the edge of a frozen ravine. The air grew colder with each step, the kind of cold that found your joints and nested there. Wind howled low between the trees, and above us, the sky bled into a sickly twilight.
Ivanna kept the pace. "Keep close. We don't know who or what left that outpost alive."
Alban grumbled something about "wounded dogs and unfinished business," but fell in line. Alada walked near the center, fingers occasionally brushing the satchel tied to her belt. I stayed at the back with Dimitri, eyes fixed to the faint impressions in the snow.
"See how the prints drag on the left?" he said. "Injury. Probably leg. But the depth is too shallow. They're traveling light."
"And fast," I murmured.
"Desperate," he corrected.
We moved like ghosts through the forest—silent, precise, watchful. I had never seen trees this tall before, branches like grasping arms above us, heavy with frost. I found my thoughts wandering.
This world… this life…
I had memories of another. A sharper world, noisier, filled with metal and smog and the hum of something called "Wi-Fi." It felt like a dream now, fraying at the edges. I used to think I was going insane when I woke here.
Thirteen years old again. Only this time, I wasn't just a kid.
I remembered the books, the screens, the games that blurred fantasy and history. Assassin's Creed, they called it. A story. A lie. But now… I lived among shadows who fought for freedom, answered to nothing but conviction, and died without names.
They called me David Dayton.
But I wasn't just David.
I didn't know what I was becoming.
Up ahead, Ivanna raised a fist. We stopped at once. The tracks veered off into a shallow cave—half-buried beneath ice and brush. Alban moved to the mouth of it, crouched low, sniffing the air like a wolf.
"Someone's here," he said. "Alive."
"No fire. They're freezing," Alada added softly.
Ivanna looked to Dimitri. "Call it."
He turned to me. "Let's see if you paid attention."
I blinked. "Me?"
"You saw the tracks. The cave. The pace. You decide. Ambush or approach."
I swallowed hard, nerves firing. The others watched.
I thought back: single person, injured, no fire… meaning no light, no sound, no heat. Either they were hiding, or…
"Approach," I said. "If they were hostile, they'd have set traps or a perimeter. They're alone. Scared. Maybe dying."
Dimitri gave a small nod. "We move on your word."
Ivanna gave me a curious glance—half testing, half measuring. "Good call."
We approached the cave, slow and steady. I went first.
Inside, the air was bitter and damp. A single figure huddled near the far wall, wrapped in a ragged cloak. I saw blood crusted around their thigh. Their breath came in weak puffs.
I knelt.
"Hey," I said gently. "We're not here to hurt you."
They looked up, eyes wide, sunken. A boy. Maybe sixteen.
"Who…?" he rasped.
"Travelers," I said. "You've been wounded. Let us help."
He blinked slowly. "They… they took everything. The red masks."
My heart slowed.
Red masks.
I felt Dimitri shift behind me. "Templars?"
"Maybe," I said quietly. "Or someone worse."
The boy collapsed forward, unconscious.
Alada was already moving, her kit open. "He'll live if we get him warm."
Ivanna nodded once. "Then we camp here. Alban, watch the trail. Dimitri, set perimeter. David, help me reinforce the cave mouth. This storm's not letting up."
I moved without hesitation.
But as I gathered fallen branches and brush, I felt it again—that weight behind my eyes. That whisper of a life once lived, now bleeding into this one.
And as I looked back at the unconscious boy, and the cold world beyond the cave…
I realized something.
This wasn't a dream.
It never was.