⎾1st POV: David⏌
The boy slept fitfully.
Even with the fire Alada managed to coax from flint and dried moss, and even with Ivanna's cloak pulled over him, his body trembled in the corner of the cave like a leaf clinging to a dying branch. His breathing was shallow, but steady now—thanks to her poultices and Dimitri's stitching.
Alban took the first watch, perched just outside the cave mouth, eyes glinting like a hound scenting danger in the wind. Dimitri was quiet, scribbling something into a small weathered ledger by firelight. Ivanna had leaned against the cave wall and closed her eyes, though I knew she wasn't asleep. Alada curled nearby, mumbling something about herbs in her dreams.
Me?
I couldn't rest.
I sat beside the fire, fingers twisting the hem of my tunic, mind tracing every step that led us here. My thoughts turned to the boy. His words. Red masks. There were whispers of zealots wearing crimson veils—Templar-trained, if not outright members. That alone was a problem.
But the real issue was the fear in his voice. Not hatred. Not anger. Fear.
"David."
I looked up. Dimitri sat cross-legged beside me now, ledger closed, his gaze steady.
"You analyzed the trail. Chose the approach. Didn't hesitate when the call came. You're learning fast."
"Not fast enough," I muttered. "I still feel like I'm pretending."
Dimitri gave a thin smile. "Pretending keeps people alive, sometimes."
I hesitated, then asked, "How do you know what to look for? Like with the trail, and the movement, and… just everything?"
He tapped his temple. "Pattern recognition. The world isn't chaos. People always leave clues behind. You just have to listen, observe. Try to think how they would."
He paused, then offered me his notebook. I flipped it open—carefully. Inside were sketches, notes, theories. Small diagrams detailing footprints, blood spatter, behavior patterns, even sketches of known Templar symbols.
"Keep it," he said. "I copy everything into the main log anyway. Call it your first field manual."
I stared at the pages. "Are you sure?"
"You're one of us," he said plainly. "You'll need it."
I didn't respond right away. But I didn't refuse, either.
Later, when the fire had burned low and shadows danced long across the stone walls, I stared into the flickering embers. Something stirred in me again—that memory not my own.
A shadow atop a cathedral. A blade sliding from the wrist. Footsteps silent as snowfall. A leap of faith.
The "bleeding effect."
I understood now. I wasn't just remembering what I'd seen in games—I was feeling it. Muscle memory, not earned in this life. Instincts sharpened by bloodlines not my own.
I stood, quietly, and stepped into the mouth of the cave.
Alban grunted without turning. "Couldn't sleep?"
"Too much noise in my head," I said.
He nodded. "Walk the perimeter. Light steps. Avoid the branches."
It wasn't a suggestion. It was a test.
I faded into the trees, one foot after the other. The snow swallowed the sound. I moved around the camp, eyes adjusting to the darkness, breaths slow and measured.
Every shadow felt familiar.
Like I belonged there.
The trees whispered in the windless dark.
I moved from trunk to trunk, feet light, heart steady—but my mind? It was far from quiet. Dimitri's field manual pressed like a weight against my side, its knowledge still foreign yet oddly familiar. For every footstep I took, some half-forgotten part of me whispered corrections. Turn the foot this way. Watch that branch. Stay downwind.
And always—always—I felt eyes on me.
Not real ones. Not Templar scouts. But… fragments.
A rooftop in Florence. The dust of Jerusalem. A pipe-lit street in London. The air thick with coal and revolution. Men who weren't me, seeing through my eyes.
One memory—the sharpest yet—sliced through the veil of my thoughts.
A man hunched over parchment in a dim cellar. He wasn't Dimitri, but his posture was the same. His eyes flitted from diagram to shadow. He muttered Latin under his breath. And then he turned—toward me—with a look I hadn't earned, but felt deep in my spine: approval.
I blinked.
Gone.
The wind returned. I exhaled, slow and shaky.
"This is what you meant, isn't it?" I murmured to no one. "Pretending… until it isn't."
I heard no reply. Only the subtle crunch of snow beneath a fox's paws in the distance.
By the time I returned to the camp, the fire was a low red glow. Dimitri had taken over watch, seated with his back against the wall and eyes tracking my approach. He nodded once.
"You didn't trip," he said.
"Didn't die either."
He almost smiled. "Good start."
I sat near him, a small distance from the others. I wanted to sleep, but my mind kept pacing. When Dimitri didn't stop me, I asked, "What made you want to learn all this?"
He didn't look up. "Curiosity. Control. I wanted to understand the pieces of the board before they moved."
"That's… a chess reference, right?"
A pause. "Yeah."
The fire popped. I stared into the embers again, memories slipping in and out of focus. Each one left a residue—of skill, of instinct, of pain.
And then—
A woman screaming. Latin shouted. Steel flashing. A vial slipping from a belt. A hand—my hand—plunging into a fire to retrieve it before it shattered. Smoke in the lungs. Another death.
I gasped.
"David?"
"I'm fine," I said quickly, too quickly. My chest heaved once, then settled. "Just… ash in the air."
Dimitri didn't press. But I caught the glance. He knew something was off. Maybe not what. Not yet.
I glanced toward the boy, still asleep, then toward the shadows beyond the cave. The bleeding effect, I thought. Not a tool. Not yet. A storm.
And storms always break.
Dawn arrived like a half-formed promise—gray, sluggish, and uncertain.
No birdsong greeted us. Just wind brushing through the trees like the breath of something ancient. The fire had long since died, and in its place, cold silence.
Ivanna stood first, brushing ash from her coat. "We can't stay here."
Alban grunted. "Said that last night. Still here."
She gave him a sharp look. "That was before we had someone to protect and no confirmation on who wiped this place."
Dimitri motioned toward the entrance of the outpost. "Red masks. We found a shredded insignia, remember? The question isn't who—it's if they're still watching."
David—I—remained seated, warming my fingers on a tin cup filled with near-boiling water. I hadn't slept. Not really. Not with memories that didn't belong to me bleeding into dreams that did. Why now?
"I say we move," I said. My voice cracked less than expected. "We've learned what we can. The boy's not going to heal fast, but we can make a sled."
Alada, crouched beside the boy and checking his wounds, looked up. "And if they find our trail?"
"Then they'll be following it away from the next settlement instead of toward it," Ivanna said, crossing her arms.
Alban sighed and tapped his fist against the hilt of his axe. "Alright. But I'm not dragging that sled solo."
"You won't," I offered. "We'll take turns."
He smirked. "You volunteering, squirt?"
"I'm the lightest one here, Alban. I'm basically moral support."
Even Dimitri let out a low snort at that.
But beneath the humor, I felt something crawling at the edge of my consciousness again. A memory—or was it just fear? No. This one was sharp. Tactical.
A hand brushing snow to reveal boot tracks. A warning symbol etched into bark. A silent alarm. The tip of a dagger lowered just in time to avoid making a sound—
It wasn't mine.
I clenched my jaw.
"I can lead the path out," I said quietly. "If they're watching from the trees, we should leave a false trail. Make them think we're heading west."
Alban raised a brow. "You suggesting we split up?"
"No. Just bend the trail. Make it curve. I've seen it done before."
A pause. Dimitri asked, "Where?"
I met his eyes. I didn't blink. "Somewhere… in a memory."
He didn't press. Just gave that same assessing nod.
"Then let's move."
⎾??? POV⏌
The forest held its breath.
Not for the Assassins who passed through—no. The trees had seen them before. Whispered to them. Sheltered them. But this—this was something else.
A crunch of frost underfoot broke the silence. Crimson boots pressed into the dirt, one after the other, as a lone scout emerged from the brambles. His cloak bore no insignia, but his helm—smooth, featureless, painted a dull, bloodied red—marked him clearly.
The Red Whisper.
He knelt. Fingers brushed a snapped reed and a boot imprint. Narrowed eyes beneath the visor scanned the pattern. More than one… perhaps six? Yes. Light footfalls, mostly youths. Armed, though not recently engaged.
A single feather lay forgotten beneath the frost.
He pocketed it, then clicked two fingers. Behind him, more shapes emerged—three more, each clad in red, silent, calculating. Not Templars, not entirely. The Whispers were a separate breed—hounds unleashed only when the scent of a true Assassin trail had been confirmed.
"The Masyaf cell," the leader muttered. "Another sprouting offshoot."
"They're growing bold," another replied. "They're growing everywhere."
The leader tilted his head slightly. "Yes… Altaïr's teachings have not rotted with his corpse. The Creed blooms again."
One of the others scoffed. "So we pull it up by the roots?"
The leader didn't answer at first. His gaze turned eastward—toward the burned-out outpost smoldering on the horizon, just past the hill. Not a target. A sign. A line crossed.
"No," he said at last. "We burn the roots, and salt the ground."
He retrieved a vial from beneath his cloak. Its contents shimmered with a dull, oily glow—some failed attempt at imitating Eden-tech. Crude, but still potent. The Whisper would not bring back intelligence.
They would bring back silence.
"Send word to the main branch," the leader commanded. "This isn't a rogue sect. They're coordinated. We'll begin phase two."
"And the cell?"
"They're still green," he said with quiet amusement. "But not for long. They're being sharpened."
His voice dropped lower.
"Let's make sure they break before the edge forms."
1252 A.D. | Eastern Provinces, Former Crusader Outpost
⎾3rd POV: Dimitri⏌
The outpost walls were broken, moss-laced stones peeking through frost-bitten cracks as night began to fall. Dimitri moved ahead of the others, his footfalls light but deliberate, scanning the terrain with sharp eyes honed not through combat—but through scrutiny. He was not the strongest among them, nor the fastest. But when it came to signs and subtleties, none in the cell could rival him.
David walked just behind him, silent, watching. Always watching.
Dimitri didn't mind. The boy had a way of mimicking motion, memorizing detail like a scribe. He was still too loud on stone, his breathing still uneven during tension, but there was something… familiar about him. Something too quickly adapting.
The ruined stone gates gave way to a broken courtyard, moonlight cascading in pale streaks through the holes in the collapsed chapel above. This had once been a Templar-occupied stronghold—built atop older, Brotherhood foundations. A dangerous irony.
"Eyes open," Dimitri murmured, crouching by a shattered basin. "Places like this… they whisper."
David knelt beside him without a word. He didn't speak much tonight, not like he usually did. The usual light in his eyes had dimmed slightly, something faraway circling behind his stare.
Dimitri brushed away a layer of snow and ash from the cobblestone beneath the basin. Faint marks carved into the stone glinted faintly in the torchlight held by Ivanna.
The Brotherhood's cipher.
But not just any—this one was old. Altaïr's script.
"Alban," Dimitri called out softly. "Secure the perimeter. This place isn't abandoned."
The broad-shouldered teen grunted and moved to take position, slipping into the shadows with the practiced ease of someone who loved movement more than stillness. Meanwhile, Alada hovered nearby, arms crossed, ever suspicious of old symbols and older ghosts.
"David," Dimitri said, barely turning his head, "take a look."
David leaned closer, his breath quiet and shallow. He traced the lines with his eyes only, his fingers twitching as if remembering them—though he couldn't possibly have seen these before.
Dimitri narrowed his gaze. "You recognize this?"
A long pause.
David nodded slowly. "… It's a warning. 'Fire rises when gold bleeds.'"
It was correct. Exactly correct.
Dimitri studied him. "How'd you know that?"
David blinked, startled. "I… don't know. It just came to me."
And that was the second time tonight he'd said something like that.
Dimitri stood, letting the wind sweep over them for a moment. "You're learning fast."
"I have to," David replied. "If I don't… I feel like I'll fall behind. And there's something inside me. It's like I'm remembering things I never lived."
Ivanna stepped closer. "We don't have long," she said. "Tracks outside. Not ours."
Alada's eyes narrowed. "Templars?"
Dimitri shook his head. "No. Too light-footed. Too… selective."
A chill crawled up his spine.
Not prey. A predator.
⎾3rd POV: ???⏌
From atop a distant ridge, two gleaming red eyes narrowed beneath a mask woven of silk and bone.
He had been watching them since dusk.
The Red Whisper.
A relic of earlier conflicts. An artisan of fear. An assassin's natural predator—born not of the Creed or the Cross, but of something twisted between. He had no allegiance, only hunger. And tonight, he would test them.
Not now. Not yet.
But soon.
⎾3rd POV: Dimitri⏌
Back in the chapel ruins, the group stood gathered around a fallen altar. Beneath it—hidden under false stone—they found it: a steel case, locked and sealed with an Assassin's clasp. Inside: scrolls and maps sealed with wax. Fresh wax.
Ivanna swore under her breath. "There was someone here. Not long ago."
"They didn't leave it by accident," Alada added, her hand reaching instinctively for her dagger.
"Then we leave nothing to chance," Dimitri said.
David stepped back, mind still reeling from the echo of memories that weren't his. Faces—hooded and proud—flashed in his mind's eye. Movements that belonged to a time and place he'd never known danced across his limbs, refusing to settle.
He closed his eyes, just for a breath.
Who am I remembering?
Outside, Alban returned. "No sign of anyone nearby. But the storm's pushing in fast. We camp here or we run now."
Dimitri glanced at the sky. Clouds boiled red and gray under the setting moon, like fire smothered in smoke.
"No fires. Not tonight," he said. "We take shifts. Everyone rests in rotation."
Ivanna nodded. "I'll take first watch."
"I'll go second," Dimitri said.
"I'll stay up," David added.
"No," Dimitri said. "You need to sleep. You've been watching all night."
David started to argue, but Dimitri shook his head. "You're doing well, David. Better than you think. But don't burn out before your real trial comes."
David looked down, eyes flickering. "Right."
As the others drifted toward rest, Dimitri lingered near the broken basin, glancing one more time at the carved script.
Something about tonight felt heavy. Not just danger. But fate.
He looked back toward David, watching the boy settle near the wall, fingers twitching in restless sleep.
He's not just learning.
He's remembering something that never belonged to him…
And the world is watching.