Winter began its slow ascension into spring. A cold wind blew flurries of dead, dry leaves through the wisps of grass. I felt as though the wind could blow through my ribs, whistle between the bones, and I would float away with the leaves - hollow, empty. I had mourned Thomas and told myself to move on, but that did not mean I was not sad.

I found a dry place to sit on the cliffs that overlooked the bay with my diary open on my lap; I was reading through my entries from the last year and marvelling at all that had happened - the good and the bad. Connor's name was one of the most prominent on these pages. I reviewed all that we had been through, together and apart, and was glad.

The grey sky stretching before me threatened rain, but I did not mind. I liked the rain - all ideas about it seemed fascinating and romantic to me. Besides, I rationalised, I could do with cooling down - we had completed a long and difficult run before our duties, and I was unusually warm. Rain might be nice. It would take my mind off my own sadness, and the temporary relief that that would bring was greatly anticipated.

I tucked the diary into my pocket and stood, brushing bits of moss from my breeches. I had hardly seen Connor these days - work and duties separated us more than I enjoyed. And when I was with him, there was, at times, an odd tension between us, like we were both avoiding a grenade at our feet. I knew why, too.

After Meredith's fuss during my family's visit, I thought it best to keep our courtship under wraps for a while longer, at least until I found out what was wrong with my sister - so we had not told them. Nor had we told Achilles, and Connor did not like this. I did not enjoy the secrecy either, but felt it was our best approach at the moment. Connor's displeasure, I suspected, was the reason for this tension between us.

To the unknowing eye, there was nothing wrong between us - but I spent almost every waking moment with him; I would know him in darkness, by the pattern of his breaths, by touch alone. I knew him well enough to know that he was bothered and trying not to take it out on me. It was my fault, I knew that (everything was my fault: Thomas, Meredith, Connor. . .), but the more I tried to help, the more I withdrew because everything was wrong, wrong, wrong.

I isolated because Connor was displeased, and he was displeased because I was isolating, and thus we turned, chasing one another in a circle, reaching out but never quite touching. We did not know how to be angry with each other, so we were sad.

I tipped my head back and watched the clouds shifting above me, heavy with unshed rain. A storm was brewing over the mountains. Perhaps the rain would wash away my thoughts, like a hand on a window full of condensation. 

Inspiration struck, then, and I took my diary from my pocket so I might record these musings. I was turning my sadness to poetry, word by word by word; the story of my life enclosed in gilded rhyme.

As I walked away from the cliffs, the wind whispered through the rattling trees and reached my ears to tell tales on one another. What might trees gossip about? What trivialities might irk them? The trees had stood in this forest for longer than I had been alive; they had some stories to tell. They were the silent eyes that watched as I grew alongside them: when I met Achilles, when I was accepted into the Brotherhood, when Connor and I kissed, and Thomas. . .

Oh, Thomas.

Sometimes, when men came home from war, they still had bullets inside them. They did not speak of them, and looked as well as any other man - but every change in the weather, however slight, brought back the old agony as sharp as they had ever felt it on the battlefield. I had my wound, and I carried the bullet with me still - I would carry it to my grave.

A twig in the forest snapped, and I watched a squirrel scamper up a tree. I tucked my diary into my pocket once more and smoothed my breeches, picked bits of moss from the backs of my legs.

A flash of movement in the corner of my eye made me look up - a second too late. Rough hands pulled me behind a tree, out of the view of the manor; the cold end of a flintlock dug into my ribs. I belatedly recognised the voice that hissed in my ear, "Don't move."

I could feel him trembling against me, could hear his barely controlled breaths. "Rowan," I said slowly, "what are–"

"Why did you do it?" The gun pressed harder into my ribs.

I was stunned. "What did I do?"

He pushed me away, like he could not bear to look at me. Rowan's sandy hair was awry, and his face, usually pale, was the white of sleepless nights. His bloodshot eyes burned through me. "You told everyone about Thomas and that's why he's dead. You're a snitch."

I flinched at his harsh words. He had always been so kind to me - where was that man now? His words weren't quite true; Connor was the only person I had told about Thomas, and even then, it was only out of necessity. For years I had held on to this secret of his, a rotting apple in my hands, and now it was finally in the light, and I was in trouble for the mould on my fingers.

"I told nobody," I said, hardly daring to take my eyes from the gun in his tremulous hand.

Spittle flew from Rowan's mouth as he snapped, "I know what you did. It's your fault that he's dead."

For months, these words had hunted me down; for months, I felt like I was running from something, but when I looked over my shoulder, there was nothing - and just as the words were beginning to fade, here was Rowan speaking them into existence again.

I felt something in me snap, and then my hand was drawn back, poised to slap him.

He caught my wrist before I could make contact, and pulled me closer. I tried to pull away, but his grip was unforgiving. There was nothing kind in his eyes, nothing of the boy I used to know. The cold metal of his ring pressed into my skin, and there, on that ring, was the insignia of his damnation, ugly as the mark of the beast.

On some level, I had already known - and I had known for a while, now - but the confirmation was like a rock in my stomach; the knowledge that Rowan was a Templar, one of them, drowned out the sounds of the world until all I heard was my heart beating rapidly in my ears.

I tried again to yank my hand free, but his fingers tightened over my wrist as he looked into my face with undisguised hate. "You killed him." His voice was soft - the beginnings of a tiger's growl. "You killed my brother."

I heard the words he did not say, a whisper on the breeze. We are coming for you. Anger turned my blood to fire, and the flames lent me the strength to pull my arm from his grip and smack him across the face.

Red bloomed across the pale cheek. As he turned his face slowly back to me, I felt, for a horrifying moment, that I was in the sights of a lion. He was going to eat me alive.

But all Rowan said, in that quiet voice, was, "This is not the end, Cassandra. I'm going to gut you and feed you to the dogs."

Those hazel eyes burned through me as he took a backwards step away from me - and another - and another. His face was cruel: the hard line of his mouth, the eyes glittering with hate. He spat at my feet and stalked away into the forest, still gripping the flintlock so tightly that his knuckles went white. He did not look back at me. This was a warning, I realised. The calm before the storm.

The next thing I knew was that I was in my room in the manor, with no recollection as to how I got there. I was sitting against the closed door, breathing slowly to alleviate some of the mounting pain in my chest. 

The first heavy drops of rain were beginning to patter against the glass of my window, and I closed my eyes so I could listen to them - something, anything to drown out the sound of Rowan's words ringing in my head like a death knell.

I pictured strength as a wall fortified with iron and stone: tall and wide; I could see no end to it. But his words were a pickaxe against the mortar, and the wall was starting to crumble. This would never end, never, and I could feel that strength in me getting smaller, smaller, smaller, and soon it would be nothing and I would be nothing and I could see them standing in front of me - Rowan and Tobias and Kenway and Lee, and behind them stood Thomas with blood dribbling down his head–

I could feel it building in my chest - that pressure, that panic - and just about managed to stand, unsteadily, and stumbled across the floor to my bed. The darkening sky flashed with lightning as I, in desperation, picked up a pillow and screamed into it - anything to let this pressure out of my chest, anything so I could breathe again.

My eyes were wet. I crumbled into myself, curled on my side on the bed - and I knew, at least on some level, that Rowan was right. It was my fault, and now the Templars were coming for us - for me.

*

I couldn't sleep that night. The rain roared on the roof; it sounded like a beast about to open its mouth. Every time I closed my eyes, they were waiting.

The house was in darkness when I stepped out of my room, using the moonlight as my guide. I paused at the threshold of my door, curling my bare toes against the cold floorboards, and listened to the rain - and beyond that, the silence. 

I realised, then, that I had not felt such silence in a long time: my thoughts had been loudly crowing their malicious victory in my ears since Thomas' death. But there was one person with whom I found silence, found the peace I craved.

I blinked, and I was at Connor's closed door. The room behind it was quiet - not the quiet of absence; rather, that of stillness. I could do with some of his tranquility.

The door did not creak when I opened it, just enough so that I could slip inside. For a moment, I was disoriented in the darkness, but then lightning turned the room silver, and there he was, curled up small in his bed, eyes gleaming in the dark. Neither of us spoke, but he watched me as I climbed into the bed next to him; he shuffled over to make more room for me, and under the blanket, his hand found mine. He was so warm, so safe, and he made me feel warm and safe.

It struck me, then. Love and war were not synonymous, as my grandmother had said - love was not a battle, full of danger and bloodstained hands. Love was safety. He was love. My love.

I felt him nuzzle into my shoulder. "What is wrong?" he asked, and his voice was soft - not like Rowan's, whose was more akin to the building roar of thunder; Connor's was like honey.

I turned on my side so I could look into his face, though in the dark, all I could see was the reflection of light on his eyes. When the room lit up again, there was such gentle patience in his expression. All tension between us evaporated with that look.

I found my voice. "I feel like I shouldn't be sad anymore. Thomas is gone, I know that, but. . . I'm so sad. And nothing I do can stop it. Does that make me weak?"

His fingers tightened on mine. "Grief is not weakness. Grief is love, just in different clothes. I still miss my mother - you think I have not cried myself to sleep?"

He surprised me, though I didn't know why - he was always so strong, so level. "You have?"

He gave me a look. "I am human, Sassy. Do you really think that I am just a walking lump with no feelings?"

There was tentative humour in his voice, and in spite of the darkness, I smiled a little. "A walking muscle with no feelings, maybe."

His laugh was quiet, but infectious. "Is that why you came in to my room?" he teased. "To insult me?"

I knew how that sounded, objectively - that I had come to a man's room in the middle of the night and crawled into his bed - but there was no judgement in his voice. "I wanted you," I said simply. "You're comforting, and I need that right now."

I felt his thumb brush over my knuckles. "What happened?"

I told him about Rowan, and he listened in pensive silence. I did not want advice, I did not want to be consoled - I just wanted to be heard. And he heard me. 

"They will come for me," I said. "Rowan has painted another target on my back, and he intends to strike a bullseye."

"A target on your back is a target on mine," murmured Connor. "We will handle it together."

What had I done to deserve such a friend as him? I kissed the top of his head. "I'm sorry for laying all of this on you in the middle of the night. It seems more like something that ought to be shared over strong whiskey."

He laughed again, that soft laugh; it was like music to me. When he sat upright, the lightning illuminated the lines of his bare torso, and he brought my hand to his lips to kiss my knuckles. "Come with me," he said, getting out of the bed. 

I made no move to follow as he put a shirt on. "Where?"

"Outside."

"But it's pouring rain."

"And?"

"And I'm only wearing my shift," I protested, but I knew my argument was a weak one.

He was smiling as he held out his hand to me. "Trust me."

He led me by the hand down the stairs (silently so as not to rouse Achilles) and out the front door. Once we were outside, the rain pelted down on us, but we were free. Wet grass squelched under our bare feet as Connor led me away from the looming darkness of the manor, using the moon as his guide. We did not get far, only reaching the edge of the trees before he stopped and took both of my hands in his. Rain streamed from his hair into his face, and his shirt clung to his body. 

"Dance with me," he said. 

It was clumsy and awkward (as we both narrowly avoided stepping on twigs), but we were laughing together, closer than we had been in a long time. Why had I avoided him for so long? He looked down at me with such tenderness, and for a moment, I saw myself the way he did, looking down at this dark-haired whirlwind, an indomitable spirit, unable to be broken or tamed. 

What a sight we must have been: the pair of us dancing with only the rain as our music, soaked to the skin, grinning like idiots.

He leaned down, bringing his mouth to my ear. "Tomorrow, you and I are going to go for a walk into the homestead village." The brush of a kiss against the corner of my mouth. "And I am going to hold your hand." His forehead pressed against mine. "And we will show them that we are a team. You and me. Me and you."

I found myself nodding. "Yes," I murmured. "Let's do that. I want to do that."

We both knew that that would also mean breaking the news to Achilles - and neither of us knew how he would react. Would he be angry? Disappointed? In that moment, I didn't care; I kissed  him in the rain anyway.