When we eventually emerged from belowdecks, we were greeted with the sight of our victory on the enemy deck. At Faulkner's order, our crew were holding the surviving redcoats at gunpoint. As they saw Connor, their captain and the living symbol of their victory, the crew of the Aquila let out a roar.

Connor faced them with cold determination - one look from him silenced the crew, until the only sound was the lapping of the water against the sides of the two ships, and the creaking of the broken wood. Standing there, between two crews, he was not my Ratonhnhaké:ton - not in that moment. He was a stern-faced captain with blood-stained hands, and if I did not love him, I would fear him.

I looked up at the broken mast of the Welcome: there was no coming back from that. She would sink down to rest at the bottom of this sapphire sea and open her arms to welcome the fish into her carcass, and leave her loyal crew to die. Connor knew this too, and it was mercy that urged his words: "Who among you is your leader?"

The captive crew members looked at one another - some were more bloody than others; some were able to stand, while others balanced on their knees - and, one by one, every pair of eyes turned to one man, whose red coat was torn and stained with black patches of gunpowder, and his army medals were tarnished and spackled with blood. His hands were behind his head, a result of the musket pointed at his face.

"That'll be me," he said warily.

Connor focused on him. "Tell your men to stand down, and we will bring you to the nearest port. If anyone has a problem with that, we will leave him on this ship to sink."

"But how are we meant to get home?" a voice piped up from the end of the line. The leader stood in resigned silence. "Some of us have wives. Children."

Connor did not look away from the commanding officer. "Find your own way. Or don't."

With that, he turned sharply and made his way to Faulkner, and his implication was clear: get them off this ship. As our crew started to nudge the men to their feet and push them towards the Aquila, I noticed that Haytham, next to me, was tense and stiff-legged as a hunting dog, and following the line of his eyes, I saw his attention was focused on Rowan, who was struggling to his feet, keeping his weight off his injured leg.

Haytham took a step closer - just one. "Rowan."

Rowan's eyes snapped up at the mention of his name, and he straightened when he saw that the source was none other than the Templar Grandmaster. "Haytham."

"What are you doing here?" demanded Haytham. "I thought you were with Nicholas."

"I was, for a time," said Rowan. "But after we heard about Benjamin, he told me to go with him."

I noted the casual familiarity with which they referred to the other Templars - using their first names instead of their last. How long had Rowan been working with them? I wondered, and how long had he known?

Haytham's blank mask did not shift. "What happened to your leg?"

Rowan scowled and did not look at me, hesitating a moment before saying, "Some ruffian from the other ship caught me by surprise."

I couldn't help my silent huff of humour, and knew that Haytham did not believe him. His pale eyes drifted from Rowan's leg to the still-sticky blood on my hand, and one corner of his mouth twitched. He had put the clues together, and it amused him.

"Come on," he said to Rowan. "Best get off this ship before Connor decides he wants you overboard." He extended a hand to Rowan, placing it on the younger man's shoulder to guide him along. Rowan ignored me as he limped past.

Perhaps if my shoulder did not hurt so much, I might have smiled more. Instead I sought out Connor - an impulse, automatic at this point, as a moth to flame - and joined him at Faulkner's side. His eyes were following Rowan as he crossed the planks laid out to connect the Aquila with the Welcome.

When Faulkner saw me, his eyes widened with surprise. "My, my," he said. "What happened to you?" He took me by the chin and tilted my head up before I could get a word out. "That bruising around your nose and eyes'll spread fast." He cut Connor a playful glare. "You need to take better care of her!"

Connor's smile was fond, though tired. "I apologise for my shortcomings."

"Yeah." Faulkner swatted him away with one hand. "Go and make yourself useful. I'll bring Cass on board."

Raising his hands in surrender, Connor backed away a few steps, meeting my eyes one last time before returning to his duties as captain. Faulkner shook his head after him, but there was no malice in the action. "He's sweet on you," he said to me. "He really is." When I smiled shyly, he grinned. "Pathetic."

"Disgusting," I agreed. "We shall have to do something about it."

Faulkner roared with a laugh and threw an arm over my shoulders - but I shrank away, swallowing a whine of pain. He lifted his arm immediately. "Jaysus," he said, "I'm sorry. Dislocated, is it?"

"Yes." I nodded. "Connor cut his shirt for my sling."

"Ah." He laughed again. "That's an intimation if I ever heard one." Placing a light hand on my back, he began to gently guide me to the exit planks. "You fought well today," he said, and his voice was brimming with pride. "You got fighting blood in ya?"

"I suppose I have," I said. "From my grandfather."

"Oh?" This seemed to interest Faulkner, and he tilted his head. "Who's that?"

"Ryan Glade."

He went still and looked at me with wide eyes. "You're Ryan Glade's granddaughter?" When I nodded, a broad smile overtook his weathered face. "I knew you looked familiar! You share his smile."

I raised my eyebrows. "You knew him?"

"Knew him? I sailed with him!" We paused our walk, letting some of the other crew members pass us by. "He didn't tell you?"

Ryan had not told me. The older I got, the more I realised how very little I knew of my own family, of whose blood was in my veins. I did not even know my own father. My family line was like a fleet of ships, and each one carried the weight of its own secrets, threatening to drag it down into the deep.

Faulkner broke my silence by ruffling my hair with a black powder-stained hand. "I've got some stories for you, all right. From the good old days. But I'll not tell them yet - we need to get everyone sorted on the Aquila first." As he helped me along the planks between the ships, he shook his head and muttered to himself, "Knew she was familiar. Ryan, you old chuckle head."

*

Within hours, we were docked at Fort-de-France. The Aquila was looking rather worse for wear, with small tears in her sails and holes in the hull - but neither of her masts were broken, and for this I was thankful.

Martinique was further south than I had even been, and even though it was only March, the air was warmer than I was accustomed to. I was too northern for the climate of the West Indies - pine trees and snow were more familiar to me than the soft sands and palm trees that greeted us here.

After changing out of my grimy, blood-stained trousers and shirt, and into a skirt and apron, I stood by the rail, watching the mixed crew members disembark; once on land, the Aquila and Welcome men separated - the former heading deeper into the town, making a beeline for the taverns and the cathouses; the latter gathered along the shore, red coats in tatters, to discuss their next move. Rowan, I noted, was not among them - Haytham, having pleaded his case to Connor, managed to secure him a place on the ship until we returned to Boston. They had long since disappeared into the town for a full debrief: Haytham striding with stiff confidence, Rowan struggling to keep up, shuffling on a crutch.

With the repairs that the Aquila needed, we would be docked here for at least three days. Just as I was beginning to wonder what I would do with all of this sudden free time, Connor appeared beside me, a gentle, quiet presence. "How are you feeling?"

I turned my face up at him. "How do I look?"

His small smile was at once amused and apologetic as he traced a finger over the dark bruises spreading under my eyes. "Like a raccoon."

I laughed, and we looked out at the little town sprawling before us. The little wooden buildings cast long, dark shadows on the dry ground as the sun began to lower into early evening. By now the deck was empty: only Connor and I remained. I nodded toward the last of our crew members, who had set a lazy pace into the sunny town as they headed for the brothels. "They've never invited you out with them?" I joked.

Connor looked down at me, his mouth curved in a smile. "They know not to ask me."

In his hand he held a letter. I nodded towards it. "What's that?"

"It is for Achilles," he said, grimly. "I will post it tonight."

Achilles. The last time we had seen him, he and Connor had been fighting, and we had stormed out of the manor knee-deep in snow. Three months had passed since - three months for both men to simmer and cool, though I knew Connor still disagreed with Achilles.

"Did you tell him about your father?" I asked.

After a moment, Connor shook his head. "No. I told him only what was necessary: that we found Church, and that we are docked in Martinique for repairs."

"You know you'll have to tell him eventually."

"I know." He sounded resigned. "But not right now." He looked down at the letter in his hand, and paused; when he looked up, his eyes were brighter. "Come with me to post it, and then we can get dinner."

He had sent Faulkner to arrange for the Aquila's repairs, so we were free to spend the evening how we wanted. It did not take long for us to find the local post office, and when Connor was finished, we began to explore the vendors and stalls that lined the main street. Between the two of us, I was the only one who spoke any French, so I was the one to talk to the vendors, while Connor listened in interested silence.

We gathered bits and pieces between us, foods I had only ever heard of in books and newspapers: mangoes and pineapple chunks and stuffed crabs and steaming portions of fricassée de chatrou (a stew of octopus and tomatoes) and frozen scoops of coconut sorbet topped with mint leaves, which we shared while we walked, for it melted quickly in the Caribbean heat.

Having amassed a banquet for ourselves (our cause for celebration, I supposed, was the successful elimination of Benjamin Church and the staying of Connor's blade from Haytham's neck), we bought a bottle of wine before setting off in search of a quiet place to sit. We explored the wild coast line, stopping every so often to admire the brilliant red flame trees, the soft pink hibiscus, the white orchids. We pointed out the little blue hummingbirds and the gargantuan luth turtles digging nests in the soft sand.

We found a grassy verge, sheltered by trees and overlooking the beach, and, at my urging, Connor untied the apron from around my waist and laid it on the ground for us to sit on. There, we gorged ourselves on the delectable food we had gathered: I felt that we were like two mice hiding in our nest so we could feast on the cheese we collected.

"I've missed this," I found myself saying. "Spending time together."

He was cutting into the mango with a knife, and its sticky juice was running down his hand. "As have I," he said in his soft voice. "Still, we have almost completed our task. We will be home soon."

Neither of us mentioned the fact that, in order to get home, we would have to face another three months at sea - if the weather favoured us. This was the first time in months that we had spent this much time one-on-one, and we both wanted to savour it while we could.

With Church dead, our remaining targets were Nicholas Biddle, Charles Lee, Rowan, Tobias - and Haytham. I couldn't help the pang in my heart at that realisation, that we would eventually have to kill Connor's father. There was a part of me - insane and naïve, a little girl playing dress-up in a woman's body - that still held on to the belief that he could be spared, that he might change his ways and pursue peace with us. But the little girl was clutching a handful of frayed strings.

"What do you make of Rowan Carter?" I asked him.

Connor was quiet while he handed me a carved piece of mango, and his dark eyes were distant in thought. "I am wary of him. His name is another on our list, and I do not like that my father took him on board so easily. They are Templars: they support Charles Lee, and I cannot forgive that."

If we were to kill Rowan while he was in Haytham's good graces, then we would jeopardise our relationship with him, and thus the tentative alliance we had forged. If we wanted to keep everything we had built with Haytham, we needed to stay on Rowan's good side - which would be difficult, as he did not like me.

Where was the young man he had once been? The one who had joked with me and Thomas, who had cared so fiercely for his younger brother, and treated me as the sister he never had? The old Rowan was gone - he had disappeared when he met Tobias and joined the Templar Order; he died with his brother.

As though our thoughts were connected, Connor asked, "Have you heard from Tobias?"

I shook my head. "Not since that summer. No one knows where he went."

It was slightly alarming. His final words to me were a threat, and though I did not fear him, his words troubled me. I did not know a face so innocent could hide such venom.

I wondered when the change happened in him, when he turned from gentle breeze to hurricane. Had he always been that way, or was the delivery of that scar to his face the catalyst, as the dark blood inside stained the porcelain outer shell?

I had not liked him - not in the way that counted. Certainly not enough to kiss him. I realised now that I had never wanted to share that with him; I had wanted to kiss someone in a moment of overflow, where the love in my heart had no place else to go. But he was a placebo, a stand-in for Connor.

I looked sideways at him now, at my best friend and object of my affections, and found that he was staring into space, his gaze hovering just below the blue line of the horizon. Our silence was comfortable: content in the secure knowledge that we were beside each other.

I bit into the chunk of mango in my hand, and the sticky orange juice trickled down to my elbow. I chased it with my mouth, relishing the sweetness on my tongue. When I glanced up, I found that Connor was watching me, his mouth turned up ever so slightly at the corners.

"I love being alive," he said.

I smiled. "You do?"

"I do." We did not touch, but I felt him: the warmth of his heart, the strength of his bones. "It is moments like this that I remember that my heart is beating and I am alive, and that I have a reason to continue doing so."

"What reason is that?" I asked him.

I saw it in his eyes: that softness he took on only rarely, and only for me. There were a hundred different responses, a thousand words he could have said; what he chose was gentle. "The ability to love, and to be loved."

He was not a happy person: pain had taught him to be silent, to expect the worst while simultaneously daring to hope for the best. It was the nature of the path we had chosen. Happiness was a rare gem dug up from the earth, and we gripped each fragment tightly, fearful that we might not find another for a long time.

For him to admit this now was huge - it was a baring of his heart to mine, permission for me to see what nobody else could.

We sat in silence for a long time and watched as the sun touched the horizon, turning the water to a smooth bronze. I do not know at which point my hand found his, but when I realised our fingers were intertwined, I squeezed him tighter.

He looked down at our hands, as though he, too, only noticed our contact now. "I will keep an eye on your shoulder," he said. "You should be able to remove the sling in a few days."

I looked down at the makeshift sling. My injured arm was the one I had burned, and the mottled scars peeked out from beneath the covering. By now they had mostly faded to a silvery white, but the deeper burns had stained my skin pink, never to recover, and when I touched them, the skin had a texture that was not there before.

"Your poor shirt," I said.

"My favourite," he drawled, slow and sarcastic. Then, speaking with his usual gentle timbre: "I will change it when we are back at the ship. Make one with a real bandage." 

By now the food was finished, and the bottle of wine was almost empty. We split the dregs, grinning at the memory of the last time we had shared a bottle of wine (though the last time was done on admittedly empty stomachs, which resulted in  the unfortunate morning after), and in the golden dusk, he was beautiful as sunlight on the water.

We stood and gathered our things, preparing to head back to the Aquila, and as he tied the apron around my waist, I leaned up and kissed his cheek. He looked down at me with a smile, tucking hair behind my ears, and offered me his arm - which I gladly accepted.

We returned to the ship contented and lazy, pointing out things to each other that had previously gone unnoticed: the small lizards on the path, the noise of the taverns as we passed, the moon forming a hair-thin crescent in the sky. By now the sky was dark and the stars were shining twice as brightly. The Aquila creaked as the waves gently lapped at her sides, breaking the night's silence with the rhythm of breaths.

Without stopping or thinking twice, we bundled into the captain's cabin, and I was giggling at nothing, at the sheer joy of being alive.

We sat on the floor and played with Connor's deck of cards; when we were bored of this, he made me a more secure bandage and threw away the scrap I had been using. His fingers brushed the burn scars on my arm: he dipped his head to kiss them. And when we grew tired, we crowded into the cot, far too small for both of us, and he covered us with the thin blanket.

We lay in silence for a long time, long enough to hear some of the crew members stumbling back to their beds belowdecks, but I did not sleep, and I knew Connor didn't either.

I reached up and traced the profile of his dear face that I knew so well: the slope of his forehead, the curve of his nose with its smattering of freckles, the shape of his lips, even the dent of the scar on his cheek. He lay still while I touched his face; there was something I wanted to ask him, something sudden - I could feel the words between my teeth, could feel the way my mouth formed around them, but I could not release them.

Then, softly, Connor spoke. "Cassandra. Your name is magnificent."

I turned my head to look at him. "It is?"

"Yes." His gentle hand on my back stroked tender circles over my skin. "It is Greek, right?"

"It is," I murmured. "Prophetess, princess of Troy, bed-slave to Agamemnon."

"Cassandra," he said again, slowly, sounding it out, as though picturing every letter. "One must employ the entire mouth to speak it, every syllable and sound. An effort I will enjoy for the rest of my life."

I could not hold the words in; they slipped through my lips before I could rein them in. "Why have we never married?" A silence followed these words, and, heart quickening, I added, "We have been together for a little over a year. We would spend our lives with no other, so why have we not made it official?"

He was staring into the darkness, watching the silver reflections of the water flicker over the ceiling. "I wanted to wait until after the war," he murmured, "before asking you."

He had given it some thought, then. It seemed reasonable, but tiredness loosened my tongue. "Why?"

Now he looked at me, eyes glinting in the dark. "Because I want more for you than a rushed ceremony with no promise that either of us will live to see our happy ending. I want you to have everything you could dream of."

I remembered Achilles' parting words to us. "But life is not a fairy tale," I said quietly, in my best impression of Achilles' voice, feeling the truth of the words settle into my bones.

"We will write one." He sounded so determined, so hopeful. It made my heart ache.

"You know that all I want is you, right?" I twisted my head up to try and see his expression. "I don't care about the fairy tale if you're not in it."

A hum and a quiet sigh escaped him. "I know." He pressed a kiss to the crown of my head. "Some day - I promise you. We will live a life together that is happier than that of the other Cassandra. We will create a new image of your name - one of joy, not tragedy."

"And what of yours?" I asked. "Your real name. He scratches at life."

Though the cabin was too dark for me to see his face, I recognised the way his voice sounded when he smiled. "My life began the day I met you. There is nothing to scratch at because, with you, I have already begun to rewrite its meaning."

*

Church's instructions to find the stolen cargo were not very specific, for there were, in fact, many islands 'yonder'. Connor, Haytham, and Faulkner bickered about it for a day or so, before deciding on a course of action: Faulkner would take a portion of the crew in a schooner borrowed from a friend of a friend and search the islands to the south and east, while we would search the north and west in the Aquila, and reconvene at Santo Domingo, Hispaniola, in two weeks.

(Hispaniola was a Spanish-speaking country, and neither Connor nor I spoke Spanish: we hoped dearly that we would not have to communicate with the locals.)

That was ten days ago. We had searched almost every island with no luck, and although I could see Connor's patience wearing thin, he did not lose hope, even with only four days on our north-bound course before we were forced to dock.

Haytham was another matter. Every day he grumbled at his son's futile attempts at recovering the stolen goods - he deemed it a pathetic attempt to redeem the reputation of a failing man (meaning Washington), and tried once more to warm us to the views of the Templars - but this was swiftly shut down by Connor, angered by the mere mention of Charles Lee's name.

"Charles Lee is a murderer and a tyrant," Connor snapped. "He cares only for himself, and not for the wellbeing of this country. Why do you associate yourself with such a man?"

Haytham's tone was strained - this was not the first of these arguments that they had had. "Charles is disciplined, and loyal to the Order. He seeks the truth, just the same as you."

"Truth?" Connor's hands tightened, incredulous, on the wheel. The wind whipped his dark hair into his face, but he ignored it. "He - and all your Templar brethren - seek only to gain from the suffering of others. See his cowardice as Washington's so-called general! The Templars would murder the man that is leading this country to brighter days - and for what?"

"You can't seriously believe that George Washington is a great leader?" scoffed Haytham, re-adjusting his hat on his greying head. "After all this time? Really? He is a blundering fool - even you cannot deny that. The man can barely string his words together in a letter, let alone before a crowd. How can you expect him to represent this country?"

I listened to this argument half-heartedly: I had long since grown bored of this tête-à-tête, and instead amused myself with the telescope. There was a dark smudge on the horizon that did not move with the bobbing waves, so I watched it with mild interest - anything to occupy myself and help me ignore the growing argument next to me.

"Charles Lee is a murderer," Connor was saying, his tone full of contempt. "You expect me to sympathise with the very organisation that saw my mother burned alive?"

"I told you before–" Haytham sounded strained– "he had nothing to do with that. It was certainly not by my command."

"There's land ahead," I muttered, but it was drowned out by their voices.

"The Templars do not want a state of anarchy, which you Assassins seem sympathetic towards," Haytham was saying. "We fight to maintain order, and organisation."

"And you would enslave innocent people to ensure this structure remains standing." Connor was gripping the wheel tightly, turning it with more force than necessary, and kept his eyes carefully away from his father.

"Is that not better than the alternative?" was Haytham's quiet response. "Absolute freedom, with chaos following in its wake? Society would crumble, Connor. I am trying to ensure that that will not happen."

The black smudge on the horizon was getting closer; I could see the shapes of tall palm trees, the only texture on the otherwise-flat island, and next to them, huddled mounds of bushes.

As we drew closer, something to the east caught my eye. I pivoted the telescope, and for a few moments saw nothing by the glimmering waves.

There. A frigate heading towards the island. I narrowed my eye, trying in vain to see the crew and the captain clearly, but could not see from this distance.

I lowered the telescope and said again, louder this time, "Land ahead."

Neither Connor nor Haytham acknowledged me: instead, their voices rose above mine, like I was but a fly buzzing by their ears. I was not hurt by this lack of attention, but I was irritated - so I whacked both of them across the head with the telescope.

"Ow!" yelped Connor, one hand coming up to automatically touch the back of his head.

Haytham, whom I had cut off mid-sentence, slowly looked at me - if I could call it that. Storm clouds would have been brighter than the glare he sent me.

"There's an island ahead." I shoved the telescope back into Connor's belt. "And there's a ship heading for it."

Leaving them to squabble and decide on a course of action, I went down to the main deck to watch the crystal waters lap against the ship's hull. Far below, shadows danced across the pale sand, silver flickers of fish and sparse patches of seaweed - and the black silhouette of the Aquila as she passed by.

A shuffling sound behind me interested me enough to look over my shoulder: it was Rowan staggering up from belowdecks, leaning heavily on the crutch under his arm. His leg had stopped bleeding, but it was still wrapped in thick bandages, and he visibly kept as much weight off it as was possible. I did not fight the smug twinge in my chest to see him like this, unkind though it was. My own arm was still slung about my neck, I tried to reason. This was vengeance.

I was shocked to see him heading towards me - there was nowhere I could run to, for I knew he had seen me notice him, so I had no choice but to stand and wait for him to reach my side. It was unusual to see him so dishevelled, with his sandy hair falling into his face and a light sunburn across his nose and cheeks.

Then again, the last time I had seen him was after Thomas' funeral, when he had threatened me at gunpoint. He had been hysterical then, pale and wild and sleepless, and had turned on me as a rabid dog turns on its master.

It was not his fault - grief had made him this way. I remembered the man he was before Thomas died: playful and charming, with a ready smile and a smart comment up his sleeve,. I had always considered him a friend. Templar though he was, he was also just a boy who had lost his brother.

"How is your leg?" I found myself asking him.

He looked stunned, like he had not expected me to speak so soon. "It's fine." Then, after a pause: "How are you?"

His question encompassed all, both my shoulder and my bruised face, the latter of which had blossomed to a deep purple before turning yellow at the edges. "I'll be out of this sling in a day or two," I replied. "I'll be right as rain then."

Rowan nodded, evidently at a loss for what else to say. Why was he beside me if he did not want to talk? I turned away from him and leaned over the edge of the ship, trying to get close enough to the water to feel its misty spray on my cheeks. A mild breeze whipped my hair into my face, and I tucked it behind my ears. I did not normally wear it loose, opting instead to braid and pin it, and now I noticed how long it had grown without my noticing.

Beside me, Rowan cleared his throat. "How long do you think it will take us to reach New York?"

I half turned my head to him, keeping my eyes on a silver shoal of fish below the ship. "It's hard to say. It took us three months to get here."

That silenced him - but not for long. Another pause stretched between us, and he coughed again. "Cassie–"

The nickname awakened something in me, a quickening of the heart, a heating of the blood. "Don't call me that," I snapped. "You lost the right to call me that."

Rowan opened his mouth. Closed it. He took an awkward step back, and I found myself standing straighter as my face settled into a blank stare, a mask of ennui that I did not feel. I held eye contact until he blinked and looked away.

"I was advised," he tried again, "not to burn my bridges so soon. That if there is a chance for reconciliation, let it be taken."

I knew instantly who had put him up to this. Though he was not overtly looking our way, I knew Haytham was watching from the corner of his eye. He had taken my place at Connor's side and was trying to persuade him to hand over the telescope, but I noticed that his body was angled so that he could keep me and Rowan in his sights.

So I sighed. "Why?"

I could see the conflict in his eyes - the desire to shut down and end the conversation warring with his need to speak. "It's what Thomas would have wanted."

He still said his brother's name with tenderness. It still sent pangs through my heart.

A year had passed since Thomas died. There was a little graveyard behind the homestead church - his was the first one in it. At first, it was so harsh, so strange, to see that wooden cross, the flowers gathered at its base. I used to visit it and clear the snow from the arms of the cross, and when the weather was better, I sat in the grass and weaved daisy chains.

My silence was an opening to continue speaking, and he grabbed the opportunity with both hands. "I was harsh to you," Rowan said quietly, slowly, as though choosing his words very carefully. "I blamed you for his death. At first, I thought you had told people about his condition, and that's why he . . . he jumped. Then I thought that if there was anyone that could have saved him that day, it would have been you."

They were the words I had tortured myself with since the day we found him floating in the river. "I tried," I said, and my voice sounded small, even to my own condemning ears. "I really did. He stayed with me all winter. I was with him every single day - and the one day I took a walk without him was the day he did it. So to say that I was the sole cause of his death is really unfair."

"I know." Whatever Haytham had said to him when we docked in Fort-de-France had evidently impacted him enough to actually speak calmly to me. Then again, I thought, a year was more than enough time for him to arrange his words into a civil order.

Perhaps I had not been protecting Thomas by keeping him in the house with me, holding him by my side all of the day. Perhaps I had been merely holding him back while he strained for the open door: he would have ripped his arms free of my grip either way.

"I suppose," Rowan said into the quiet between us, "I was angry, and needed something to point my anger at - something that was not myself."

So he chose me as his doll to drive pins into, making a porcupine of me, a sacrifice on the altar of his grief, hoping it would be enough to stop his own blood from spilling.

It was not an apology. I did not expect one from a Templar - and longed, suddenly, to ask him how he had gotten himself caught up in this mess of a war. But before I could open my mouth, Connor called my name from his place at the wheel.

I looked back to Rowan, who shifted on his feet, and I raised my chin. "We'll pick this up later."

By the time I made it back to the wheel, Connor had taken the telescope from his belt and was holding it out to me. "Look again at the ship, and tell me what you see."

He could have given this job to Haytham - and it seemed that Haytham felt the same, and looked on with folded arms as I peered through the glass.

It was a few moments before I focused on the ship, much closer this time, and saw that the crew were men in British red. One man in the ratlines was pointing to something: a dark pile in the sand. Wooden boxes, hastily covered with broken palm leaves. The stolen cargo.

The tide brought the other ship close to the sand, and as she turned, I caught a glimpse of the gilded lettering carved into her stern: USS Randolph. So her captain was. . .

We were advancing towards the island with record speed, and as thought he knew this, the captain glanced our way dismissively. I recognised the black-and-red coat, the tricorne shading his weather-worn face. He was young - scarcely touching his thirties (only a few years older than Connor and me), but I recognised his face - we had spent years poring over the portraits in the basement: this was another painting come to life.

I lowered the telescope. "It's Nicholas Biddle."

Haytham's face paled. "Give me that," he muttered, and snatched the telescope from my hand. His disbelief was put to death after seeing for himself the Templar's ship weigh anchor.

Biddle had been the scourge of the east coast for the past three years, ever since he had been made captain of this ship on the behalf of the Continental Navy: aided by the Templars, he organised attacks on the naval trade routes into America from places as far north as Newfoundland, down past Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, to Barbados and the Bahamas. All of these exploits, arguably, were a part of his effort to be made admiral of the Continental Navy fleet. He must have received word of Church's death and raced to get to the cargo before we could.

Connor's mouth was a grim line. "I will bring us in close," he said, "and try to board her myself. I want as little blood spilled as possible."

He did not look at Haytham as he spoke; we all knew what needed to be done.

The man on the Randolph's ratlines spotted us, and called something down to Biddle, who raised his head and locked eyes across the water with Connor. We were close enough now to see the Templar's face without the telescope, and I watched him set his jaw forward. Obstinate, then.

Haytham walked to the edge of the ship and raised an arm in greeting toward his cohort. "Nicholas."

Biddle's eyes settled on him, and shock crossed over his face like a flash of lightning. "I knew you had allied yourself with the Assassins to kill Church," he called across the water, "but coming for the supplies? You know that goes against the very principles we stand for."

Biddle was young and bold, and his months at sea had doubtless lent him the courage to speak to Haytham as he did. He said something to his first mate, who gripped the handle of the swivel gun mounted by the wheel, and fired at us.

Swivel shots were small and largely harmless against the ship's hull - but this time the shot hit one of our crew members, who went down with a cry. Even from our distance, I heard Biddle yelling, "Damnit, man, I said a warning shot!"

The man was on the ground, bleeding from somewhere on his leg. Another man, his friend, was crouched next to him, trying to stem the flow of blood.

Connor released the wheel, and Haytham dashed to take his place, gripping the heavy spokes tightly to maintain our position. Tossing his hat aside, Connor strode to the railing and called out, "Biddle! I do not wish to ruin these fine ships. Let us settle this like men."

His implication was clear: a fight to the death. Just him and Biddle.

I could see the Templar considering it carefully, and then he nodded his concession and faced his own crew. "Clear the deck!"

Connor turned away and started to remove the many weapons on his person; I stepped forward to hold them for him. First came his two flintlocks and his tomahawk, his smoke bombs, and long-toothed dagger; opening his navy coat, he removed his coiled rope darts and array of throwing knives. The last weapons were his dual hidden blades, which he unstrapped and handed to me with gentleness. The leather was soft and well-worn, and still warm from his contact.

As he shrugged his coat off, I said, "Be careful."

He side-eyed me as he tossed his coat on top of his discarded hat. "Am I not always careful?"

"No." I placed the armful of weapons by his coat. Across the water, Biddle's crew were throwing ropes to draw the Aquila near.

We did not wish each other good-bye as he took hold of one of the ropes hanging from the rigging and swung himself across the gap, landing on his feet on the deck of the Randolph. Biddle, now shed of his own weapons, faced Connor with puffed chest and taunted, "Your misplaced sense of justice is pathetic. You should have never set foot outside your little village."

Both crews gathered around in eerie silence to watch the Assassin and Templar circle one another like two wolves. The only sound was the lapping of the waves against the hulls of the ships.

Biddle struck first, darting in as fast as a snake, and Connor narrowly dodged his fist. As he twisted, he managed to land a punch in Biddle's kidney; the latter snarled and lashed out, but Connor shielded himself with his arms.

Some of the more adventurous men on the Aquila were starting to cross over to the other ship. I had half a mind to join them and get front row seats for Connor's victory - but my eyes were drawn instead to the two men on our deck, the one who had been shot and the one who supported him.

The latter stood up, stiff-legged and quivering, eyes fixed on Biddle's first mate, whose attention was on the sparring match. "Bleeding fucking bastard," the man cried, before drawing his flintlock and firing.

The first mate's head shattered in a burst of red. Blood showered down on Biddle and Connor, distracting them for a fraction of a moment.

All at once, chaos broke out on the decks of the ships as both crews drew their guns in retaliation and began to fire. Cries and shouts were drowned out in the deafening gunshots.

I instinctively crouched lower to avoid the flying bullets, and looked up at Haytham. "Stay at the wheel."

He looked appalled. "What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?"

I tore my sling off and tossed it to the wind, relishing the newfound freedom of movement in my arm, and grabbed the rope that Connor had used to swing himself across. Ignoring Haytham's complaints behind me, I gripped the rope in both hands, and jumped.

I was suspended in space; I was flying; and then I hit the Randolph and rolled over my shoulder to absorb the impact. When I stood, my shirt was sticky with blood from the deck. Beside me lay the body of the first mate, a shattered mess where his head used to be, leaking brains and blood.

So far, I was unnoticed. The crews clashed upon one another like waves, permeated by the screaming of steel and the wet slap of blood. Connor and Biddle were in much closer contact now, their blows landing harder, faster, but Connor was gaining the upper hand, forcing Biddle back little by little.

In his backwards step, Biddle bumped into one of his crew members and slipped on the bloody deck. He fell hard on his side, but before Connor could advance any closer, he pulled a flintlock from where he had hidden it in the folds of his coat, and fired.

The shot went stray and hit a barrel - a barrel that was full of gunpowder. It exploded, and I fell to my knees as the deck shuddered. The planks where Connor was standing caved in with a deafening screech, and he disappeared into the dark underbelly of the ship.

Thinking this an easy win, Biddle leaped down after him. Flames danced along the floorboards, very bright against the thick, dark smoke. One of the Randolph crew members spotted me, then, and swung the butt end of his musket at me. I dodged backwards, and he swung again, forcing me back, closer to the gaping hole in the deck.

But I would not be toppled so easily. As I ducked under his musket, I scooped something off the ground, something wet and still-warm, and threw it into the man's face.

He screamed in horror and disgust as the first mate's brains landed in his face, and I used his distraction to seize the musket from his grip and turn it on him, hitting him hard across the head.

As he fell, I staggered to the edge of the gap to peer down. I could hear Connor and Biddle fighting, and when I lowered myself down, I saw Connor pull a knife from his boot and slash at Biddle, cutting him across the cheek.

Biddle fought dirty, but so did Connor.

The smoke was thick down here, clogging my nose and filling my lungs. There were more crates stacked against the back wall: a closer look told me that they, too, were full of gunpowder.

Just as the idea bloomed in my mind, I saw Connor close the distance between him and Biddle and drive his knife through the Templar's ribs. Biddle gasped, and as Connor drew the blade out again, his legs buckled. Connor had hit a lung: it would not be long now. His dark hair was plastered to his face, unnaturally pale and glazed with a sheen of sweat.

Connor stood over him, looking down - a position of intimidation, of power. "Your reign over the colonial coast has come to an end."

"Is that why you hunted me?" spluttered Biddle, and was interrupted by a cough that brought blood to his lips. "Because you thought me an enemy to the cause? You are every bit the fool I was told."

"You brought pain and suffering upon innocent people for nothing but personal gain," Connor spoke over him, ignoring Biddle's half-hearted insult.

Biddle laid his head back on the floor, body shaking with a cough that visibly weakened him. "Pain," he muttered. "Suffering. I set them free. Weeded out the dissenters and empowered the patriots. So what if I was named Admiral? The revolution needs one, and I was the best man for the job. The only man. If not for me, the Continental Navy would remain but a handful of rats." One hand came up to press against the spurting wound in his chest. "For all your vision, you Assassins are blind to the truth."

Connor tilted his head, but his facial expression did not change. He switched his blade to his other hand. "Enough."

"Wait!" Biddle gasped, tensing automatically in preparation for the killing blow. "Let the Randolph die with me. Don't take her as a prize. Please. Please. I want no quarter - just to sink with my ship." He was pleading - I had never heard a Templar sound so desperate.

In another life, Connor and Biddle might have been friends. There was real, true sympathy on Connor's face as he, without another word, turned his back and walked away.

He was surprised to see me belowdecks with him, but before he could speak, I pointed to the crates of gunpowder. He nodded to me, and swiftly climbed up through the hole in the deck while I knelt and took a flint from my pocket. I could hear him ordering the crew back to our own ship.

I managed to create a spark, and struck the flint again, closer to the crates. The wood was dry, and did not take long to catch the spark and nurture it into a flame.

Time was running out. I scrambled up, following Connor's path to the deck. The fires had spread to the top deck, and the ship was melting around us.

The last of the Aquila crew members were fleeing back to our ship. Connor was ushering them along, until he was the last of our crew on board. When I reached him, he wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me tight against his side, and with his other hand he held a loose rope. He looked down at me for a moment, and he was blood-spattered and grimy, but he grinned before he swung us across.

As we hit the deck, the Randolph began to explode.

Flames shot skyward. Black smoke bloomed up to the clouds, glittering with red sparks. The men that were not caught in the inferno were throwing themselves overboard, into the waves caused by the explosions.

The tide caught the Aquila and pulled away from the sinking ship, and as the Randolph sank in flames, our crew began to cheer.

I did not expect to feel such joy - perhaps it was fed by adrenaline - but I looked up at Connor with a wide smile, which he returned freely. He picked me up in a tight hug, spinning me around, and we were both laughing breathlessly as the crew howled around us. And before either of us could really think about it, he kissed me hard before setting me down.

"How is your shoulder?" he asked, like he had only just noticed.

I laughed at the question. "Better."

His smile was brighter than the fires on the Randolph. "Be sure not to over-exert yourself. My father and I will gather the cargo from the island, if you stay on board."

I nodded, happy to stay on board, and as Connor ordered the rowboat to be lowered, I felt Haytham's presence next to me. He did not speak, but he was looking at me strangely. Like he was examining me under glass.

I didn't care. I was still smiling stupid, because we had killed two of our targets and we had found the cargo and we could go home. We were going home.

*

GUYS I TURNED 21 !!

(I'm not American I am ✨European✨)

ANYWAY hiiii it's been a long time since I updated !!! I think it's because I am entering my Villain Era !!! (setting boundaries and realising that I deserve to be loved too)

So yeah it takes me approximately 5-8 business weeks to write half a chapter because I am Too Busy Being Wicked (trying to treat myself with the same grace I extend to others)

Back to the topic, I have a new goal: to finish this story before I turn 22 !! It's been seven (7) years since I started and I can't wait to be finished !!! Please help me 🙏

See you soon for the next chapter ! May the Lord bless and keep you 🩷

xoxo Panda