once spoken
Taline had ordered the elf to put new sheets on their bed before they returned from Italy. It’ll feel lovely, she said. Nothing’s nicer than coming home to crisp clean sheets after a long trip, you’ll see. If their visit to Italy had ended differently – with them coming home together, as planned – she would have been right, but it was just him in their bed and the sterile scent of hyssop only amplified her absence. He flopped over and flung an arm out to crumple great handfuls of the cold, stiff sheets so he could at least pretend that she’d been lying there beside him, that she’d only just gotten up for a drink of water, or to use the toilet, or whatever, and was coming back to their bed – to him – soon. Except, maybe she wasn’t coming back soon – of course she’s coming back, she can’t not come back to me – or soon enough, and the unoccupied space beside him in their bed was cold and empty and roaring of loneliness and failure in the silence surrounding him.
“Ezio?”
He really did do his best not to sigh, and failed miserably, but, in his defense, the previous nightmarish evening had just gone on, and on, and on, well past very late all the way around to very early, and technically he wasn’t even supposed to be up yet. Stupid bladder. If ever he was entitled to any luck, this was definitely that moment.
“Yes, Uncle?” His balance wobbled – just a little – when he turned to face Mario. Jesus-Fucking-Christ I’m tired. What on earth couldn’t possibly wait a few more hours?
“Your mother wasn’t exaggerating, for once. You look terrible, Bello,” Mario observed, his voice suspiciously more gravely than usual. “Let’s get you back to bed and go from there.”
His uncle’s choice of words rankled for some reason he couldn’t quite place, but concern, possibly flavored with a touch of consternation, had cut a deep furrow between Mario’s heavy brows and deepened the brackets carved into the flesh on either side of his mouth and it seemed churlish to make a fuss over some slight he couldn’t even articulate. He didn’t have the energy to do more than nod as his uncle wrapped an arm around his waist and gently, but decidedly, shepherded him back towards his bed.
Over the past year he’d been helped back to bed numerous times, by various people, and each had evoked a distinctly different feeling.
His mother was like steel swaddled in plush furs and velvet; soft, warm, and comforting – at first – but if he leaned into her he could feel the cold Assassin steel armature always just below the surface. He often turned to his mother when he felt completely overwhelmed, but that comfort was always tainted by his fear that she might secretly be disappointed in him, that she saw the intensity of his emotions as weakness. He knew his mother would never stop loving him fiercely, in her own particular way, but he was always on tenterhooks when he turned to her for solace, dreading the acute sting of her disappointment.
Filomena was like a hot drink in front of a warm fire after coming in from the freezing cold, the sort of comfort that nourished mind, body and soul. Her care and kindness never made him feel lesser or diminished or judged. Probably why the brothel’s patrons prefer Mena to Mother – though I’d love to see anyone dare admit it. Most of the brothel’s workers, especially the kuffār his mother employed, probably preferred being overseen by Filomena as well. She had a talent for people that his mother altogether lacked, and seemed to have little interest in developing.
Mari was a watered-down amalgam of their mother and Filomena, a warm blanket filled with wasps and long spiney thorns – mostly comforting, but with a very high risk of being stung or skewered. He loved his sister, really, but he’d almost rather sleep on a public bench than be helped to bed by her.
Asad invariably started as an aggressive mother hen – squawking and pecking – as he scolded, poked, prodded, and sometimes injected things that either made him feel much better or much, much worse. Next was the very professional doctor phase, where he asked clipped, clinical questions, and looked suspicious no matter how he answered, before finally becoming just his exhausted friend with too many worries and not enough coffee. He felt the guiltiest over burdening Asad, not because the medic’s time was more precious than his family’s – although, as a senior medic, the argument could easily be made that it was – but because Asad never begrudged him needing some help whenever he asked, no matter the time of day or circumstances. His openhanded kindness was such a rare and precious gift.
He heaved a sigh and swiped the back of his wrist across his eyes. He’d stumbled into the infirmary still a little bow-legged after the long ride back from Roma, exhausted and fully expecting to receive an extensive report on Taline’s condition as he was ushered to her room by some wide-eyed novice medic. The first medic had gotten visibly nervous when he’d asked them to take him to his wife, avoiding his eyes and stuttering out some mumbled excuse before fleeing to fetch someone more senior. The next medic, obviously just as nervous as the first one, but more articulate, refused his demand outright. He thought it was just a misunderstanding, and kept his cool, at first, but as it became clearer it wasn’t a misunderstanding his already fraying patience really started unraveling. His temper had boiled up to just below shouting when a woman arrived on scene and dismissed the now terrified medic still resolutely obstructing his entire purpose for visiting the wrenched infirmary with a whispered command he didn’t quite catch.
“Lower your voice, Effendi,” she commanded, low-voiced but forcefully delivered. “This is a place of healing and I will not have it disrupted.”
She wore the robes of a senior medic and her complexion was sallow – probably from lack of sunlight and leisure, if she works even half as much as Asad does – with strong dark brows, and her headscarf had been pushed so far back it only nominally covered her precariously upswept hair.
“I’ve come to see my wife, I need to know-”
“She is not receiving visitors,” the gorgon interrupted him brusquely. “Return to your lodgings, Effendi; you’re clearly exhausted. An elf will find you there shortly to report on your wife’s condition.”
He honestly couldn’t remember the last time someone had taken that tone with him, at least not within the last four years or so; certainly it had to have been before he ascended to Master.
“I’m here for my wife,” he repeated between clenched teeth. “You don’t have the authority to send me away.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed as she leveled her shoulders and lifted her chin, her posturing so eerily reminiscent of his mother it sent a shiver down his spine. Fucking awesome. What is it about Alamūt that churns out these steel-souled women? Something in the water? The altitude? The stringently enforced absolute isolation from the outside world? Jesus Christ.
“Actually, amico, she does.”
The seventh sense he’d developed over years as a fidā'ī told him that the speaker was approaching from behind, angled slightly towards his left side. He still flinched a little when Asad’s hand landed heavily on his shoulder.
“In this place, it is our word that is absolute. You know that, E-zo. Don’t make a spectacle of yourself just because you don’t like it.”
“I’m not the one creating a spectacle,” he retorted, trying to brush Asad’s hand off of his shoulder.
“Yes, you are,” Asad replied in the sort of tone one used when chiding a disruptive child as he tightened his grip on Ezio’s shoulder. “Let’s continue this chat in my office, just you and me, yeah?”
Something was clearly wrong, but not seriously wrong – he knew how medics acted in situations like that, and it wasn’t like this – but still, something wasn’t quite right and for whatever stupid reason, they were avoiding telling him what it was.
He exhaled forcefully through his nose and made another, slightly more serious, attempt to shrug off Asad’s hand before conceding. “Yeah, sure. Whatever you decree, oh god-of-the-infirmary.”
His sarcasm elicited a begrudgingly wry smile from the gorgon as she exchanged a speaking look with Asad, who seemed even more exhausted than usual and suspiciously impervious to his casual charm. Not that Asad was ever easily swayed by him being charming, but it usually had at least a little bit of an effect on his demeanor. So that’s ominous.
They proceeded in awkward silence, his friend responding to his questioning glances with a tight, closed-lipped smile. Also ominous.
“What’s going on paisà?” he asked at the threshold of Asad’s office. He may have been exhausted, emotionally spent, and sore in really inconvenient places from the long thestral ride from Roma, but he wasn’t stupid – well, not that stupid – clearly Asad wanted to sequester him before delivering unwelcomed news.
“Let’s talk about that inside, yeah?” Asad replied with another strained smile as he motioned for him to enter his office. “In private, amico,” Asad added when he didn’t immediately comply.
“Yeah, okay, sure…” he drawled, taking a deliberately long moment to scrutinize Asad’s expression before stepping over the threshold. “…amico.”
Asad followed and not only shut the door behind himself, but warded it as well.
What the fuck is going on?
“Take a seat, you look exhausted,” Asad sighed, motioning to the armchair as he deposited his coffee mug on his desk with an abrupt clunk before collapsing into his own chair. “Would you like some tea, or toast? All that muscle of yours needs to be fed.”
“I prefer to stand, and no, thank you, to the tea and toast,” he bit out as he paced in the limited space available. “What’s going on? What the fuck is everyone being so evasive about? Has something happened to Taline? I need to see-”
“Sit,” Asad commanded, with a punctuating flex of force magic. “That was not a request, Effendi.”
He gritted his teeth, but obeyed. Whether he was standing or sitting wasn’t really important enough to argue over, and besides, whenever Asad decided to dig his heels in it was always a pyrrhic victory, at best.
“I’m sitting,” he sardonically announced with a palms-up flourish of both hands. “Now will you tell me what’s going on with my wife, or are there more ridiculous preconditions I must fulfil first?”
Asad sighed and refilled his coffee before slumping back into his chair with yet another bone-weary sigh to study him with sorrow and hint of pity in his eyes.
“Taline lost the baby. I’m sorry, E-zo.”
It felt like the final kick of a prolonged beating, delivered well after he’d lost the will or ability to gird himself against it. On some level, he’d already known what news awaited him in Alamūt’s infirmary, but it hadn’t really been real, not yet, and he’d desperately clung to the fading hope that it was just a false alarm, that Taline was being overcautious after her previous miscarriage, that he’d arrive and the medics would tell him that everything was actually all alright.
There’s a reason hope was in the same box as all the other evils of the world.
Mostly, the news left him numb, but he knew that the pain would suddenly engulf him at some later point, probably far sooner than he’d be ready to face it. That’s how his grief seemed to work – numbness first, then overwhelming waves of pain. He forced his face into the Order’s idealized emotionless mask and exhaled slowly.
“And Taline? Will she be alright? I mean, physically, once she recovers from the blood loss and… all that?”
“Physically, she should make a full recovery from this miscarriage, yes,” Asad said slowly, clearly choosing his words with obvious – and suspicious – care. “But there’s something else we need to discuss, Effendi.”
What the fuck. Asad never used his formal title, at least not with a straight face. He could feel something very cold and maybe a little sour curdling in his belly at his friend’s ominous pronunciation of Effendi.
“What’s this Effendi shit, amico,” he demanded, forcing his tone perfectly even and expression absolutely blank.
“It has been brought to our attention that-”
“Our attention?” he interjected sardonically. “Since when have Medics used the royal We?”
“-that you may have become a threat to Taline’s wellbeing, and-”
“A threat to my own wife?” he demanded incredulously. This has to be delirium. I must be more exhausted than I realized. “What the fuck are you talking about? I’d never hurt Taline! We’ve been friends for years, you know me! How can you think that?”
Asad’s expression looked pained, but resolute. So this is why he wanted to talk privately, jesus-fucking-christ and fucking Judas too.
“She fled your mother’s house in Roma-”
“Over a misunderstanding,” he quickly interjected.
“A misunderstanding?” Asad repeated incredulously. “She fled in fear for her life!”
“In fear for her – oh come on, you can’t be serious!” he exclaimed, coughing on the anxious laughter bubbling up his throat. “Is this – this has to be – no, seriously, now is really not the time for some dumb prank. You’re not – are you recording this or something?” he demanded, quickly scanning the room for hidden devices – not that he found any, even when he checked again with the second sight.
“We found the bruises.”
“What bruises?” he retorted before his sluggish brain had finished processing the meaning of the words Asad was saying.
Asad pushed his glasses up on his forehead to rub his eyes one-handed, while gripping his coffee with the other, before dropping his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose with a weary sigh.
“My fellow medics found several bruises on Taline’s body when she arrived, all of which roughly correspond with the size and shape of your hands, Effendi. Surely you must see how that raises questions for us?”
Cazzo!
“Oh… you mean those bruises. I don’t really know how she gets those.” He dropped his eyes to a smear of dried something at about mid-thigh across the side seam of his trousers and scraped at it with his thumbnail. What the fuck? Thestral shit? “I guess maybe I thrash around, or grab her, while I’m asleep? I wake up and they’re there.”
“When you sober up you mean,” Asad caustically corrected him.
He gritted his teeth. Not this old shit again.
“I have a couple drinks before bed to help me sleep, Hekim. Just enough to take the edge off-” he hitched one shoulder forward in an uncomfortable half-shrug “-nothing to sober up from.”
“Ezio,” Asad sighed, “please don’t make this harder for everyone.”
His friend’s tone, his choice of words, the constant sighing, everything about this conversation stung, smarting like a fresh wound, and he absolutely wasn’t in any condition to deal with any of it. To be blitzed with something like this, completely out of the blue, felt like a low blow; especially after the grueling ride and last 30 or so hours he’d just endured.
“Oh, so it’s back to Ezio now? What happened to Effendi?” he sneered after exhaling a forceful breath through his nose. “Are you hoping that appealing to me as a friend will get me to admit to a problem I don’t actually have?”
Asad’s eyes narrowed. “And which problem would that be?” he inquired acerbically. “Your inability to moderate your drinking, and your temper, or the fact both of those things have made your wife so fearful for her safety that she tried to run away from you and consequently suffered a miscarriage?”
He sighed and scrubbed his hand across his eyes. I was drunk. I don’t remember. It doesn’t mean anything, Taline. He could still see the fear in her eyes as she raised a hand to shield her face, the place on her wrist where he’d grabbed her already starting to darken into a bruise. Filomena thinks you beat Taline because she is displeasing to you, Altiar had said, so cool and calm and matter of fact, like he was commenting on a sparring match between students, or something. He finished rubbing his eyes – fuck I’m tired – and briefly meet Asad’s disapproving gaze before looking away again with another, deeper, sigh.
“Our trip to Roma was sort of… an unmitigated disaster, paisà,” he finally admitted, spitting out each word as it tried to stick in his throat. “I didn’t see how stressful it was for her. I guess I just assumed she’d love Roma because I love Roma, but…” He shrugged again and resumed scraping at the smear on his trousers. “The longer we stayed, the more unhappy she became. She got – jumpy, anxious, kinda paranoid, you know? Like, spooked by her own shadow, that sort of thing.”
He shifted in his chair, which wasn’t quite large enough to actually feel comfortable, and settled his gaze on a coffee-stained crack close to the rim of Asad’s cup since he was too uncomfortable to look at his friend directly.
“She was afraid of you, E-zo,” Asad repeated, with unnecessarily heavy emphasis, like that somehow made what he was saying more right, or something. Because it didn’t, make him right, not even a little.
He threw his hands up with a frustrated sigh. “She was afraid of everyone, Asad! Everyone and everything! Have you been listening to me at all?”
“Altaïr Effendi brought her straight here because she threatened to harm herself if he tried to bring her to you.” Asad paused to fish something out of his pocket and tossed it over. He reflexively caught the object without his brain registering what it was. “She held that to her throat when he mentioned your name.”
He finally recognized the object he was holding as the missing straight razor from his shaving case, the one he’d found open on the bed when he’d discovered Taline was gone, but even that recognition didn’t make the words Asad was saying to him make any sense.
“That’s ridiculous,” he scoffed, willfully ignoring the burning sensation creeping up his esophagus from his roiling stomach. “Taline would never do anything to harm our baby. I’m sure Altaïr was just, just-” he flapped his wrist helplessly as he cast about for the remainder of his sentence. “He was just, overstating, no emphasizing, his concerns – to make sure they were taken seriously. She would never-”
“Overstating?” Asad interrupted him incredulously, his eyebrows raised to nearly where his hairline had started when they’d first met. “I can’t imagine Altaïr Effendi has ever overstated anything, ever, in his life. You, of all people, should know that!”
Asad was absolutely right, of course – Damn him. Everything out of Altaïr’s mouth that wasn’t the bald-faced truth was understated to some degree, often considerably, but he didn’t – no, couldn’t – accept what Asad was trying to tell him.
“There’s a first time for everything,” he stubbornly insisted.
“She came in with a small cut, on the side of her throat, where she nicked herself before he was able to take the razor away from her,” Asad said softly as he gently set his coffee down on his desk and then took his time carefully adjusting its position to avoid meeting his eyes. “Altaïr also told me how she got that bruise on her wrist.”
His mouth suddenly felt cottony-dry and the emotional white noise that had been building up inside his head since they sat down in Asad’s office had gotten so loud he couldn’t have heard his own thoughts even if he’d wanted to, which he didn’t, not especially. Why didn’t Cesare just leave me in the Tevere. How did I let everything get so wrong. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
“Take me to Taline, vecchio amico. I want to see my wife.” It almost surprised him how flat and even the words coming from his mouth sounded.
“Go home, Effendi. Get some sleep,” Asad replied with a depressing tone of finality to his voice. “We’ll keep you appraised of any developments in your wife’s condition.”
“Why now?” he demanded. “All the chances you had, over what, the last ten years – and didn’t – what The Fuck made you decide Right Now was the time to tell me this?”
“Ezio, Bello-” Mario pleaded, after a deep sigh that somehow sounded sad and old and tired and maybe a little mortally wounded all at once, and he hated the guilty tug at his heart that stirred in response.
“How do I know this isn’t just some, some alcoholic fantasy, spun out of wishes and regrets and too many bottles of grappa? I don’t! I Don’t Know That At All!” he bellowed, shoving away from Mario to stalk over to the window. His knees felt wobbly and his hands were shaking; he curled his fingers into fists and braced his forearm against the window frame.
“I wanted to tell you, was going to tell you,” Mario insisted, voice unsteadied by rising emotion. “So many times, but your mother-”
“My Mother is the hand and voice of god,” he interrupted him savagely. “She will always be my mother, and that will never change. I know who she is, but who are you? Who The Fuck are you?”
“Ezio-”
“I thought I knew you,” he continued ruthlessly, willing the tremors in his legs to steady and ignoring the burning in his eyes. “All my life, you’ve been my Uncle Mario, who loved me and cared about me and always made time for me because I was just a second son – the spare – because you’re a bachelor with no children of your own. And now you’re telling me all of that was a lie, that one of the most basic things about me, about my life, is a lie. If you really aren’t the man I’ve known you as my whole life, who are you then? An imposter? A liar? A stranger that happens to look like someone I used to know?”
“I’m the same man, Ezio! Nothing’s changed except that you’ve always had your father in your life and-”
“No! This changes everything.”
He heard that one loose board by his bed creak as Mario paced the length of the room, presumably weighing what to say and how to say it, as the silence between them swelled like an infected wound. His reflection stared back at him, hollowed out cheeks and eyes sunken deep into their sockets. Exhaustion, dehydration, shock. Fuck Ezione, you look like shit. The hinges of the bedroom door emitted a rusty soft screech as it swung open behind him; he didn’t bother turning to see who it was.
“Maria,” Mario sighed. “Tell him. Talk some sense into our son.”
“My son,” she curtly corrected Mario, and he couldn’t help the slight smile he saw reflected against the oily darkness on the other side of the windowpane at the familiar acerbic temper of her tone. The old leaded glass was cold against his forehead and fog bloomed across its surface when he exhaled.
“Who am I, Mama?” he asked her softly. He could feel the tremors spreading through his body getting stronger, becoming harder to suppress, harder to control. Control, first you must master control of your mind and control of your body will follow, Herr Gebhard had lectured him and Christoph over and over again when he was still just a Soldier in Berlin, a universe away from where he was now.
“You are my son, my treasure,” she replied as she slid her arms around him, encircling him with pure Assassin steel and it felt good to lean in to it, to hug her tightly and feel that strength running through her body.
“Who else am I, Mama?” he asked as she led him back towards his old bed.
“You are an Auditore, tesoro mio. Younger brother of Federico and older brother to Mari, grandson of la donna Claudia, and husband to your wife, Taline. A Master of Rome, stationed in Alamūt. A direct descendant of both The Prophet and the The Architect. The scion of those two great bloodlines.”
“And who is that man, Mama?”
“The same man he’s always been, my treasure,” she replied. “A close male relative who loves you very dearly.”
He stood across the road from the infirmary, squinting against the bright afternoon sun as he studied each of the dozens of windows in turn, trying to fathom which one might be Taline’s. His conversation with Asad had ended with the medic pouring a soothing draught down his throat and then escorting him out of the infirmary with a firm hand against his back. Asad had hummed a jumble of reassuring platitudes into his ear before shoving him over the threshold and out into the bright hot daylight. The infirmary’s main doors closed behind him with an unnecessarily emphatic thud, as though the building itself, and not just those serving the Order within it, wanted to make sure he knew who had had the last word.
The first thing he did was purge himself of the calming draught in the closest cluster of shrubbery conveniently dense enough to camouflage his actions. The acrid taste of the regurgitated potion lingered on his tongue and in the back of his throat, no matter how many times he spit. Fucking fantastic. Why does it always taste so much worse coming back out than it did going down?
The next thing he did was head towards Altaïr’s rooms, not that he really expected to find him there – it was practically midday after all – but he needed to walk off the remainder of the soothing draught and he had words for Altaïr anyway.
It should have taken him a bit to get there, and he should have remembered at least some of the walk over, but all of a sudden he found himself pounding his fist against the door and raspily bellowing his cousin’s name. It took an infuriatingly long time for Altaïr to answer the door, and when he finally did, it was only to open it the barest wedge, which he completely blocked with his body, almost as though there was something, or someone, behind him he was trying to hide. The very thought was completely ludicrous, of course, but he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that his cousin was hiding something.
“Akhi,” Altaïr curtly greeted him, expression perfectly smooth and tone entirely even, as though the last 48 hours had been completely uneventful.
What he wanted to do was rage and pace and smash his fist against a thing or two – I’d just have to open my mouth and pour it all out – but his body must have absorbed at least some of the calming draught before he purged himself of it because he recognized behaving like that wasn’t actually going to help matters much, and undoubtedly wouldn’t actually make him feel as better as he wanted. He settled for breathing heavily through his nose and glowering at Altaïr while he decided what to say.
Altaïr tipped his head slightly to one side and quirked one of his eyebrows into a parabolic arch as the silence between them stretched. He looks… a little tired, maybe? Serves him right, stronzo. After some amount of time passed – more than seconds, surely, minutes? Hours? His life was such an absolute shitshow at the moment he wasn’t sure about anything anymore – Altaïr finally sighed and shifted his weight to his other hip.
“Perhaps we should have this discussion at another time?” Altaïr suggested, tone tempered positively mirror-finish smooth. “You look,” – he hesitated, sweeping his eyes over Ezio’s body in an almost clinical assessment – “your body needs food and rest and some time spent in silent reflection, perhaps to process your recent troubles, to still your mind and bring you some peace.”
“Silent reflection over what, exactly? How and why you stole my wife away from Roma without so much as a word to anyone?” he retorted, raking the thick chunks of hair that had escaped his hastily tied ponytail back from his face. “Or perhaps why my cousin and closest friend – my own fucking flesh and blood – would seek to sabotage my marriage and my happiness?
“You’re tired, Habibi,” Altaïr sighed “I’ll forget this whole conversation if you go home and get some rest, before you say something you’ll regret-”
“Was it jealousy? Are you that jealous of my marriage, of the family Taline and I are going to build together, how happy all that was making me?
“The word you mean to use is envy, Ezio. One is jealous of something they already possess, but envious of the possessions of others. And no, I’m neither jealous nor envious of you, or your potential happiness in your marriage. I merely did what I judged to be right based on the circumstances before me.”
“Did what I judged to be right,” he repeated mockingly. “Yeah, I’ll bet. Don’t you always? God, it must really eat at you, always doing what the Order says is the right thing, and getting nothing for it but loneliness and more work.”
“It does not eat at me,” Altaïr replied woodenly. “I live to serve the Order; its continued stability and security are all the reward I desire.”
“What a crock of shit,” he retorted. “No one is that selfless, not even you. It’s not humanly possible.”
“One should not assume that others share their weaknesses,” Altaïr rebuked him flatly, as though he was some thick-headed child too slow to grasp a basic lesson.
“Yeah, okay, whatever you say, Effendi,” he sneered with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. “Since I know you weren’t actually carved out of magic wood, you must just be super repressed and incapable of recognizing your own emotions. The reason Mal died, the real reason you weren’t there to save him is because he was so happy with his family – so happy without you – and you couldn’t stand seeing that firsthand. So you weren’t there when he needed you most and-” The rest of that sentence caught in his throat, frozen in place by the shockwave of elemental emotion emanating from Altaïr like an erupting volcano, ripping across his expression and exploding out of his pores.
“Zahré mār[1],” Altaïr spat. “Dast az saram vardār![2]”
Altaïr slammed the door – practically on his face – with so much force it momentarily dazed him, but not enough that he missed the magical charge of the ward Altaïr cast in lieu of locking the door. For some stupid reason he wasn’t going to think too hard about, that extra step – warding the already slammed door – incensed him.
“Altaïr!” he bellowed swinging a fist to pound against the door, only to be repelled backwards by a burst of force strong enough to stagger him just before his fist made contact with the wood. Of course he used one of Those fucking wards, stronzo. Should have seen that coming kilometers away. The acerbic taste of warding magic, intertwined with the barest hint of something else, scraped at the back of his throat as he stormed outside, but he refused to cough. That something else reminded him of something, almost like the scent of blood on tainted blades. But that’s impossible.
Fucking Judas, spiriting my wife away like a thief in the night. He swiped his foot at a smallish stone along the edge of the path and watched the perfect arc of its trajectory with a flush of childish satisfaction. Strictly speaking, he knew perfectly well that Altaïr hadn’t spirited Taline away from him. He also knew that he was, in fact, very lucky that Altaïr went after Taline and acted as quickly as he had, and, just in case he hadn’t known or might’ve forgotten that fact, everyone had told him so, and then repeated it a few more times for good measure. He kicked the stone again, harder this time; it sailed off course and disappeared amongst a cluster of ancient looking yew trees. He sighed and raked his hands through the tangled mess of his hair. Cazzata.
He decided that he may as well do the responsible thing, which was to go to the bathhouse for a cold shower and a fresh change of clothes before heading over to the dining hall; Asad hadn’t been wrong about him needing to eat something, and soon.
“Effendi!” a vaguely familiar voice hailed him as he loaded a plate still hot from the dishwashers with pieces of cold meat, sheep’s milk cheese, bright fresh fruit, and wedges of dark toasted rye bread. He sighed and drizzled a thin ribbon of honey across his cheese; he really wasn’t up to the social formalities Alamūt demanded of its Masters at the moment.
“Maestro,” Vincenzo chirped as he bounded up to his elbow. “This place is soooo big! There’s so many people! And Lucia says they’re all Assassins? Like us?”
“Yeah, cucciolo,” he replied with a slight chuckle at the younger man’s exuberance. “Everyone here serves the Order. You’ll have to work on your Arabic to fit in, yeah?”
“Yes, Maestro,” Vincenzo mumbled, looking chastened.
He glanced over at Vincenzo’s long face and sighed.
“It’s not like Roma, Cenzo, no one is going to make fun of you for not understanding what they’re saying,” he explained gently as he tried to catch Vincenzo’s eyes, but the younger man’s gaze remained firmly fixed to the toes of his boots. He sighed again. “Assassins come to Alamūt for training from all over the world, and not all of them arrive speaking very good Arabic, so the Order helps them learn it while they’re here. No judgment, no shame. You’ll take some classes and the rest of the time you’ll help me with training Recruits, yeah?”
“Yes, Maestro.”
He swallowed another sigh at the younger man’s maudlin tone – this is a huge change for him, stronzo. Have patience, he’ll come around – and forced a smile.
“Great! I’m so glad to have you here helping me, cucciolo,” he said in an overly hearty and hale tone, not that Vincenzo gave any indication that he could tell Ezio was laying it on a bit thick.
“Me too, Maestro,” Vincenzo beamed, his unhappiness from only a moment before already forgotten. Not for the first time, he found himself a little envious of Vincenzo’s ability to completely live in the present moment. “Lucia saved a seat for you, with us, at that table just over here. C’mon, Maestro.”
Of course the table Vincenzo pointed at had only two empty seats. Of fucking course. He leveled his shoulders and mustered an approximation of his usual charming and carefree smile. It was already exhausting.
One of the muscles in his cheek twinged; he gritted his teeth and forced his smile wider. I should get one of those Hollywood awards. No actor has ever played a role even half as well.
“Assalaam 'alaikum[3],” he greeted the table at large, with a quick acknowledging nod directed to Lucia. “May I join you?”
He flopped back onto their bed with a frustrated groan. What he needed was an orgasm, a grand, toe-curlingly-satisfying release, but Ezione wasn’t cooperating – not in the bath, not after the bath, not even when he used one of Taline’s silk slips, which always worked, except, apparently, right now – and it wasn’t fucking fair. If one wanted to get all heavy and grim about things – which he really didn’t, but was backsliding towards it anyway – life in general wasn’t fair and misfortune had started dogging his steps when Cesare pulled him out of the Tevere. Two steps forward, one step back, abrupt turn, like some bizarre folk dance. With the painful clarity of hindsight, as well as his freshly acquired physical and emotional distance, he could now see the myriad threads that converged into the whole Cristina catastrophe a bit more clearly; Cristina’s fundamental reservations – about him, about herself, about their relationship and her family and if they even had a future together at all – all the warnings and red flags he willfully ignored or was too infatuated to notice, and even some of his own mistakes and bad decisions. It’s different with Taline though, she’s different. Distracted by these not exactly sexy thoughts, he hadn’t really noticed where his hands had wandered until his cock sluggishly twitched with half-hearted interest, causing his hands to swiftly recoiled at the searing shame he immediately felt, followed by a second, stronger wave at the barely formed thought of just carrying on with it for the badly needed release.
“So that’s why you didn’t answer the door-”
“Lucia,” he gasped, bolting upright and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed as he snatched the closest material at hand over his lap. “What are you doing here?”
“Just checking in on you, making sure you’re not passed out in a puddle of your own vomit or something equally depressing or destructive. You weren’t at dinner. Is that – that’s not yours, right?” she asked, arching a brow at Taline’s slip wadded up over his lap. “I just mean, I thought I knew all your kinks and fetishes, it’s perfectly fine if it is, yours.” Her widening smile had an uncomfortable, almost predatory, edge to it.
He hated himself for the blood rushing into his loins even as his entire body felt positively volcanic with guilt and shame.
“I don’t have kinks, Lucia,” he snapped. “At least not those ones. Turn around, or something, this is really inappropriate!”
“All of Roma has already seen you naked loads of times,” she retorted, brushing a loose lock of hair out of her face. “Not to mention all the nude frolicking you did while in Berlin, and the, I dunno, hundreds of times we’ve fucked over the years.”
“This is the bedroom I share with my wife,” he hissed. “And we’re not fucking anymore; that’s over! I’m married and committed to Taline.”
Lucia’s eyes narrowed. “She’s not here now, is she?”
“Because she’s in the infirmary! We’ll be together again soon-”
“She threw away your child, left you in Roma, and you aren’t even allowed in the infirmary to see her – don’t bother trying to deny it, I’ve already spoken to the Medics – it doesn’t look to me like she’s coming back, E-zo!”
Something exploded inside his head, somewhere just behind his eyes, hot white bright and loud and a hundred different ugly emotions all brutally smashed together.
“Out!” roared a voice so deep and guttural it took a moment for him to realize it was his own. “Get Out!” He lunged up from the bed towards her, ears ringing, peripheral vision blurring, and the scent of wet iron filling his nose.
“Peace, Ezio,” Lucia soothed as she slowly backed away from him, hands held up and protectively splayed in front of her. “I’m here because of how much I love you, and I was worried. You didn’t seem yourself earlier.”
He blinked, and just like that, all the heat and noise and anger vanished, leaving him cold and hollow and standing naked in a room devoid of Taline’s comfort and warmth. There was something wet on his face; he swiped a distracted hand across the wetness and was slightly startled to see that it was blood and realized his nose must have started bleeding. Fuck.
“Yeah,” he rasped with a slight grimace at the rawness of his throat. The fuck is wrong with you, stronzo? “Sorry” – he sighed – “I love you too, you’re family to me, Lu.”
She blinked a couple times and her mouth twisted. “Right, family. D’you – you know what, never mind.”
“Never mind what? What, Lucia?” he pressed when she just shook her head and waved his question off.
“I was going to ask if you think having sex with family is normal,” she sighed and cast her eyes up towards the ceiling. “But, actually, knowing your family, I’m not sure I really need an answer.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She rolled her eyes. “You know.”
“No, actually, I don’t.” He took a half step back when she scoffed at his denial and avoided meeting his eyes. “Really, Lu, what d’you mean by that?”
“C’mon, Ezio, really? After that little chat you had with Mario at your mother’s house?”
“What’s Mario got to – what the, were you listening at the door, or something?”
“No!” she said quickly – a little too quickly – then sighed and jogged her shoulders in an almost apologetic gesture. “But only because Filomena turfed me out – with an admonition not to loiter – so she could take the prime place. She only summoned your mother because I stuck around, probably to justify her own snooping. I loathe hypocrisy.”
He was tempted to comment on that last statement, but decided against cracking the lid on that particular can of worms.
“Eavesdrop anything shocking?”
“Nothing I hadn’t worked out myself ages ago.”
“What,” he bleated, wiping a fresh trickle of blood off his upper lip. The last time he’d gotten a bloody nose Taline had fixed it for him; something twisted painfully tight inside his chest at the memory. God it hurts to breathe.
Lucia shrugged. “I had a lot of free time on my hands after they sent you here, what with all the work I wasn’t getting.” She shrugged again. “Time to really think about little things I noticed, which, of course, led to noticing more things, then some rooting around in old records…”
“So, while you were busily ferreting out secrets about my family, about my fucking life, Lucia, did you ever think about telling me, I dunno, any of it?”
She scratched at the side of her neck and avoided his eyes.
“Yeah…” Her voice was hesitant and she still wasn’t looking at him.
“Really?” he scoffed and wiped more fresh blood off his upper lip. “You’re usually not such a shitty liar.” Jesus Christ, how much longer is this going to bleed? He knew a couple basic medi-hexes that would at least stop the bleeding, but he just didn’t feel like casting them.
“It’s not exactly the sort of thing you send in a letter now is it?” she retorted. “And I’m an amazing liar, you man slut.” She shifted her weight to her other hip. “Besides, would you really have wanted to hear it?”
“Yeah, maybe,” he blustered, distractedly wiping his nose again with the back of his wrist as he looked for the underwear the elf had left out for him on the side of the bed. “I don’t fucking know, but you should have at least tried.”
“Well, Mari sure as shit didn’t. You know, your sister has a real mighty talent for being unpleasant when she wants to be, Jesus H. Christ and all his Disciples.”
You know this is a really shitty idea, stronzo.
Of course he knew that, he’d known it as soon as the thought had entered his head while Lucia was droning on and on about all the various injustices she’d had to endure after he’d been sent to Alamūt. The first hurdle was getting her to leave – really leave, and not hang around outside watching him – without making her suspicious.
“You need to go, Lu,” he’d blurted out. “Kadija’ll have my balls if she catches wind of you being here, like this.”
“Like what?” she’d scoffed. “I’m just checking in on a very old and very close friend.”
“Late at night? When you know I’ll be alone because my wife is in the infirmary? You know how that looks, what my family will think.”
“So what?” she shot back. “So Fucking What. They all know you’ve been fucking me for years. Your mother might even know that I’ve been fucking you too; Filomena doesn’t miss much, you know.”
Fuck.
He forced himself to take a deep slow breath.
“Get out Lucia. Go back to your rooms, stay there until it’s time to take Vincenzo to breakfast, and keep our very personal history to yourself. The only sex we’ve ever had is me fucking you, nothing else. That’s an order, Solider.”
She hadn’t liked hearing that – at all – but she’d left. Well, stormed out and slammed the door behind herself, but she wasn’t skulking in the shadows when he’d slipped out a short while later. He’d have felt worse about what he’d said to her if she hadn’t threatened him, but he needed her to go away and not come back for the remainder of the night.
I’ll find a really good contract or something to make it up to her. He sighed and willed his eyes to refocus in the second sight. Okay, a couple really good ones so she doesn’t go around shooting off her mouth and stirring up shit. Fuck.
He’d given the metallurgists one of his baby teeth and a vile of blood to be incorporated into the metal for the ring he’d presented to Taline. He meant it as a grand romantic gesture – including pieces of himself in her wedding ring – but for some reason never told her about it, and she hadn’t seem to notice anything particularly special about the ring, except that the stones had been cut by her uncle – which stung a little if he let himself think about it too much.
Maybe it’s a good thing she didn’t notice. She’d probably have taken it off if she had. He decided not to dwell on how much that line of thought made him want a very big drink.
The infirmary was warded against Eagle Vision – to protect patient privacy – mostly. Years ago, Altaïr had told him the trick to seeing through the medics’ wards: blood magic. The Assassins’ practice of incorporating organic material from themselves and close relatives or ancestors into the metal of their blades forged magical and metallurgical bonds between the blades themselves – the greater the consanguinity, the stronger the bond between the blades and the more difficult it was to conceal from Eagle Vision.
His mother’s family was really into that sort of consanguinity, like, really, Really into it. His mother had procured blade shards from her sisters, mother, and father, as well as Federico, for him and Mari when the time came to cast their blades. She also insisted that they include baby teeth from their siblings and cousins and the dark brownish-maroon dust she provided to each of them in a phial. He sometimes wondered what, exactly, that phial had contained, but invariably decided that he was happier not knowing; when it came to family stuff, his mother was into some seriously dark and creepy shit. Functionally, the extremely high consanguinity between his family’s blades made it very easy for them to find one another, no matter the distance between them.
Conveniently, for him, consanguinity didn’t just apply to blades. The ring he’d put on Taline’s finger lit up for him like a beacon in Eagle Vision, and while the medics’ wards managed to blur it slightly, he’d already identified her location from his vantage point across the road, in an opportunely dense and overgrown thicket of shrubbery. Less opportunely, the shrubbery also happened to possess a number of large sharp thorns, one of which opened a long and fairly deep wound along the side of his palm, which he hastily bandaged with a dubiously clean handkerchief he somehow had in his pocket.
Well done Ezione, right proper Master you are, stronzo.
He scaled the wall and entered through an unsecured window reasonably close to Taline’s room without attracting any attention, which made him feel like slightly less of a fraud. He then cast a slumber over the patient whose opened window had provided his access – being stuck overnight in the infirmary was bad enough, but waking up to an actual fidā'ī in your room was nightmare fodder for life and he wasn’t some completely compassionless monster. It was also at least 99% certain that the kid would start screaming blue murder if he woke up and saw him, so better safe than busted he reasoned as he unhooked the medics’ notes from the end of the bed. İsmayıl İsmayılov, 14 year old male, complications following acute appendicitis. Damn that sounds serious, poor kid. He replaced the chart and went over to the door to listen for sounds of movement beyond İsmayıl’s room – medics were generally pretty good at moving quietly, but something always gave them away: a smothered cough, a sigh, the scape or squeak of a shoe, the rustle of their robes as the moved – and he heard absolutely nothing. Huh. Door’s probably got a one way silence ward on it. Jesus Christ, they think that they think of everything, fucking mother hens. He scanned the hallway with his second sight. Empty. Probably. As far as he knew, the wards shielding against Eagle Vision were only on the building’s exterior walls, but he cast the invisibility cloak he used on contracts before easing the door open, just in case.
The hallway was deserted, as expected, and the adjacent hallways were devoid of patrolling medics as well. Where the fuck is everyone? Are all the night staff off banging each other in a broom cupboard or something? What really irked him is that he’d have to get caught to make a complaint to Al Zahra, and he had no intention of getting caught. Priorities, Ezione, he reminded himself as he willed his eyes into the second sight and concentrated on Taline. The solid silhouette of her body glowed golden bright – visible through walls, and furniture, and even the bodies of other patients – and she was so close, only two hallways over and three doors down. Taline. Reflexively he kept to his contract precautions – cloak up and movement silent – as he made his way to Taline’s door, and discovered that it was warded. Like, seriously warded, Murud-Janjira[4] level warded, which he didn’t think would actually be an issue until the skeleton key he cast – the one that opened literally every single ward he’d ever encountered – didn’t work. He forced himself to take a deep breath, concentrate his focus, and try again. The ward didn’t even ripple.
What the ever-loving-FUCK?? Where did some medic learn to cast a ward that even a Master can’t break?
He was sorely tempted to cast a silence so he could express his frustration at a truly satisfying decibel, but someone was going to catch him out sooner rather than later if he kept chucking stones into the mostly calm magical waters.
Okay, Plan B. Fuck, think of a Plan B. He jogged his hip impatiently, trying to will his exhausted brain to come up with something brilliant, or, at the very least, something; it remained as blank as a bleached bone-white sheet, crisp and fresh from the laundry. Fucking kidding me, stronzo. How are you a Master even?
He reflexively flattened himself against the wall across from Taline’s door when the soft sound of movement caught his attention just before some junior medic rounded the corner. His heartbeat and breathing slowed, the white noise inside his head abruptly cut out, all the frustration and burgeoning panic evaporated into cold detached calm, and Ezio the man was replaced with Ezio the Master.
Just like any other contract. Target is in a secure location; gain access to that location, gain access to the target.
The medic stopped after a few steps to glance over their shoulder and then warily scan the hallway in front of them again, like they could feel his presence, feel themselves being watched. He held perfectly still, and waited. The medic scoffed under their breath with a slight shake of their head and continued on their way, apparently satisfied that they were alone. He watched them enter every room along the hallway and noted the way they left the door to each open behind themselves, how many minutes they spent in each room before they came out again, the circuit of their movements around the room. He was ready when the medic reached the room Taline was in, focus honed to a razor edge and his entire being tightly coiled, ready to react.
The medic hesitated at the doorway, scanning the hallway again, first to their left, then to their right, suddenly nervous, uneasy. He was standing directly behind them, so close he could almost count the warped threads in the coarsely woven hood they had pulled up over their hair. He watched them go perfectly still, gathering their focus and magic to unlock the ward. He heard their breath expelled in a deep sigh as the was ward released, its sinuous filaments gently catching at him like cobwebs as he followed the medic into Taline’s room and took up position in the furthest corner.
Patience, Ezio. The golden moment is so easily lost if you try to rush it, the memory of Lehrer Gebhard whispered inside his head. Be still and silent and patient…
The medic leaned over Taline, adjusting the blankets and smoothing her hair back from her face as they spoke to her softly, voice low pitched and even, in a strangely familiar sounding language he didn’t understand. It wasn’t Turkish, he’d heard that spoken around him often enough to recognize it and even understand the occasional word of it here and there.
Armenian?
It should have occurred to him that there probably were medics stationed at Alamūt that spoke what he assumed was Taline’s first language; he was slightly embarrassed by his own surprise.
Checking on her in her own language is the least they could do after what that cunt did the first time she came to see them.
The medic spent longer with Taline than they had with the other patients they had checked on, asking more questions, checking and double checking the potions and empty phials on the bedside table. His legs were starting to get just the slightest bit wobbly by the time they finally left the room and recast the ward. He shifted his weight and waited, using his second sight to watch the medic finish checking the last three patients on the hall and then head off, presumably for a break, or the shift change, or whatever.
Taline was lying on her back, hands folded over her uncle’s pendant, staring at the ceiling with glassy, unseeing eyes. Something in his gut wrenched against itself at how beautiful she looked and how badly he felt that she was here because of him.
She held that to her throat when he mentioned your name, Asad had told him as he handed him the missing straight razor from his shaving kit. Not like you hurt Taline, and I know you know it’s wrong, Altaïr had said to him in his old room at his mother’s house, yesterday morning – or maybe it was the day before yesterday – the last couple days were kind of all blurred together. Physical stress, sleep deprivation, and emotional shock tended to do that to people – make time jumbled and distorted.
I merely did what I judged to be right based on the circumstances before me.
He hated how Altaïr had seen the situation so much more clearly than he had; stark, simplistic, right versus wrong, and the parameters of his duty – where it began, to whom it was owed, when it called for action, and the line at which it ended. Clean, clear, concise. He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. His marriage scar suddenly went from tingling and warm to burning hot.
“Ezio?” Taline had turned her head and was looking straight at him. “They told me you aren’t allowed here. They promised you wouldn’t be let in.”
He winced at her words and his eyes stung and Ezio the Master faded away leaving just Ezio the man standing there feeling supremely shitty. What did you expect after everything you fucked up, stronzo?
“I got in through a window. Nobody let me in, Mogliettina,” he replied, letting his cloak drop. “And I’ll probably get in a lot of trouble if the medics catch me, but I couldn’t bear being alone in our bed with you in here, hurting and so alone.”
She turned her face back to the ceiling.
“Taline? I know I don’t deserve it, but please, give me a chance?” he pleaded. “I’ll do anything – anything at all – to make things right between us. Please? I’m sorry, I’m really so, so sorry.”
“Kadija said you’d do this.”
“Do what?”
“Find a way in, be very very sorry, and then promise me anything and everything for another chance.”
He clenched his teeth and exhaled slowly through his nose. Fucking Kadija.
“Did she say anything else?”
“She did.”
He waited for her to say more, forcing himself to stay perfectly still, every muscle in his body aching with unreleased tension, while the brittle silence filling the space between them multiplied.
“Are you going to tell me?” he finally asked.
“If she’d meant for you to hear it, she would have told you so herself.” She turned her face back towards him with a sigh.
He swallowed hard and clenched his teeth again as an extra barrier to any partially formed thoughts slipping past his lips. Leave it, Ezione. Let her have that win and take another track.
“Will you come home to me, Mogliettina?” he allowed himself to ask, the words more clipped and stilted from his fear and anxiety than they had sounded moments before inside his head. “I, I need you. Need you in my home, in my life – please Taline –”
“Is this where you start making impossible promises?” she interrupted, tone listless and flat. “Are you going to chop off your hair to prove your love, like Sampson did for Delilah? Take a temperance pledge?”
“If that’s what it takes, yes,” he responded quickly, too quickly, he realized when she sighed at his words and half-closed her eyes.
“Not the temperance pledge – you couldn’t possibly want to be married to some joyless teetotaler; you wouldn’t have married me in the first place if that’s really the type of man you wanted – but I will promise not to drink around you, and to not come home if I’ve been drinking until I’ve sobered up.”
She opened her eyes and fixed him in her gaze, magnetic and intense and the air around them felt like it was getting thicker, warmer, and ever so slightly scented with something, a little acrid and maybe just a touch lonely, like the taste of cold ashes tickling the back of his throat. He swallowed shakily and took a deep breath.
“But I will cut my hair, for you, if you want,” he offered, raking a hand through the thick locks, which almost immediately snarled tightly around his Ferryman’s ring. “I’m pretty sure it’s not magical, like Sampson’s was, just so you know,” he continued, trying to casually extricate his hand from his hair. Fuck, fucking – OUCH – christ, oddio! “So I’m not going to magically become, I don’t know – a better man? – until it grows back, or something. But I want to try to become a better man for you, whatever my hair looks like, if you’ll give me a chance?” His hand came free with a final sharp tug; a distressing number of hairs still ensnared around the heavy ring. Jesus Christ, Ezione.
“That hurt,” she asked, eyes lingering on his ring. “Didn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he hitched his shoulders in an awkward semi-shrug. “Not, like, A Lot, but it didn’t feel great, or anything.” He gnawed the inner edge of his bottom lip and watched her watching him, waiting for her to say something, anything to break the swelling silence. “Taline, I-”
“I know,” she sighed. “You’re so very, very sorry about everything, and all I need to do for you to make it all all better is give you another chance.”
He winced at the flatness of her tone. “Yeah, something like that.” His throat felt like sandpaper and his eyeballs were too hot and tight and big for their sockets. He sighed and scrubbed his hands across his face.
“Except you forgot the part about how lost I feel without you, how airless and desolate our home feels without you breathing life into it. How I can’t sleep because your empty space beside me in our bed is more painful than any wound I’ve ever gotten – including getting burned by magical fire, which hurt so much I almost shat myself-”
“So you’re telling me that you’ve made a mess on our sheets?”
“What? No, that’s not, not literally,” he blustered, rubbing the palms of his hands against the coarse fabric of his trousers, “is that, is that the only part of everything I just said that you heard? Jesus, Taline! I’m trying to tell you how much I need you in my life!”
“Okay.”
He started crying. He didn’t mean to or want to and he really wanted to stop because he was already dehydrated and his tears were so extra salty they burned his eyes and his nose was going to start running and he’d just be this disgusting phlegmy mess and this was absolutely not the way he’d wanted this to go At All. He’d just about managed to stop crying when the hiccups started.
Hiccups? Now? Are you kidding me?? What sort of god decides that Now is the time to pop a squat and just shit all over me?
“Ezio.”
“Ye-yeah?” he gasped, almost successfully between hiccups.
“I’m cold,” she said softly, sitting up and hitching herself more towards the edge of the bed closest to the door. “You must be cold too. I think we might be warmer, together?”
“I thi-nk that too, Mogliettina,” he cautiously replied, not entirely successfully suppressing a hiccup. “D’you want, I’d really li-ke to try, if that’s okay with you?”
She hesitated, long enough for another hiccup to sneak out, then dipped her chin in a hesitant nod. He sighed with relief and hoped his smile came across as reassuring, and not at all off putting or disingenuous, as he toed off his boots and tried to control his spasming diaphragm at the same time. There was a little awkwardness between them as he clambered onto the narrow bed beside her – more than he would have liked, but much less than there could have been, which seemed like something, given the circumstances.
You’ve got this Ezione, just be patient and gentle and let her come to you.
“Like this?” he asked, trying to contour his body to hers without pulling her back against himself, like he usually did. Patient and Gentle You Fucking Stronzo.
“Yes.”
“You’re comfortable, I mean, I’m not – this is nice, ri-ght?” he babbled, stupidly nervous and feeling too big and boorish and just all around awkward, as she pillowed her cheek against his bicep.
Stop talking, Ezione. Shut your big dumb mouth before the wrong thing comes out and fucks everything up again.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry, Mogliettina,” he murmured, nudging his face into her hair, savoring her scent and the feeling of it against his lips, his face. “I’m so sorry you were alone, that I wasn’t there for you when,” – Oddio, Do Not Bring Up The Baby – “when you needed me,” he finished pathetically, wincing at his own tactlessness and overall stupidity. “I wish, I wish I could take this whole week back and do it again. There’s so much I wish I’d done differently, better.”
“If wishes were poppies,” she whispered, accent thicker and the words half muffled against his arm.
Then this would all be a dream.
“Yeah,” he sighed. Some fucking dream.
“He’s gone, Varpet. Like a beautiful dream-” Her body shook with almost silent sobs and he hadn’t witnessed anything remotely matching the magnitude of her emotional pain since Fredo had died.
“Yeah,” he managed to croak before his whole chest compressed under the weight of their combined grief, crushing his heart and sucking the breath from his lungs. It felt like he was supposed to say more, something supportive and understanding and comforting, but no matter how hard he tried to find them, no words were forming.
Taline rolled over and buried her face against him, twisting the fabric of his robes between her fingers then clenching them tightly into a fist, exposing the marriage scar across his chest and pressed her cheek against the slightly keloided lines of her signature. She melted against him when he hugged her, their bodies seamlessly melding together in shared grief. It felt right.
He noticed his hiccups were gone.
[1] the poison of a snake (this phrase means 'Shut up!' in Persian)
[2] take your hand off my head (basically "leave me the hell alone.")
[3] May peace be upon you
[4] A huge marine fortress on an island near Murud, this is the only fort on the west coast of India that has remained undefeated, in the face of many attacks from countries including the Netherlands, Portugal and England.