Altaïr moved. Not with the brash fury of his youth, but with the cold economy of a master. The scout vanished first, pulled into the shadow of an overturned dory, a swift blade to the ribs. The archer never woke; a throwing knife lodged in his throat before his next breath. The brute heard the gurgle, turned, and saw only a flicker of white and red.

“The ‘one from the sea’ is dead. I killed him three nights past. Who else knows of the fragment?”

“You are too late,” Kyros whispered, and drew a hidden blade of his own—crude, rusty, but sharp enough. He charged.

Kyros kicked the iron chest. It slid toward Altaïr, lid popping open. Inside was not a map, but a small, obsidian disk—cold, smooth, and humming with a silent, terrible energy.

Kyros’s eyes darted to a small iron chest by his feet. “No one. It’s finished. The knowledge dies with me.”

“The fragment,” Altaïr repeated, his voice low as grinding stone. “Where?”

Kyros was on the pier, hunched over a chart, muttering prayers to a God the Templars had twisted for their own greed. He was a thin, nervous man, his fingers stained with ink and fear.

“The map,” Altaïr said, stepping from the glare of the sun into the shade of the pier’s awning.