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I sat the note back down on Alis' small and unsteady desk. It felt as if I was letting go of a part of myself when my fingers left the page. But I was also filled with a feeling that I was beginning a journey. There was nothing else in this world that had filled me with such joy as just these simple words had.

Alis moved across from the tent, he pulled the chair closer towards him and took a seat. I watched him with a curious eye. The box came back to mind but I couldn't think of a way to ask him what was on my mind.

Something about that box made feel as if I needed to discover where it had come from, what was inside, and what was so special about it. Somehow, it was the box itself that conjured more of an attraction than the truth laying inside of it. I didn't have a clue as to why I would feel this way towards something that had never crossed my mind before. Alis had never talked about a box nor did he ever feel attached to anything besides money.

Of course, that was the one thing that made us able to live so comfortably. Even when the Brotherhood lost profits somewhere outside of the Kingdom like when a raid would fall through, we were always able to make ends meet. Though it sounded like it was hard for us to survive, or somewhat easy if someone looked at it another way, we were always coming out of a war with no scars to see.

In simple terms, we'd never faced anything hard. Except killing or stealing.

"What's the mission?" I asked while leaning against the desk. Alis looked at me with a curious expression. Something about it made me uneasy.

Alis rubbed the tips of his forefinger and middle finger along his upper lip. They hung there for a second, gripping onto the dry skin. He was lost in deep thought. It aggravated me. My fingers twitched and the need to bite my nails sprung up again.

That happened sometimes. I would be so out of control with my own mind and body that I would fall back onto the bad habit. Alis hated it so much that he would even do the worst thing he could do to me. Humiliate me.

He did subtly as to not ruin my relationships or status with the rest of the Brothers, but the damage was so harsh that it took weeks until they would accept me back into the ranks.

The only time he'd done it had been two years ago. I'd been barely at the age of sixteen when he'd lashed me in front of the rest of the Brotherhood in the camp. That feeling, while I kneeled in the dirt, stripped of my clothing, it dug a deep hole in my heart.

I don't know why that memory was brought up. It had no place here. But thinking about it made me not so fond of Alis. On good days he was a friend, a mentor I could rely on. On bad days, I couldn't stand the thought of him.

Today had been good until those memories came surging back.

I pushed them down as best as I could, thinking about how it would feel when I would be out on my own. I would be the assassin none of these ugly men would ever dream to be. I would show them that I was much better than any of them.

Alis finally broke the silence. "You are to join the Brothers in the next raid."

I couldn't contain the grin that broke across my face.

Alis raised a single finger. "I won't be coming along."

The grin fell.

"What?

My dismay really couldn't be hidden. The facade I always kept up around the brothers fell away when I was alone with Alis. I always thought there was no point. He knew me better than anyone else in this entire world. Whatever I was thinking, it always seemed like he knew what is was.

Even my power couldn't be hidden from him. When I felt things, he was in tune with it as well. Maybe it was something about me, a tick that I didn't know about that he picked up on. Thought it felt like a small and insignificant thing, it must have been part of a bigger picture.

But at that moment, standing in front of him while he told me he wouldn't be by my side in what could be the most important day of my life, it didn't really matter. I was blindsided by the sheer improbability.

Alis sighed and let his hand run over his face. He looked much older. He looked defeated, rung out, pushed beyond his years. He couldn't have been a few years older fifty, but in this light, he looked like he could have been past the point of a hundred. Stress, war, and fighting did that to some people. Alis was never one of them.

It didn't hit me until a few seconds later that his hand was outstretched towards mine.

I stared down at the open palm, unsure what I was supposed to do. The fingers were an array of lines cut open. They were thick and beaten from years of handling a blade and other weapons. The palms were hardened with callouses. He'd worked with the Brotherhood since he was my age now. Most of the men here had never known a life outside of it.

And it was clear to me now that I was the only person Alis had ever opened up to. I was separate from the Brothers. A second family that was so different from them that we could have been night and day.

I grabbed his hand and gripped onto it as tight as I could.

"You will do well," he said. There was no hesitance, no doubt in his words.

It made it much more of my duty to succeed. Everywhere I went, Alis would be following.