You were not an Assassin by birth, nor a man who had grown up in the ways of the Brotherhood. The life of a revolutionary had been thrust upon you, shaped by the city's unrest, by blood on the cobblestones and the scent of burning wood in the air. You were a fighter first, a soldier before anything else—a man hardened by war, by the sharp bite of steel and the weight of choices made in the dead of night. And yet, for all your battles, Élise de la Serre was the only opponent who ever truly tested you.

The training grounds were far from the prying eyes of the Brotherhood, hidden deep within the overgrown ruins of an old monastery on the outskirts of Paris. Time had reclaimed this place, ivy twisting through the cracked stone walls, candlelight flickering against the damp floor. It smelled of old parchment, damp earth, and steel—the scent of battle and blood, of things long past yet never forgotten.

Élise stood in the middle of what had once been the monastery's grand hall, now stripped of its relics, the marble altar replaced by training dummies and racks of weapons. The only thing divine here now was the way she held herself—head high, confidence etched into every inch of her body, the embers of a smirk playing on her lips as she rolled her wrists, testing the weight of the sword in her grip.

Outside, the city was alive with revolution, but here, only your breath and the occasional scrape of boots against stone filled the heavy silence.