Hanging off the edge of the roof, with nothing but the strength of my arms between me and a fatal swan dive down to the street below... I should be afraid, but the night is wrapped around me, muffling my emotions until I feel only grim anticipation. The darkness drinks of my fear, my uncertainty and my agony and leaves in their place only firm resolve. Two men will die tonight, both by my hand, and the shadows whisper to me in encouragement.

I haul myself up over the edge of the roof and drop into a low crouch, scurrying across tiles that retain still some of the sun's warmth. Step here, but not there... run, duck, leap over that spot and land as lightly as a squirrel... my body moves itself, my mind concerned only with what's to come.

One more leap and I'm in free-fall, off the roof edge opposite where I climbed up. I almost give in to the urge to laugh, but then I'm falling past the sixth floor and it's time to move. I twist and grab hold of a windowsill so narrow that it can barely be seen from below or above, and plant my feet against the wall to take some of my weight off my shoulders.

Precious seconds tick away and I let one hand slip free, leaving me precariously balanced indeed -- but I need that hand to pick the lock. The night coos its approval in my ear as the complex mechanism gives within moments. Yonaka trained me well.

I slide in through the window, landing splay-legged to avoid the trap-spell directly beneath it, and then I can take a bare instant to catch my breath and adjust to the absence of the sweet night air.

I've done it. I'm inside, without a single trap sprung or alarm set off. No small feat, this. I've broken into the Thieves' GuildHall. Another night... in another life, perhaps, this might have been my test, the challenge given me to prove my worthiness to inherit the leadership of the Guild. My arm throbs at the thought. That life ends tonight, and this job is not yet finished.

There are fewer traps inside, but navigating these well-guarded, labyrinthine halls is still a thing of split-second timing and endless patience.

The guards at his door are surprised to see me, but are not so unprofessional that they would hesitate, even for an instant. Neither am I, and I am faster. The heavy double doors open at my touch.

"Yonaka." The name comes out as a soft whisper, when I had intended it as an angry roar. He hears me anyway and turns to face me, surprise widening his warm, dark eyes for a moment.

"Yami? What brings you here, in the middle of the night? Did something go wrong on a job?" Even in the dimness of candlelight, I can see his worried frown. He doesn't believe that I could have made a simple mistake on a job, therefore something unforeseeable and terrible must have happened. After all, I'm his chosen successor, I'm supposed to be perfect.

"No. I took the night off for personal reasons." Still, my words are hushed, even as I shed my over-shirt and glide towards him slowly.

He gives me his lazy, bedroom smile, but it only lasts for a single heartbeat... then he sees the miniature crossbow mounted on my forearm bracer. His eyes travel up my arm from that, and when he catches sight of the inside of my elbow he jerks as if I've already shot him.

"Your... arm..." His unflappable confidence flows out of him in a visible tide, and Yonaka stares helplessly at the raw, burned patch of skin where my Guild markings once were. "You have betrayed... the Guild?"

I can see it in his eyes -- he was going to say "me," not "the Guild." He feels my betrayal as personally as I felt his, and his pain is written clear as moonlight in every line of his face, every aborted movement of his lithe body. That should make this harder, but I have only to picture Kouri's mutilated body and it's easy again. "The guild betrayed me! Just as it betrayed Kouri."

Again, he jerks back in almost physical pain. "I didn't know that they would do... that..."

"You knew there was tension between our Guilds! And still you turned him over to those butchers!" Now my voice is the roar I had heard in my own mind, when I imagined this moment. I raise my arm, slipping a bolt into the crossbow, and take aim. He doesn't try to stop me, or run, or call for help. He doesn't even tell me not to do this. He just stands there, watching me sadly.

So, even as I hate him for giving my brother over to the Assassins, even as my heart breaks again because I did once love him above all others, I can at least respect him. And... I can know that, despite what he did and what I am about to do, he does still love me, somehow.

I pull the trigger.

I can't quite bear to leave him as he falls, so I pick him up and lay him on the bed, leaving the last, dearest memento of my life resting in his hand. They'll find him when the guard changes in an hour, and that ring will tell them who killed him.

Part of me wants to stay, to cling to his body and weep until they come for me and exact justice. I firmly lock that part of myself away and leave the same way I came, for though Yonaka is dead and Yami with him, I still have one more task before my vengeance is done.

Dawn is nearly upon me by the time I make it back to my hiding place and I watch the sun rise before seeking my bed. As sleep eludes me, I find it oddly comforting to know that I won't live to see another sunrise. The next goal I have set for myself is all but impossible -- tomorrow night, I go to kill the head of the Assassins, in the very heart of that Guild's lair.