As Achilles sat at the far end of the table, meticulously cutting and chewing the steak that lay before him, the door slowly creaked open across from him, revealing a frightened soldier.
“Uh…sir?” the soldier weakly asked.
Achilles’ eyes flicked up to look at the man’s face, sweat trickling down his brow.
“What news do you bring?” he plainly answered.
The soldier gulped, his expression terrified.
“Come closer, young man,” Achilles calmly told him, “There is no need to be frightened.”
He quickly shut the door and walked over to where his lord sat, each step echoing in the large hall.
“The uh…revolution that’s brewing in the north?” the soldier asked nervously as Achilles continued to cut the steak, “They…they attacked.”
The steak knife scratched the plate as Achilles dragged the blade across the plate in anger, before taking a deep breath and calming himself again.
“They set fire to a town north of the mountains,” he continued, “And…the-the children were there.”
Another deep breath before another question. “Do you have any idea where they’re going?”
“Last we could tell, sir,” the soldier fidgeted, blinking nervously before clearing his throat, “They are attempting to travel south.”
This time, Achilles smiled.
“Go,” he told the soldier, who bowed in turn before leaving the room and Achilles alone with his thoughts.
Of course…he thought, of course they would try to head south. That elfe, Adalene, the former queen, was trying to lead them there, so they might fulfill the prophecy. But Achilles new that they would never get past his forces in the mountains. They would lose.
Still, it wouldn’t hurt to remove Adalene from their group. She was interfering with everything Achilles had planned for the past three decades.
But how?
He needed guidance.
Finishing up his steak, Achilles rushed to the wall with a tapestry depicting a dragon hung.
Much like the door in his office, the wall hummed with magic as Achilles held his hand up to it.
“Open,” he said once again and the sound of grinding stones shortly followed.
“Close,” Achilles muttered again, then blindly walked down the corridor; surrounded by darkness.
Each step he took at first was silent, but as he continued, his steps became louder until they echoed throughout a high room, the only light coming from two torches on the wall.
The only piece of furniture in the room was a fountain in the middle, the water covered in a strange blanket of fog as a dim glow emited from it.
Achilles slowly made his way over to it, looking down at the murky water below, before holding his left hand over the water. His right, meanwhile, reached for the dagger at his side.
“Ut ipsa vivat,” Achilles muttered, the language of the old coming to mind. “Ut ipsa vivat, ut ipsa vivat.”
He held the blade above the palm of his left hand, closing his eyes for a moment before running it across his skin. Pain exploded from his cut hand, and he opened his eyes to see the blood now blooming from the place where his dagger sliced open the skin.
“Luce mortalia,” Achilles began to chant, the words rolling off his tongue as the blood spread across his hand, “Vi numinus, numine divum.”
Then, Achilles turned his hand over, allowing the drops of blood to fall into the bowl of water, turning the color of the water into a dark red, before settling into a black.
“De cruore manuum meerum, det mortalia vires.”
The magic was working.
Achilles took a deep breath, preparing himself for what he wanted to see.
“Ostende mihi mortalia.”
Achilles plunged his head into the water...
ns 18.68.41.137da2
