Authors Note: I hope you liked it. This chapter is kinda short, because I had to work with Achilles. Generally I don't like Achilles (because he killed Hector! What was the deal with that?) but he has a certain nuance that I can't resist playing with. Enjoy.
The voices outside the tent stop.
"Achilles? So nice that you've decided to join us."
"You've captured Prince Paris? I hardly see that a task worth bragging about."
The voice of Achilles is deceptively lazy, and I startle when he pushes through the tent door. He laughs.
I recognize Hector's description of him, blond, long-haired, and oppressivly beautiful. His presence fills the tent, and I shrink in the corner.
He catches my desperate eyes with his flinty blue ones.
"Scared, prince?"
I nod.
"For your brother, or for yourself?"
"Both." It won't do any good to lie now.
As his face catches the light, I wonder at how young he is; maybe two or three years older then me. But something about his arrogant bearing, the anger lines etched in his mouth and the eyes make him look older then Hector, even.
"You think I'm young?"
I flinch again, cutting my wrist.
He nods. "So do a lot of people. But I show them in the end."
Silence. Achilles speaks again.
"Are you related to a Brisies?"
"My cousin!"
"I thought she was royalty." He's smug now.
"Is she alive?"
Achilles smiles. "All in good time, Prince."
"If you've done anything to her, I will-"
"You will what? You'll rip apart the ropes and attack me with your bleeding hands?" He laughs. "Prince, you're a coward. I saw you fight today."
He goes on without waiting for a reply. "I can never understand cowards. Why did you run away? You could have been the prince who saved Troy, and your name would have lived for centuries. Why did you give up on your country to crawl back to your brother?"
"I wanted to live."
"Everyone has to die sometime."
"But why now? Why not live until you're old and happy, with a woman you love, and die peacefully in your sleep?" I can't help letting my words out, and as soon as I speak, I want them back.
Achilles looks calm. "That's the life I would have had if I hadn't gone with the Greeks."
"Why in Apollo's name did you come, then?"
"Immortality. In a thousand years, people will still say I was the greatest warrior who ever died. What will they say of you?"
"That I was a coward. But I lived." I pause. "Did you-did you choose to die here?"
"Yes."
"But how can you fight when you know you're going to be killed so soon?"
"I know that when I die, I won't die unknown."
Another pause, while Achilles shifts his weight.
"I know I have time left. My mother is a goddess. There's only one place I can be killed."
He points at his left heel. "Immortality. It's yours. Take it."