A dream ended silently.
For the first time in a while, Achilles emerged from a dream that concluded only with knowledge- terrible, necessary knowledge!
No assimilation!
When he opened his eyes in the luminescent depths of the Sea of Thalassara, Arya's small form stirring beside him as she too returned from the realm of memory, the first thing he saw was Rose's face.
She had been waiting, her green eyes reflecting the gentle currents of their underwater sanctuary, her expression patient but alert.
"How was it?" she asked.
The question was simple. The answer was anything but.
Achilles felt the weight of generations pressing against his consciousness…his father's grief-stricken face, the endless field of graves that marked the price of their lineage's power, and beneath it all, the names that now burned in his memory like brands of vengeance waiting to be claimed.
