Chapter Forty-Four

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"I didn't anticipate seeing you again so soon," Achillia/Not Achillia said. She stood over me in an empty black endless abyss. The darkness stretched out eternally behind her. I was laying on a flat surface, though there was nothing but darkness there. She stood over me, arms behind her back, peering down at me.

She was stunning. She had long dark hair clear to her waist with beautiful twisting curls. Her eyes were similar in color to mine, a bright liquid blue. She had plump lips and a perfect slightly pointed chin. She wore a tunic style gown, long and white and cinched with a belt at the waist.

"What exactly do I call you?" I asked, leaning up and sitting with my knee propped, elbow bent over it. It was so eerie that she looked so much like myself but meanwhile not at all the same. She was gorgeous though.

She looked thoughtful for a long moment, pressing a fingertip to her chin. "Hm. I do not know. I have had a million names but I am all of them and none." She peered down at me out of the corner of her eye. "I do not typically encounter my host frequently enough to require a name."

I nodded and tapped the ground beside me. She watched me carefully before finally crossing her legs beneath her dress and sitting beside me. "Would it make you feel better to call me Achillia?" She asked.

I considered it. She didn't look precisely like what little images I caught of Achillia. The name didn't seem correct but it would do. I nodded my head.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" She asked, sitting comfortably with me. She was so bizarre. She had an alien ethereal beauty but so was so familiar, so similar to me.

I hesitated, my voice caught in my throat around a bulge that seemed to choke me. "Henrick killed Will," I supplied, not offering an explanation. I wasn't sure that I could. The brief response had been hard enough to spit out.

Achillia nodded, staring into the empty abyss unfolding before us. "He broke his neck," she responded. It wasn't entirely a question but I nodded anyway. "I am sorry," she said. Her words had an odd cadence, jerking and tilted in the wrong places.

"Thank you," I replied and we lapsed into a moment of silence. Will's image danced through my mind, joyful and fun and loving. My heart ached even in this world of non existence. "What was that storm?" I asked her and it instead blossomed in my mind's eyes. The clouds that had churned above us, spinning and roiling, waiting for my instruction.

Achillia paused before responding, seeming to search her or maybe even my thoughts for the incident in question. After several seconds she nodded, looking to have found the right memory. "The call of the storm," she replied, cryptically. "Your powers are steeped in electrical origins. The most raw and natural electricity is the storm itself. It calls to you and you call to it. Your anger and pain spawned the storm." She replied, staring into the dark again.

I gasped at her. I had created that storm? "What about the giant circle of magick?" I asked.

She looked me over for a moment. "You can use your magick however you choose. Achillia chose long whip-like cords of magick. Some prefer bolts. Some would rather manifest the raw energy of the storm. You, however, seem to be unique in borrowing elements from them all. It's actually quite impressive, especially for one so young."

We lapsed into a long moment of silence. My mind filled with images of my final memories. Everyone had stared at me after the circle had dissipated. Was that power out of the ordinary?

"How am I connected to Achillia?" I asked at long last, not able to broach the subject of my final moments yet.

She seemed to contemplate how to phrase her words for a few minutes before responding. "Achillia and yourself are a line that share a soul. There are others. Achillia was the first to expose herself to you. I believe she wanted revenge." She looked over to me, "Which you doled out with a swift hand."

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