Chapter 45

CLAUDIA. I don’t know what I’m doing, and it’s time to admit that. At first, I was sleeping well in my room. I went to bed early, after Maia brought me dinner. I thought that maybe my body would be too exhausted to give me any trouble tonight, but that turned out to be untrue. Not even a couple of hours later, I start to have dreams. Dreams that look like flashbacks. And they’re all about Max. I see his face before he went into the fire to save the weapons that I know he deems important for the protection of his people. I feel the heat of the flames engulfing the village. And I can hear Nana’s voice telling me that the death of her grandson is all my fault. Eventually, everything just became too much for me to handle. I find a drink in the fancy room that they made me stay in. It’s liquor, and I took a big swig of it before deciding to go out and have a bath. It’s true that I didn’t know Achilles would be there. That part is a hundred percent true. But I didn’t slip at all. I fel