Madeline Miller

Name one hero who was happy.”

“I can’t.”

“I know. They never let you be famous and happy.”

Overhead the constellations dip and wheel. My divinity shines in me like the last rays of the sun before they drown in the sea. I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands.

All my life I have been moving forward, and now I am here. I have a mortal’s voice, let me have the rest. I lift the brimming bowl to my lips and drink.

fingered their metal,

“Patroclus.” Pa-tro-clus.

I did not move.

The knees lifted, and hands reached down to turn me, gently, over. Achilles was looking down at me.

“I hoped that you would come,” he said.

My mind groped towards understanding. Achilles had not gone to Chiron. He had waited, here. For me.

“She feels that—” He faltered a moment, and I almost did not breathe. “That he is a mortal and not a fit companion.”

“Do you think he is?” Chiron asked. His voice gave no hint of the answer.

“Yes.”

“Do not let what you gained this day be so easily lost.”

“And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone. Do you think?”

“Are you sorry?” The words were quickly out of him, a single breath.

“I am not,” I said.

“I am not either.”