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Those seconds, half seconds, that the line of our gaze connected, were the only moment in my day that I felt anything at all. The sudden swoop of my stomach, the coursing anger. I was like a fish eyeing the hook.
“Do not let what you gained this day be so easily lost.”
We were like gods at the dawning of the world, and our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.
Iphigenia. A tripping name, the sound of goat hooves on rock, quick, lively, lovely.
“I have no need to forgive you. You cannot offend me.” They were rash words, but I said them with all the conviction of my heart.
done nothing but lead raids his whole life. “One final
would walk together around the camp, pointing to each thing she did
In grief, men must help each other, though they are enemies.” “What if I will not?” His words have gone stiff. “Then you will not.”
“When I am dead, I charge you to mingle our ashes and bury us together.”
Achilles smiles as his face strikes the earth.
They wash him with rose oil and nectar, and weave flowers through his golden hair.
Servant girls are sent to collect the ashes; they carry them to the golden urn where I rest. Will I feel his ashes as they fall against mine? I think of the snowflakes on Pelion, cold on our red cheeks. The yearning for him is like hunger, hollowing me. Somewhere his soul waits, but it is nowhere I can reach. Bury us, and mark our names above. Let us be free. His ashes settle among mine, and I feel nothing.
The thick warmth of his sleepy breath against my ear. If you have to go, I will go with you. My fears forgotten in the golden harbor of his arms.
“Go,” she says. “He waits for you.” In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out the sun.
