The Song of Achilles

by Madeline Miller

“What was it like when you killed that boy?” I looked up. His face was in shadow, the hair falling around his eyes. “Like?” I asked. He nodded, staring at the water, as if to read its depths. “What did it look like?” “It’s hard to describe.” He had taken me by surprise. I closed my eyes to conjure it. “The blood came quickly, I remember that. And I couldn’t believe how much there was. His head was split, and his brains showed a little.” I fought down the nausea that gripped me, even now. “I remember the sound his head made against the rock.” “Did he twitch? Like animals do?” “I did not stay long enough to watch.” He was silent a moment. “My father told me once to think of them like animals. The men I kill.” I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it again. He did not look up from his vigil over the water’s surface. “I do not think I can do it,” he said. Simply, as was his way. Odysseus’ words pressed in on me, weighed down my tongue. Good, I wanted to say. But what did I know? I did not have to win my immortality with war. I held my peace. “I cannot stop seeing it,” he said softly. “Her death.” I could not either; the gaudy spray of blood, the shock and pain in her eyes. “It will not always be like that,” I heard myself say. “She was a girl and innocent. These will be men that you fight, warriors who will kill you if you do not strike first.” He turned to look at me, his gaze intent. “But you will not fight, even if they strike at you. You hate it.” If it had been any othe...

I love everything about this scene.