The Song of Achilles

by Madeline Miller

As for the goddess’ answer, I did not care. I would have no need of her. I did not plan to live after he was gone.

Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. ‘No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.’

‘I have done it,’ she says. At first I do not understand. But then I see the tomb, and the marks she has made on the stone. ACHILLES, it reads. And beside it, PATROCLUS. ‘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.