The Song of Achilles

by Madeline Miller

I listened, and did not speak. Achilles’ eyes were bright in the firelight, his face drawn sharply by the flickering shadows. I would know it in dark, or disguise, I told myself. I would know it even in madness.

We were like gods, at the dawning of the world, and our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.

Had she really thought I would not know him? I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell, I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.

The rosy gleam of his lip, the fevered green of his eyes. There was not a line anywhere on his face, nothing creased or greying; all crisp. He was spring, golden and bright. Envious Death would drink his blood, and grow young again.

I am air and thought and can do nothing.