She wants you to be a god,” I told him.”I know.” His face twisted with embarrassment, and in spite of itself my heart lightened. It was such a boyish response. And so human. Parents, everywhere.

When I am dead, I charge you to mingle our ashes and bury us together.

Odysseus inclines his head. “True. But fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another.” He spread his broad...

Achilles weeps. He cradles me, and will not eat, nor speak a word other than my name.

Name one hero who was happy.”I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason’s children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but...

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. A C H I L L E S,...

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

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 of the sun.

He looked different in sleep, beautiful but cold as moonlight. I found myself wishing he would wake so that I might watch the life return.

Name one hero who was happy.

When he died, all things soft and beautiful and bright would be buried with him

Wealth and reputation were the things our people had always killed for.

Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of of mortal inventions. “No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.” “But what if he is your friend?” Achilles has asked...

Above us, the constellations spun and the moon paced her weary course. We lay stricken and sleepless as the hours passed.

Perhaps it is the greatest grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.

Indeed, he seemed utterly unaware of his effect on the boys around him.

and her skin shone luminous and impossibly pale, as if it drank light from the moon.

Bury us, and mark our names above. Let us be free.

There is no honour in betraying your friends.

Her mouth was a gash of red, like the torn-open stomach of a sacrifice, bloody and oracular. Behind it her teeth shone sharp and white as bone.

He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.

I wish he had let you all die.

Perhaps he simply assumed: a bitterness of habit, of boy after boy trained for music and medicine, and unleashed for murder.

Patroclus, he says, Patroclus. Patroclus. Over and over until it is sound only.