He caught the expression in my eyes and smiled. 'Later,' he promised me, then turned and went back down the path to the palace.

I looked back to Achilles. He was holding the earrings up to his ears now, turning them this way and that, pursing his lips, playing at girlishness. It amused him, and the corner of his mouth curved up.

Achilles flushed as if he'd been struck. It was one thing to wear a dress out of necessity, another thing for the world to know of it. Our people reserved their ugliest names for men who acted like women; lives were lost over such insults.

Achilles calls Thetis for help during the Trojan War, 1184 BC (colourised)

'If you go to Troy, your fame will be so great that a man will be written into eternal legend just for having passed a cup to you.'

'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 will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.

If you have to go, I will go with you. My fears forgotten in the golden harbor of his arms.

'It is right to seek peace for the dead. You and I both know there is no peace for those who live after.'

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

I am air and thought and can do nothing.

'There is no law that gods must be fair, Achilles,' Chiron said.

'There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw.'

'There are too many of them,' he said. 'It’s simpler if they just remember me.'

There was more to say, but for once we did not say it. There would be other times for speaking, tonight and tomorrow and all the days after that.

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

'Swear it.' 'Why me?' 'Because you're the reason. Swear it.'

I closed my eyes. 'Tell me again,' I said.

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

'Go,' she says. 'He waits for you.'