But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.

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, it reads. And beside it, P A T R O C L U S."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 of the sun.

He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none.

That is — your friend?" "Philtatos," Achilles replied, sharply. Most beloved.

Overhead the constellations dip and wheel. My divinity shines in me like the last rays of the sun before they drown in the sea. I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands.

Will you tell me who hurt you?I imagine saying, 'You.' But that is nothing more than childishness.

He liked such sharpness, for there was nothing in him that had any blood you might spill.

If they did not weep, I would not either.

You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see.