We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory.

This is what Achilles will feel like when he is old. And then I remembered: he will never be old.

The heat rose up my neck, wrapped fingers over my face. His hair fell around me, and I could smell nothing but him. The grain of his lips seemed to rest a hairsbreadth from mine.

The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death.

Those seconds, half seconds, that the line of our gaze connected, were the only moment in my day that I felt anything at all. The sudden swoop of my stomach, the coursing anger. I was like a fish eyeing the hook.

Peleus acknowledged this. "Yet other boys will be envious that you have chosen such a one. What will you tell them?"
"I will tell them nothing." The answer came with no hesitation, clear and crisp. "It is not for them to say what I will do.