Page 72 of The Song of Achilles

Dawn stole through the tent flap. The room lightened. I saw the moment he woke and knew me. Our limbs slid against one another, on paths that we had traced so many times before, yet still were not old.

Some time later, we rose and took our breakfast. We had thrown open the tent flap to let in the air; it ruffled pleasantly over our damp skin. Through the doorway we watched the crisscrossing of Myrmidons about their chores. We saw Automedon race down to the sea for a swim. We saw the sea itself, inviting and warm from a summer of sun. My hand sat familiarly on his knee.

She did not come through the door. She was simply there, in the tent’s center, where a moment before there had been empty space. I gasped, and yanked my hand from where it rested on him. I knew it was foolish, even as I did it. She was a goddess; she could see us whenever she wished.

“Mother,” he said, in greeting.

“I have received a warning.” The words were snapped off, like an owl biting through a bone. The tent was dim, but Thetis’ skin burned cold and bright. I could see each slicing line of her face, each fold of her shimmering robe. It had been a long time since I had seen her so close, since Scyros. I had changed since then. I had gained strength and size, and a beard that grew if I did not shave it away. But she was the same. Of course she was.

“Apollo is angry and looks for ways to move against the Greeks. You will sacrifice to him today?”

“I will,” Achilles said. We always observed the festivals, dutifully slitting the throats and roasting the fat.

“You must,” she said. Her eyes were fixed on Achilles; they did not seem to see me at all. “A hecatomb.” Our grandest offering, a hundred head of sheep or cattle. Only the richest and most powerful men could afford such an extravagance of piety. “Whatever the others do, do this. The gods have chosen sides, and you must not draw their anger.”

It would take us most of the day to slaughter them all, and the camp would smell like a charnel house for a week. But Achilles nodded. “We will do it,” he promised.

Her lips were pressed together, two red slashes like the edge of a wound.

“There is more,” she said.

Even without her gaze upon me, she frightened me. She brought the whole urgent universe wherever she went, portents and angry deities and a thousand looming perils.

“What is it?”

She hesitated, and fear knotted my throat. What could make a goddess pause was terrifying indeed.

“A prophecy,” she said. “That the best of the Myrmidons will die before two more years have passed.”

Achilles’ face was still; utterly still. “We have known it was coming,” he said.

A curt shake of her head. “No. The prophecy says you will still be alive when it happens.”

Achilles frowned. “What do you think it means?”

“I do not know,” she said. Her eyes were very large; the black pools opened as if they would drink him, pull him back into her. “I fear a trick.” The Fates were well known for such riddles, unclear until the final piece had fallen. Then, bitterly clear.

“Be watchful,” she said. “You must take care.”

“I will,” he said.

She had not seemed to know I was there, but now her eyes found me, and her nose wrinkled, as if at a rising stench. She looked back to him. “He is not worthy of you,” she said. “He has never been.”

“We disagree on this,” Achilles answered. He said it as if he had said it many times before. Probably he had.

She made a low noise of contempt, then vanished. Achilles turned to me. “She is afraid.”

“I know,” I said. I cleared my throat, trying to release the clot of dread that had formed there.

“Who is the best of the Myrmidons, do you think? If I am excluded.”

I cast my mind through our captains. I thought of Automedon, who had become Achilles’ valuable second on the battlefield. But I would not call him best.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Do you think it means my father?” he asked.

Peleus, home in Phthia, who had fought with Heracles and Perseus. A legend in his own time for piety and courage, even if not in times to come. “Maybe,” I admitted.