Page 45 of Where Darkness Bloomed
“He’s nothing like me,” Achilles said swiftly, his eyes hardening. “And I trained him to fight, not to chase after death.”
“No one is like you,” Odysseus replied ruefully, crossing his arms. “But Patroclus chose a place in this war, just as you did once. His blood burns no less brightly. He’s eager to help his countrymen.”
Achilles stared at the sea. The breeze stirred his hair, the scents of salt and fire rising on the morning air. The sun had barely risen, too early in the day for blood.
“He came to me with a strategy.” Odysseus watched him. “He wishes to fight... wearing your armor.”
The words fell like the final note of a dirge, ringing in Achilles’s ears. Tension crackled up his spine.
“What did you tell him?” he asked quietly.
“Nothing.” Odysseus tilted his head. “The decision is not mine. He thinks the Trojans will falter if they believe you’ve returned to the fight. The illusion may give us time to save our remaining ships.”
A beat.
“Achilles, he’s not wrong.”
“No.” Achilles’s voice sliced the air like whetted iron.
There was no surprise in Odysseus’s face, only grim understanding. “The men are breaking. They look to your tent as if it were a temple, seekingyourlead—”
“If he wears my armor,” Achilles gritted out, “Trojans will descend on him like wolves. Hector will seek him out as he would seek me out.”
“Patroclus knows the risk.”
“He does not!” The words ripped from Achilles’s throat, raw and furious. He turned, eyes blazing. “If I send him in my place, I may as well slit his throat myself. It would be quicker than the death he’ll find at the end of a Trojan spear.”
Odysseus was silent, studying him.
“You cannot keep him in that tent while he burns to aid his countrymen,” he said at last, voice even. “He will grow to hate you for it.”
Achilles’s fists clenched at his sides, every sinew pulled taut, every breath hard-earned. The words bit deep—striking too clean, too true.
Without intending to, Odysseus flayed open that fear which Achilles hadn’t dared to name. A fear already taking form. Already becoming real.
He and Patroclus had come to Troy as younger men—eager, inseparable, fire-hearted. He remembered standing at the prow of their ship, Patroclus’s shoulder pressed against his own, eyes on the horizon. Full of promise, souls brimming with each other.
But he was not that man now. They both knew it, though neither had yet spoken it outright. War and blood had cleaved him open, bled him of something vital. In its place, a fire had ignited, unforgiving and unquenchable. One that threatened to burn everything in its path.
And Patroclus—bright, beloved Patroclus—had begun to blister beneath its heat.
Bitterness had settled in Achilles like ash, fine and choking. It clung to everything, dulling what had once been tender between them. Even in the stillness of night, lying beside Patroclus, when their limbs were tangled and the world fell still, the fire smoldered on, burning him from the inside.
“He came to me because you will not hear him,” Odysseus said, lower. “Let him fight. Or stop him yourself.”
The tide lapped around Achilles’s calves as Odysseus clapped a hand to his shoulder. “Or better yet, stay the course with us,” he added. “Agamemnon will not rule forever.” A crooked grin tugged at his lips. “Death comes for us all.”
Then he turned, jogging up the sandy rise toward the waiting Ithacan soldiers.
“But not today, you sorry whoresons!” Odysseus bellowed, voice rising like a war-drum rolling across the shore.
A cheer answered him, ragged but raucous.
A breath escaped Achilles. Almost a laugh, though he could not remember the last time anything had called for laughing. He watched the wily king vanish into the men under his fire-eyed command and, against his better judgment, admiration stirred.
He very nearly liked the king of Ithaca.
Chapter 20
