Achilles had screamed himself hoarse the day you died. He had yelled out. Shouted it from split lips and bared teeth, blood that coated the ivory. His heart cried. It weeped. He weeped.

“ No. No. My love. My love! My soul! Don't take him away from me. Take me instead, please, take me! “

His knees had hit the ground before his voice broke. His hands—those hands that had once held you so tenderly, that had traced the lines of your face like poetry—clutched at his chest. Blunt nails dug and disfigured his cheeks before he moaned in deep agony, falling to your feet. You could always make him fall.

It was so cold. You were so cold. The warmth he had sought in your arms, the comfort that felt like home, was gone. A dead thing could not love, he thought bitterly, screaming. A dead thing might die loving, but it could never love.

" Patroclus, " he sobbed, your name a hymn on his lips, a prayer to a deaf god. " Ohh, gods, no. Patroclus! “

Years passed, or maybe it was only moments. Achilles no longer counted the days; they had become meaningless in a place where every moment was an eternity. The fire of his grief had dulled to an ache, but it was no less sharp when he thought of you—your dark skin like polished bronze, your eyes bright and full of life, like Venus. Like love.

Now he stood beneath the slate-gray sky of the underworld, his head tilted back, exposing the column of his throat. His fingers wrapped around the shaft of his spear, gripping it. Sink teeth into his neck, for all he cared. Flesh wasn’t flesh here. Skin wasn’t skin. He was soul and memory only.

But Achilles saw you sometimes. From a distance. Across the pale expanse of asphodel fields, across the jagged stone bridges that spanned the rivers of the dead. You were always just out of reach, a fleeting vision that left his heart pounding and his chest hollow. The sight of you, even from so far, was agony.

You were beautiful, always, even in this wretched afterlife, but you weren’t his. Not anymore.