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Summary
Achilles washes the taste of blood out of his mouth with sea water. Odysseus offers him another solution, still thrumming from the heat of battle.
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“And you?” Odysseus can see the flex of his throat as Achilles swallows. It is one way to find the measure of a man, to know if they revel in blood or in victory. Odysseus has not yet found Achilles’ measure, but he finds he wants to know. Prophecy is one thing, but it will change the shape of this war that has dragged on so long already, to know if Achilles fights to kill or fights for glory.
It’s hard to think sometimes that before Achilles ever set foot on these shores, he had never killed a man.
“It’s not so bitter as some things.”
Odysseus can think of few himself. “Like what?”
“Like—” Achilles cuts himself short, and Odysseus looks. Beneath the blood is there a flush on Achilles’ beautiful face? Bronze skin burnished bright, long pale eyelashes draped down over sticky cheeks. “Some things.”