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Flint lodged itself in flesh, gritty edges severing threads of muscle as they tensed around the point as if to recoil from the impact. An arrow, shot by Paris, guided to its target by the Lord of Archery himself in the midst of battle, swords colliding and collapsing bodies. Beads of crimson, welling up around the firmly lodged arrowhead, rolling down his sinewy calf and leaving bloody streaks down its length; the crimson of death and bloodshed and fire, dying out in his eyes. No longer was the great Achilles a beast as he faltered, his greatest weapon, his speed, taken away. Stripped of his god-given gifts and armour, Achilles was only a boy – a boy was all he was, afraid and vulnerable, raging with love and grief.
Apollo hated him.
It was no secret, Apollo’s hatred of the Achaeans. Not when they had raided his temples, taking away the fairest of his priests’ daughters and fancying them their slaves, dragging his name and his honour through the dirt. And oh, had he shown them his displeasure, through mangled bodies dropping to the rough ground pouring rancid blood and pus and shit, through funeral pyres that reeked of plague. Most thought it was Agamemnon, the inciter of his wrath, that he loathed most dearly – and rationally, this should have been true, Apollo knew – but Apollo was a god, and the gods had never been reasonable. For all their reason, the ichor that ran through their veins could have been alcohol.
Reason didn’t explain the tears that had burned at his eyes as he watched the beast tear through the Trojan ranks and saw not Achilles, but himself. Reason didn’t explain the tears that spilt from the beast’s eyes like the crimson that had spilt from his lover’s speared abdomen, the silvery pearls of ocean-water that stained his cheeks with salt that burned like ashes.
Apollo knew that love was cruel, that love never cared for such dull rationality, that love swept even the wisest men up in a whirlwind and turned any reason they had to blind passion. He knew – he had felt it tear straight through his heart, on that day he’d never forget.
The day he fell to his knees in the dust and dirt and grass, clutching his dead lover like a lifeline, as if holding tight enough could keep him from leaving. The day that crimson painted the tips of his fingers, staining the crown of warm-brown hair that fanned out beneath his beloved’s broken skull, lingering at the corners of his vision, lingering on his hands even long after he had scrubbed them raw and bleeding. Bleeding. There was so much blood.
The desperate, ragged sobs that ripped themselves free from his heaving chest, his trembling shoulders; the way his soul shattered, splintered into broken shards of glass that could never be put back together. Guilt that settled like a chill upon his skin, even when the winds were suddenly eerily still and the world seemed to be burning down around him.
A boy was all he was, afraid and vulnerable, utterly helpless as he watched Hyacinthus die in his arms.
Oh, if only Hades would take him instead, if only his swollen eyes were lined with crimson, not gold; if only he could claw at his skin and draw blood, not ichor, rip away the immortality chaining him down. Molten gold and ocean-water, filling his lungs, killing him from the inside. Death had never seemed like mercy before. Love had never felt like torture before.
He hated himself, he hated it all, he hated living with himself knowing that it was he who killed Hyacinthus. It wasn’t your fault, some might say, but who else was to blame? He had thrown the discus, even if the wretched winds had blown it awry. It was Apollo who couldn’t protect him, couldn’t be strong enough, fast enough, for all he loved him. Not the right place, not the right time.
It isn’t the murderer; it isn’t the knife. It will always be the lover that failed.
It would always be Achilles who sent Patroclus off, sent his most beloved westward, to the land of the dead. Achilles, who let Patroclus die for him; not Hector, who struck the final blow. Always Achilles and Apollo, clutching the hollow shells that was all that remained of the ones they had adored so deeply, weeping and begging and wishing they could only be dead. Achilles, painting over the blood on his hands with blood that burned less, and Apollo, fashioning petals from the crimson to bear the burden alongside him until the end of time. The hyacinth, a reminder of his failure.
The what-ifs always hurt the most, the knowledge that it was preventable, yet so utterly inevitable. It was always going to happen, wasn’t it? The arrow that pierced his heart when he first saw him, the arrow that pierced his heart as he watched him die.
The arrow pierced Achilles’ heart as Paris released the bowstring once more.
Crimson flooded Achilles’ chest, hot and thick – crimson, not gold, seeping through the linen that clothed him. His eyes met Apollo’s, green and flecked with sun-lit gold that now looked dull as every hint of light and life in them began to fade. Achilles did not seem to despair. Apollo only wished he could take the soldier’s place; he hated him. Death was a mercy he did not think they deserved.
With his dying breaths, Achilles’ lips moved in silence. Silence – that elusive peace that only ever preceded a new beginning or an ending; a hello, a goodbye, one Apollo could never say himself.
“Thank you.”