I strained to listen, fear jumping in my throat. Where had it come from?
My eyes tracked the woods on either side. I dared not move; any sound
would echo loudly up the slopes. I had not thought of dangers as I ran, but
now my mind tumbled with them: soldiers, sent by Peleus or Thetis herself,
white hands cold as sand on my throat. Or bandits. I knew that they waited
by roads, and I remembered stories of boys taken and kept until they died of
misuse. My fingers pinched themselves white as I tried to still all breath, all
movement, to give nothing away. My gaze caught on a thick clutch of
blooming yarrow that could hide me. Now. Go.
There was movement from the woods at my side, and I jerked my head
towards it. Too late. Something—someone—struck me from behind,
throwing me forward. I landed heavily, facedown on the ground, with the
person already on top of me. I closed my eyes and waited for a knife.
There was nothing. Nothing but silence and the knees that pinned my
back. A moment passed, and it came to me that the knees were not so very
heavy and were placed so that their pressure did not hurt.
“Patroclus.” Pa-tro-clus .
I did not move.
The knees lifted, and hands reached down to turn me, gently, over.
Achilles was looking down at me.
“I hoped that you would come,” he said.

Chapter 8