Patroclus is born the prince of a modest kingdom in ancient Greece, the unexceptional son of an abusive king. When he accidentally kills a nobleman’s son, he is exiled to Phthia, where he meets the talented, beautiful, straightforward Achilles, god-born son of King Peleus and the sea-nymph Thetis. Achilles takes Patroclus as his therapon, brother-in-arms, and the two young men develop a deep friendship that blossoms into romance.
When Patroclus kisses Achilles, Thetis makes her disapproval very clear, sending Achilles to study with the famous centaur Chiron on Mount Pelion. Patroclus, an exiled orphan with nothing to lose, follows Achilles. With Chiron’s blessing, Patroclus is allowed to join Achilles in his studies, despite Thetis’s requests to the contrary. On Mount Pelion, the boys learn many things, including musicianship, medicine, and biology; they also begin a sexual relationship away from Thetis’s observation. Achilles doesn’t know if he wants to be a god, but he wants to be the first hero to be happy and famous—he and Patroclus promise to make that future happen together.
Prophecy, however, says that if Achilles intends to be great—Aristos Achaion, best of the Greeks—he will die young. King Agamemnon calls all Greek kingdoms together to attack Troy, revenge for Queen Helen of Sparta’s abduction by Prince Paris. Thetis knows that her son’s death will come quickly if he answers the call to war, so she hides Achilles on Scryos as a young woman. Patroclus finds him, and he learns that Thetis forced Achilles to marry the princess of Scryos, Deidameia, and impregnate her. Shortly after, Odysseus, Athena’s favorite trickster, finds both of them. Odysseus convinces Achilles to join the Greeks in their war against the Trojans.
Though the Greeks are in trouble from the beginning (Agamemnon has to sacrifice his own daughter to get Artemis to give them wind to sail to Troy), Achilles’ gift of speed allows the Greeks to gain the upper hand in the first raids and battles of the war. Patroclus fears for Achilles, but he’s comforted by the knowledge that Hector is destined to die first—as long as Hector lives, Achilles will live. This goes on for years. Patroclus encourages Achilles to take many women as war prizes to save them from rape and servitude, and one of these is Briseis, an Anatolian woman who Patroclus grows to consider part of his family.
Many years into the combat, Agamemnon takes a woman named Chryseis as a war prize. When her father attempts to ransom her back, Agamemnon insults him; unfortunately for the Greek army, her father is a priest of Apollo, and he calls for a plague to ravage the Greek camp. Achilles calls a meeting to discuss what to do, and Agamemnon perceives (correctly) that Achilles doesn’t respect him. Agamemnon declares that he will confiscate Briseis from Achilles as payment for his lack of deference.
Patroclus loves Briseis and is horrified by this, then even more horrified when he realizes Achilles is going to give Briseis up. Achilles hopes that Agamemnon will rape Briseis, giving Achilles leverage to overthrow Agamemnon and get revenge for this slight to his honor. To protect Briseis, Patroclus tells Agamemnon all of this; while Achilles is briefly furious at Patroclus’s betrayal, he can’t stay angry with his love for long. Besides, he has conspired with Thetis to convince Zeus to stop “balancing” the war, so things are about to get very bad for the Greeks. Achilles will only help them if Agamemnon personally apologizes.
Agamemnon doesn’t apologize, Achilles doesn’t fight, and many, many Greeks die. Patroclus works in the medical tents, and he sees the men begin to turn against Achilles, blaming his hubris for their deaths. Even when the Trojans are at the gates of the Greek camp, Achilles won’t fight, though Agamemnon sends a party of negotiators and offers to return Briseis unharmed.
When he sees the Greek ships being set on fire, Patroclus asks Achilles to fight (pained, Achilles says he will not), then asks Achilles to let him wear his armor and pretend to be Achilles. Patroclus isn’t sure where this idea came from—it felt like a god speaking through him—but Achilles agrees, and Patroclus joins the battle dressed as Achilles. The Greeks rally, pushing the Trojans all the way back to the walls of Troy, and Patroclus is overcome by some otherworldly strength. He kills Sarpedon, the son of Zeus, and begins to scale the walls of the city. When Apollo intervenes, his helmet flies off, and the Trojans swarm him. Hector stabs him with a spear, and his final thought is Achilles.
Achilles waits for news of the battle. When Patroclus’s body is returned, he is intensely bereaved. He fights with everyone, including Briseis and Thetis, but he will return to the battlefield to get his revenge. He kills many Trojans, fights a river god, and eventually kills Hector; he drags Hector’s corpse around the walls of Troy for over a day, disrespecting his body and refusing to honorably give the corpse over for a proper funeral. Through all of this, Patroclus narrates, watching as a half-spirit still tethered to the physical world because he has not been burned and properly honored.
King Priam of Troy steals into the Greek camp at night, supplicating himself before Achilles to beg for Hector’s body. Achilles agrees, and the next day he burns Patroclus, gathering his ashes and commanding his people to put his ashes in the same urn when he dies. He recklessly fights hero after hero until he is finally killed by Paris, shot through the heart by a bow touched by Apollo.
After Achilles’ death, he is replaced as Aristos Achaion by his brutal son Neoptolemus (AKA Pyrrhus), and the Greeks win the Trojan war. Achilles is properly honored with a tomb, but Pyrrhus won’t allow anyone to carve Patroclus’s name onto the monument and taint his father’s legacy. Patroclus is trapped as a formless spirit. He sees Pyrrhus kills Briseis, witnesses Pyrrhus sacrifice a young Trojan princess to Achilles’ tomb, and then he watches the Greek ships leave the shores of Troy.
Unknown time passes, and eventually Thetis comes to visit Achilles’ grave. Pyrrhus is dead, killed for raping Agamemnon’s son’s bride. Thetis asks Patroclus to share his memories of Achilles, the ones unrelated to bloodshed, and Patroclus does. In return, Thetis shares her own painful memories of being raped, then watching Achilles die a mortal. At the end of the day, Thetis carves Patroclus’s name into the tomb, freeing him to join her son forever in the underworld.
In the darkness, two shadows reach for each other; where their hands touch, golden light spills forward.
