Chapter 10
Ruadan
I braced myself for the onslaught of emotions.
It was said that time healed all wounds, but I was still living with a scab, and each time I thought of home, it was like picking at it until it bled all over again.
I sighed, told myself I was strong enough to handle this, and then I began.
“Where to start… Well, I died.” Ulysses’ body jolted with the callous description of facts.
But while that might’ve been the point of no return, when my life changed forever, it wasn’t where the story began.
Closing my eyes, I could still picture my father’s castle, the mossy gray stone and peaked roof of the keep, the towers overlooking the murky lough.
The rugged coastline and stony beach were just past the rise of the field, grass so green I could smell it.
I still dreamt of it, the way it rippled in the breeze.
“I grew up near what is now known as Galway, but it was a different land back then, wild and dangerous, lawless and untamed. I don’t remember much of my early years before my father became king.
Bres was his name. He’d been a warrior all his life, born and bred for war, but he had the blood of two rival clans running through his veins.
The fomorians and the Tuatha Dé Danaan, a race of ancient magic-wielders, and it was hoped that he might bridge their differences and bring peace to the land.
Unfortunately, like any story without a happy ending, it was not meant to be. ”
Ulysses was watching me with rapt attention, no doubt waiting to see how my life had ended. “What about your other parent?” he asked softly.
Thinking of my beautiful mother was so bitter-sweet, both love and grief surging inside me until I couldn’t tell them apart.
“My mother, Brigid, was a priestess of the Tuatha Dé. It was a political marriage, a union to form ties between the clans, but there would always be a chasm between them. It was her I resembled, much to my father’s disgust. She was so radiant it was hard to look at her, her hair like the sunset reflected off the ocean, and she was so kind…
but even her kindness could not offset my father’s wrath. ”
My mood darkened, and I stared down at the city map, at those damn red X’s marking the location of so many crimes.
After growing up around violence, was it any doubt that the depth of men’s cruelty never seemed to surprise me.
“My father was not a good king, by any measure of the word. He favored his fomorian roots, a race of raiders known for their ruthless pillaging. In turn, Father overtaxed the Tuatha Dé, starving and humiliating them at every turn. Predictably, it turned to rebellion, and my father was unseated from his throne.”
Ulysses bit down on the edge of his thumbnail. “I guess he didn’t take that well?”
“You guess right. He raised an army and declared war on the Tuatha Dé. Those were dark days, full of bloodshed and death. I was barely a man myself, untested in battle, but I was determined to fight at my father’s side.
I am ashamed to admit I was blind to his cruelties, blind to the part he played in causing the war.
I was nothing more than a son seeking his father’s approval.
As time passed, however, the balance tipped, and it was not in my father’s favor.
It seemed as if the Tuatha Dé had an unlimited number of soldiers, their armor like new every day.
Our numbers began to dwindle, and Bres knew he had to do something or admit defeat.
My father decided that since my looks mirrored my mother’s Tuatha Dé ancestry, I would be able to trespass among their camp to spy on them and uncover how they were achieving this sorcery. ”
I glanced across the table at Ulysses, and he was starting to look like he’d regretted asking me for my story. He’d curled in on himself, gnawing his thumbnail down to the quick. “And what did you find?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper.
“They had a gods-favored blacksmith who was able to repair their armor with a single swing of his hammer, and behind the smith was a magical spring blessed by the gods of medicine that rejuvenated their soldiers to full health. In fact, the very same soldiers who had been cut down in battle were returning the very next day, fighting as though they’d never been injured at all.
“My father was a fool to think he could wage a war against the gods and win.”
I shook my head, filled with disgust that hadn’t abated after all this time.
Had he not been filled with such self-righteous green, none of it would’ve happened.
In my mind I saw a different path, one where I could’ve married, had a family, grown old on the emerald-green land.
I could’ve been happy. I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat, recalling what came next.
“I went to my father and told him of what I’d seen, and he flew into a rage.
He immediately planned a direct attack on their encampment, sneaking in under the cloak of darkness, planning to destroy the fountain.
And once again, he sent me uncover, instructing me to kill the blacksmith.
” I fought to keep my breathing steady, even as pressure built in my chest, heart racing as if I were still there, still human.
When I spoke, my voice came out flat. “But I was young. What did I know of battle and swordplay? I managed to draw blood, at least, but it had always been a suicide mission. Too easily, he ran me through.”
And then I was no longer sitting in the sin-eater’s kitchen, with its faded counters and creaking chair.
Instead, I was standing in the smith, the heat of the furnace on my face, air reeking of soot and cinder, with a sword embedded in my chest all the way to the guard, the drip-drip-drip of my blood spilling out my back and down the blade.
The story took on a life of its own, no longer memory but a living, breathing horror that threatened to drag me under.
My hand found the scar beneath my shirt, tracing the deep ridge of it, aching with phantom pain.
“But you lived,” Uly said, startling me from my reverie. He looked stricken, his eyes damp, lips downturned. I’d nearly forgotten he was there, but I clung to his presence like he’d thrown me a lifeline, pulling me back to shore.
“I did,” I told him, “but that part came later. After my body was buried beneath the mound, after my mother’s keening drew the attention of Danu, her grief so intense that it could compel to the gods to intervene.
“Danu came to me in the afterlife with an offer. She could not simply reverse death. There always has to be a balance, an equal give and take. No one is exempt from natural law, not even the gods. My human body had been lost, but she could recreate my image as a god with unimaginable power, and in return, I would work for her.” I shrugged like it had been no big deal to cheat death, when in fact, I had been nothing more than a foolish boy with no concept of what he was agreeing to.
An unending existence with no one to share it with.
I was doomed to watch everyone I loved die, over and over, for eternity.
“Death was easy. Just like eating, drinking, breathing, our heart continuing to beat without fail for a lifetime, when it came to dying, our bodies know just what to do. Being reborn, though, goes against every natural instinct we have. It was… excruciating.” An understatement, but there was no word that could properly explain how it felt to have your soul forced into a shape it was never meant to hold.
Like being beaten, broken, stripped, torn, flayed, burned alive, everything all at once.
“And here I am,” I said, gesturing to myself as a whole. “Still here.”
Ulysses reached across the table and took my hand, seemingly without thought, without a single moment’s hesitation.
I knew without asking that he saw the deeper pain I had spent millennia trying to keep buried.
He truly saw me, and he only wanted to make me feel better, even as we both knew that nothing was so easy.
All the same, he squeezed my hand, and I squeezed back.
It was such a simple act of kindness, freely given, and it was enough to steal the air from my lungs.
When was the last time someone had shown me a speck of compassion?
Too soon, he let go, and I almost reached for him. Ulysses wiped at his eyes, quietly devastated. “And I thought my backstory was sad.”
I was greedy to know all there was to know about him, every little tidbit.
Where he grew up, his favorite color, the name of every childhood friend—but especially his trauma, because I could see it there behind his eyes, the way that he absorbed my tale without flinching, without apology or platitudes, and I knew he was no stranger to pain.
But I knew his story was not something I could demand he share.
That wasn’t why I’d told him mine. He would share when he was ready.
So, instead of pressing for more, I turned my attention back to the map between us. “So… what kind of snacks will we have on this stakeout?”
He gave a watery laugh. “Doritos,” he said, his smile grateful. “Definitely Doritos.”
I kept making assumptions about this man, and time and time again, he’d proven me wrong.
And for the first time, I wondered about the real reason I’d felt compelled to follow him that first night.
Had I truly believed him a threat? Or had there been something more about him, something tender and curious and so fucking beautiful that had drawn me in.