A Shiver of Light

His body was tense now, and the doze was no longer relaxing. “It was too long ago, and I didn’t tell my stories to the bards. Holding my son in my arms while he died didn’t feel like something I wanted to be remembered for.”

I hugged him tight, and Galen hugged us both. “I’m sorry, Rhys,” he said.

“I led him in battle, my son. He was tall like his mother, dark-haired like her, too. He was handsome and strong and brave and everything a father wants in his son. He followed me into a battle and he died there. Killed by one of the human inventions, explosives with iron filling. I hunted down every member of the tribe that had fought against us. I killed them all, down to the last baby. I destroyed them as a race, do you understand that, I killed their entire people, even the children, while their mothers begged for mercy. My grief was … terrible, and I tried to quench it in blood and death, and do you know what I discovered?”

“No, I don’t,” I said, voice soft. We held him while he told the awful things in an almost unemotional voice, the way to tell terrible things when they still hurt too much to feel.

“That killing them didn’t bring my son back, and it didn’t make the grief any less. I killed an entire race of people, centuries of culture and invention all gone, because they followed a different god than me, and they dared to fight against me. I forbade anyone to mention the name of their tribe. I wiped them from history itself, and when my vengeance was as complete as I could make it, then my rage left me. All that was left was my sorrow, and that was why I destroyed them, not because of what they had done, not really, but so I could focus my grief into vengeance and not feel the pain of his loss.”

We held him, because it was all we could do. I made comforting noises, but it was Galen who said, “I would die to protect the babies now; I can’t imagine how much I’ll love them in a few years. I understand why you did it.”

I wanted to look behind and see Galen’s face, but I couldn’t manage it; of all the men in my life he was the one I thought would be horrified at what Rhys had done, not agree with it.

“I pray to Goddess and God that you never know such grief, but remember this, Galen, it’s going to hurt no matter what you do, and vengeance just postpones it. I realized in the end that I was angry with myself, blamed myself, because I had wanted that fight. I led him to his death. I was his father and I failed him, and that was why I killed all of them. Once I understood that, I didn’t want the bards to sing of it. I didn’t deserve any stories. I had made certain that that tribe of people passed out of all memory, all history, so I did the same for me. It seemed fair.”

“But we have the stories of Cromm Cruach,” I said.

“Oh, Merry, that wasn’t my first name.”

“What was your first name?” Galen asked.

Rhys shook his head, his hair tickling against my face. “No, that name, that person, is gone. He died with the last breath of a people that he destroyed for a mistake that was his own. I buried that name with the children I slaughtered, because when they were all dead I understood that they were no more important than my son, but they were no less important either. They could have grown up and been good men, good women, but I stole that chance from them. They were mortal and had only a short time to live anyway, and I stole what few years they had, because my immortal son had managed to die at the hands of human technology. I am deeply ashamed of what I’d done, so I destroyed my name, my stories, my history in a sort of penance, though even that was such hubris, thinking that the dead could be appeased by punishing myself.”

We held him close, we murmured what comfort we could think of, but in the end what comfort is there? Then I thought of something, and had to know. “It took me almost fifteen years to find the murderer of my father. Cel was trying to kill me and all of us at the time, so it was self-defense, but I’m still glad I killed him.”

“Has it lessened your grief for your father?” Rhys asked.

I thought about it. “Yes, yes it has. I feel like I avenged him.”

“If my son had died at the hands of a true enemy, another sidhe worth fighting with all the magic and grace I had back then, maybe it would have been more satisfying, but I attacked people who could not hope to defend against me; I was a truly terrible power to be reckoned with on the battlefield, and I didn’t attack most of them in battle. I hunted them down in the streets, the mountains, anywhere they ran to hide; I found them, and I killed them.”

“Cel was already your enemy, Merry,” Galen said. “We all wanted him dead, because we were afraid the queen might actually give him the throne.”

Rhys said, “You didn’t kill Cel just to avenge your father, Merry; you killed him to keep all of the Unseelie safe from him, and that is worth killing for.”

“You know, most people’s pillow talk isn’t about battle and killing,” I said.

“Boring people,” Galen said.

“Very boring,” Rhys said.

“I don’t know, sometimes I think it might be nice to be a little boring if it would keep us from having to kill people, or keep them from trying to kill us.”

To that there was nothing to say, because we all agreed, that would be nice. “‘May you live in interesting times.’ It sounds so positive, but it’s not,” I said.

“That’s an Arabic curse, you know: ‘May you live in interesting times,’” Rhys said.