I crossed my arms over my chest and looked across the table at the sin-eater, with his flickering eyes and frustratingly warm smile. Every survival instinct I had said to keep my guard up around this man.I refused to be manipulated by a pretty face. On principle alone, I wanted to shoot down his plan, tell him it was an awful idea, but I had admit, there was a certain simplicity to it that might just work. After all, I’d stumbled onto the sin-eater while just wandering around downtown. Maybe fate would throw me another bone.
“This is going to be so fun! We’ll load up on snacks, and I know a guy with a van we can borrow. He owns a plumbing company, and the side is marked with their logo. It’ll be the perfect disguise. Nobody ever suspects a plumber!” he said eagerly.
I shook my head, frowning. “Everyonesuspects the plumber,” I snapped without thinking. “And the phone company, electrician—any van without windows, actually, is innately suspicious.” I usually worked alone, so I’d simply blurted out my thoughts, and I felt immediate regret for poking a hole in his plan when his smile slipped.
“Oh… Right.” He shrugged, leaning back from the map to wrap his arms around his middle. “I guess I should stay in my own lane, right?”
Well, shit. I hated the look on his face, like a kicked puppy, and I hated even more that I was the one who put it there. “But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways we could set up a stakeout,” I said, scrambling to say anything to get that bright-eyed look of enthusiasm back on his face. I couldn’t seem to fight this instinct to make everything better for him. “It’s a good idea, really,” I assured him. “What kind of snacks should we get?”
He shook his head, smiling dimly. “It’s fine, you don’t have to lie to make me feel better. I’m a big boy, I can handle it.”
“It’s not—” I began to explain, hoping to smooth over his hurt feelings. I huffed. “If spying were easy, everyone would be doing it. I’ve been doing it for thousands of years, using gods-given abilities, and I still don’t always get it right. Just look at how quickly you picked up that I was following you, and I was literally made of shadows.”
His eyes flicked up, curiosity lighting his gaze. “Were you born with the ability to shapeshift?”
“No.” I laughed bitterly. “I was born human. It wasn’t until I was resurrected and blessed by Danu that I gained my status as god.”
“How did it happen?” he asked, captivated, leaning one elbow on the table on the map, right over Dragon City District.
I hesitated. Opening this door invited a lot of complicated emotions, even after all this time, but for some reason, I wanted to share my past with this man, this sin-eater who was more than he first appeared.
And so, I told him my story—the whole sad truth of it.
Chapter 10
Ruadan
Ibracedmyselfforthe 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 atmy 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 todestroy 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, thedrip-drip-dripof 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 hewas 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.
