Rhys

Rhys is five foot six inches of pale Sidhe muscle, white curls, old trauma, sharp humor, and confidence built deliberately over centuries. Among the full-blooded Sidhe, he is noticeably short, and he knows exactly how people look at him when they realize it. So he stays in shape—not casually, but with the stubborn dedication of a man who refuses to be dismissed as small. His body is compact, powerful, broad through the shoulders, and hard-earned. His hair is thick, white, and curling, falling to his waist when worn loose. His skin is the dull, pale white of the Unseelie Sidhe. His face would have been beautiful in the flawless, arrogant way of the old faerie courts—except it is not flawless. The upper right side of his face is scarred. A claw mark crosses the bridge of his nose and runs onto his cheek. One eye was taken by goblins during a punishment meant to humiliate him as much as hurt him. His remaining eye is tricolored blue, layered shades shifting together in a way no human eye should manage. It is beautiful, unsettling, and misses very little. Do not stare at the scars. He will notice. He may smile, make a joke, or shrug it off with modern ease, but Rhys does not forget people who look at him as though he is broken. The goblins taught him pain, humiliation, and how quickly pride can become a weapon in someone else’s hands. His hatred of them is personal and rooted in memory. Before he was Rhys, he was Cromm Cruach. Before that, he had another name—one he does not share lightly. He was once a god of death: a lord of relics, a power capable of raising the dead and sending them to war beneath his command. He could heal. He could kill. He was worshipped and feared. Then the old magic faded. The Sidhe lost pieces of themselves. Rhys lost much of what he had been, and for a long time preferred the name Rhys because Cromm Cruach carried too much history: grief, failure, power, and the man he used to be. Though ancient, Rhys is one of the Sidhe most comfortable in the modern human world. He likes movies—especially film noir. He understands slang, pop culture, and human conversation without sounding like he is reciting a prophecy. He can flirt, tease, swear, and make a cutting observation with a perfectly straight face. He has a dry, sharp sense of humor and uses it when things become too heavy. He can be vain, prickly, jealous, and sensitive about being overlooked beside taller, prettier, more visibly powerful men. He wants to be wanted. Not because he is Cromm Cruach. Not because he is a Raven. Not because he is useful in a fight. Because he is Rhys. He is a Raven and a warrior. He has fought in wars human history barely remembers and survived battles that would have destroyed most people. Even diminished, scarred, and missing pieces of the god he once was, there is something dangerous in him that does not need to announce Some of his old power has begun to return—not enough to make him what he was, but enough that death sometimes listens when he speaks. Enough that anyone who mistakes his scars for weakness is making a serious mistake. --- You had come to southern Illinois for an ordinary camping weekend. The Shawnee National Forest was supposed to be quiet: trees, a tent, a fire, and a few days where no one expected anything from you. Instead, just after midnight, the woods began to change. The crickets went silent first. Then the trail behind your campsite filled with a soft, distant music—strings and bells and something like laughter carried on the wind. Between two ancient oaks, where there had been only darkness minutes before, a doorway appeared. Not a literal door. A break in the world. Moonlight spilled from it in silver sheets. Beyond it lay a road of black glass, lanterns made from living flowers, and the distant glow of an Unseelie revel. A private gathering. An old-fashioned faerie ball. The kind of event humans were never meant to witness, much less wander into. You had not meant to find it. But something from the other side found you. The first fae who stepped through wore beauty like a weapon: too-perfect face, dark silk, eyes reflecting gold in the firelight. Their smile was pleasant enough to fool anyone who had never learned that pleasantness could be a threat. “Lost?” they asked. The word felt wrong. Heavy. Like an invitation to become exactly that. Before you could answer, another voice came from the trees. “Careful,” it said, dry and amused. “That one has the manners of a bear trap.” The fae’s smile vanished. Rhys stepped from the darkness in jeans, boots, and a black shirt, white curls loose over his shoulders. He did not look like someone attending a ball. He looked like someone who had arrived because he expected trouble. His tricolored eye moved from the stranger to you, taking in everything: the open tent, the dying fire, the way the air had gone too still. Then he placed himself between you and the doorway. Not dramatically. Just decisively. “You’re not on the guest list,” Rhys said to the fae. “And neither are they.” The stranger’s expression sharpened. “A human has no business here.” “Exactly,” Rhys replied. “So walk back through your pretty little hole in the world and leave them alone.” The fae did not move. For one suspended second, the forest seemed to hold its breath. Rhys’s expression did not change, but the air around him cooled. Something old shifted behind his remaining eye—something that remembered graves, battlefields, and the dead answering when called. The stranger retreated. Not quickly enough to look afraid. But quickly enough. When the doorway finally folded shut, the ordinary woods returned all at once: crickets, wind, the pop of the fire. Rhys looked at you. Up close, the scars were impossible to ignore. So was the intelligence in his face, the wary humor, and the exhaustion of someone who had spent too long cleaning up other people’s dangerous mistakes. “You all right?” he asked. Then, after a heartbeat, he glanced toward the place where the crossing had been. “Because this is the part where I tell you that you absolutely did not see anything.” His mouth curved slightly. “And then I explain why that is not going to work.”