Chapter 10
What Is Love?
Nuada stood alone in the chamber. He began to contemplate his life, all the events that had brought him to this moment.
He had grown up in a different world to the one he now found himself in. Beautiful, verdant, surrounded by the raw beauty and absolute majesty of an Earth so filled with life and power that he could actually feel it, deep inside. It enveloped him, his connection with it so strong he could almost lose himself in it if he had a mind to. But, as he grew, he could feel subtle changes. Through this connection he was able to sense this power being disrupted. And when he asked his father what was causing these changes, he was given one word in answer – humans.
Balor had spat this word out at him like it was a bitter poison in his mouth. Year by year, Nuada was told it was the humans who caused all the ills that beset the Fey, who were silencing the Gods and spirits of the forest, river, mountain and sea, one by one. And it was the humans who had robbed Nuada and Nuala of their mother's nurturing love.
They had slaughtered her and her friends as if they were nothing, no more than a prized kill at the end of a hunt.
Their mother, Adsula, and three of her friends had been out for a walk in the forest, two guards having been sent out with them. They were just about to return to the palace, when they were ambushed by a large group of human hunters. Though greatly outnumbered, the two guards had battled in vain to protect their charges. They took many, many terrible blows, but also killed many of the humans and they kept on fighting so long as the Queen was still alive. One eventually succumbed to his injuries, but the other continued on, though gravely wounded. Two of the women died quickly at the hands of the hunters as they tried desperately to escape, but one just managed to get away, bleeding heavily. She was able to raise the alarm and have reinforcements sent out, but they were too late to save the remaining guard, who died seconds before they could get to him. There was only one human left when he fell.
This man had taken his 'revenge' on the Elves for killing his friends, by pushing the Queen up against a tree and skewering her with his hunting spear so she was pinned against it. This is when the rescue party had arrived. One of the warriors took the human's head clean off with one blow, but it was too late to save the Queen. She managed to say her last few words to the warriors before her life drained from her and she became stone around the hunter's spear.
The twins were only young when their mother died. They had no real memories of her at all. And this pained both them and their father. The rage Balor carried from that day on was terrible to behold. But it was her last words which caused Balor the most anguish and anger. As her final moments came ever closer, unable to speak in anything other than a whisper, one of the warriors leaned close to her and heard her last words before she passed into darkness.
He stood before Balor, who sat so still and quiet that it was almost as if he too had become stone, staring ahead of him in a shock. 'What did she say?' he asked, his voice barely audible. 'Sire,' the warrior began, his face filled with sorrow and regret, 'she said "They are as one. You must treat them the same. He is more fragile than you think."
Balor knew exactly what she meant. But he was in no mind to be tolerant of a son who could be considered as anything other than what he himself was – hard and unyielding in any circumstance. There was no room for compassion or any such emotion in a warrior's heart. His son would be the same as he. He would make sure of it….
The years passed, and Balor insisted Nuada be taken to the weapons master, far earlier than anyone would usually consider it beneficial. He was to become the mirror image of his father. To be anything other than what his mother had deemed him to be, which was a future King with the potential to be kind as well as fierce, compassionate as well as an accomplished warrior.
Balor's rage was an overpowering force. And Nuada saw his father's anger and took it as his own. Each time Balor stormed through the palace, bloodied by a battle with the humans, Nuada would run off to his weapons-master and demand another session of training. He would work harder and harder to become the warrior his father was, so that he could stride out with him, to be at his side in battle, to make him proud.
To be noticed.
For it seemed that unless he had a weapon in his hand, or had soundly beaten an opponent in training, his father hardly noticed him at all. But Nuala, beautiful, calm Nuala always had a place near her father. She would be rewarded with the smiles and praise for just…being herself. She was so like their mother…
But for Nuada, it seemed all attention had to be earned with blood and sweat. But tears were not allowed. Not from him. He craved his father's unconditional love, but felt it was always conditional, always depending on what he could do. His heart became hardened to any emotions other than hate and anger. Except where Nuala was concerned. There was always love for her. How could he feel anything but love for his twin sister. She was part of him. They were part of each other.
As they grew older, as they matured, the love began to change too. For him at least. Nuada began to feel jealous of his father's attention being solely for Nuala. At least that is how it started. Slowly the jealousy had become twisted, the anger he felt all the time now causing it to become almost like the jealousy of a man having to watch his lover being caressed by the hands of another man.
And Balor had noticed this. He wove a shield around Nuala, to try to keep Nuada out of her heart and mind. But this just served as another rejection in Nuada's feverish rage. He turned all the rage and hatred that had taken his heart and laid it at the door of the only target he was able to fight – the humans. Ultimately, it was his father who had brought him to this place. When, after all his ranting about the humans, he had made that fateful truce, it felt to Nuada like another rejection of him. He wanted to fight the humans for his father, to to avenge his mother's death, to destroy them, so his father would finally show pride in his son. But he denied him the chance. He denied his son once more. Once too often.
He left the world he had known to go out into the world of men, so he could make them suffer for all he felt inside. They deserved most of what he had wanted to do to them. But now, he realized bitterly, some of that rage and hatred should have been laid at the door of his father too. The love and hate he had felt in almost equal measure for Balor had caused all the woes that had befallen him. It had taken all that he had ever loved. It took away his sister, even before she died.
Where was she? Where was the part of her that had always been with him?
Nuala. He closed his eyes and pictured her in his mind, standing under an apple tree that was festooned in its spring-time splendour of delicate, pink-tinged blossom. She wore a dress of blue silk, and a smile filled with joy at the return of spring, her favourite season. Would he see her smile again?
It was time.
He walked slowly from the chamber, stopping only once to look back at the vast expanse of darkness wherein lay the Golden Army, now in its eternal sleep. He had plans for this dead space.
He would fill it with life.