Rhys' main story arc/complication/personal foil is that he has no clocking idea he's a wick instead of a galdor and that he's completely clueless to being an illegitimate migrant worker's bastard son.
His aging father has been very meticulous about keeping these secrets in desperate hope that his son would come home from Brunnhold and take over the plantation.
He didn't. He's a Seventen rising star instead.
Rhys' mother is a human who reluctantly relinquished him to his human father around his second birthday. His mother, Yelenn, went on to have a loving relationship with a human Resistance member and bore him a daughter, Gale Saunders. His sister resides in Vienda, having taken over her father's smithing business. Their mother died in Gale's birth.
His biological father, Theodore Valentin, has never married. If he's produced any other bastard children, he did not keep them like he kept and raised Rhys (to be a galdor).
Rhys is not ready for commitment, nor is he entirely confident he is marriageable material despite how dashing he knows he looks in uniform. He has little to offer except for an indigo plantation and four snaps, his job as dangerous as it is thrilling. That hasn't stopped him from enjoying himself—he plays hard when he's off duty and spent plenty of his school days crawling the pubs of the Stacks and being scandalous with whomever he pleased in order to forget the only woman he really wanted in his life, relying on his future uniform and duty to make up for a multitude of culturally perceived sins.
He has been in love with Charity D'Arthe since their Brunnhold days, despite her father, Captain Damen D'Arthe's decision that she could never marry a lower class farmboy. Their relationship rekindled after eight years apart in Roalis 2718 and despite all of the revealed secrets between them that have been hidden until recently, they are still very much in love.
Rhys is Special Enforcement Sargent for the Seventen—he's risen up the ranks of the Investigative Division in a very short amount of time because he's good at what he does. He's bound to have enemies—are you interested in a short term hatred or a long game story arc-worthy antagonist relationship? Bring it. I'm game.
He's busted more than just some small crimes, but exposed some big rings of crime in Vienda and across Anaxas. I would love to get him involved in foiling a smuggling ring, stopping some Bad Brothers' action, crashing a Resistance Cell, or otherwise getting knee-deep in some serious investigative shit that takes some twisted work to get out of.
Not sure yet. Will get back to this space later.