I awoke with a start, alone in a darkened room. A faint glow seeped from the edges of a thick tapestry hanging over the doorway, casting just enough light to make out the shadows of the room. Pelts of jungle cats lay over me, insulating my body from a chill that had turned my nose into an icicle. My breath frosted into a puffy cloud when I yawned, the darkened walls radiating such cold they could’ve been made from ice.
Where I was, I couldn’t be sure. Leaping from the mountain top was the last memory I could recall from the night before. After that, I remembered nothing but darkness and the surprisingly gentle feel of Chassan’s talons wrapped around my arms as he carried me through the Andes.
At some point, I must have fallen asleep.
On a bedside table sat a taper and a box of matches. Cuddling the blankets around my back, I sat up and grasped a match between shivering fingers.
In the southern hemisphere, December brought summer to Peru, weather I had packed for despite threats of snow when I left in northern California. The thin t-shirt and shorts I wore were not meant for such cold, and I vaguely wondered where in the heck Chassan had taken me.
I dropped the first match, hands too numb to grasp the tiny shaft. The second match I almost dropped as well, but for an entirely different reason.
Flaring to life, the little white flint on the match’s tip revealed the reason I was chilled to the bone. I gasped, staring at walls that were not ice, but sheets of gold, paved top to bottom, glowing so brightly I had to shield my eyes in the match light.
“What?” My word was slow, disbelieving, barely audible at all, but loud enough to echo up the golden chamber walls that climbed beyond the range of my match to darkness—or infinity.
“Ouch!” I yelped when the match burned my fingers. I dropped it and immediately stuck the tender thumb into my mouth. Striking a third, I lit the candle, slung the pelts over my shoulders and shuffled to the nearest wall. Running my fingers along the stunning scenes carved into golden slabs, I wondered dumbly at its beauty, intricate designs depicting the sun and birds soaring over mountains, repeated over and over; the faces of humans, crying out in sacrifice, hands raised, appealing to the gods for their favor.
As I circled the room I knew exactly where I was. There was only one place that could possibly house so much gold—Paititi. A breathy laugh fell from my lips as they curled in a smile, remembering my conversation with Rhea.
The room was surprisingly sparse to have such ornamented walls, only a columned bed that could’ve been carved from onyx and a simple gilt table. In the corner sat a chair covered with the lavish pelts of exotic jungle animals. On the floor more hides of furry creatures spread their legs so one wouldn’t freeze their feet on the gold bricked floor.
A pile of clothes and hiking boots lay on the chair, a fleece coat hanging from a curled goat horn arm. I knew they were for me. Modern clothes were completely out of place in a room like this.
I shrugged off a chill as the new clothes brought warmth back to my limbs—a pair of pants that unzipped into shorts, a soft pink plaid button down, and tan fleece jacket with thumb holes to make the sleeves into half-mittens. When I was completely dressed, I looked like I belonged on an episode of the Crocodile Hunter.
The whisper of a turning page snicked on the other side of the tapestry, the finger guiding it—I assumed—was Chassan’s. Nerves churned my insides when I remembered how close I had come to death last night. I still wasn’t sure what I had said to save my life, but for some reason he hadn’t killed me, which could only mean he was going to help me. Right?
I cleared my throat as I emerged from behind the tapestry, planning to begin by profusely thanking him for agreeing to help me—not that I really thought it would help with a guy as impossible as Chassan, but because it seemed like the polite thing to do. The only problem was, when I saw what lay on the other side of the curtain, I couldn’t form words.
Chassan was there, leisurely sprawled on a magnificent pillow, looking up from his book to watch me with the same blank expression I was coming to recognize as his own patented brand of discord with the world. But his ill humor was the last thing on my mind at that moment.
Golden walls circled the room, just as they had in my bedroom, now lining the colossal structure of what appeared to be some type of throne room. Every surface, as far as I could see, was made from some sort of luxurious material, be it precious metal or priceless stone.
I stood atop a set of five shallow steps. The same steps continued uninterrupted to form a rectangular frame around a sunken room that was easily the size of a football field. Giant pillars of black marble veined with gold lined the top step every twenty feet or so, towering over me to the point I felt like a flea in a redwood forest. Behind the pillars ran a hallway, open to the sunken room on one side, golden walls on the other, broken only by thick tapestries woven in vibrant colors and covering what I assumed were more golden bedrooms like the one I had emerged from.
All of this grandeur coalesced at an enormous throne, which dominated the room, encrusted well past the point of gaudy with more priceless jewels and precious metals. Sparkling in the light of a hundred torches hung from massive golden urns, the room looked like a secret, a pirate’s cache no one was meant to find. Corners sat silently cloaked in shadows. Fire light painted my skin with a sunset’s orange glow. Everything appeared so surreal, for moment I wondered if I were lost in a dream or under a spell.
Chassan lay on one of the many golden brick paved walkways crisscrossing the floor. Beneath these walkways were shallow pools of sky blue water where bright orange and white fish swam at their leisure.
“You must be hungry,” he said if a gruff voice. My stomach growled at the mention of food. How long had it been since I’d eaten? Maybe a day? I was famished.
I nodded my head dumbly and he pushed off the pillow in one graceful movement, swift and precise like the exacting swoops of a bird of prey on the hunt. I gasped at how lithely he moved.
He motioned to a table down the golden hallway to my right and began to work the crisscross pattern over the pools to meet me there.
Even the table was set with gold in this palatial hall. I stared openmouthed at the opulent cornucopia of food, not knowing whether I was supposed to sit with him or serve him, until he swept a princely hand toward one chair and took the one opposite it.
“Paititi?” I half whispered.
He nodded.
“Are we the only ones here?”
His gaze fell from me to a bowl of exotic fruit. With an annoyed sigh, he nodded his head.
“Do you really know so little about our world?
Now it was my turn to look away. I shrugged without saying a word and took a mango from the basket of fruit. The disgust that swept through him was palpable.
“I’ve never cared much for the Sidhe. Tolerated them mainly. But to let one of their own into this world so unprepared puts all of our kind in great danger.” His fist hit the table to reinforce his anger and I jumped in my skin.
One of their own? I kept my focus on peeling the mango with a sharp gold knife, chewing on my inner cheek as I thought. Chassan must’ve assumed I was Sidhe because of my bracelet. He could never know what I feared I might actually be; no one could. In a split second the decision was made not to correct his assumption...ever.
“They didn’t exactly let me out,” I kept my eyes down. “Kicked me out would be a better term.”
“Kicked you out?” He leaned into me, suddenly interested in my story. “Why?” He crossed his forearms over the table, a rugged, well worn blue knit shirt covering the muscles that almost killed me last night.
“I fell in love with the Queen’s son.”
“Ah, and she didn’t approve.”
I only nodded.
He sat back as if to take me all in, one arm flung wildly over the back of his chair, running the back of his fingers over the angle of his chiseled chin as he thought. With a tilted head he watched me eat hungrily, yet ate nothing him
self. After quite some time he finally spoke.
“Tell me then, why do you insist on forcing the impossible? He cannot defy the queen. And I hate to be the one to break it to you, but if the bracelet has fallen from your wrist, he’s already let you go.”
I gasped, the knife clattering against my plate when I dropped it in total shock. Its echo rang like a church bell through the silent hall. When the piece of mango lodged in my throat I slapped both hands over my throat and began coughing to free it. Looking into Chassan’s cold ochre eyes as I struggled to breathe, I could tell he enjoyed my misery, a thought that dried the tears desperate to run down my cheeks. I knew exactly what he was trying to do, and I wasn’t about to let him deter me from finding my answers. Not after I had already come so far and risked so much. I narrowed my eyes and punched my chin defiantly in the air.
“Because he’s all I have,” I answered, gritting my teeth as I stared at him.
Chassan’s lips curled into a superior grin, and he shook his head, his short spikes of dirty blonde hair glistening under the torches.
“The Sidhe have diluted their race into such weakness. It’s embarrassing,” he snorted and looked away.
My temper flamed deep in my belly. Who was he to belittle people he didn’t even know? I knew the Sidhe, and even though they didn’t want me, there was one of them I wanted very much. One I would defend to the death if I had to.
“Weakness? Because they choose to live with their kind instead of kill them?” As soon as the words were out of my mouth I regretted them. My eyes flew as wide as the golden charger I was eating from. I knew first hand what Chassan was capable of and he had already told me I didn’t have another chance with him. Fearing his temper would flare just as mine had, I grabbed the knife from my mango and fisted it in my hand.
Instead of reacting, his steady eyes fell to my sorry excuse of a weapon. The corner of his lips twitched in what could have grown into a smile, but by the time his eyes reached mine again, his trademark disdain was firmly back in place.
“Ah, so you have heard the stories.” He raised an eyebrow, calm and composed once again, his voice a serene tone that should’ve discussed pleasant weather, not killing his brothers.
“Yes,” I answered, tilting my head in an indignant way.
With mild interest he popped a grape into his mouth and folded his forearms on the table again.
“You intrigue me, Faye. Most would not sit at my table knowing what I have done. Yet you have chosen to seek me out. So tell me, why do you think I killed my brothers?”
“Greed.” It was the first answer that popped into my mind, and fearing I had offended him again I gripped the knife tighter in my hand.
“What is your definition of greed?” He absently ran a finger over the golden knife at the side of his plate—his eyes dancing in a dangerous way that made my heart thunder against my ribs.
“A selfish desire to get what you want.”
“Ah! Are your motives not selfish? Traveling all this way to find answers only you seek?” He sat back, a smug smile on his face, obviously high-fiving himself over working this all back to me and the mounting reasons why I shouldn’t be here. But I wasn’t going to be deterred.
“No.” Defiantly, I shoved my chin higher into the air. “My motives are selfless.” I returned the same smug smile right back at him, and I could tell my boldness shocked and fascinated him by the way he was biting at his lip, trying to hide a small smile. “This life means nothing to me without him. There is nothing I wouldn’t give or do to win him back.”
“Selfless love,” Chassan said, more to himself than to me, his eyebrows hitching up his broad forehead again. With a dispassionate shrug he seemed to acknowledge my victory, losing interest in the war of words as he thought about what I said. Again, the backs of his fingers traced his chin.
“If you knew there was no way back to him, would you honestly welcome death rather than live without him?”
Completely caught off guard by his strange question I let my gaze drift down to my plate again, absently fingering a piece of mango as I thought. It wasn’t exactly the question I was thinking he would ask me. I was expecting him to come right back at me with another zinging reason for why I should leave, something I was beginning to see was endlessly entertaining for Chassan.
I don’t know why it took me so long to answer him. Life held little meaning for me without Dayne. But death was never really an option I had given much thought to when I proclaimed how impossible life was without him. But wasn’t that what I was actually saying in a round about way—if I couldn’t have a life with Dayne I didn’t want one at all? Maybe it was a careless thing to say, and sitting across from a man who dealt in death daily made it suddenly seem rash.
Chassan on the other hand knew more about loss and death than I could ever hope to know. After all, he was death incarnate in a way. He had seen first hand the ways in which people die. Old age would at least be a fulfilled way to go. Accidents would be mercifully swift. Disease would be painful, but probably eased with drugs.
Dying of a broken heart, however. That would be the most impossible way to go. Yet, I was sure Chassan had seen the utter devastation of having one’s heart ripped—still beating—from their chest. I closed my eyes at the thought and felt my heart quiver with the realization of losing Dayne forever.
“Yes,” I answered softly, nodding my head and wiping the tear that had sprung to my eye with the back of my hand.
Chassan inhaled sharply when he saw my tears, diverting his gaze up the room to where the massive throne sat in all its glory. I followed his gaze, and for the first time noticed four smaller, less opulent thrones set to the side of Inti’s.
Four chairs for four brothers. Yet only one son of sun remained. Chills raced over my body and I bowed my head to my plate, realizing I may never leave his mountains.
Chapter Thirteen
Rich Man's Gold
“Pick something,” Chassan ordered as he held back a thick tapestry to reveal not another bedroom, but a pirate’s bounty of treasure.
“For what?” I half stumbled into the room, blinded by the glare of delicious jewels and delightful trinkets.
“We have to make an offering where we’re going.” He let the curtain fall shut as he joined me in the room, leaning against the wall, his arms crossed in boredom.
“Where are we going?” I asked, only half paying attention to him. My focus was on a long golden staff, its head a giant carved emerald the color of Dayne’s eyes.
“To the lands of the Q’ero, descendants of the last Incas.”
“I thought the Incas were wiped out by Spanish Conquistadors?” I questioned, marveling over the treasure laden tables.
“Most of them were. Some of them escaped and retreated to the safety of the mountain tops where they still live today. They do not trust outsiders. I am only allowed among them because I return the treasure offerings of their ancestors.”
“Don’t they suspect what you are?”
“They do not ask. As far as they know, I am a wildlife photographer who happens to be very lucky at stumbling upon relics of the great Incan Empire in my journeys.”
“Why are we going there?”
“You cannot learn to use your powers where human eyes may see. It is the only place remote enough.”
“Couldn’t we just stay here?” I was falling victim to Paititi’s enchantment just like Rhea and her band of amateur archeologists. Streets of gold, endless rooms of jewels, a king’s ransom and pirate’s bounty all at my fingertips? What wasn’t there to love about such a magical place?
“No.” His answer was short and clipped, leaving zero room for discussion as he turned to lift the heavy curtain away, bringing fresh air wafting into the room. “This place is rank with the blood of the dead,” he glowered over his shoulder, turning from me as if the air in the room was hard for him to breathe.
As I picked up a golden chalice I noticed it was splashed with a dark brown stain on one
side. I scraped my fingernail over the stain and part of it flaked away. My heart stuttered in my chest as my nostrils caught a faint metallic scent.
“Is this…?” I held the chalice out for Chassan to see the stain I asked about. His face was stone cold and he nodded once, his lip already curled in disgust. The chalice clattered against the cold floor when it fell from my hand and skittered to Chassan’s feet. I wiped my hand down my pants leg as I practically ran from the room, disgusted by the thought of a dead man’s blood on my hands.
“Wait!” Chassan called out as I sprinted past him.
I turned, still holding my breath as I waited for the stench of death to leave the air.
He stooped to retrieve the chalice at his feet, letting the curtain fall closed. The cup in his hand was inlaid with sapphires along its base, pearls on the cup and rubies at the rim. I wondered if a trinket like that wasn’t enough to buy our passage into Q’ero lands, already dreading the thought of having to go back in that chamber of death.
He fumbled in the pocket of his khaki hiking shorts, shaking his head and sighing, as if what he was about to do was physically painful for him. Gripping the chalice tighter in his hand, he steeled his face and breezed passed me. When his hand brushed mine he pressed something small into my palm without a word and continued down the hallway.
I gasped when I opened my fingers and stared at the familiar golden circle of my bracelet. In the excitement of last night and this morning I hadn’t really thought about the fact that he still had it. Part of me didn’t really think I would get it back. It was an offering after all.
“My bracelet!” I half yelled, half whispered in excitement as I curled it into my chest and began to follow him down the hallway.
“What need do I have for such an insignificant offering?” Chassan waved his hand in the air, continuing to cover the length of the hallway with long, sweeping strides. I was running to keep up with him.
“Thank you, Chassan. This means more than the world to me,” I said in a small voice as I fastened it back in place.
Son of Sun (Forgotten Gods (Book 2)) Page 10