Son of Sun (Forgotten Gods (Book 2))

by Clair, Rosemary

  I flinched when leaned in and whispered into my ear.

  “Have you lost your mind?” He growled.

  His angry tone confused me. I swept a look around the room trying to understand what I had done wrong. And then it hit me.

  Everyone in the room, even Anyi’s family, studied me with guarded looks. It didn’t take long for me to realize why. Life-sized murals of Incan deities ran the length of the dining hall’s wall. Dressed as I was, in Anyi’s borrowed caftan with my hair pulled up, I could have stepped from one of the paintings. The Q’ero were descendants of the Incas, they still worshipped the old gods in the old ways. Every eye I turned to focused intently on me. Reverent silence stilled the room, everyone fearing what my presence in their midst meant.

  “Take my hand!” Chassan barked under his breath. I started to do as I was told, but stopped, remembering what he could accomplish with a single touch.

  Chassan grabbed my hand and slammed our balled fists to the table so forcefully the plates jumped.

  “Only royalty may touch the gods,” he whispered in explanation.

  As I looked back around the table, the eyes were no longer focused on me, everyone having seen the disrespectful way Chassan treated me and no longer fearing there might be a god in their midst.

  His hand was hot as fire, hard as stone and clasped so tightly around mine I feared my bones might snap. His mood was palpable, grumbling answers to questions and barely touching his food. Still, he held my hand for everyone to see. Yet, didn’t look my way or speak to me once.

  From a seat behind her grandfather, the little girl made faces at me and grinned through the entire dinner. When the final course was cleared Chassan excused us, and practically dragged me from the temple to our hut.

  “Take that off now, and don’t ever wear it again!” He barked as soon as the hut door clattered closed.

  “You can’t tell me what to do!” I put my hands on my hips and stuck my chin in the air, holding my ground. “It was a gift from Anyi!” His foul temper didn’t scare me anymore and I certainly wasn’t going to let him tell me what I could and could not wear.

  His eyes flashed dangerous deep ochre, the color they turned when his magic was waking up. In two strides he crossed the room, his face inches from mine as he stared down at me with a look that could have withered a redwood. I cowered, taken aback to see such a look focused at me. My eyes found his chest, which was rising and falling so quickly I feared what his next move would be.

  “There are things about these people you don’t know, Faye.” His voice was ice cold, barely restrained to a civil tone. “Things you could never understand. You sought me out to teach you, and that’s what I’m doing. I said, take off the dress.”

  I turned away from him, forcing back the tears that stung the back of my eyeballs. A rush of wind stirred the fires flames, causing them to whistle as they burned low. When I turned back around to ask him what he was talking about, he was gone.

  Jerk! I screamed in my mind. My hands balled into fists at my sides. I tore the dress from my body and launched it across the room onto his pack.

  After washing my face and brushing my teeth, I grabbed my bed roll and dragged it into the other room, huffing and fuming all the way.

  Sleep should’ve been impossible that night, I was so upset. But somehow, the day caught up with me, and my eyes closed to a fitful sleep.

  I was shivering uncontrollably when I awoke, an ice cycle of snot hanging from my frozen nose. My body quaked and strained to warm itself, which was impossible despite the layers of woven wool and down sleeping bag snuggling me.

  Fire flickered from the outer room, and although I was prepared to pout with Chassan like a little child until he apologized to me, freezing to death in the wilds of Peru wasn’t really something I wanted to do.

  Dragging my bedroll back into the room, I assumed he would be up reading. Since he didn’t need sleep, and all. But when I entered the room, it was empty. He was gone—a realization that let the night’s chill creep further into my bones. The only comfort I had was his camera case, laying open on a shelf, a great empty hole in the black foam where his long lens usually slept. After out fight, he wouldn’t hesitate to leave me. But his camera equipment, I was certain, he would come back for.

  Sleeping was impossible after that. Even when warmth returned to my body, I still couldn’t doze off. Chassan was apparently just as upset with me as I was with him. Lying there, I realized how childish I had been.

  Chassan was helping me, something I desperately needed. I don’t know why I was so upset with him for the way he treated me. It wasn’t like he was Dayne. He was nothing to me other than an impossibly moody teacher. We didn’t have to like each other to get through this. In fact, it was probably better if we didn’t like each other. Chassan wasn’t the kind of god that wanted any friends around. He was a loner. But for some reason, he had agreed to let me stay. The idea of apologizing to him made my stomach churn with disgust, but I knew I had to.

  When the sun began to rise, I gave up trying to sleep, tossing the sleeping bag off me and dressing for the coming day. I’m not sure how long I sat staring into the fire, running my fingers through the flames and feeling it flood down to my core like an electric shock. Only it wasn’t a bad shock. It was addictive almost, like my body would never get enough of it.

  Feet shuffled outside the hut and I quickly pulled my hand from the flames, fearing Chassan would catch me. The sun was peeking over the horizon, slender fingers of light pulling at the door when it opened and she stood before me like a ghostly vision.

  It was Anyi, clothed only in a thin nightgown, a contrite look on her downcast face. My blood ran cold, worried what her expression could mean. After waking to an empty hut, I feared something might be wrong with Chassan.

  “Anyi?” I stood from my place by the fire and went to her, taking her hand as I knelt down beside her.

  After a moment of staring at the floor, she sighed and her black eyes found mine. Her feet were bare, a thin cotton gown all she had to block the cold morning mist. She tugged at my hand as if she wanted me to follow her. Grabbing the blue caftan I had worn the night before from where it lay on Chassan’s pack, I wrapped it over her shoulders, and nodded.

  Leading me by the hand, we wandered through the deserted village streets, past sleeping huts with smoke rising lazily from their chimneys, past makeshift corrals where llamas and alpacas huddled close while the munched hay and tried to stay warm, past guards sleeping on duty by the temple walls.

  She led me into the woods, at which point I swept her into my arms and carried her, so the stones would not cut her bare feet. The morning lay silent over the mountain, those quiet, eery moments when the animals of night have gone to sleep, but their daytime replacements have yet to wake.

  Morning mist, so thick I could barely see, clung to the tree tops, snaking white wisps of phantom fingers down to the ground in the distance. Adrenaline spiked through my veins, killing what chill remained and I hugged Anyi closely to keep her warm as well.

  Her black eyes looked from the trail to me, and she pointed to a long deserted path turning off to the left. A path I now realized she had shown me in my vision two days ago at the altar. I nodded and followed her directions.

  The trail turned down a great hill, so steep Anyi scrambled to my back so I could hold onto trees as we descended. A stream lay across the path when it evened out, way too wide to cross, and I wasn’t about to leap the thing with witnesses around, even little Anyi.

  Anyi scrambled down from my back and approached the stream. I wanted to call her back, tell her she would surely catch a cold if she got wet, but I didn’t.

  In the breaking light of dawn, a tiny brown foot extended from the hem of her white gown and plunged into the stream, followed by another. Looking as if she were walking on water, she picked her path across the river on submerged stones only someone who traveled this trail often would know were there.

  I followed her path,
feeling for the stones with tentative toes as I followed her across the water.

  On the far side of the river, the trail was all but invisible. Again, Anyi crawled up onto my back and pointed the way. The lower part of the trail was clear, making me bend low as we walked. I knew immediately it was because Anyi, a tiny girl of maybe eight, was the only one who had traveled it in ages.

  A hundred yards into the forest, we came to an opening, much like the one I had stumbled upon days before. Only this site was long abandoned. The wooden planks were rotted, covered over by vines and underbrush as the forest worked to reclaim it. The ancient split logs crumbled under my weight, but I continued on, holding Anyi’s legs securely around my middle. Slowly, we approached the altar at the far end.

  This time, instead of finding an altar where a human sacrifice had been burned, we found a gaping, vine covered mouth marking the entrance of a long forgotten cave. Again, Anyi scrambled from my back. The sun had risen higher in the sky, but still not high enough to give the kind of light I would have preferred to have lighting my way into a darkened cave.

  “Chassan?” I called in a low whisper, wondering if he was lurking somewhere near. No one answered, and Anyi took my hand, pulling me toward the cave.

  As we entered on our hands and knees into the confined space, the suffocating smell of damp earth, aging rocks and moss filled my senses. The floor of the cave was wet, water running in a tiny vein along one side. Still Anyi pressed further into the cave, unafraid of what may be lurking there. In my mind, I could imagine all sorts of things—pumas, vultures, sulking sun gods. But Anyi wasn’t the least bit afraid.

  Further into the cave, the walls began to widen enough to stand and when we reached a central room, sunlight burst onto the walls through an opening high on the cave wall, sending a single shaft of light spilling into the dark like a beacon.

  The walls were light grey stone, the floor craggy and ragged. Anyi’s smile was megawatt bright, her cheeks pulled into little apples of color. As the sun rose higher more light spilled in the opening until I saw why she was smiling, and the reason she had brought me to this cave.

  She waved a hand toward the far wall, where a painted mural—obviously as old as the mountains—stretched its colors in the bright light.

  I stumbled forward, entranced by the simple wonder of ancient cave paintings. They were crude at first, bright red stick figures marching across the stone. Then rounded, more detailed images of horses, their heads flailing into the air as they pranced proudly over the rough walls.

  As the quality improved, so did the meaning of the images. Scenes of farm life, men bent to their tasks in the fields, and women pulling thread through giant looms. War scenes, where men marched to battle with spears and bows ready to defend their world.

  The murals stopped abruptly near waist height. Still, my eyes traveled upward as the sun rose higher and spilled more light onto the cave wall.

  That’s when I knew why the little girl had brought me here. The highest scenes honored the gods. Altars ripe with sacrifice, the hands of mere mortals raised in supplication.

  A great black bird swooped across the sky, his wings outstretched as he circled an altar. It was Chassan, an angel of death waiting to transport some poor soul to the heavens or leave them for darker forces.

  Above the bird sat a sun, fat and happy in the sky, so large it took up the greater part of the wall.

  I looked back to Anyi, wondering if she knew the truth about Chassan and me, or if this was just a child’s prized possession she wanted to share with her new friend. As my eyes met hers she smiled and pointed higher on the wall. My gaze followed her tiny hand, and when I saw the woman painted above the rest of the drawings, I almost fell over.

  Instantly I knew her, though her face, I had never seen. Her buttery blonde hair fell to the ground in loose waves like the Sidhe. A flowing, blue dress hung from her shoulders, tied tightly at the waist with a length of blood red rope. Though the flames did not obscure her milky skin, I immediately knew Seraph’s figure from the pages of Sam’s book.

  My body went numb as a hot sensation spread through me like wild fire. The world blurred black and white, and my eyes became incapable of sight. From the depths of a dark pool, a similar vision began to take shape—a young girl, hiding in the darkness, her flowing curls and intent eyes mirroring my own. The blood sizzled in my veins, hot and bubbling from the tips of my toenails to the ends of my hair as I watched myself twin begin to crawl out of the darkness that engulfed her.

  But something wasn’t right. It wasn’t only the vision taking over my body, but something else entirely. Rising and falling under a power completely out of my control, my chest began to heave, just as Chassan’s did when he lost his grip and became the wild feral creature his magic unleashed. My spine stiffened ramrod straight, hard as steel, as if my body wanted to unleash want slept inside it.

  This wasn’t magic I knew how to control. It was magic I feared. Desperately, I fought in my mind, trying to force the feeling away, but it kept growing up my spine, changing me as it went. There was only one thing I could remember that had ever broken the spell of my visions before. I had no idea if it would work, but it was the only chance I had.

  Wanting to force the vision away, I drew in a deep breath, one so great it seemed too suck scaly shards of rock from the cave walls. Poor little Anyi scattered into the shadows as if she feared the world were about to fall down at her feet. Furiously, I shook my head, refusing to let my body lose control. Not now, not in front of Anyi. I couldn’t let her know the truth of what I really was. When my lungs could hold no more, I expelled the air from me in a scream so loud it echoed like thunder off the mountain tops and rubbed my throat raw. Anyi clasped her hands over her ears and cowered in the shadows.

  Miraculously, it worked. My vision vanished. The sensation sweeping over my body calmed, and when I opened my eyes, it was just me and little Anyi. She peered fearfully from the shadows, while I stood bathed in a beam of light. Looking back to the cave painting, I fell to my knees, taking my head in my hands and shaking it helplessly. What was happening to me, and what did this woman’s image mean?

  I was entranced, kneeling there, staring at a woman that was so much like me I had to wonder if it was some sick joke the little girl was playing on me. The curve of her face, the blush on her cheeks, even the determined, yet fearful gaze her eyes held, I recognized as my own. Chills grabbed my neck and tingled down the length of me.

  Seraph. Was I looking on the face of my creator?

  I didn’t have time to ponder the question. Feeling the weight of the world suddenly heave itself up from the depths of my stomach, and clutched my middle and ran to the far cave wall. Into the darkness, away from Anyi, where she couldn’t see what was happening to me. Not that anyone in a hundred foot radius had to actually see. From the violent retching sounds emanating from my throat, it was obvious every morsel of food left in my stomach was splattered over the cave floor where I sat, rocking back and forth to calm my body.

  When it was over, I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand, and got to my feet, staggering weakly into the light. I brushed my hair away from my forehead, closing my eyes to try to still my thoughts. Like that would help.

  When I opened my eyes, I found Anyi, prostrate on the cave floor at my feet, just as the servants had worshipped her the night before.

  My heart stopped in my chest.

  “No!” My throat raw and voice cracking as it echoed through the length of the cave. I took her arm and pulled her off the ground so she stood before me, wiping the dirt from her stark white gown.

  Not knowing what else to do, I pointed to the picture, back to myself, and began shaking my head wildly, my hands crossing over each other as they flailed in the air to say the same thing.

  A smile pulled at Anyi’s lips and her tiny hand rested lovingly on my cheek. Her other hand cradled my chin, closing my mouth that was gaping wide in fear of being found out. She placed a finger over my lips
and shook her head, moving the same finger to her own lips and shaking her head again. It was her way of telling me she would never breathe a word of this to anyone.

  Anyi turned and began walking back to the entrance of the cave. As her tiny feet shuffled across the loosened stones, she left me on my knees before the cave painting of a woman that was more mirror than art. This woman held the secrets of my past. Something that even Zeus himself had known to fear.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Beautiful Vessel

  The fire was a pile of smoldering embers when Chassan finally walked through the door, his mood so heavy I could feel it. I didn’t bother to look at him, and he didn’t bother to speak to me. He simply slipped in through the hut’s door and put his camera equipment back in its foamed case.

  My initial reaction, after seeing the cave wall, was to search the mountainside for him and demand to know what the painting meant, who the woman was, and why he hadn’t told me all of this last night instead of acting like a jealous boyfriend when I showed up in the blue dress.

  Luckily for me, I’d had some time to think about it and realized my plan wasn’t so smart. If Chassan didn’t know about the painting and I asked him, it would surely make him question my origins. So far, Chassan had assumed I was Sidhe. And I had done nothing to correct him.

  Seeing my likeness painted on a cave wall, heads above the lowly gods of the earth and sky, made the story of Seraph and the whole goddess-born-of-fire-theory seem more feasible. If Seraph was more than a myth, and powers of fire were as dangerous as I feared, my existence in this world was more precarious than ever.

  Though she hadn’t realized it at the time, Ceila had warned me how dangerous my powers were, just as Dayne had the moment my hand entered the fire. There was only one thing the gods of this world agreed on—the element of fire must be destroyed.

  I’d wisely decided to keep my mouth shut about the woman in the cave for the time being.