Son of Sun (Forgotten Gods (Book 2))

by Clair, Rosemary

  But it was too late.

  “Take it! Take what you need!” He gritted his teeth as if his offer held a red-hot branding iron against his soul. Despite the pain, he still held my hand firmly to the solid rock wall of his chest.

  I tried. I opened my eyes and focused on him, but I couldn’t collected my thoughts enough to do it. My breaths were too shallow, coming from my throat instead of my stomach, and my heart didn’t feel as if it were beating at all. This was it.

  Limply, my hand fell from his and I focused on him once last time before my eyes closed. Chassan’s eyes went wild and the strange ochre color flashed violently in the shadows of our tent.

  The last sensation I had as I closed my eyes was Chassan’s lips wrapping over mine.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Truth

  I awoke with a start, wrapped in heavy wool blankets in the darkened single room I slept in my first night. Close beside me, the embers of a fire had long since burned to cold ashes. I could only assume Chassan had bundled me up and placed me next to a warm fire in an attempt to save my life. With a soft moan, I rose to my elbows, only to swallow a scream when my right arm stirred from beneath the pile of grey cinders.

  My eyes grew saucer wide as I jerked the dusty arm under the blankets. Quickly, I scanned the room, searching for some explanation and praying I was alone.

  What had happened? How had my arm ended up in the fire? I glanced back to the pile of ash, where my flurry of movement had stirred a few coals back to life. An orange ribbon flared along the underbelly of one coal, and when my eyes locked onto it, it was all I could do to keep my arm in the blanket with me. Low along my spine, the spot where my magic slept began to tingle. The fire called to me, sang to my soul, begged me to come back into its flames.

  My body needed it, wanted it, craved it the same way Chassan’s did the sun. Even in an unconscious state my mind had known that, and somehow plunged my hand into the flames. Chassan wouldn’t have done it. As far as he knew, I was Sidhe.

  The only question was had he seen? There was only one way to find out.

  Surprisingly, I felt amazing. Like I was coming down from some celestial, cosmic high, endorphins dancing in my veins, each breath making me feel as if my insides were stuffed to bursting with pure oxygen and sunshine.

  I rubbed at the black and grey soot marring my arm from elbow to fingertip, wiping it away to hide my dangerous secret. Wind blew ferociously against the drafty thatch door, rattling it on its hinges. I threw the covers off, barely feeling the cold that had crept over the camp. The scent of smoke and rain permeated the air, blowing icy wind over my cheeks.

  Thunder blanketed the mountains in a clash so epic the hut’s stone trembled against its mortar. I gasped, and shrunk away from a stream of debris falling from the ceiling. For a breathless moment, the entire village shook with the force of an earthquake. Outside, voices screamed in fear and feet shuffled for cover. Vibrations carried through the ground where I sat. I froze, pushing the blankets aside and pressing my palm to bare earth.

  My hand trembled in the damp, loose soil, quivering and quaking as the earth sighed beneath it. It told me two things—this was not thunder born from the heavens, and its source wasn’t far away. I grabbed my fleece and ran to the door.

  Outside, a relentless sun hung low in the sky, burning in an angry, red orb that sat so closely to the earth it made sweat nearly boil on my brow. An inexplicable change from the hut’s near arctic climate. What was going on? Fat black clouds began to gather near the sun, hanging low, threatening a meteorologic cataclysm of epic proportions. I removed my fleece, wiped a sleeve over my brow, and tied it at my waist.

  The village streets lay empty as I started off at a slow trot toward the spot where I feared this storm was brewing. Not a single soul was brave enough to stay outside with such dangerous weather looming overhead, and every door I passed was locked up tight, animals barricaded in their pens, mewing and bleating as they huddled together.

  When I was well out of site, I began running. Up the mountainside, a constant gale-force wind trying desperately to push me back as I ran. But I wouldn’t be deterred, even when the thunder came faster and harder, knocking loose rocks into my path and causing the trees to sway violently overhead.

  As I neared the clearing I slowed, watching as Chassan threw himself against a boulder, splitting it in half with the sheer force of his body and sending up another clap of thunder to rock the heavens. The ground shook under foot, causing me to reach for a nearby rock to steady myself.

  The shirt was ripped from his body, revealing the deep lines of his muscles as his stomach heaved with labored breath. Sweat glistened against his dark skin, shimmering in the eery blood-red sun light. He stilled when the wind carried my scent to his nose, bristling against it. His arm muscles clenched rigidly as he stood to his full height.

  Slowly turning to face me, his eyes flamed deep umber and he held my gaze for what seemed like an eternal second, his look so deeply intense I wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t about to kill me. I pushed off the boulder, standing and taking a blind step toward him, fear and uncertainty plain on my face. With a pained groan, he fell to his knees, head buried in his hands.

  I said nothing, utterly confused by his mood. Slowly walking to where he knelt, unable to figure out why he was so upset, a thought entered my mind that was even more terrifying than a sun god’s storm. I froze in my tracks.

  “Is Anyi…?” Again the word dead choked in my throat and I couldn't get it out.

  “Alive,” Chassan said in a low voice, picking a stone from the ground and crushing it to dust in his hand.

  “Then what’s wrong?” I fell to my knees in front of him, taking his chin and turning his face to mine. Sighing with relief for about a millisecond, until my mind focused on the only other plausible explanation for his anger. I stilled, exhaling the rest of my sigh quietly and frantically searching the hand holding his chin for any remaining char.

  All emotion washed down his face in a great wave when he raised his eyes to mine. The stoney mask firmly back in place, he jerked his chin from my grasp, and leaned away as if he couldn't stand the sight of me.

  I gulped at the lump clogging my throat. Did he know? Had he seen what I had done? I tucked my arm behind me, wiping it on my fleece, fearing he could smell it on me, my eyes big as the sun hanging low overhead.

  If he knew, or even suspected, he would kill me. That much he had told me. It didn’t matter how pretty the vessel, fire must be destroyed if the balance of the world was to remain.

  The blood ran ice cold in my veins, and hot sweat prickled the length of me. I stumbled back to my feet, wondering how he would do it. If he would charge me like one of the boulders or if he would snap my neck like the night in Machu Picchu.

  His glare was murderous, but tortured as he stood slowly, approaching me for the first time with great even strides. I backed away from him, fearing for my life, fearing for all I was losing. When a boulder pressed into my back, I was trapped. There was no way out. No way to escape what was coming for me.

  “I. AM. DEATH!” He growled, confirming what I already knew, inches from my face, his hot breath blowing over my cheek and curling into my ear. I shrunk away from him, tucking my chin into my shoulder and closing my eyes, not at all comforted by the veil of golden hair that was my only cover against his storm.

  “I’m...I’m sorry Chassan, I never meant to…” I started to reason with him, but he cut me off.

  “What good does it do death to suddenly value life?” He hissed, his arms coming to rest on either side of me, palms pushing into the boulder at my back so forcefully the rock quivered under his touch.

  What?

  “Value life?” I babbled, turning back to him, searching his face and trying to keep up with his train of thought. What did that mean? Was he or wasn’t he going to kill me, if he knew what I was?

  “My entire existence, I have found beauty in death.” His voice was low, hissing like a sna
ke, curling from some innate maxim branded on his soul. “I’ve craved it. Needed it to feel alive. I was worshipped for death like the god my father birthed me to be.” He pushed away from the stone, standing and stalking across the barren, rocky field to the snow line. His bare shoulders still heaved with the anger coursing through him, and I knew better than to say anything at that point. So, I hoisted myself onto the boulder, curling my knees into my chest. Maybe I should’ve run.

  For a split second I did consider running, but if Chassan wanted me dead he would find me. After all—He. Was. Death.

  “Last night, for the first time ever, I hated death. After watching you give yourself for Anyi, I couldn’t watch you die.” His focus was on the heavens, the murderous clouds looming on the horizon. At his side, his fists clenched, white knuckles rubbing against the thigh of his hiking pants.

  “Thank you,” I whispered, knowing it was not my thanks he was looking for, but something much deeper.

  “You don’t understand, Faye.” He turned to me, his eyes almost frightened. “What good is death once it has seen the value in life?”

  I swallowed hard, my eyes on the rocky ground, searching for words but finding none. What had I done? I had saved Anyi, something I would never regret. But in the middle of all that I had somehow caused Chassan to go against everything his life stood for, and in the process caused him to doubt all that he knew.

  He tore at his face, as if physical pain would somehow salve the emotional burden that was too much for him to carry. I shook my head, leapt from the boulder, and reached out for him, but he spun from my touch and was gone in an instant, flinging himself onto a boulder and smashing it in two. His anguish quelled only as long as it took him to rise from the ground to his feet.

  “Chassan!” I called out to stop him, but the sound of my voice only enraged him further.

  “Just leave! I can’t stand the sight of you!” He snarled and launched himself head long into another boulder.

  His words clawed at my insides like a starving jaguar. I was numbed. Completely, utterly numbed. Why was this happening? Chassan had done something beautiful by saving me last night. But for a god of death, preserving life cut against the grain of everything he knew. And his thoughts were obviously goring him to the bone.

  Without another option, I ran from the mountain top, back down the trail in the darkness, my eyes no longer the only sense capable of guiding me. I ran by sound, by smell and by feel.

  I slowed once I was far enough away from Chassan that he couldn’t see or hear my tears. Not that I really knew why I was crying. It wasn’t my fault he had broken all of his stupid, sun god, vows. I hadn’t asked him to save me. If he had just left me alone I could have done it on my own. But he had insisted on helping me. How was that my fault?

  “Faye?” My name spoken by a woman’s voice in perfect English didn’t register at first. I was so upset and it had been so long since I had heard English other than Chassan.

  “Faye!” My name was repeated again, and I whirled around to see a familiar smile and red bandana.

  “Rhea?” I asked, peering through the darkness as I should, but already recognizing her human unmistakably scent in the air.

  “Faye! Oh my gosh, Faye!” Rhea nearly screamed with relief, stepping fully onto the trail and wrapping me up in a huge hug, her arms trembling with fear. “We’ve been wandering these woods completely lost for the last two days!” She refused to let me go as she spoke, continuing to cling to me as if I was life itself. A thought that made me groan inwardly.

  “Are you okay?” I asked into her hair, scrambling desperately to get my mind in order and forget what was going on with Chassan long enough to have a normal human conversation. Through the wild wisps of her grey hair, I watched as Professor Abrams, Todd, Luke, and the two native escorts emerged from the woods

  “Exhausted. Famished. Terrified. Pick one. I thought I was going to have to hold onto a tree to ride out this coming storm. I’ve never seen anything like this.” Rhea released our embrace, but still held my hand, fearfully looking toward the black clouds blooming over the forest canopy. “Is there anyway we could stay with you until it blows over?”

  “Oh…” Of course I wanted to offer Rhea and the group of exhausted hikers crawling out of the woods a place to stay, but I didn’t know the first word of Q’ero and as I far as I knew Chassan was still throwing himself on boulders. “Rhea, I don’t…”

  “Argh!” Rhea cut loose an ear bleeding scream, her eyes full of pure horror at whatever she saw over my shoulder, cowering in front of me and beginning to run away, trying to drag me with her. “Run!” She cried as she took off up the trail.

  I spun around, crouching low just as Chassan did, dropping her hand and preparing to fight. It wasn’t something I thought about. It was a knee jerk reaction, her scream and fear igniting the place along my spine where my magic slept. It radiated in hot waves down the length of me, and the darkened shadows of the forest came clearly into focus, bathed in topaz light.

  Standing in the shadows, shoulders heaving, shirt still missing, and eyes back to their normal golden color, was Chassan. His look so full of contempt, I could feel it.

  “We’d love to have you, Rhea.” Chassan said in a surprisingly cheerful voice, his expression still murderously focused on me. I gasped when he reached for me, flinching away from him, fearing his touch as I did. His index and middle finger reached for my eyes, closing my lids with expert precision. When he released them, and I opened my eyes again, normal human vision had replaced my glowing, demigoddess orbs.

  “Chassan? Was that you?” Rhea stumbled out from the bush where she had taken refuge.

  “Of course it’s me, Rhea. Who’d you think it was? The boogie man?” Chassan let a laugh escape his pursed lips and then stepped from the forest onto the trail so Rhea could see him.

  “Oh, Chassan! You’re a life saver,” Professor Abrams gasped, peering around a large tree and clapping Chassan on his back. Chassan flinched from his touch, but didn’t break his smile.

  “Yeah. We’d love to have you.” I faked Chassan’s enthusiasm as he breezed passed me on the trail, acting as if his anger hadn’t just whipped up a storm so savage it made everyone on the mountain cower in fear of what was about to unleash.

  My eyes bore holes into Chassan’s insufferable head the entire way back to the village. The storm softened, and faded away over the mountaintops. The red sun returned to its normal place and color in the sky and the clouds became fluffy white cotton balls again. We walked along the path single file, listening to Rhea recount their misadventures of the past days. I only listened to her with one ear, nodding and smiling when I needed to. With the other ear I listened to the steady grinding of Chassan’s teeth, as he led the way, never once looking in my direction. Not having the first clue what was going on inside his brain. The only thing I did know? My secret was still safe. At least for a little while longer.

  As it turns out, saving the king’s granddaughter had made me a bit of big deal, and he happily agreed to let our friends share our tent for the night. But there was no great feast to welcome them. The Q’ero were superstitious people and believed that Anyi’s sickness was sent by the gods to make the village pay for their sins. Chassan’s angry storm certainly hadn’t helped, even though it had dissipated. The king ordered everyone to stay in their tents until the shaman could appease the god’s with sacrifice. A thought that made me roll my eyes.

  And so the evening found us once again huddled around a fire—Professor Abrams telling stories, Todd hanging on every word, the natives tending the fire and making food, Luke sitting silently beside Chassan and Rhea sharing my bedroll with me.

  “Have you ever heard the legends of the Incan sun god who was cursed to live his life a bird?” Abrams asked when he finished yet another grand tale of far away places.

  My eyes flared and heart sank, fearing the story he was about to tell.

  “Um...we should probably talk about something else. I m
ean, the Q’ero are the Incas after all. It’s disrespectful to talk about their gods.” I hoped I was making some sense as I rambled on, trying to steer the conversation in any direction other than that one.

  “Oh, no. I’d love to hear it. Since we’re here and all.” Todd smiled across the fire. “They can’t understand us anyway.”

  I shrugged and looked down into the fire. It was his funeral, after all.

  Chassan’s back straightened, yet he remained bent to the task of carving beside Luke, just as he had all night. My eyes flickered up to his, but his face has hard as stone, concentrating on the wood in his hands.

  With a grand flourish of the beautiful rainbow colored poncho he had bought off a local to warm his shoulders, Professor Abrams locked onto each face around the fire with a purposeful gaze before he began.

  “The sun god, Inti, and Pacha Mama had four sons. Each given a direction of the sky to rule over—one north, one south, one east and one west.” He clicked off the four compass points with his hand around the fire. “Everyday, the four brothers would take to the skies, ruling over the air in their father’s stead.

  The Incas believed that these great god’s took the form of a condor, a great and honored bird that would also transport the soul’s of the dead to the heavens where they would spend eternity with Inti.” Abrams placed a hand reverently over his heart.

  “When the last world was coming to an end, the youngest brother got greedy. In the chaos that ensued, he killed his three brothers in cold blood, thinking he would rule the entire sky when the world righted itself.” He slashed a hand through the air, imitating the action one would make if they were slitting a throat with a knife and Todd wrapped both hands over his own neck for protection.