Son of Sun (Forgotten Gods (Book 2))

by Clair, Rosemary

  “My child, the world does not forget, even if people do,” he smiled at me in an odd way, his cold eyes full of the kind of secrets that shouldn’t be shared aloud. The breeze caught his hair, blowing it wildly in the air. For a moment I thought I saw something familiar in the way he looked at me, something that stole my breath away. But in a flash it was gone and I was staring at nothing but a bent old man once again.

  “Thanks, Luke!” I yelled over my shoulder as I raced back to the village, determined Anyi wouldn’t die to appease gods that didn’t exist.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Honor In Death

  Rhea was stomping around the hut when I returned, shoving things in her bag as she grumbled to herself.

  “Well, it’s about time!” Her face pulled taught with an anger I had never seen on her perpetually pleasant brow.

  “What are you doing?” I stopped in the threshold, hand lingering on the door as I watched.

  “We’re leaving, and you need to come with us!” She barked, nothing but business in her voice.

  On the floor sat five packs, bulging with gear and ready to go. Rhea was the only one in the hut, the rest of her crew having already finished packing.

  “Where’s Chassan?” I asked, seeing his camera equipment discarded on a nearby table.

  “Chassan refuses to leave, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to nurse these people back to health so they can slaughter an innocent young girl!” Rhea’s palm smacked against the cold stone wall in frustration, obviously needing someway to release her rising emotion.

  “So you heard about Anyi?” I asked in a low voice and stepped into the hut, shrinking against the stone wall to stay our of her way as she flew around collecting things from shelves like a tornado.

  “The whole village is talking about Anyi.” Her hands flourished wildly into the air, slinging a drop of water from the coffee cup she’d just washed. “They’re making you into some sort of saint for giving her the one thing she wasn’t supposed to have in life.” She pointed an accusing finger at me, and I slinked down the wall to sit on the straw floor.

  Dread raced over my body, causing my heart to seize in my chest.

  “You mean bonding with her?”

  Rhea nodded her head as if it were obvious.

  “But you were the one who said there’s something beautiful in such a selfless sacrifice.”

  “When I’m theoretically discussing a sacrificial death that happened centuries ago, yes. That is beautiful. But sticking around to watch an innocent little girl slaughtered by these backwoods barbarians? No way!” Rhea gritted her teeth and flashed a fierce look my way. I knew better than to say more.

  I drew my knees into my chest, resting my elbows as I caught my forehead in clasped hands. Rhea would never understand why I had to stay, and I could never tell her the truth.

  “I’m staying, Rhea.” I shook my head back and forth, staring at the floor between my hiking boots. “I can’t leave her.”

  “Suit yourself. I won’t have her blood on my hands.” Rhea let out one great sigh and fell onto a stool near the fire, taking her own exhausted head in her hands.

  We were silent for a few moments.

  “Do you think we could sneak her out of here in our packs?” I asked lightheartedly, but realized it was a horrible joke to make when it felt like my lungs sucker punched my stomach.

  “Don’t think I haven’t thought of every possible scenario to do just that. But she wouldn’t go.”

  “You don’t think?”

  Rhea shook her head.

  “Little Anyi has been taught since birth that she is in this world to sacrifice her life so others may live. She sees great honor in it. The dishonor of not becoming a savior to her people is far worse than death in her eyes.”

  Her eyes. I thought. Her beautiful, dancing, black eyes. The same obsidian orbs that were capable of melting my heart into a puddle of goo. I shivered at the thought of them closing forever, renewing my resolve to save her life any way I could.

  Sombre, silent hugs were exchanged on the ridge overlooking the Q’ero village between Rhea’s crew and me. Not a single face could manage a smile in parting despite the adventures we’d shared. Professor Abrams was so worked up at the thought of what these archaic people were about to do he was at a loss for words. Something I was pretty sure was a monumental first for him.

  “Give our goodbyes to Chassan,” Rhea said as she hugged me. “Though I don’t blame him for not saying it himself.”

  “Why is that?” I asked over her shoulder as she held onto my embrace.

  “I was pretty nasty to him when he refused to intervene for the little girl.” Rhea released me and looked slightly chagrinned as she toed the dust uncomfortably. “These people have great respect for Chassan. He probably could have changed their minds.”

  “He never would,” I whispered, knowing Chassan would be the last one to run from death. When it was pure—like these backwoods people thought Anyi’s would be—he saw the same beauty in death they did. To Chassan, selfless love made death beautiful and honorable, no matter how much he had changed.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Touch

  “Anyi asked to see you,” Chassan said as he sulked into the hut later that evening.

  I’d been sitting around the fire since Rhea and her crew left hours ago, staring blankly into its flames as I hatched my plan. For me, fire was life. For Anyi, fire was death. I could change that.

  I hoped.

  I rose silently from my seat on a stool and shuffled to the doorway. Chassan was maybe five feet from me, but I could tell from his scent, and the thunder that had rumbled in the distance all afternoon he had been beating his frustration out on the rocks again. Which could only mean he struggled with this too. Somehow, that soothed the sick feeling in my stomach, if only for a few seconds.

  A silent moment passed. I could feel his eyes on me.

  “Come with me,” I whispered.

  “Why would you want me there?” His voice was dark. Lost almost.

  I picked at a splinter on the doorframe nervously, eyes still staring out into the falling night.

  “I’ve never spoken to her, Chassan. I hear her voice, but I don’t understand her words. I need to be sure I’m not missing something here.”

  Chassan sighed and zipped up the fleece he had just begun to take off, following me into the fading sunlight.

  Anyi sat perched on a stack of pillows, gold and silver platters littering the floor around her with every sweet treat the mountain offered. In the corner, her mother sat with Tinchi, eyes so full of tears they were about to burst, resolutely refusing to let a single one fall. I wasn’t that brave and felt the hot burn at the back of my eyeballs the moment her snaggletoothed smile rested on me.

  She spoke two words and the room cleared.

  Chassan stood just behind me and I moved to take a seat near Anyi on the pillows.

  She spoke again, this time directly to Chassan.

  “She wants to know why I am here,” Chassan translated.

  “Tell her...tell her you know my secrets too. You are a friend.”

  As Chassan spoke fear tingled along the bottom of my spine. What if Anyi gave up all our secrets? What if she told Chassan about my twin on the cave wall, exposing the kind of secrets that could easily get me killed?

  As Chassan spoke in her riddled tongue, Anyi’s eyes met mine and she wiped a warm palm over my cheek. I turned to kiss it as I always had. She spoke softly to me, with a tenderness eight-year-olds shouldn’t possess.

  “Anyi says your tears dishonor her,” Chassan translated.

  I quickly dried my cheeks, and offered her an apologetic half smile.

  “Tell her she doesn’t have to do this. She can leave with me tonight if she wants to and I’ll take care of her.”

  Anyi shook her head as Chassan spoke, her smile lingering like an old friend on her face, and then answered.

  “She says to deny her birthright would be th
e greatest dishonor of all. She was born to die, and will be honored forever for her sacrifice. She was born to be the chosen one who will live among the gods forever.”

  Her eight year old voice prattled on with an authority beyond her years.

  “The gods don’t want you, Anyi!” I said through gritted teeth. Chassan frowned at me.

  “Faye, do not interfere with their way of life.”

  “Tell her what I said!” I hissed under my breath.

  Chassan began to speak, his voice quaking with restraint, and she laughed into her hand before answering.

  “She says she has been a very good girl in life so she will bring extra honor in the halls of Inti’s house. But, if the gods do not want her, they will not take her.”

  “Well, you and I both know that’s a joke!” I spat at him. He growled at me in disappointment and Anyi’s little head snapped to attention.

  She spoke directly to Chassan, something shocking enough to turn his face ghost white.

  “She knows what we are?” Chassan’s face pulled into angry lines when he turned back to me.

  “She suspects, but I never confirmed. She won’t tell.”

  Anyi rose to her knees and grabbed Chassan’s hand in hers, pulling him down onto the pillows with us.

  The hulk of his athletic body looked out of place sitting on such delicate pillows, but he didn’t refuse Anyi’s request, sitting beside us and crossing his legs.

  She babbled a few sentences to him and then put her finger to his lips and back to hers, just as she had done with me so many times.

  “This little girl is as full of secrets as you are, Faye. Inti himself couldn't have matched you better,” Chassan said as he stared at her in dumbfounded amazement, his lips pulling away into a rare rugged smile.

  Anyi took both of my hands in hers and clasped them tightly between us, speaking directly to me in a serious way.

  “She has a final favor to ask of her soul sister,” Chassan repeated. “She wants you to climb the mountain with her tomorrow. Do her the honor of escorting her to the sacred place?”

  Tears burned at the back of my eyes to think of watching this little girl climb onto her deathbed, but remembering the limited number of people who witnessed her grandfather’s funeral I was certain this would be my only legitimate way to get close enough to save her.

  “Absolutely,” I nodded determinedly.

  She smiled and hummed contentedly at my answer.

  “Chassan, ask her one more thing for me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Ask her what will happen if the gods do not want her?”

  Chassan’s brow wrinkled in confusion as he translated my strange question.

  “She says only the gods themselves can answer that.” Chassan’s voice was low as he gave her answer without making eye contact. I nodded decisively, and leaned over to kiss her raven hair.

  The night passed silently for the most part. Chassan worked with his cameras, clicking through the shots he had taken earlier when he avoided goodbyes with Rhea’s group. I sat staring dumbly into the fire, hoping it would allow me to be Anyi’s savior in a few shorts hours.

  “How will it happen?” I asked without looking at him. My emotions were so confused where he was concerned right now. On the one hand, I blamed him for letting all this happen. On the other, I knew how impossible it was for him to go against what eternity had ingrained in him.

  “A processional will form, just as it did with the king. She will be royally attired, given coca leaves to numb any pain and then burned on a pyre as her grandfather was.”

  I smacked my hands against my face and shook my head back and forth, letting out a long sigh as I dragged my fingers down to my neck. At my throat, I clasped my hands together and rested my chin, staring up at the dark brown thatch, nerves causing my heart to beat unusually low and hard against my ribs. The wait was the worst part.

  “And what will my job be?”

  “You will go in the morning to dress her, feast with her and then escort her to the sacred place. She will have been given coca tea before leaving the palace, but it is considered a great dishonor if she is not able to climb onto the pyre and give herself willingly to the gods.” He tilted his head toward me and peered down from the corner of his lashes in my direction.

  “Willingly? Pft! She’s been brainwashed,” I hissed deadpan as I focused my gaze back at the ceiling.

  “Faye, I know how hard this is for you. But if Anyi didn’t have you, she would be all alone during this. Her parents cannot go with her. Only the shaman and a small troupe of foot soldiers.”

  A pinprick thought pinged at the back of my mind. If pulling her from the burning pyre didn’t work I could feasibly overtake the guards, but that would probably create a bigger mess than showing them all I was a fire goddess. No, the whole born of fire thing was the way to go. The fewer witnesses the better, and I knew no one would doubt the shaman’s word of what went down on that mountain.

  “Will you be there?”

  “Of course I will, Faye. I want Anyi’s death to be beautiful. Something that gives the Q’ero meaning to their existence. I plan to make sure her sacrifice becomes a legend as great as the Incas themselves.”

  “You’re only out for blood,” I spat at him, finally dragging my eyes away from the ceiling and tearing into him with a dagger-like glare.

  “Don’t start this, Faye. You know what I am. And you know I can’t change that.” He bristled visibly, tucking his head to avoid my glower. I sighed and stared resolutely back into the flames, nerves sparking like live wires all over me when I imagined the flames I would meet tomorrow.

  “What about what I am?” I tucked my chin defiantly into the air, emboldened by my plan. “What if I am a god who says she should be saved. What then?” I slapped a hand against my chest as I said this, the stinging lick from my fingers meeting flesh feeling good in an odd way.

  Chassan snorted and shook his head, as if my threats were nothing but idle talk.

  I leaned away from the fire, back into shadows so he couldn’t see the barely concealed, smug smile of victory creep over my face. As far as Chassan was concerned, I was still a lowly Sidhe. The kind of weakened demigod that disgusted him and was clearly below him in both authority and power.

  He would hate me when I revealed the truth tomorrow. Hate me for lying to him. Hate me for what I really was. But it was worth it. He had unleashed my power, and I was about to begin wielding my godly judgment on these people just as freely as he did.

  “What’s that?” My silent victory was interrupted as I glanced down at the staff he spent his nights carving.

  It lay near the fire at his feet, the flames flickering over its smooth bark. From the shadows, I marveled at the ornately carved design he had spent hours working on.

  Thick lines cut and swirled through freshly skinned Eucalyptus wood. The scent of its bark had filled the tent with the freshness of a rainforest every night as he worked, opening my nostrils with its cool smell.

  His expert hands had carved the wood into a looping design that mimicked my birthparents' necklace exactly—the necklace I left hidden in my closet at St. Annes. I gasped as I noticed the fat Peruvian opal mounted at its center. I rose to my knees and reached greedily for the staff.

  “You know this design?” He picked it up an instant before my fingers would have closed around it.

  I nodded dumbly, studying it as his hand turned it over in the fire light. His head tilted slightly, peering at me from the corner of his eyes. His brow pulled into a deep crease. “This was the Amulet of Olympus. All gods wore these as proof of what they were.”

  “Daoine wears one made of gold.”

  “I’m sure she does. Sidhe have always felt the need to give themselves higher rank than they deserve.”

  “Why shouldn’t she wear it?”

  Chassan snorted.

  “The amulet belonged to Danu, whose power was on par with my father’s. Daoine is generations past tha
t power. She is weak, held together only by LisTirna’s magic. She wouldn’t last a day in this world.”

  “What about other metals? What if an amulet was say, I don’t know...silver?” I hoped my shrug was totally noncommittal, as if my question came from thin air.

  Sitting on my heels beside Chassan, I ran my fingers along the roughly carved staff laid over his knee. My fingertips casually grazed the hard, yet surprisingly hot, ridge of his fingers. Not at all where I had planned for my touch to go.

  I flinched and gasped. Knowing how he hated to be touched and fearing what he might see in me, I quickly jerked my hand away, and started to apologize. A blush began to burn at the base of my ears, a feeling that confused me. Why was I embarrassed? Why would Chassan’s touch make me feel like a bumbling school girl?

  Before I could utter a word, he reached out for the hand I had absently cradled into my chest. With hot, yet gentle, fingers he skimmed over my hand and clasped the side of it in his. With his thumb he began rubbing back and forth over the delicate skin below my wrist.

  Shocked by his touch, I raised my gaze to his, looking for an answer. His face was clouded, staring not at me, but at our clasped hands and the goosebumps radiating up his arm. His brow pulled in. His mouth hung slightly open, and he shook his head as if our hands posed some complex riddle he was incapable of solving. Slowly, he pulled our grasp toward his own chest. I watched my hand move toward him of its own free will, no longer under my control.

  “In all my years, I have never felt a touch that soothes me so.” Chassan’s voice was as distant as his face. And I wondered if his words were meant for me to hear.

  “Never?” I asked, my mouth hanging open in wonder as I watched him wrestle with what this new revelation could mean. The fearful parts of me screamed to pull my hand away, worrying he would do to me what he had done to Rhea. But I didn’t move, knowing it wasn’t my past he wrestled with but his own.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind, like a distant vision that played along the periphery of my brain instead of stealing my sight, Chassan’s sad life began to take center stage. Loneliness had been his constant companion, going through life never knowing the kindness and love one could feel in a simple touch. The safety and comfort of a well meaning hug. The reassurance of a gentle pat on the back. The welcome of a casual handshake, or the appreciation implied in a quick squeeze. Not even the awe inspired bliss experienced in love’s first kiss. He had only known pain at the hands of others. Sins, lies, unimaginable evil.