Son of Sun (Forgotten Gods (Book 2))

by Clair, Rosemary

  She took one great inhale and opened her eyes wide, finding mine and lifting her head toward mine.

  “Dying is the easy part.” With her final words, she closed her eyes, and fell limply against me.

  I started to shake her, but stopped when the color immediately returned to her cheeks. Her face blossomed in my arms, morphing from old and grey to beautiful and lustrous. A reverse aging process that stripped the years away and made her radiant and youthful, again.

  As I held her, she went from an ashen old hag to a beautiful young maid, bright and pert as myself. She lingered there for a few seconds. Then, with a great flash of soft light, she vanished in my arms, leaving nothing but her locket resting in my lap and her crown laying on the arena floor.

  I gasped. A sound mimicked by the entire crowd.

  The locket felt as delicate as life itself looping between my fingers.

  Golden scroll work wound its way in a familiar pattern as it circled a fat wishing pearl in the center. Back home, I had one in silver. One I had worn most of my life without a second thought. But this locket held much power. This locket ruled LisTirna, and the Sidhe.

  Slowly, I stood, my eyes never leaving the locket, its chain draping through my fingers as I held it out. Certain I wasn’t the first who had marveled at its power.

  I turned to Dayne, whose presence I had felt return to my side after extinguishing Ara. My eyes drifted up to his for an answer, only to find them wide with astonishment, clearly unable to process what was going on.

  The whisking sounds of movement stirred in unison from the crowd, but they were not vocal sounds of joy or pain. It was the silent sound of a crowd moving reverently as one. And a great rush of wind blew the hair from my face.

  I raised my gaze to an astonishing site. One that sent chills racing over the length of me. One that stopped the breath in my chest. One that I will never forget through all the ages that lay in my future.

  A ripple effect circled the stadium as every Sidhe fell to their knees, heads bowed, hand to their heart, in total submission and devotion.

  “Dayne…” my voice was weak and trembling as my heart picked up speed in my chest.

  Spinning around, utterly bewildered to see every face turned down, every knee bent—even Ara and Finvanna—I finally met Dayne’s warm emerald eyes again.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, shaking my head wildly and offering his birthright in an outstretched hand.

  With an awed expression scrawled deeply into the lines of his bloodied, yet indestructibly handsome, face, he took my trembling hand in his. Slowly, he curled my fingers around the locket and pushed my clasped fist over my heart.

  In that moment, I knew the future Daoine had feared since I appeared in her world, but had been helpless to stop.

  “My Queen,” Dayne whispered and fell to his knees in complete surrender.

  Rosemary Clair holds her Bachelor of Arts in Speech Communication from the University of Georgia. After college, she worked in medical sales for several years before turning to writing full time.

  In 2007, she traveled through Peru on a medical mission trip with the International Cervical Cancer Association. In the mysterious mountain villages surrounding Cusco, Rosemary fell in love with the enduring native people and the wild, untamed land where they lived. Her trip to Machu Picchu was a nothing short of magical. An experience she knew she had to share with her readers.

  Rosemary lives in Athens, Georgia with her husband and one very pampered pooch.