Son of Sun (Forgotten Gods (Book 2))

“They’re talking about you again.” Mattie waved a fork full of salad to our left and smacked her lips in disgust. I sighed and closed my eyes as a hollow feeling crept into my bones. My perfect life was gone.
He
was gone. But, it wasn’t like I had an abundance of choice in the matter. I turned a reluctant gaze into the sea of student bodies covering St. Anne’s sun-dappled quad.

Basking in the afternoon’s warmth, sleek as seals, sat the “they” in question. A familiar group of girls that everyone on campus knew, whether they actually
knew
them or not. Glossy hair, gleaming smiles, sleeves pushed up to take advantage of the lunchtime sun. If I hadn’t been me, it might have been kinda cool to be a topic of conversation among girl’s like them. Only I was me, and the only stories told about me these days were nothing but vicious lies that weren’t half as sensational as the truth would’ve been. But they’d never know the truth.

St. Anne’s campus was the kind of place that attracted the rich and famous—people who were looking for a place to hide from prying eyes. Built in the late 1700s inside northern California’s last virgin Sequoia forest, it was an ivy covered enclave that catered to the members-only mentality of America’s elite. In one class alone, I had the daughter of Dubai’s wealthiest oil sheik and the grandson of a past President.

I, on the other hand, was a different kind of celebrity all together.

Last summer when I found Dayne, it seemed as if my fairy god mother had waved her magic wand and solved all of life’s problems in an instant. And I was foolish enough to think happiness that intense could last forever. When Dayne’s world—more importantly his vengeful, fairy queen mother—spat me out like a mouthful of sour fruit, I didn’t think life could get any worse. I was wrong.

Dayne warned me time moved differently in LisTirna. Months of human time had passed from the moment I entered the Sidhe’s realm until I stumbled my way back to Rose and Phin’s cottage. Had I disappeared in America, things would have been different. My face would have graced cafeteria milk cartons, but after a while I would have been forgotten.

When an innocent American girl disappears on foreign soil, it’s another beast entirely. The Irish officials launched an epic manhunt, unlike anything the world had ever seen. Only their efforts were futile. I had vanished into thin air and my tragic story grabbed headlines the world over. When I became the only lost soul to ever resurface alive and well, I quickly became the most sensational news story on the planet.

What had begun as a cautionary tale warning young girls of the dangers of traveling abroad quickly became a scandalized tale of an American girl who got her heart broken by an Irish aristocrat. News vans set up camp outside my parent’s house in Atlanta and flocked to Clonlea by the hundreds. My heartbreak went viral and I was painted as a foolish Jane Austen character who had dared to love above my means. Dayne’s impossible good looks and glistening white castle didn’t help matters any.

Worse than that was everyone assuming I was some spoiled, selfish brat who had allowed her family, and the world, to fear the worst while she was on a lover’s holiday. The Irish authorities threatened to press charges, American reporters dug into my past, and everywhere I turned a camera flashed in my face. No one would ever accept, or understand, the truth. Rather than try to explain myself, I let everyone assume what they wanted. It was easier that way. The
logical
explanation was that I had run away with Dayne, he had left me, and I had returned home empty handed and broken hearted. A pitifully ruined woman to hear the news anchors tell it. In an effort to protect me from the media maelstrom, my parents had shipped me off to St. Anne’s. A place that was used to protecting high profile students within its hallowed halls.

My new celebrity status left me completely incapable of charging back into LisTirna to rescue Dayne as I had sworn to do. The eyes of the world were focused on me now, and disappearing again, or embracing my fire goddess magic simply weren’t options anymore. I had no choice but to wait until the circus of my fame passed or Dayne kept his word. He had said he was coming back for me. He had promised.

“You would think they would have found something better to talk about by now,” I said with a defeated sigh. My gaze linger long enough to catch the attention of a girl with long, red hair and a heavy spattering of freckles covering her face. She was the only one of her group not giggling as they whispered stories behind their hands and stole quick looks from behind veils of shiny hair. Something about her reminded me of Ireland, and a wistful smile tugged at my lips. When the redheaded girl noticed my smile, her nostrils flared in disgust, and she turned away in withering dismissal.

“These girls? Forget a story like yours?” Mattie snorted as if I was losing my mind, and stabbed at her salad with a white plastic fork. “No way. You’re in California, not Ireland. Fame is religion out here. And you, Faye Kent, are the juiciest gossip going!” She propped her elbows on the table and rested her head in her hand as she looked over the weathered cement table with a half apologetic, half sympathetic smile.

It was the same understanding smile that had guided me through those first weeks back when I didn’t know up from down. No way would I have made it through the fog of my own heartache without Mattie. We were both scholar athletes at St. Annes, she for her Olympic qualifying 800 meter freestyle time, me for riding. Her jet black hair was cut in a straight bob with a thick fringe of bangs. A trendy, blood red highlight streaked through her hair, only visible when she tucked it behind her ear. Full cherry blossom lips bloomed under a delicate nose, and smooth skin, the color of toasted almonds, glistened in the light that peeked through an oak tree canopy overhead. If you passed her on the street, you might not noticed her at all, except for how tall she was for an Asian girl. For those lucky enough to catch her gaze, the startling blue-grey color of her eyes were enough to stop anyone dead in their tracks. Her beauty was captivating, alarming, yet beautiful. A mysteriously alluring combination that caused many guys to fall in love with her at first sight.

Thankfully, Mattie was used to that sort of attention, and had instead focused her attention on her poor new roommate. If it wasn’t for her, I never would have made it through my first few weeks at St. Annes. To say I was lost was the understatement of the year. Some days it didn’t seem physically possible that I could get out of bed and go to class, let alone function enough to sit and take notes. Mattie had been my saving grace, and enlisted the help of our hall mate, Sam, whose father owned
Scoop!
magazine.

“That only proves how boring their lives must be!” I sneered at the little group and turned back to the piece of cheese pizza I was slowly destroying.

It was a beautiful, sunny day in northern California, just the same as every other day since I arrived. Such cheery weather made me long for the cool mists of Ireland. A memory that always made my chest draw tight. I sighed, and forced a stiff smile on my face. I wasn’t fooling Mattie for a second. She reached for my hand across the table and gave it a gentle squeeze.

Thankfully, Mattie must’ve had had her heart broken before. She knew better than to ask a million questions like everyone else I met. Maybe that’s why we got along so well—she never asked. She just understood.

St Anne’s beauty was partly in its location between the rocky shores of the Pacific and Mission National Park, and partly in the fact that it had remained untouched since its construction in the late 1700s. A fact that sounded ultra exclusive on school brochures, but was less than impressive to the students who had to live and go to class in buildings built when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Air conditioning was non existent. Heat was provided by fireplaces or temperamental iron furnaces, and most of the windows refused to either open or shut. Which made the quad—a full acre of open grassy land in the middle of campus—the only place students actually wanted to be.

That particular day, when the sun was highest in the sky, there wasn’t a spare seat to be had. Luckily, Mattie and I had gotten out of class early enough to snag one of the coveted cement tables under a row of towering oak trees. From where we sat, we could see the entire quad packed with bodies and excited chatter. As I turned to watch the students enjoying the sunny afternoon, one thing was eerily evident.

I was the center of attention, a place I despised. Every eye seemed to meet my gaze, once-over me, and then turn away. Everyone stared. Everyone wondered. And I knew the thoughts crossing their minds. The ways they judged me, and almost certainly found me lacking. Not at all worthy of the attention I had garnered since reappearing, or the love of someone as perfect as Dayne.

As my magic awoke like a long slumbering dragon, the lies that would have slowed my meteoric rise to fame simply wouldn’t cross my lips. I was incapable of uttering anything other than truth, and the world wasn’t ready for the truth. Silently, I watched my story morph and grow legs of its own, becoming more outlandish and horrible with each retelling. Through it all, I said nothing. Without Dayne there to help me, what else could I do?

A flurry of movement at my side pulled my attention away from the pity party playing on repeat in my mind. A grey messenger bag landed on the bench beside me followed by a familiar mop of light brown hair.

“I keep telling you, if you told your side of things it would be yesterday’s news in no time. My father would pay a king’s ransom for your story. Not that I care at all about feeding him such a story, but it might shut up these piranhas,” Sam said as she swung her leg over the cement bench beside me, popping a grape through her smile as she sat down.

If Mattie was my rock, Sam was the comic relief. She wasn’t a scholarship athlete, but had come to detest the company of her peers after growing up in trendy boarding schools back east. Her father owned
Scoop!
magazine, one of the trashiest gossip rags in the country. A magazine’s cover I had—unfortunately and unwillingly—graced several times.

At first, I was very hesitant to become friends with someone who had such connections. She seemed like the enemy. But Sam had no qualms telling anyone who would listen how she detested her father’s work as much as she did snobby boarding school girls.

She pulled a sandwich from a paper bag and sat it beside a cluster of green grapes on the table, then frowned and began digging through her bag in search of something else.

“There’s nothing more to tell. I fell in love. It didn’t work out. The end.” I gave a final flourish with my hand as if I were a conductor ending a symphony. With a horribly hidden frown, I turned to my Diet Coke and took a long sip. Mattie caught my eye and gave me a commiserate half-smile, but said nothing as she continued to eat her salad.

“Then let me write a feature for the school paper. It’s all so romantic, and
Once Upon A Time.
Love stories cheer people up,” Sam nodded encouragingly as she began feeling through the pockets of her jeans. Regardless how little Sam thought of her father, she had definitely inherited his nose for news. While Mattie never mentioned my summer to me, it was all Sam could talk about sometimes, and she wasn’t believing the story that I had been jilted.

“But my fairytale didn’t end with happily ever after, Sam,” I shook my head and plucked a pair of sunglasses from the strands of her mouse brown, haystack hair. She took them with a sigh of relief and slid them into place over pale green eyes, her search over.

“I know, I know!” Sam threw her hands up in the air defensively. “I just can’t stand to see that snarky sister of his and a boring barmaid get all the press off this. Besides, I know they’re lying. I have a sixth sense about these things.” She tapped her nose with a finger.

The snarky sister in question was, of course, Arabette who had taken Dayne’s place guarding Ennishlough. Tara, was the boring barmaid, and I couldn’t help but laugh every time Sam said it, knowing how much Tara would hate to be called boring.

Ara quickly became a media darling, giving interviews to anyone who would pay her attention. To hear Ara’s side of the story, the DeLaney family didn’t approve of mine and Dayne’s relationship and had thought it would be best for everyone if we didn’t see each other anymore. According to her story, Dayne was in seclusion with their parents, letting the media storm pass. Not a single lie in the whole story, but no one could have guessed the truth behind Ara’s carefully crafted words.

Tara was making a mint off selling grainy cell phone photos of Dayne, obviously not concerned about the fact that she appeared to be a majorly creepy stalker for having such photos in the first place. Magazines were paying top dollar for the photos. People couldn’t get enough of the mysterious heartbreaker, and every photo, no matter how obscured and out of focus, was like a needle of poison plunged straight into my battered heart.

“Trust me, those two were born for the spotlight,” I said with an exaggerated eye roll. “At least in their minds they were,” I added with an amused chuckle, thinking again about Sam’s “boring barmaid” title.