Son of Sun (Forgotten Gods (Book 2)) (19 page)

I remembered what Chassan had said about this female bonding the first time I heard such awful music sounding in the hills. Q’ero women bonded for life to share the hardships of being female that men would never understand. I turned to little Anyi, ready to shake my head to tell her it wasn’t right for me to be in the procession. But, when I looked at her, I couldn’t tell her no.

Her beautiful black eyes brimmed with tears, her jaw trembling so badly I didn’t know how she was keeping the sobs at bay. She was still so fragile from her own sickness I worried she wouldn’t make it to the burial sight. I cast a quick glance back to Rhea who nodded me on encouragingly.

Turning back to Anyi, I nodded as I squeezed her hand and fell in line beside her. A gentle breeze could have knocked me to my knees when she pulled two sets of handmade pipes from the folds of her own red poncho and pressed one into my palm.

She smiled sheepishly, batting her long dark lashes as she waited for me to accept her gift and her simple request. How could I say no to her? I took the pipe, which made her smile instantly turn megawatt bright, despite a few missing teeth, and the tears dried from her eyes instantly.

Her arm intertwined with mine—something that required me to walk half bent to the side—she picked up her pipe and began to puff her little crab apple cheeks in time to her steps. I followed her lead, cringing at the sound we made. Both her mother and her mother’s partner turned to us when the new music began, each giving wistful smiles as they watched us learn to make music together.

Up the side of the mountain we marched. Little Anyi surprising me with her strength. I had expected to carry her when her weakened little body gave out. But she puffed her way up to the sacred sight as bravely as the adults.

Our processional formed a semicircle around a large stone altar atop a stacked mound. Some of the russet faces were gasping for air, telling me the elevation must have made breathing difficult.

The soldiers marched forward, climbing the pyre to place the king’s body atop the altar. When they were done, they circled back and the royal family—Anyi’s mother and father, grandmother, and two brothers joined the shaman at the foot of the altar. Everyone else remained a few paces behind.

After several chants of praise with hands raised in great supplication to the gods of the sky, the shaman stepped back and Anyi’s father stepped forward.

From under the folds of his great red robe he produced the golden goblet Chassan had given the king. I closed my eyes, and felt a sickness wash over me, remembering the chamber of death the chalice would return to. With his head raised, he shouted to the sky and then placed the goblet near the dead king’s head as sacrifice.

He stepped away from the pyre, his family following, and the shaman laid his burning bundles of sage on the bed of grass. It went up like a tender box, flames spreading rapidly until the body was engulfed in a great cloud of opaque black smoke rising high into a cornflower blue sky. The flames sang to my soul, but I held fast to little Anyi’s hand and refused to let my feet move like they begged to.

An ear splitting screech echoed around the canyon and the lesser Q’ero hit the ground, prostrated in fear. Only the royal family and shaman watched as a great black bird circled over head, ringing the black smoke in a swooping, spiraled pattern.

The massive obsidian bird’s fight path swept low to the pyre, almost brushing the flames with his wings. The deep ochre eyes flashed wildly in the flames and I knew it was Chassan. My heart almost burst in my chest as I watched him, and my breath came in shallow pants.

I’m not sure if I was relieved to see him or if I feared him. He was so menacing and deadly, talons pulled taught, their razored points glinting in the sun. An ice pick beak poised to rip into flesh or pluck out eyes—every part of his body designed for death.

With a great whoosh of air, his powerful wings calmed the flames long enough for him to graze the king’s body with a sharp talon. Immediately, he flapped his great wings again, stirring up the kind of storm a landing helicopter does, and began to rise into the air again, no longer circling but cutting a straight path so fast and high into the sky he was invisible in seconds.

The shaman mumbled a few more words and the party turned for home, leaving the king’s charred remains smoldering on the pyre.

My heart thundered in my chest, pulsing blood so quickly through my veins I could feel the throb from head to toe. When Anyi tugged at my hand I feared my legs weren’t capable of the descent.

Never had I witnessed a god in action like that. It had all seemed like silly superstition to me. But not anymore. These people—these lost humans that lived on the fringes of life, dismissed by society for their insane claim that they were descendants of the great Incan empire—were the only ones who still believed in the gods of my past.

Banishing themselves to a village so remote few could find it, they had willingly committed to harsh lives so they could continue to worship gods only they believed in, in their own way.

Was Inti still around for Chassan to take these lost souls to? No. Did that matter? No.

These people still believed, and just by seeing a bird near a death pyre of a king their way of life was justified. And Chassan’s was too. Chassan’s arrival at this pyre would become legend and give generations to come a reason to live. These people alone gave Chassan a purpose in life that I feared I would never find.

The day passed in sombre silence. A feast was held, but no one spoke as they ate greedily from the bountiful table. Anyi sat at my side, her tiny brown arm still latched firmly to mine. I worried what she would say when I had to leave in a few days, and why her mother seemed to be okay—accepting even—of her daughter’s choice in partner.

There were plenty of little girls her age she could partner with that would never have to leave her. I had seen them playing in the village streets everyday, but Anyi had chosen me. My heart was already breaking with the thought of telling her goodbye.

I returned to my hut, my heart falling when there was no Chassan.

Sleep never found
me that night. As I lay awake listening to the soft sounds of peaceful dreams whispering through the hut I wondered what it all meant. Why creatures like Chassan and I still lingered in this world when our way of life had left long ago. Magic like ours wasn’t meant to be hidden by living a human life.

My magic could help people, make the world better, yet I struggled to find a balance between embracing those gifts and holding onto my human world. No one ever wants to be different, to stand out from the crowd so boldly it makes belonging impossible. If I mixed too closely with the human world that’s exactly what would happen. Eventually someone would see what I was...or what I wasn’t.

Finally, I realized I couldn’t have both. Either I would return to life as a human, forgetting the things I had learned and the power I had, or I would do this.
Really
do this. Without allowing the fear of being human to creep back in. The only problem with that path was that it meant saying goodbye to all I had loved for all my life, possibly forever.

Decisions like that just don’t come to you like a lightbulb clicked on over the head. And I wished more than anything I knew, with crystal clarity, what my future was. The vision I had of mine and Dayne’s future would come true. I knew it would.

The only question was...when? Dayne had been much older, maybe ten or fifteen years. Was his age accelerated by living in this world or just normal ‘human’ aging? Had we found a way for him live in this world without losing his power, or would a life with me force him to an early death? How long would I have to wait for that dream to step into reality?

Tears fell silently from my eyes, washing over my cheeks and into the fluffy down sleeping bag in salty streams. I didn’t sob, too burdened by my thoughts to make the effort. My path had brought me to one of the most remote places on earth. I had risked everything, and still I had zero answers as to my purpose on this earth.

Since before sunrise I had been wandering through the sick village Rhea created inside a grain barn. Normally it was a simple pole shed with a thatched roof. Needing a place to house the sick away from the well to prevent the disease from spreading, Rhea had instructed several men to wrap the outsides with thick alpaca furs, forming warm walls to block the cold nights and keep the fire’s warmth in.

I was the only one awake, replacing compresses, fetching fresh water, and doing what little I could to make Rhea’s day easier. She was working herself way too hard, and I feared she would fall ill too. But she insisted she could handle it, once again confirming my belief that she hid a halo under her red bandana.

I sensed him before I saw him. My heart stuttered and I dropped the bucket of water I carried. It sloshed over its rim as it hit the dusty trail with a solid, echoing
thunk.

Chassan stood before me, looking every bit the golden god he was, the rising sun painting his silhouette long and low over the ground, reaching toward my feet. He said nothing, lowering the pack he had hoisted over his back to the ground.

I’m not sure what happened next.

I was running before I was thinking, and before I knew it I was in his arms, hugging him so tightly and pulling him to me so forcefully he flinched at my touch. It wasn’t a romantic hug, it wasn’t the kind of hug that I would have given Dayne. There was something much deeper to it, some kind of bond that only having lived through life and death together can give you.

I wept on his impossibly solid shoulder. Though for what I wasn’t sure. Maybe for all I had lost, or all I feared I might lose—Dayne, my life, little Anyi the countless sick just a few feet away.

He didn’t stop me, only raised a hand to stroke my hair and calm me with soft, soothing words. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed him. How empty I had felt on the inside the entire time he was gone. Being close to him just felt right in a way I couldn’t really explain. This entire time, I’d thought Dayne was all I had in this world, but that wasn’t true.

Chassan was the only one here, the only one who hadn’t left me. The only one who a vengeful queen couldn’t take from me. He had gone against everything he knew in the world to save my life, and he had been the one to unlock the magic in me I feared so much.

It was him. And the relief of realizing all that washed over me like a tsunami, stealing my breath and replacing it with great choking sobs.

“You’re back,” I sniffed into his neck, tasting the saltiness where my tears and snot mixed together on his warm cafe-con-leche skin.

“Did you think I was gone for good?” His voice was strangely strained, as if he were trying to keep any emotion he might be feeling from it.

Slightly embarrassed by my rash act, I melted from his embrace and back to my feet, eyes on the dusty ground instead of him.

“Maybe,” I admitted sheepishly, wiping the sleeve of my fleece over my cheek.

He shook his head, and jerked his hand from my shoulder with a restrained gasp when he realized his touch still lingered.

“I promised to help you. But there were a few others I had to help first.” He leaned down to the pack at his feet, sweat staining the back of his grey shirt to charcoal.

When he stood again, he unzipped the top of his pack to reveal of pharmacy’s worth of medicine.

“You went for medicine.” Astonishment was clear in my voice as I bent to pick up a few boxes that had spilled from his pack.

He nodded.

“Rhea will be so happy!” I beamed at him.

“And what about you? Will you be happy knowing I have used my gifts to help these people?” He bent his head to find my gaze. I was floored that he had remembered our conversation in the boulder field. It had only been a handful of days ago, but with everything that had happened, it felt more like a lifetime.

“Of course,” I answered slowly, nodding in a stunned way and searching his face for the meaning behind his words. Did he want me to be happy with him, or just be happy? Regardless of how long I searched the curves of his face, I found no answer before his mask went back up and turned his face back to stone.

He shrugged his shoulders and looked at the boxes of medicine I clutched to my chest. His glance flickered to my bracelet and he turned away, dragging a hand along the back of his neck. My stomach churned in an unexpected way.

“Let’s go wake Rhea!” I masked my nerves with excitement, and scurried down the path before he had time to say anything more.

Rhea shrieked with such
unrestrained delight when she saw what Chassan had been up to the last few days I thought she might plant a big, wet kiss right on his model-pouty lips. Thankfully she didn’t, but I couldn’t ignore the jealousy that crept into my chest with the thought.

Chassan and I were silently packing his camera equipment in the hut, preparing to hike the mountain for more instruction, when Anyi’s mother, Chapac, knocked on our door, her soul mate Tinchi at her side.

With his undeniable charm, Chassan welcomed them both into the hut with a low sweeping bow, one fit for the new Q’ero queen. Only, she hesitated in the doorway, nodding her head in my direction and speaking something in their alien tongue I couldn’t hope to understand. Their exchange was brief, Chassan’s wide, toothy smile nearly melting poor Tinchi as he grinned at whatever Chapac said to him. He nodded, crossed his arms, and turned to me, biting his lip to hide the smile.

“Anyi has requested your presence in the palace.” He bowed grandly as if the little girl were commanding the respect of a king.

“But, I thought we were...you know...,” I rolled my eyes wildly so I didn’t have to say what we were about to do out loud.

“Oh, that can wait.” Chassan waved a dismissive hand as he took the pack I was about to sling over my shoulder. “Besides, who are we to defy a queen?” His words were with heavy with meaning.

I did a quick double take from Chapac to Chassan as his words settled into my brain. Daoine was a queen, just as Chapac was. A queen any low ranking Sidhe—something he assumed I was—had no right to defy. Yet that’s exactly why I had sought him out. I gulped, my eyes hitting the floor as I bowed submissively to Chapac who still stood in the doorway. She smiled at me, and it was impossible not to notice Tinchi’s eyes still dreamily resting on Chassan, obviously ensnared by his spell.

I cleared my throat, and nodded to the women with a soft smile of acceptance, stepping forward with my hands respectfully clasped in front of me. The two women turned and started for the palace. Chassan caught me in the doorway, his strong hand grabbing the crook of my elbow to pull me back. Chassan never touched me, not like that, and the feel of his skin was hot as summer sun against my own. I gasped, looking down at his hand and then slowly tracing up his arm to swirling golden eyes.

“Here,” he offered, holding my fleece out so I could shrug into it. “It’ll get cold later.” His look was softened, a little less unforgiving than the scowl he normally wore. , All of Chassan had softened in the time he’d been gone. Maybe he needed those hours to right whatever was wrong in him. To make peace with the fact that something had made him see value in life just as he did death.

“Thank you,” I mumbled, sliding my arms into the fleece and fumbling with the zipper as I turned toward him. He let his hands linger on my shoulders, and then—with a touch so gentle it coaxed goosebumps from my skin—he pulled my hair free from the neck of the jacket. Chills skittered down the entire length of my body, something that wasn’t lost on Chassan. He studied his hand for a silent second, his features pulling forward in confusion.

My own gaze fell to his hand and that’s when I noticed the goosebumps popped up along his arm. Judging by the look on his face, it was a foreign sensation for him.

“Goosebumps,” I explained, rubbing my palm back and forth along his arm to chase them away.

“It feels as if my flesh were electrified,” he let out a strange laugh. “What does it mean?”

“It happens when something tickles your skin, or when a touch feels good.”

“Touch never feels good to me,” he marveled, his face clearly showing how utterly confusing the idea was to him. “But you…” Slowly, his hand raised to my face, and he brushed a few fingers softly over my cheek. Instantly, goosebumps sprang up on the darkly tanned flesh visible below his shirt sleeve. His face went blank, as he tried to make sense of what it meant. “They’re waiting for you,” Chassan dismissed me, his face going dark again as he turned away.

“Um...yeah,” I fumbled with my words, slowly backing towards the door as I watched Chassan wrestle with what was happening to him.

This world was changing Chassan. Piece by piece, bit by bit it was making him into a different god. But why now? Surely he had crawled from his rock a thousand times before to live his alter ego, wildlife photographer life. And he’d always returned to his rock the same. Which only left one explanation.

I must be the one changing him.

Following Chapac and Tinchi
through the streets to the palace we were met with respectful bows from every villager. Tomorrow Chapac would be anointed queen. Fittingly, she was already treated as one.

Through the labyrinth of palace hallways we went, the soul sisters leading the way with interlocked arms. From outside the structure it looked as if the palace were nothing special, just a few hallways of stone rooms and a great hall for feasts and general king worshipping.

As Chapac and Tinchi led me further into the darkened bowels of the palace it grew colder, and I shivered against my fleece. From the downward slant of the hallway and an unmistakably musty scent hanging in the air, I knew we descended under the palace into the mountain itself. Several guards stood as sentries at the mouth of a great tunnel we passed through, but no other servant entered this area, and I wondered if any ever had.

We wound down circular stone steps, lined with torches and doorways until Chapac stopped at a set of double carved stone doors.

Tinchi opened them and it was as if she were opening the pearly gates of heaven.

Light filtered into the room from an opening high above, so bright it could only be from the sun. Soft as angel’s wings, the yellow glow kissed every surface in the cavernous room—the hard stone walls ragged from a miner’s pick centuries ago, an ornate wooden table that could’ve been borrowed from Paititi’s great hall, a pallet of brightly woven woolen pillows where little Anyi’s raven head sat shining in the sun. She looked at me with an impish grin as if we were about to sit down to the grandest tea party of them all.

On one side, a shimmering pool glistened in the warm light, fed by the constant, soothing trickle of an underground stream. Flowers from the jungle grew in great clay pots where the sun was strongest, creating a mini cloud-forest blooming from the shadows.

Behind Anyi, on the wall opposite the doorway, a great golden disc, shaped like the sun, hung on the wall. Twice as tall as me, its commanding presence filled the entire room. It was held in place by thick ropes of pure gold, and flanked with torches that radiated warm light against its surface. Before it, an altar, carved of pure white stone, held a single white candle, flickering an oddly clear light from a sconce of gold.

It was separated from the room by a pool of rippling water, a body so deep and wide one would have to swim it if they were to cross.

I gasped, feeling as if I were witnessing something only Q’ero royalty should be allowed to see. The Incas were a rich culture, that much I knew. But this was wealth I never could have imagined. As I stared openmouthed, one thing was startlingly obvious about an altar so grand...it was intended to worship gods. The gods of the past the Q’ero still deified. Gods like Chassan—and as much as I hated to admit it—me.

Completely stunned, and lost in thought, I startled when the women took me by either arm and directed me toward Anyi, who sat smiling as broadly as ever from the pillows, totally unaffected by the beautiful altar behind her.

Chapac and Tinchi ushered me to an overstuffed purple pillow across from Anyi and then took the pillows on either side.

First a chalice was passed, from Tinchi to Chapac, from Anyi to me. It tasted awful, but I smiled anyway as I choked it down, deciding they weren’t trying to kill me if they were drinking it to. The entire time, Anyi’s smile never wavered, and she sat as radiant as the sun god disc smiling behind her.

I didn’t understand a word the two older women said. But, when they tied our hands together with a shimmering golden scarf, and Anyi looked at me—a look so full of unrestrained love and devotion—I knew exactly what they were doing.

It was some sort of binding ceremony that would link little Anyi and me forever in the sisterhood of Q’ero women. I wanted to stop them, to tell them it was wrong to bind the little girl to someone who wouldn’t be around to help her as a partner should. I mean, did they think I was going to stay here forever?