Son of Sun (Forgotten Gods (Book 2)) (26 page)

Massive, double, wooden doors kept the Sidhe locked inside LisTirna, protecting unsuspecting humans from the Sidhe’s perpetual quest for their innocent souls with wood so solid it appeared impenetrable. Doors like those were meant to defend the fragility of human life from a force that could snuff it out in the blink of an eye. Doors strong enough to protect the innocents, just as Danu had intended. They were easily a foot thick, towering well above the heights of normal men and even Sidhe, carved with great detail in an earthy pattern of leaves and vines.

Even the handles looked as if they would require a circus strongman to lift, enormous black iron rings, pitted with marks of age and wear, hanging from cold steel plates as high as my shoulder. At eye level, the winking hole where an equally massive key would slide in to unlock the doors sat gapingly empty. My heart sank to my toes, knowing the key that would fit that hole. Knowing the belt loop that key hung from. Even the strumming sound it made against his thigh as he walked down Ennishlough’s halls.

Halls that stood so silent my uneven breath echoed in every shadow.

Even when the Sidhe were here, like the night Ara had dragged us both into LisTirna, Dayne had had to unlock the door for anyone to pass between the worlds. Whether it was Sidhe coming into the world, or enslaved humans being forced to LisTirna, no one passed through these gates without welcome. Dayne had held the key, and I could only assume Ara now possessed it. But Ara was in America.

I tiptoed down the hallway to one of the massive windows, peering out into the moon drenched garden, finding nothing but white roses and green grass. No eery jeweled eyes; no shadowed beauties that had lingered there the last time I entered. Ennishlough sat empty as a ghost ship, floating unmanned in a midnight sea. Its magic fast asleep.

In my hand, the last ember from the kitchen fire still stoked the magic rumbling within my depths. I opened my palm and studied it, rolling the glowing coal around like a bright, orange marble against my milky skin. The door was sealed shut by Sidhe magic. Magic of the earth. Magic the goddess Danu had once wielded to protect The One’s precious earthly creatures.

Magic that was easily trumped by the element of fire. Magic of a people who feared the power lying in my hand.

I righted myself before the giant doors, squaring my feet into a sturdy base, rolling my shoulders down my back and punching my chin into the air. Clasping the smoldering coal between my fingers, I tucked it into the gaping eye, settling it into place against the cold black steel and then cupped my hands over it.

With all the concentrated effort I could muster, I focused on the coal, summoning the magic rumbling in my veins. Stoking the angry flames in my belly higher and sending the power that seared through my brain flying from my fingers like lightening.

The iron ring and black plate around the keyhole began to glow branding iron red, steam and smoke hissing from its surface, all trying desperately to flee the fire I brought down against the lock. Under my hands, the door began to vibrate, quaking against its massive hinges and rattling the iron locks that held them together.

With a great, protesting groan that rang down Ennishlough’s hallways too loudly, the metal fingers scraped past one another, releasing the massive lock. I flung the doors wide, the night air cold and damp against my sizzling skin. Without really thinking about it, I took the coal from the lock and tucked it into the back pocket of my jeans, taking a deep breath to steel quaking nerves. Fire-red specks blurred my line of sight and then transformed the nighttime world into sharp relief. Were they here? Were they waiting for me?

Carefully, I searched out every shadow. I found nothing.

Nothing but an utterly empty garden, unsettlingly quiet and dark despite the full moon hanging heavily overhead. Down the hedge lined path I tiptoed, my boots rustling the gravel underfoot with whispery crunches; pushing branches from my path with raised arms as I progressed. Only once before had I stepped foot into the garden. When Dayne and Arabette had led the way to the pond that sundered our worlds.

That night, I had been so distracted I had barely paid attention. The garden was much larger than I remembered—or maybe it seemed that way because I was alone. It didn’t make sense that I remembered the way so exactly.

Neglected under Ara’s care, the garden had morphed into something barely recognizable. It was tangled and overgrown, unkempt from months of neglect. Still, I knew my way. Something was calling to me, guiding me down paths I shouldn’t know or remember. My heart ached as it beat itself against the prison bars my ribs had become. Reaching for something it wanted, yet was unable to grasp. I closed my eyes, groaning and bringing a hand to my chest to calm the muscles constricting around my heart. I tried to massage their rigid lines, to ease the pain, but it did little good.

With my eyes closed, the garden disappeared behind my eye lids. The muscles of my heart seized again with vicious strength and a new vision appeared.

Dayne!

The angular lines of his startlingly beautiful face, his soft waves of mahogany hair. Instinctively, I reached my hand out to the chilled, empty air, as if I could catch his face and hold onto it.

The vision did crazy things to me—drawing the entire length of my body taut like a bow string, then hurtling it forward like an arrow. I didn’t fight it; I followed it. Hoping it was Dayne calling me to him the way he had said I called to him, sensing my presence and drawing me to his side.

My feet were propelled by some unseen power down the trail, all but running to keep up with the speed at which my body was being thrown forward. I kept my eyes closed, running blindly, not wanting to loose the image of Dayne.

His face was impossible to read, dark and hooded, as if he were trying to hide his thoughts. He refused to look at me, keeping his head turned down so all I could see was his furrowed brow and clenching jaw. Still, his force pulled me on.

When the vision vanished, I opened my eyes and gasped. My boot-tips teetered on the edge of the great pool, shimmering soft white in the moonlight, ripples skittering across its surface like heartbeats.

Everything about me stilled. This was it. This was the moment I had been thinking about since LisTirna had spit me out months ago. I knew I belonged with Dayne; I knew our worlds would find their way back to each other. But I had always assumed it would be him coming back to me. Not the other way around.

Things had changed. Life had changed. And I was no longer a scared little girl who was as afraid of unleashing her own magic as she was the secrets buried in her past.

No more.

Remembering how Ara had entered her world, I narrowed my eyes, gritting my teeth with determination.

I turned away from the water long enough to gather my strength. Then I leapt high into the air, my toes pushing off from the earth with a force that sent my body screaming into the air. I arched my back, spread my arms as gracefully as a bird in fight, and swan dived into the rippling water.

I splashed down like a rocket reentering the atmosphere—water spraying, waves lapping—only to land completely dry in a crouching position inside LisTirna’s dangerous spell.

My chest heaved with labored breath, no longer fearing, but waiting, wanting the fight I knew lay on this side. But there was nothing.

I rose slowly, utterly confused by LisTirna‘s silence.

Like before, I was surrounded by the garden, the same green grass and blooming white roses that lay ensconced in Ennishlough’s gleaming diamond walls. Looking down, I still wore my jeans and navy stripped shirt. My clothing hadn’t changed when I entered LisTirna as it had before, as if confirming the fact that my magic didn’t belong in this world. In fact, nothing had changed. The garden looked just the same. The only proof I had that I was in Dayne’s world was the pond, rippling over head where the moon had hung in the sky before.

I took a deep breath and settled my shoulders down my back, starting confidently forward into the tangle of tree roots that would lead me into the bowels of LisTirna. Sidhe magic wasn’t strong enough to keep me out, or trick me into thinking I was still on the other side. I strode forward and pushed my way between two enormous gnarly roots.

The next second I was enveloped in LisTirna’s soft, ethereal glow. Raining down from the heavens, sparks of iridescent light lit the magical realm of the Sidhe. The mirror-barked trees towered so tall their branches became obscured from view, dwarfing the redwoods bordering St. Anne’s campus. Huge plants in variegated shades of blue and green grew as high as my shoulders, a single leaf the size of a small child. Fearing discovery by jeweled eyes before I formed my plan, I took cover behind one of these leaves, scouting the scene from its safe shadow.

The same trail that had led me to Daoine’s altar traced through the woods, its plush green grass slicked by a coat of dew. Taking the easy way would just be stupid. LisTirna was too open, too welcoming, and I feared it was a trick. Why would Daoine make it easy for me to steal my way in unless she were waiting for me?

Thinking the cover of forest was my best bet, I began to follow the trail, sneaking from huge leaf to glittering tree trunk as I went, my eyes frantically darting in every direction, waiting for someone to discover me and blow my cover.

On the other side of the trail, misty blue fairy fires burned brightly through the forest. Some where completely vacant, left unattended by their makers. A few lounging bodies cast shadows behind the flames of others, but no one turned to me as they had when Dayne, Ara and I made our way to Daoine’s altar before.

Was I invisible? How was it that I could enter this world—an interloper from my clothes to the freaky magic flowing in my veins—and no one notice...or care? I didn’t have time to worry about that.

Music still filtered through the air, as if the tree branches were the stringed instruments of a great symphony. The sound caressed my ears, lulling my sense like a strong lullaby. It made me weary, but I had to continue on.

My feet grew heavy and clumsy and I stumbled as I ducked behind another tree. Struggling to regain my footing, I stifled a scream when the earth gave way beneath my feet and sent me falling down, down, down through the iridescent light. Plummeting down a steep escarpment I had not noticed before. Away from the trail, away from the fires, away from Daoine’s altar on the amethyst hill which had just come into view in the distance.

My arms flailed to find something to grab hold of and stop my descent, but I found nothing. My nails dug into the rich, wet earth, the musky scent of exposed dirt filling my nostrils. As I scraped past the loosened ground, I winced in pain, the black dirt staining my clothes as rocks abraded my bare skin. Helpless to stop my fall, I curled my body into a ball to soften the eventual blow when I hit on earth again.

With a forceful thud, I slapped the ground, only to have the landslide of disturbed earth dump on top of me in a breath-stealing blow to the back. Spitting and spewing, and wiping dirt away with impatient hands, I looked around me for some sense of where I was. The light was dimmer here, or maybe it was my eyes.

Warily, I turned, searching for something familiar, something I may have seen as Dayne flew me over LisTirna last time. I found nothing. Until I focused far into the shadows and something began to take shape.

“What the…” My words trailed off as, in the distance, a formidable structure stood cloaked in misty shadow.

As breathtaking as a blushing bride hidden behind a veil of soft white. She was massive, even by Sidhe standards. Moving slowly forward, I forgot about the need for cover, walking blindly toward the vision.

A towering castle stood carved into the side of a rose quartz mountain, peeking out from the tumultuous mist created where two great waterfalls converged. The falls flowed like swirling hair over her pinked cheeks, framing a lovely facade.

Cone shaped turrets, curtain walls, balustrades, casement windows and all. It was startling in its naturalistic beauty, narrowing as it grew to a crown-like finish where a great white pillar adorned the stone maiden’s fair head. Finished in a flourish so dizzyingly high it brushed LisTirna’s cotton candy sky.

“Faye…” My name whispered in my ears, so softly I wasn’t sure at first if I had heard it. “Faye…” Again it called to me and I stumbled forward.

Without thinking twice, I charged through the castle’s main gate. Running the way Chassan had taught me—so quickly that I would never have been seen by human eyes. The massive wooden gate lay open, spread over a mote, nearly hidden in the soft white foam. Held in place by enormous chains that could snap it shut like a trap.

I didn’t think about it being a trap. I didn’t think about it being dangerous. All I thought about was him.

The blur of motion my body had become stopped abruptly in the courtyard, a great wave of dust swirling at my feet, body spread low in case I had to fight. But, again there was no army waiting to fight me. A few horses—massive like LeSheen and sleek like Lisana—stood sleepily in stalls at the far end of the yard. A handful of men lounged lazily near an opening in the castle wall, one playing a guitar in a mellow tune while the others listened. But no one noticed my arrival. No jewel-eyed Sidhe waited to attack me. Something wasn’t right. How had I made it so deep into Sidhe territory without being discovered?