Scion of the Sun

by Nicola Marsh

  Nan, lying in her hospital bed, pale and lifeless.

  Two people lean over her.

  Keenan, evil contorting his twisted features as he fiddles with the tubes keeping her alive.

  A second figure, smaller and slighter, a girl, steps around the bed to stand beside him, places a hand on his arm, stopping him.

  The girl raises her head, the teenager’s creepy golden eyes glowing like a tiger’s as she screams “Nooooooo … ”

  I sat bolt upright, unsure whether I’d yelled “no” or if that was only part of my vision. After a quick knock, my door flung open and Brigit rushed into the room, panicked. Guess I had my answer.

  “What happened? I heard you from the end of the corridor.”

  “Vision,” I spat out, grabbing a bottled water from my mini-cooler and downing it to ease the dryness in my throat.

  “Arwen’s whereabouts?”

  At that moment, with Brigit looming over me, expression hopeful and not in the least concerned for what I went through with each vision or what had just made me scream, I hated her. Ever since I’d walked through her wacky stone arches and been revealed as the one, she’d treated me like some giant science experiment. Sure, she’d been solicitous and helpful, but only because it suited her.

  “My Nan, actually.” I stood and snatched my messenger bag off the chair. “I have to go see her.”

  “Now?”

  She glanced at her watch and frowned. “It’s eight on a Sunday night. They won’t—”

  “I’m going.” I didn’t add “And you can’t stop me.” She saw it in the stubborn jut of my chin, my shoulders squared for battle.

  “Whatever your mission and talents, Holly, I’m still your principal.” Her unsaid warning lingered between us. And I can make you do anything I want.

  I knew I’d have to give her something for her to let me go. Besides, every moment I wasted here could prove fatal for Nan. “Someone’s a threat to Nan, I saw it in the vision. I have to go to her before … ”

  It’s too late.

  I couldn’t say the words, let alone think them.

  “What did you see?”

  “We haven’t got time for this! Let’s go.”

  Brigit frowned, her glower not nearly enough to intimidate me when all I could think about was getting to Nan. “Holly, I’m well aware teens don’t like hearing this, but I’ve been around a lot longer than you, and one thing I’ve learned is to not rush headlong into situations that are potentially dangerous.”

  Chief Crazy thought I’d be leading her into danger. Welcome to my life, lady. “Who’s rushing? By the time we get there those two could’ve killed her!”

  Concern deepened the crease in her brow. “Who’s with her?”

  “Some guy fiddling with her tubes, and a girl.” Not just some guy. Keenan. Cadifor’s right-hand torture instrument. But Brigit didn’t need to know that. She’d only want to ask me more questions, and right now I was out of time.

  Frantic, I focused on the door. I’d have to bolt past her if she messed around any longer.

  She laid a calming hand on my shoulder. “You know your visions are precognitive. They’ll happen some time in the future, and very rarely occur in real time.”

  I hated her smooth, well-modulated tone, hated her condescension, hated the fact she was probably right.

  “Very rarely?” I shook my head and jammed my hands in the pockets of my hoodie to prevent myself from grabbing her and dragging her out the door to her beat-up VW. “I’m not willing to take that risk, so can we please go?”

  Some of my desperation, or maybe my uncharacteristic show of manners, must’ve gotten through to her, because she finally yanked open the door.

  “Come on, I’ll drive you.”

  Being holed up in the principal’s car as we hurtled down the quiet Wolfebane streets wasn’t my idea of fun, but if it saved time I’d put up with it, even tolerate her none-too-subtle probing.

  “Your initiation went well today?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You enjoyed the Beltane festivities?

  “Hmm.”

  Her eyebrows rose at my monosyllabic answers. “Any progress with finding Arwen?”

  Ah … the real reason behind her mercy dash. She didn’t give a damn about me or Nan. Brigit didn’t care what happened to me as long as she got her hands on Arwen, and that pissed me off.

  I hated being used.

  “Holly, I asked you a question.”

  “Sorry, drifted off for a moment.” My snarky tone gave fair indication I wasn’t sorry in the least.

  “Well? Are you any closer to finding it since the last time we talked?”

  When was that? Like, yesterday?

  Biting back my real response about where she could stick her questions, I injected enough sweetness in my voice to keep her off my back. “The Sorority and I have a plan.”

  “You do?”

  She was so excited she almost swerved off the road.

  “All the signs point to Arwen being revealed during summer solstice.” I didn’t tell her where. Let the old bat stew.

  “That soon? Wonderful.” She yanked the steering wheel so hard the car almost slammed into the curb in front of the hospital. I could’ve sworn her eyes glittered with maniacal fervor as she turned toward me. “Do you want me to come in with you?”

  Hell no.

  Shaking my head, I said, “Thanks for the lift, but I’d rather be on my own.”

  “But if there’s danger—”

  “I won’t be alone. The place is packed with doctors and nurses. I’ll yell for help.”

  “As long as you’re sure—”

  “I’m sure. Thanks.” I didn’t give her time to respond, leaping from the car like I had a dozen Cadifors on my tail.

  Escaping my obsessive principal was the least of my worries as I sprinted toward the front doors, skidding to a stop when an old guy pushing eighty hobbled out, dragging an oxygen tank with one hand and holding a cigarette in the other. I eased past him before bolting up the front steps and through the main entrance.

  The place was deserted, the deathly silence immediately raising my spooky antennae. Where was everyone? As I crept down the corridor, I snuck glances into patients’ rooms, relieved when I saw TVs flickering and rheumy eyes glaring at me for intruding.

  Okay, maybe that vision had me on edge for nothing.

  But when I rounded the last corner, the empty nurses station outside Nan’s room had me worried. Night shifts were quiet, but the times I’d visited late the nurses were usually clustered around their workstation, chatting about the hottest American Idol contestant or the newest McDreamy doc on their roster.

  Holding my breath, I inched toward Nan’s room, pushed open the door, and exhaled with a loud whoosh.

  Nothing had changed.

  Nan’s machines still beeped and whirred, all wires and tubes intact.

  I entered, headed for the bed, and laid my hand on her chest, relieved at its gentle rise and fall. I touched her cheek with my fingertips, its coolness underlined by residual warmth.

  I sank onto the chair next to her bed, clutched her hand, and cried.

  It had been building all day and my overwrought emotions finally released in this quiet room while holding the hand of the one woman I’d trusted all these years.

  What the hell was I doing, going after my mom and trying to save her? She didn’t deserve it. She didn’t deserve the time of day.

  At that moment, ice trickled through my veins. I held onto Nan’s hand tight, scared by the prospect of having two visions less than twenty minutes apart.

  “Nan, I love you,” I murmured a second before my eyes slammed shut and I was catapulted into another frightening glimpse of my future.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  In the darkness of a cave, Cadifor snaps his fingers and Keenan steps forward.

  “The old woman is still alive?”

  “As you wished, my lord.”

  Cadifor nods
. “Good. We may have use for her yet.”

  He flips a photo between his fingers over and over.

  “It will be good for the girl to know the power we hold over her loved ones, how we maintain her grandmother’s coma so easily.”

  “Is there anything else, my lord?”

  “Yes. My Elphame is displaying worrying behavior. Watch her.”

  Cadifor withdraws a long, curved bronze blade from within the folds of his robe.

  “She has one last chance. If she shows any suspicious behavior, bring her to me.”

  “She has been loyal—”

  “You dare question me?”

  Cadifor spins so fast his robes rustle and blow a pile of brittle dead leaves off the altar. They flutter to the ground, falling like teardrops.

  Keenan flinches but doesn’t step back. “No, my lord, but Rhiannon, your Elphame, has proven her faith in you many times—”

  “Except with the girl,” Cadifor hisses, his fingers convulsing around the knife hilt. “I can’t afford dissension, especially among those closest to me.”

  Keenan nods, his wary gaze riveted to the knife as Cadifor rolls it in the palm of his hand before flipping it and catching it smoothly.

  “I kill traitors in a heartbeat.”

  He plunges the blade into a pomegranate lying on the altar. Repeatedly. The skin splits, its lush ripeness spilling onto the altar.

  As he continues stabbing in frenzy, it splatters the walls with crimson, the same rich garnet of blood.

  I opened my eyes to see Nan’s pale, lined face. She was in a coma, caught up in all this Arwen crap, because of me.

  A wave of nausea rolled over me as I bent to kiss the hand I clutched, whispering, “I’m sorry, Nan. So, so sorry.”

  I glanced down, horrified to see the crescent-shaped indents my nails had made in her fragile skin where I must’ve gripped onto her during the vision, and I quickly released her hand, smoothing the skin as if I could magically erase the marks. I loved Nan’s hands, the raised veins on the back of them, the short-clipped nails, the skin always smelling of the rose hand cream she used religiously.

  I’d held her hand my first day of preschool, the first day of grade school, the first time I’d ridden a pony. How many meals had these hands prepared? How many of my ponytails braided? How many of her horrid bright scarves knitted?

  I adored Nan, and to think that monster was somehow responsible for this …

  I leaped to my feet and headed for the door, not wasting a second. I needed a foolproof plan. One that would assure I’d find Arwen, defeat Cadifor, and save my Nan and my mom.

  Only one place I could do this. Eiros held the answers I needed.

  I’d played nice until now, being the good little Sorority student, absorbing everything they’d taught me, doing everything they’d said.

  Now it was their turn to listen.

  Cadifor was close to losing it. I could see it in every vision; the escalating violence, his tenuous hold on control, his increasing doubts about my mom.

  He wanted Arwen; he wanted me.

  Well, maybe it was time to give the monster what he wanted.

  On my terms.

  I stopped at the door and turned to blow a kiss at Nan.

  “Hang in there, Nan. I’m heading back to Eiros to put a stop to this. Once and for all.”

  The Sorority didn’t like my plan, didn’t like me calling the shots. But I left them no option. They did it my way or I walked. Not that I would, not with Nan and Mom’s lives hanging in the balance, but the Sorority didn’t know that, and what the Sorority didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

  With their hands tied, they’d asked for some thinking time and I’d obliged, leaving the meeting convinced that by the next day, I’d have answers one way or the other.

  Not that I had a death wish, but I couldn’t let another day go by with Nan lying in that hospital bed, not if I could do something about it.

  Cadifor wanted Arwen, so I’d bargain him for it. I’d meet him in the Cave of the Sun at summer solstice. He would know the significance of the day, would assume he’d finally gain Arwen and have his revenge on Bel and the rest of Eiros.

  After I issued the challenge, he’d send his consort to meet me. I couldn’t risk venturing into the underground complex twisting beneath us like a labyrinth, but I could meet him at the main cave’s entrance. No way would Cadifor pass up a possible opportunity to discover more about Arwen’s whereabouts. Once I fed his consort the story about the Cave of the Sun and summer solstice, I’d buy time for Nan, and hopefully for Mom too.

  “Don’t wander too far.”

  I saluted Joss. “Yes, sir.”

  I’d wanted to rattle his impervious air since I’d returned, the first time since The Kiss. He’d been all business, cool and unflappable, annoyingly professional. While I needed him to protect me, I wanted him to acknowledge there was something more between us, that even though he’d kept the truth from me, I was willing to put my faith in him till the end.

  “I’ll be back in five minutes.”

  “No worries.”

  As he strode through the ash grove and disappeared from sight I sank onto a nearby log and propped my chin on my hands. I could sit and watch that particular view all day. A funny, fuzzy feeling spread in my chest and I absentmindedly rubbed it, wondering if all first loves felt like this, vague and exciting and scary all at the same time.

  I heard rustling and turned to see Uriel. “You’re a good match.” She sat next to me. “I’m glad you’re in my son’s life, Holly.”

  I mumbled a noncommittal response, reluctant to discuss my major crush with his mom.

  “You know this isn’t just about his father?”

  “His father?”

  Confusion creased her brow. “He said he’d told you the truth.”

  “Obviously not all of it,” I said, twisting the string on my hoodie until I cut off circulation in my fingertip. Better the discomfort there than the awful ache spreading through my chest because Joss had more secrets.

  She frowned, staring at me before patting my hand. “He’ll hate me telling you this, but I believe you need to know.” Uriel picked up a nearby stick and drew a vertical line with three horizontal lines across it in the dirt. “The ogham sign Ur; its tree name is heather.” She drew a circle around it, then slashed a line through it, obliterating it, which was kind of scary. “Heather was Joss’s biological mother. She insisted her son be a warrior, and Sean, his father, acquiesced to her wishes. Though not a warrior by birth, there are ways for men to become warriors. Facing profound evil is one of them.”

  Unease trickled down my spine.

  “When Heather died, Sean became obsessed with keeping his promise to her. He believed for Joss to one day be a great warrior, he had to set an example.” Uriel swallowed, her throat convulsing. “Joss was still a child, seven years old, when he entered the underground labyrinth … ”

  Dread blossomed into full-blown dismay. “Cadifor?”

  Uriel nodded. “Joss vowed to avenge his father’s death. It drove him to be the best warrior, and then there was the incident with Olly.”

  “Yeah, he told me about that.”

  Uriel toyed with the cross embroidered on her blouse. “I love Joss as if he were my own son. Sadly, bad luck seems to follow him.” She squeezed my hand. “Until now.”

  Uh-oh. If Uriel thought I was a good luck charm, she was sorely mistaken. If Joss attracted bad luck, what I attracted would be the equivalent of breaking a hundred mirrors, walking under a thousand ladders, and treading on a million black cats.

  “Did you know Joss fought to protect you?”

  I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, not when the reality of this situation had gone from bad to worse. The warrior who professed to be there for me until the bitter end was in fact using me to get to Cadifor for his personal agenda. Nice. The truth lodged in my throat, a lump of bitterness I couldn’t budge no matter how much I swallowed.

  “N
o one can explain it, but despite not being your true warrior bound by geis, the two of you are bound.” She ticked off points on her fingers. “Joss knew you were coming. His pyrokinesis works on you. He can read your mind. Only a true warrior bound to his charge could do this.”

  Okay, so his mom made a pretty convincing argument. But that didn’t change the fact he wanted revenge on Cadifor and was using me to get it.

  “He’s determined to prove himself worthy of you.”

  “Worthy?”

  “Deep down, Joss is insecure. He fears he cannot live up to being the protector of the Scion.”

  I was seriously starting to hate the Scion label. As if it wasn’t bad enough laying the expectations of the world on my shoulders, it now made my warrior insecure too?

  “I guess we all have our fears.” Mine included a fear of failing everyone: my Nan, my friends, the Sorority, even my mom. Oh, and the world. Not that I wanted to belittle Joss’s fear, but right now I didn’t want to acknowledge any vulnerability he might have. I wanted to stay mad at him so I could rant when he came back.

  “I’m sorry Joss didn’t tell you the entire truth, but he wouldn’t want to burden you with his past when you have enough to deal with in the present.”

  Sounded like another convenient excuse to lie. “I’m glad you told me.”

  And I was. Now I knew exactly what I was dealing with: one seriously messed up warrior with an agenda and a mysterious past rivaling the bad guys’.

  Uriel touched my cheek in an affectionate gesture I would’ve found condescending coming from anyone else. There was something so sincere about her, so gentle, that she reminded me of Nan. My heart lurched at the thought. “I may not have any supernatural powers but I know you’re a sweet, selfless girl. A fitting soulmate for my son.”

  I opened my mouth to answer and shut it again, not sure how to respond. What do you say when the mom of the guy you like—who also happens to be the guy you’d like to throttle—gives you the all clear?

  “Thanks” seemed lacking, so I settled for a mumbled, “okay,” and silently cringed at my inadequacy. How come I was such a smartass with trolls like Maisey, yet couldn’t string two coherent words together for a cool lady like Uriel?