Chassan sat across from the embers on a fur covered stool, stoking a few flames to warm his hands.
“Sorry.” He spat the word at me, obviously having wrestled with our fight last night just as much as I had, and surprisingly enough, came to the same conclusion. Honestly, that argument seemed a million miles away after the eventful morning I’d had.
“Me, too,” I mumbled, casting a quick glance through the fire and meeting his strange golden gaze, which watched me with a mix of humility and self loathing. Uncomfortable under his scrutiny, I pulled at my fingernails, trying to think of a way to ask Chassan about the woman, without casting too much suspicion on myself.
“I went for a walk with Anyi today. She showed me another site like the one I found when we were hiking.”
“These mountains are full of them.” He nodded, his attention still on the fire.
“Was your father the only god worshipped in this area?”
“No, the mountains were full of Apus. But none rivaled the power of my father.”
“Could anyone match the power of your father?”
“A few, but they are long forgotten.”
“Forgotten gods?” I half laughed, unable to believe he had brought it up. “What do you know about Seraph?” My question seemed innocent enough, I hoped. Even Rhea knew about Seraph. Slowly, Chassan’s golden gaze rose to meet mine, his brow puckered into a dark line. Maybe the question wasn’t so innocent. I held my breath in fear I had said too much.
“What do you know about Seraph?” He answered, resting his elbows on his knees and leaning forward, his eyes darkening from gold to ochre.
“Rhea mentioned her.” I nervously tucked a blonde tendril behind my ear, shrugging my shoulders in a casual way as if my question were nothing more than a fleeting interest.
For a moment, he continued to study me, which made my heart beat go all ragged and wild. Until his gaze found the flames again, obviously believing that my interest in the forgotten goddess was innocent enough. Brushing a hand over his golden halo of hair, and rubbing at the back of his neck, he finally nodded, silently answering my question.
“I saw her once. Back before the last worlds ended.”
“Really?” I shot to attention, leaning into him, unable to believe I finally had concrete proof that she was real. “What was she like?”
“She was…” he paused, searching for words with his eyes cast upward. “...timeless. She had pale skin, fresh as fallen snow. Bright eyes, like the sun itself burned behind them. You knew by looking at her, her time on earth was fleeting. Her aura was way too pure. And the people loved her way too much.”
What?!?
For a handful of lost seconds, my brain was frozen. An empty feeling washing from my head to my toes. This wasn’t what I expected at all. Not that I expected anything. Maybe a few anecdotes passed down through the generations about her existence. But Chassan having seen her with his own eyes, made her so real it felt as if she were standing in the shadows behind me, whispering in my ear. Hope, awe, and cold fear fought each other in my brain. Confusing me too much to know what to think about his revelation.
“Where...where did you see her?” I finally forced a few words from my swollen throat.
“Here. In these mountains.” He glanced out the window to a vista of rugged mountain peaks. I hung on his every word, so much so, that without even realizing I was doing it, I pulled my chair over beside him, not wanting to miss a single world. “But not for long.” He shook his head and turned to me, biting his lip as he thought. “Seraph was a loner. She never mixed with our kind. Just floated around the world. Always searching. Never finding.”
“Is she still here?” I returned to inspecting my nails when his gaze fell from the window and back to me, aware that my interest was way past casual at that moment.
“No. Her magic could not have survived the worlds ending.”
“Why not? Your’s did.” I shot back defiantly, knowing that, if the stories were true, Seraph’s magic was way stronger than a sun god’s.
“Yes, but the worlds ended because of her.” Chassan stood, smoothing his hands down his pants, and moved to retrieve the coffee pot from its shelf.
“What?” I wrinkled my eyebrow, staring at his back with curious eyes.
“You don’t know the story?” He cast a confused look over his shoulder, coffee pot in hand.
“No.”
He nodded his head as he thought, placing the metal pot in the flames to warm what was left. Taking his seat beside me, he began.
“You obviously know she was the daughter of Hera and Hades, blessed by Zeus in Hera’s womb, but banished to the underworld when he learned she wasn’t his?”
I nodded my head, mouth hanging open in anxious fascination.
“When Seraph came of age, her magic ripened into a power too great for even Hades’ walls to hold. Tired of living in darkness, she enter our world.” He pressed the back of a few fingers to the coffee pot, testing its temperature. “When Zeus learned she had escaped, he ordered the gods of this world to destroy her. Inti and Danu refused. Everyone who met Seraph knew she didn’t have the malevolent spirit Zeus insisted she did.” Satisfied the coffee was warmed, he poured it into two cups, offering one to me. I took it to warm my fingers, too intrigued to bother drinking.
“Zeus refused to believe it was safe for her to remain in our world. Fearing what her power might unleash, Zeus called the water from the deep and the cold from the poles, freezing the entire world in order to destroy her.” Chassan took a long drink from his cup, peering into it when he pulled the cup away.
“You mean he created an ice age—destroyed everything—just to stop her?”
Chassan nodded gravely.
“The world was already changing, even then. The time of the gods was all but gone. There was a small area around the equator where life survived. But it wasn’t much. And Seraph couldn’t have hidden from him there.”
“Why did he have to kill her? She obviously wasn’t dangerous.” I shook away the cold chill that crept up my back, realizing what fate awaited me if my theory was right.
“She wasn’t dangerous. But her magic was. Fire is the one element that cannot be contained. It takes the elements of earth, air and water, fighting together, to keep fire at bay. If that kind of magic had fallen into the wrong hands, the world would have ended anyway.”
“Would you have killed her?” I asked in a voice way too high to be my own.
“Magic like that can’t exist, Faye. It doesn’t matter how beautiful the vessel. Poison is still poison, and Seraph’s magic would have shattered the world.”
Hot coffee splashed over our shoes when the cup slipped from my shaking hands and clattered to the floor. Immediately bending to clean it up, my hand brushed against Chassan’s as he stooped to help. His touch felt like warm bath water, chasing the chill from my bones, and radiating up my arm.
Slowly, my eyes fell to where our hands met, and my brain lulled a little. Seeing Dayne’s bracelet circling my arm brought a fuzzy memory back. One where he held my hand as we walked in a field of waist high grass. My head felt overwhelmingly full in a glorious way, and it wasn’t until Chassan grunted with disgust that I realized what was happening.
“Get out of my head!” I yelled, jerking my hand away, and pulling it protectively into my chest. I flopped back against a stool, fixing him in a seething gaze.
“Trust me, I have zero desire to see stuff like that.” He snarled his lip in disgust and wiped his hands on his jeans. “Are you ready?” Chassan asked impatiently, tossing the rest of his coffee into the fire. It hissed against the burning embers, and he strode to the door.
Releasing a loud, frustrated sigh, I stood on slightly wobbly knees and took the small pack Chassan held out to me. If nerves could kill, I would have been dead already. Seeing my likeness painted on the cave wall was unnerving enough. Hearing Seraph’s unlucky story, and heading into the wilds of Peru with an angel of death to begin unleashing
the powerful magic that hid within me was quite possibly suicidal at best. But this was my path, and I had resolved that fear was no longer going to be my master.
By all accounts we were nothing more than two wildlife photographers, hiking into the forest to get a few prized shots. When we were out of sight from the village, Chassan picked up speed, beginning to run.
I followed, gaining ground until we were running through the woods at a pace faster than I had ever run through Mission woods. Through the forest we flew, passing trees and leaping over vines instead of cutting them away. Chassan never asked if I could keep up, and I didn’t give it a second thought, following along behind him at the pace of a fighter jet. The woods whirred by, our progress so fast I couldn't even hear the constant call of birds from high atop the canopy of green foliage. Everything was a blur except for Chassan ahead of me, the only thing moving quickly enough for me to focus on.
In no time, we were at the top of the mountain, about a hundred yards shy of where the mountain's snow cap began. A field of slick black rock rose in razor sharp ridges to the summit. No human could breath at such elevations, and we had to be well out of eye sight for what we were about to do.
“Do you remember the night you found me?” Chassan asked, his back to me as he laid his camera pack on a stone.
“It’s hard to forget near death experiences,” I spat at his back, crossing my arms as I rolled my eyes, remembering how grouchy he had been that night.
Chassan turned to me so quickly I didn’t see the movement, only the result, and rolled his eyes at my adolescent response—making fun of me and making a point. He succeed on both accounts. My indignant reaction was nothing but stupidity or immaturity on my part. After all, I had been the one dumb enough to wake up a sleeping sun god. I immediately dropped my arms and sighed in surrender as he circled me.
He continued tracing a path just inches from me, his intense golden stare feeling as if it was capable of staring right through my clothes and skin to the very innermost parts of me. Feeling totally exposed—something I hated—I quickly crossed my arms back to my chest, but the pouty look was no longer on my face. Satisfied he had my total compliance, he raised his eyes back to mine and nodded his head in a told-you-so sort of way.
He stopped his pacing, standing in front of me, legs spread wide like elite athletes do, and crossed his hulking arms over his faded blue t shirt before he began again.
“You were born with all the power you will ever possess. Whether you had found your way back to the Sidhe or not, it would have awoken when it was ready.”
“You mean, if I hadn’t been raised as a human I would’ve already been able to do all this?” My mouth hung open and my hands fell to my sides again, totally aghast by what he had just said.
Chassan only nodded, his eyes going flat when I interrupted him. He sat, chewing on the inside of his cheek impatiently until I nodded an apology for interrupting him.
“In order for you to control it, you must embrace it. Something you are too afraid to do.” Distracted by something, he raised his gaze to the sky, carefully watching a few birds circle the mountain’s peak.
“Are you crazy?” I spun on my heel to face him. “I’ve traveled thousands of miles and risked my life countless times to get here. It doesn’t get anymore embracing than that!” I flung my hands in the air to emphasize how ludicrous the thought was, and get his attention back on me.
“No.” He shook his head, his gaze lingering on me as he clasped his hands behind his back like one of my college professors, and began to stalk around a ring of hip high boulders dotting the slope. “You have come here expecting to have someone tell you what to do, when the power was yours from the beginning.”
“No.” I shook my head adamantly. “If I had that kind of power, I certainly wouldn’t be standing here right now.” I continued to turn with him as he circled me. He crossed his arms over his chest again, brushing the backs of his fingers over his chin as he thought.
“You say your body is changing. When was the first time you felt this power?”
I thought back over the weeks and months since Ireland, leaning against one of the black rocks as I thought. It wasn’t too hard to remember the night everything had changed.
“I was running through the forest one night. My feet began to run faster until I was flying through the woods like we just did.”
“Why were you running so fast?”
“I saw Dayne. It felt…” my voice wavered. “...so real. I thought if I ran fast enough I could catch him.” I closed my eyes, recalling the night with vivid detail. The moonlight, the forest, the way his voice lingered in my ears, leading me through the woods in a twisted game of hide and seek. The hand that had reached out for him tingled at my side.
“And did you catch him?” The proximity of Chassan’s voice startled me. My eyes flew open and I took a stumbling step backward. He was so near I could see the flecks of gold igniting his strange ochre eyes.
I let out a tiny gasp, fisting my hand as I brought it into my chest. With my eyes on the ground, I slowly shook my head. Of course I hadn’t caught him. It was just a stupid vision.
“You are chasing the wrong things, Faye. You must learn to use your powers for yourself, not for others, if you are going to control them.”
“For myself? Sounds a little greedy don’t you think?”
“Greedy?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, didn’t The One give us these powers to protect others?”
“Tell me, how do you plan on protecting humans as you are now?”
I had no rebuttal for that. So, I stood silently and waited for his lesson to begin. He stalked away from me, looking up and down the slope as if it would birth some sort of inspiration. There was nothing, except for us on the barren rock, and he turned back, arms crossed over his chest and brow pulled down.
“You have spent so long trying to be human, that your channels are blocked. Animals do not think. They simply react.” He squatted down, picking up a handful of loose stones and letting them slip through his fingers as he spoke.
His next movement was so fast, it was nothing more than a blur of golden hair and tanned muscle, moving so quickly he looked like a tornado.
A rock came flying at my head with all the force of a jet airline, and without a second thought, I snatched it from the air in mid flight, inches away from my head. Gasping, staring at the baseball-sized rock in my hand with bulging eyes, I turned an angry glare to Chassan.
“Are you trying to kill me now?” I huffed, feeling the rock’s hot sting against my palm and knowing it surely would have sliced into my skull had I not stopped it.
“No. Teaching. How did you know to catch that rock?” He rose to his feet, his eyes twinkling confidently as he approached me again.
Looking back at the rock lying in my trembling hand, I didn’t have a clue. I hadn’t really made a conscious decision to catch the thing. From the corner of my eye, I’d seen it coming, felt the vibrations it sent through the air, and simply reached out.
“I just felt it.”
“Exactly.” He nodded with lazy enthusiasm, and what passed for Chassan’s smile tugged at his lower lip. “Sit on the ground and close your eyes.” I did as I was told, sitting on the stone cold ground, crossing my legs, and resting my hands on my knees. “Focus on the world, not yourself.” Chassan’s voice softened.
He shuffled the loose stones on the ground as he circled me, their sound vibrating my ears and sending shivers along the ground.
“You must see it without eyes.” Chassan’s finger brushed softly over my closed lids. “Hear it.” He trailed his fingers to my ears, prickling goose bumps all the way down my spine. “Smell it.” His finger touched the tip of my nose, but all I could smell was the rich scent of him squatting before me. “Taste it.” The thumb moved to my lips and hovered there. “Feel it,” he finished and then left me, backing away to the point that he no longer enter into my connection with the world.
Time becam
e an irrelevant factor sitting there. With my eyes closed, I had to rely on my remaining senses to paint the picture of the world that passed me by. With every empty hour, it became more impossible. The world refused to talk to me, and I grew increasingly hopeless that I would ever learn to use the power I held. Maybe I was just like Seraph after all—an unlucky vessel full of poison sent to shatter the world. I drew in a deep, defeated sigh, ready to tell Chassan it was no use, when a sound ripped through the air that began to set the world in motion.
My spine began to tingle like it had that morning, as if it was trying to cast off the limiting confines of human skin and morph into something else. Straining in its flesh, yet still feeling utterly empty, desperately needing something more. Fear pulsed into me, knowing what I was about to unleash, but I refused to stop the transformation this time, welcoming it instead.
Inaudible to human ears, a soft cry sounded high in the skies. One of the birds Chassan had noticed circling the peak earlier. It was a hunter’s cry—the steady, monotone whistle telling others prey had been found, and death was coming soon. The sound spiked chills over my skin. I bowed my head and turned my left ear toward the sound in the sky.
The bird fell silent, and I almost lost him. Keeping my eyes closed, searching for any sound the stealthy hunter might make, it felt as if every atom of my body focused on the air. Another whistling caressed my ears, softer and lower—the sound of the bird’s wings slicing through the air as he circled and began to descend.
The whistling grew louder, faster, and I could almost see the talons retracting from his feet, glinting in the air as he entered a death-dive at the ill-fated animal below. But, what was his prey?
I dropped my attention to the ground below him, searching. Caught in a soft breeze, the scent of fresh dirt clung heavily to the musky fur of small animal, just emerging from its burrow in the mountain. Tiny stones rumbled under its feet when it sensed the danger itself and began to scurry away. These vibrations skittered up my spine, and bounced around my ears, telling me the rodent was running a diagonal path that would pass within arms reach of where I sat.
Son of Sun (Forgotten Gods (Book 2)) Page 15
