The Unknown Sun

By Cheryl Mackey

The world of Skyfall will die unless Moira finds the lost immortals.

Seventeen-year-old Moira is haunted by the accidents that claimed her family. When she is attacked by a strange boy who seems to know too much about her past, Moira fears death will come for her a third time. Saved by twins Airi and Bel, she is taken to their world and safety.

Or so they thought.

Skyfall is dying, the land destroyed during a supernatural war. Those who had protected it, the lost immortals, have gone missing and the land has decayed beyond redemption unless their magic can restore it. Armed with a mysterious talisman Moira, Airi, and Bel must find a journal left by the twins' dead mother that will tell them how to find and free the Immortals known as The Unknown Sun.

Deeper, darker, secrets unravel around them when the journal reveals shocking information...because everything has a price and the price just might be Moira.

A rebellion against the Windwalker kingdom stalks them from the shadows until it threatens their quests and the boy who tried to destroy Moira appears and is determined to seek revenge.

Part 1 of a breathtaking sword and sorcery romantic fantasy for fans of Jordan Rivet and Kate Avery Ellison!!

The quest is only a small part of a puzzle that has spanned millennia and now Moira must confront the truth...Buy The Unknown Sun and join the adventure today!

*This is a FULLY revised and updated 2nd Edition for Re-Release*

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cheryl Mackey
• Release date: May 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310559754

Cheryl Mackey

Cheryl lives in Southern California with her husband and 2 sons. She is a Document Specialist with a mortgage company during the day and a writer during the night!She has a MFA in Creative Writing and enjoys games, reading and, of course, writing. She currently has a flash fiction story published online at The Prompt Magazine.Her favorite genres to write and read is YA Fantasy closely followed by YA Paranormal and she would love to dabble in Steam Punk and Dystopian.

Book preview

The Unknown Sun

Cheryl S. Mackey

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2014 Cheryl S. Mackey

License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my husband and sons…without their love, support, and encouragement my dreams would never have become a reality. I love you so much and I am so grateful for your understanding and many many hugs.

Special thanks to my editor Lauren McKellar, my cover artist Victoria at Whit&Ware, and fellow author/beta reader Kaitlyn Hoyt…without you three my book would never have become so amazing. Thank you!

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

CHAPTER 1

My left shoulder twitches as I pull on a blue shirt, making sure it covers my shoulders and upper arms because not even I can look at the scars. The hanging mirror on the closet door rocks, and I look anywhere but at the image swaying inside before slapping the door shut and walking away. I don’t bother with mirrors and makeup. Ever. Those things make me visible; make me stand out in a world I do not want to shine in. A world without my parents and sisters, a world full of guilt because I had survived not one, but two accidents over the space of a decade—accidents that killed my entire family.

I am halfway to the front door and have one arm in my navy wool coat when my gaze falls on my stepfather’s scrawl on the notepad he’d left on the counter in the hallway. I don’t need to spin the upside-down pad to make out the words.

In Vegas for a seminar. Back in a week.

I sigh and let myself out the front door. At least he’d remembered to leave a note. Most of the time, Don Parker only speaks to me, or at me, as an afterthought, and he never calls me by name—I honestly wonder if he’s forgotten it, or if he chooses to pretend I’m not part of a hated nightmare.

He’s an okay guy—good, normal—and he’d been kind enough to adopt me when he’d married my mom. All that had gone south when his daughter, my younger half-sister, and my mother had died a year ago. I survived, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that I am the last person he’d wanted to come back alive.

I am a reminder of what had happened, and maybe if I am ignored, I’ll go away, right? Sometimes, my stepfather just doesn’t realize that he isn’t the only one suffering, that my unmarred face hides a broken girl. A girl broken not once, but twice.

The walk to my new school is serene and slightly cool, the air just turning to the crispness of fall. Like usual, nobody else is up so early, which is the plan. I should be able to make it across the sprawling grounds, and to my locker, without being on anyone’s radar.

I turn the corner and eye the browning, patchy soccer-field that I have to skirt to reach the far side of campus. It’s empty of joggers, safe enough to cut through this time. The air is slowly warming, but my nose is icy, so I break into an easy jog, the crackle of dried grass loud.

My stepfather has long since given up asking me why I leave extra early every school morning. I told him once, a few days after my return to school last year, and he’d shut up, his age-lined face graying and drawing tightly with pain as soon as the words left my mouth. I felt bad about being so blunt, but I was honest at least.

I avoid people because I don’t want to talk about it. I see the feigned sympathy and condolences for what they are. I use the still quiet of the mornings to try to remember, to make myself feel when my sisters and parents can’t. It is my ritual, my self-imposed penance for surviving.

I drag myself from the hazy memories and force my feet forward as I slide my backpack over one shoulder. My dark-blond hair becomes a curtain around my face as the familiar shadows of the cement buildings stretch over me.

Who is that?

A boy, maybe in my grade, dodges around me at the last minute and pauses to stare. I study my shoes diligently and keep going. A jock with a brand new letterman jacket and Nikes shoves past me to join him, and answers with a muffled snicker as I vanish into the growing crowd, That’s the girl from Western High who survived that plane crash last year. They sent her here for some reason. Don’t touch her, dude, or you’ll die too. She’s nobody.

Nobody.

My knuckles whiten on the straps of my bag and my cheeks burn. I shoot the boy a quick look from beneath my heavy bangs just in time to see him slouch away with the jock, a football wedged under his arm.

Nobody.

I make my way toward my locker, taking the path that hugs the shadows of the E building. My locker is on the furthest side of the campus from my first class, so I’ve become a pro at slipping past the other kids to reach it without being noticed. The fewer people around me, the fewer dead people on my conscious.

I sidle along the shadowed wall and make a beeline for the row of dingy lockers in the hallway across the courtyard. This is the tricky part. I tighten my grip on my bag and step away from the wall, head down, and stumble into a fast walk in an attempt to keep my anxiety from spilling into my clumsy gait. My hair and my feet are the only things I can see as I navigate the gathering throng of students like a ghost.

A wall of Senior girls creates a road block. I duck aside to avoid a collision, but my elbow snags a purse from a tall brunette, sending it swaying to the side. My shoulders hunch inwards in alarm as I stumble away from the wannabe Barbies. All of them halt and turn on the spot but they don’t see me at first. I glide past them, head down. They back away, nervous and silent, bug eyed. I speed walk away then. I don’t want to hear the whispers about the girl who should have died. The rumors about me began even before I left the hospital ten months ago. even then I did little to curtail them, because I just didn’t care. I ended up finishing my sophomore year at Western High and then switching schools to get away from the bullying and rumors, but in a town with only two high schools it didn’t matter.

I blindly swerve around the last corner and collide with a wall of denim. My small frame bounces backwards off of whoever is unlucky enough to touch me, and I crash to the ground with enough force to scrape my left palm and shove the wind out of my chest. Sprawled on my back, my hair askew, my cheeks burn hot when I get a good look at whose reputation I’d just ruined.

Hey, watch it. Bitter green eyes glare down at me from a narrow face framed by tangled dirty-blond hair. Not someone I recognize, but he looks vaguely familiar. Maybe he’s new to the school too.

I’m so sorry, I mumble. I shift to a more dignified position and swallow when the new boy seems to really see me for the first time. I tense, my heart racing .

Shock and anger widens clear green eyes. I bite back a cry when they flash with brittle anger. He backs away, his eyes wary and radiating such fury that I forget my own face is now visible. You! Why you?

W...what?

He doesn’t answer, but keeps his burning glare on me until he’s backed far enough away to turn and make a break for it. He spins and darts through the now thickening crowd, and I freeze as dozens of eyes turn accusingly at me. Staring quite pointedly at me, their whispers filter through the crowd, cruel and cold. My heart crumples, seizes.

Isn’t she the one who—

—how did she survive?

I bet her scars are epic—

I hear she has to eat through a straw—

I choke on a half-laugh, half-sob, and lunge to my feet. Head down, I shove through the throng of students. Their eyes are all on me, full of disdain.

My trembling fingers drag tangled strands of my hair over my face again as I stumble toward my locker. I stuff the hurt deep inside and lock it away with all the other pain I feel on a daily basis—but nothing stops the squeezing in my chest or the prickle of tears stinging the corners of my eyes.

My hand freezes over the combination lock. A small wad of paper taped to the dented metal door crinkles in the cool morning breeze. I pluck it off and unfold it.

Twice now. Third time’s the charm? Care to try and see if you could survive just one more time? Why you?

The last two words are almost identical to the ones the strange boy had just spat at me. I crumple the note between my fingers and jam it into my pocket.

Yep, today is just like every other day.

It sucks.

***

I kick the oven door shut with a bare foot and move to the sink to turn on the water as a deep, resonant rumble of thunder rattles the kitchen window and sways the hanging lights above me. I glance outside where dark, roiling thunderheads have blocked out the sky.

I leave the large brown potatoes to rinse and pull out a heavy knife to cut them. I spin about on the worn linoleum floor and reach for the refrigerator door, but halfway there my hand halts, trembling, hovering, near the worn handle and the large tattered white square of paper meticulously taped at eye height.

A reminder of what I’ve lost.

I feel hollow as I stare at the crayon-blazed paper, and remember Dawn’s proud face when she’d handed me the stunningly detailed picture she’d drawn mere days before it happened.

It is childishly simple, but now in the aftermath it is a masterpiece that serves as a shrine to my younger sister. My eyes skate upward to another square of paper, this one faded and yellowing beneath the fluorescent kitchen lights and I swallow thickly. Another drawing, this time in thick globs of finger-paint, proclaim the artist as Meghan, misspelled with three wiggly green Ns.

I miss you both so much. I swallow again, and reach out to trace Meghan’s gloopy name. The worn paper crinkles beneath my fingertips, and I jerk my hand back out of fear of ruining it for good. I stare at the two drawings for another long moment, feeling the hollow place in my stomach widen into a vacuum of regret.

It’s funny that though my sisters had never met, how similar they had been. Even with the two drawings their bold, vivid personalities glow from the pale scraps of paper. I frown and let my eyes skate between the two pictures as that thought hangs in my mind like an exclamation point.

Both pictures are eerily similar, something that had not struck me as odd until now, and my fingers return to the brittle page and trace the squiggly red and yellow crayon lines erupting from a stick figure’s head. The figure is riding on a stick figure of a white horse—no, a unicorn—across a field of lime-green crayon. Bright blue swirls decorate the sky and something else I hadn’t seen jumps out at me. A tiny black triangle juts up from the horizon where the grass and sky meet.

I drag my gaze up to Meghan’s painting and the knife falls from my other hand. It clatters to the floor and spins away. The ache in my chest sharpens.

How is that— I exhale the words and let them drift into the low rumble of thunder. Meghan’s painting is of a young girl with red and yellow spirals for hair. She sits atop a white unicorn and far in the background behind the splatter of white that is the animal’s tail, a small black triangle stands out against the painted blue sky.

My stepfather would have said that Dawn had simply copied Meghan’s painting. After all, she had known about her long-dead sister, since there were no secrets in our family—but this particular painting had come from a well-buried, hidden box in the attic. It had come with mother and I to America after leaving everything of our old lives behind, including the bodies of my father and older sister. I hadn’t opened it until two nights ago when an anxiety attack had found me pawing through the attic in a panic looking for the one last link to my past. It was all I had left, I didn’t even have memories—those have been stolen, along with the lives of my father and older sister. Don had put it on the fridge after he found me crying over the meager pieces of my past, had watched me huddle in a corner, clutching the brittle paper with shaking fingers.

I shiver and look away, but the vacant crayon and paint eyes watch me. I bend and force my scar-stiffened shoulder to work, to make my arm move and retrieve the knife. I gracelessly gain my feet and move back to the sink. I reach for the potatoes, not caring that my tears are blurring them into brown lumps.

I dump the potatoes on the cutting board and the knife flashes in the kitchen light as I chop and toss potato chunks into a bowl for mashing. The timer for the oven buzzes and I shut it off. The smell of the chocolate cupcakes makes my stomach rumble.

My dinner is as normal as it could be for me. Alone. The mashed potatoes stick in tasteless lumps in my mouth, and the green bean casserole is slightly burned. I eat in silence and refuse to look at the single cupcake sitting on the counter in the kitchen in its foil wrapper. The white frosting stands out against the dark-gray countertop, and the single pink candle jammed haphazardly into the center tilts awkwardly.

I swallow mechanically, and force the food down past where my heart is fighting my throat for tightness. Thunder cracks and the kitchen lights flicker. My gaze darts to them and halts on the cupcake and the forlorn candle.

Happy Birthday, Moira.

Yeah.

I reach for the remote just as the lights flicker and die. I stand and brandish it like a ridiculous weapon against the dark and stormy night before flinging it onto the shadow that I hope is the couch. I stumble toward the kitchen where a flashlight sits in a charger by the toaster. I make it maybe halfway there when the lights flip on.

And I find myself face to face with pair of green eyes that I’d hoped to not see again. I backtrack a step, uneasiness tightening my throat. Maybe dropping the remote hadn’t been such a good idea after all. I glance at the locked front door.

Don’t even bother. His lips twist into a smirk. I flinch, and drag my attention back to the boy with the dangerous eyes. He is insanely tall—I have to tip my head far up to see him— but along with that height is a predatory power. Hidden beneath a black t-shirt his arms and shoulders ripple with lean muscle. He resembles a mountain lion: deadly strength hidden in beauty. I swallow and resist the urge to shoot the front door another hopeful look but it would do me no good. There is no one to help me.

Who are you? I back up until the backs of my knees bump into the couch. I glance down, distracted, What do you want?

The green-eyed boy prowls after me, the leaping shadows seeming to bend toward him with every large step. My name is unimportant, but you are.

I’m nobody, I make a grab for the remote and sidle around the couch.And I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Really, you say that even now after all she’s done?

What? Who? My words trip over my tongue, and they clash with a faint rumble of thunder. The glass windows rattle in their frames, in sync with my shaking hands.

For a split second, the anger tightening his thin, pale face flickers into something resembling bewilderment. The buttons on the remote dig into the palm of my hand as he struggles internally with something, his eyes haunted. The lights flicker, buzz, and dim slightly as he tips his head and studies me with a cold, bitter gaze.

Please, leave now. I—I don’t know what you want, but I— I say. He takes another step closer and my back collides with the television. I am trapped.

Who are you? He sneers. He bends and glares into my face and I recoil, shaking violently. It’s been a long time since I’ve been face to face with anybody, touched anybody, and my fear-numbed brain can’t remember what to do. My fingers react before my brain can think, much less plan anything.

I fling the remote at the boy with all my pathetic might and duck around him. He jumps aside and smacks the remote out of the air with a snarl. It shoots across the living room and crashes into the sliding glass door. Shattering glass muffles my screams as I leap the couch and lunge toward the remains of the door.

The lights flicker, then slam everything into darkness. Startled, I crash to the wooden floor with a cry.

It’s a pity humans are afraid of the dark. A whisper hangs on the air, surrounding me in a cold breath.

I scramble to my knees and claw my way toward the shattered glass door. My bare knees and shaking hands bite into chips of glass, and I clamp my jaw shut to smother a gasp as the sharp pieces cling and stab into my skin. Tears burn my eyes as terror magnifies the nauseating pain. The feeling is so familiar—so—horrible—

The tears boil over and blur everything. Help!

I crawl in the dark toward the broken glass door. Lightning forks the sky and the cracked, rain-smeared glass glistens in the night.

Going somewhere? Furious green eyes peer into my face as the lightning settles and the shadows still. I recoil and fling my scraped hands up to protect myself. A bitter chuckle fills the darkness as a hand clamps on the hair at the back of my head and pulls me completely off the floor. Jagged, prickly pain savages my scalp and the back of my throat.

My scream burns the darkness.

No one can hear you now, so tell me—why you? He snarls, nose to nose with me. I dangle from his iron grip by my hair, swinging like an abandoned piece of playground equipment in a storm.

I don’t know what you mean. I blink as the edges of the darkness creep closer and the tingling pain begins to spread and throb. I am nobody.

She saved you! How did she do it and why you? Why not— Green Eyes hisses into my face, and I shiver at the force of his fury. His blond hair straggles in damp strands over his face as the storm blasts sheets of icy rain through the gaping hole in the glass door.

I don’t know what you’re talking about! I choke out. Stomach-churning pain washes over me and the fog creeps further along the edges of my vision. My scalp burns with pain, and my knees and hands drip with more than the rain.

Don’t lie! he screams, and swings me around so fast that my arms and legs sway like a ragdoll, limp and powerless. I cry out and bite my lip. Salty copper coats my tongue as the world spins in a damp, sick spiral.

The spiraling rush ends abruptly and I sail across the room. Upside-down, right-side up—everything switches places in a pain-shrouded blur as I rocket through the remainder of the glass door.

The crack of exploding glass muffles my screams. My left shoulder and hip hit the sodden grass in a burst of pain that continues mercilessly as I bounce and roll over the uneven, wet ground of my backyard. Everything halts with the sound of my skull cracking against the wooden fence that rings our property.

Crumpled up, I struggle to breathe and focus my eyes in the teeming rain. Behind my soggy hair the vague shadow of a person reappears and all of my fingers flare with crushing pain as something smashes down onto both my hands, crushing them into the sticky mud. My body jerks and spasms, and the spots in my vision darken.

Oh, look at you now. So pathetic, so small. So useless, Green Eyes grunts and bends closer to me. I shrink away when his hand comes up to yank my hair from my face. Look at me.

I blink up at him through the foggy haze as lightning flares. A white glow lights up the night and I flinch as it sears my already battered brain. Green Eyes jerks away, spins on his heels. The motion grinds my already tortured fingers deeper into the mud, but the cracking pain is just another way to drag a pathetic whimper from my scoured throat.

This is impossible. Green Eyes staggers toward the lightning still crackling in midair. Instead of dissipating, the light hovers, arcs, and curves into a giant oval, entirely lighting the yard with a fiery aura. She can’t be—

Hands yank me from my broken huddle and drag me into the air again. Fingers far stronger than imaginable clamp around my throat and hold me aloft in the wet, spinning world.

Try to save her this time, I dare you, Green Eyes screams at the swirling light. He shakes me violently. My head and arms flail. Using the momentum of his vicious shake, I swing my right leg back and kick with all my might at the one part I can reach.

My foot makes contact and Green Eyes doubles over with a pained snarl. Everything lurches in a wet blur and I sail through the air again and tumble to the soaked grass, sliding and rolling for several feet until I collide with something very hard.

Somehow, the sudden stop props me half upright and I let my head fall back against what I figure is the old oak tree in the far corner of the yard. I blink rain from my eyes and struggle to inhale with a shallow shudder. Every inch of my body roars with pain, and I can no longer tell blood from tears or rain.

The spiraling light shifts, and two large winged silhouettes step into the driving rain. I swallow as the blurs sharpen into focus but my pain-ravaged mind must be playing tricks on me—or I’ve hit my head much harder than I think.

Huge, pale wings arch in the thundering rain as the pair step menacingly toward the still doubled-over Green Eyes. Silvery steel glints in the mesmerizing glow. My head throbs and grows too heavy hold up. I bite back a hiss of pain and let my chin drop to my chest. The movement drags a hoarse whimper from my throat and I blink dizzily, my eyes now focused on my splayed arms and legs. Blood mixes with mud until I can no longer see my skin.

I look like a discarded puppet, a lost toy flung aside by a bratty child. Tears burn my eyes and join the steady stream of rain and blood on my cheeks.

Third time’s the charm—

No! A new voice shatters the thunderous rain, but I can’t lift my head to look. The overwhelming pain spreads across my chest and back, forcing my breathing into shallow pants.

Oh, Gods! Get her, I’ll hold him off.

I startle at the strident, high-pitched voice that calls out over the thundering rain. That’s a woman! Metal clashes and a feminine cry of fury rises over a masculine, slightly insane laugh.

The sounds grow fuzzy and dull, and I want to shake my head to clear it but I simply can’t. A blast of icy rain slaps my wet hair over my face and I close my eyes, trapped beneath the cloying strands, too weak to move.

Shockingly warm hands, large and calloused, gently rake the soaked strands from my numb face. I try to move away but nothing functions anymore.

Come on, sweetheart, hold on. You are going to be fine. The raspy tenor washes over me and I shiver a ragged sigh. The hands vanish and so does my sense of equilibrium as they lift me. I float, eyes shut, body numb with pain.

Feelings I’d never wanted to feel again. Ever.

He’s gone! He just vanished in front of me, the woman snarls from somewhere outside my closed eyes.

Forget him, we need to hurry. She’s barely breathing, the raspy tenor falters and I wonder at the naked pain in his voice.

Go, the woman barks and everything spins into blackness.

***

I ache everywhere; my hands, head, and side the worst. A quick tally of the sources of pain reveals bandages on my fingers and about my ribcage. Small, half-healed scratches race along my arms and legs. Blood splatters decorate my shorts and T-shirt, and I swallow the urge to vomit. Blood and I have been far too familiar over the years. My head throbs and I reach up to inspect it, but can’t tell if there is a cut beneath the hair at