About The Sun Child

by Cat Kane
57 pages / 20000 words
ISBN: 978-1-60370-276-8, 1-60370-276-8
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc

Years ago, Yaotl left his Aztec village to lead the life a soldier, but he has never forgotten a boy he met when he was a child, or the shell he gave his new friend to keep safe. When Yaotl returns to his village, much has changed, and he's in charge of keeping someone else safe, Eztli, the Sun God's vessel

Eztli is nothing like Yaotl's people. Blond and green eyed, strangely seductive, he calls to Yaotl, who does not believe that Eztli is meant to be a sacrifice. When the tribe begins to resent Yaotl questioning their beliefs, he knows he's on to something, Can he save Eztli and love him at the same time?

Sample

The Gods are kind today.

The sun blazes down in warm golden beams, and the undulating coils of the river glitter like jewels. The children leap into the water, their voices and the lapping waves rippling in unison. As they splash toward the opposite bank, a current disturbs the gleaming surface, and a small surf churns at the rocks that line the river.

"Go and look!"

"I can't! You show it to me."

The dark-haired boy looks doubtfully at his companion, wondering if the boy is about to start crying again. The other boy says he's seen five summers, but he can't do anything. He can't climb trees and he can't swim in the river.

Sighing, the dark-haired boy sucks in a deep breath, ducking under the water. Several long moments later, his friend looks around with worry narrowing his red-rimmed eyes, as if searching for divine assistance.

The dark-haired boy surfaces, splashing and floundering but smiling. Triumphantly he holds his trophy above his head.

His friend looks skeptical.

"What is it?"

The dark-haired boy holds out the small conch shell, its wet coils and spirals glinting like polished flint in the sunshine, its spines pointing at the heavens in exaltation.

"It's a shell!" he says.

"Oh."

Unaffected by the other boy's lack of interest, the dark-haired boy nods.

"The Elders say that Yolihuani was born from a conch shell, before flying up to the sky and giving color to the land. Then Tochtli rolled the remains of the shell into a hole, and buried it with the most fertile soil, until it grew and grew and became the earth. So the mountains are the spines of the shell, and the rivers are the cracks that formed when Yolihuani emerged."

His friend looks at him, looks at the shell, and scrunches his nose. "No-one would fit into a small shell like that."

He's about to answer, when a voice cuts through the dappled sun and trickling waters.

"Yaotl!"

The dark-haired boy turns, looking up, equally dark eyes squinting against the sun until he finds the source of the call.

"Here." Yaotl hands the precious shell over to his friend. "You can hold it for me. But don't break it!"

His friend clutches the shell tightly. "Like I would!"

Yaotl thinks his friend probably would; he doesn't know the other boy well, but, pale and scrawny and unaccustomed to swimming in the river, his new friend doesn't look the sort who would be careful with shells.

The Elders sent him to look after the boy that morning while they discussed important things, and Yaotl takes his task seriously. There have been several like this boy in recent times, but they never stay long, leaving to do things just as important as Yaotl's own lessons and training.

"Yaotl!" the Elder calls again.

He takes shells seriously too, and knows they'll be blamed for his frivolous thoughts if he doesn't hurry. He splashes out of the river, the sun warming him as he scampers up the hillside.

"Yes, Ueman Otli?"

Otli looks at him with a sparkle belying the sternness in his eyes.

"You should already have been at your lessons."

"But I was told to--"

Yaotl glances at the river. Otli does too.

"Never mind that," Otli says. "To your lessons, at once!"

"But--" He doesn't feel right leaving his task unfinished. Neither does he like the thought of leaving his shell.

He looks back at the river, at his errant charge guarding the treasured find.

"He'll be all right," Otli says. "They are coming for him soon."

Yaotl looks at Otli, smile brightening. "Will he go to fulfill his duties too?"

"Yes, he will." Otli nods, as a smile tugs his lined face. "Now, you go and do the same!"

Yaotl nods, darting off down the other side of the hill, back toward the bustling settlement. It's okay to leave his charge in these circumstances, he decides. Soon the other boy will be carrying out the duties of protecting his own town or village; he'll be fine by himself for a little while.

And Yaotl decides, smiling face upturned toward the sun as colorful birds dive and dip like paper kites against a blue sky, he can keep the shell too. For luck