Faith is Fallen (Broken Fantasies Series)

Chapter 25

Time passed, and Cara kept in touch with her family through the ensorcelled book she'd created of her family tree and through the stones. She checked the book often, smiling when new names showed up, an crying when numbers showed that lives had ended.

Often, when the stone summoned her, she arrived too late to save whoever had needed her. Or she would discover that she had not been summoned to save anyone at all, but because the legend of the stones had not been passed on properly and the person, seeing an interesting stone, had held it in their hands, activating it unknowingly.

So many seemed to die far too young, and she always wondered, but could see no common denominator, no evidence to show that some terrible will was behind it. Still, when she had thoughts like that, it always made her think of her brother, her terrible brother. She smirked because thinking of him made her think of her mother, who she hadn't seen in years. Many of the places they'd traveled to didn't have Faery gates.

Then, one day in the mid-18th century, she cried a sea of tears when the book showed her that so many lives had been recently blinked out of existence, later discovering it had been at the Battle of Culloden. She ate up the news coming in from Scotland, of the disbanding of the clans, the banning of all Scottish culture. She wanted to return, to do something about it, but she didn't. Instead, she buried herself in her magic, trying to come up with new and more interesting things to summon, to create.

And always, Valerius stayed at her side. As the centuries passed, he changed names—first to Valerian, and then in more recent times, to Val. Cara hated the idea of changing her name, and being that Cara wasn't quite as unusual a name as Valerius, she'd stuck with it right up until the 20th century, when governments started creating ways of tracking their citizens better.

She stayed Cara McKay for a while, but as she'd said many times before, all things change, all things come to an end eventually. She went by a few different names over the years, but most recently she'd taken on the name of Ashley Driden. Still posing as siblings, Val had become Val Driden.

Val still made his living as a merchant of sorts, selling rare antiquities. And of course, he was fantastic at it. After all, he'd personally experienced every major antiquity since before most of the European countries even existed. And it didn't hurt that he could simply conjure up any item a customer wished him to find.

Cara had quit that life a few decades back. She still helped Val out whenever he needed her to—not that he needed her to at all—but now she spent much of her time writing. She had for decades now. It started out with just writing her life story, wanting to finally process and put an end to some of the pain she'd experienced so many years ago.

She was lucky in that she submitted the book to publishers just as such stories had started to develop a serious demand. After that first book, she continued writing, having discovered she enjoyed the process. She made almost nothing, but she didn't need to work. Neither of them did. When you could conjure anything you wanted or needed, you didn't work because you needed to, but because you wanted to.

Cara wrote a lot about "fairies" and people lapped it up. Two decades after she'd started, she hit the New York Times Bestseller's list. She still couldn't live off her writing, but it was rewarding nonetheless.

#

"Oh, Val." Cara slumped on the couch with her family tree opened on her lap.

"What is it now, Ashley?"

She growled at him. "We're at home, Val. Could you at least call me Cara at home?"

He smirked. "But what if someone were to hear?"

"Then you could pretend it is a nickname. Doesn't it mean loved one in like a half a dozen languages?"

"True. So, what is it now, Cara, my love, my beloved sister, my precious..."

"Enough!"

He laughed.

"Oh, it's nothing."

"Of course it's not nothing. Spill." He sat down on the arm of the couch, staring her down from the higher ground.

Cara stroked her fingers over the book's pages. "It's just... I only have one descendant left. When he's gone, there'll be nothing left of the life I shared with Conall."

"You don't know that." He leaned over her shoulder. "You don't know that this Michael McKay is your last descendant. For all you know, he'll have a dozen kids and it will just branch out like it did the first time around."

Cara shook her head, rolling her eyes at him. "Don't be absurd. Mike is gay. The chances of him having any children of his own are pretty slim."

"Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't realize."

"Well, I'm always saying that everything ends eventually. I guess this couldn't have gone on forever." She stroked the pages once more.

Val stood up to leave, but turned back to her. "How did you know he was gay?"

Cara laughed. "You didn't read the entry very thoroughly, did you? Look." She pointed at an entry next to Michael's name.

"Richard Byrd." He shook his head. "So he's married?"

"Not necessarily. I've discovered in recent years that the book has a flaw. It will show any dedicated relationship. It doesn't have to be marriage."

"Hm. I didn't realize that."

"You learn something new every day."

#

Cara sat at her desk, staring out the window, her mind distracted from her writing, her mind filled up with thoughts of Conall. She knew it all stemmed from the recent death of Donald McKay. Why did so many of them die so young? He'd only been in his forties.

She tapped the surface of her laptop absentmindedly, contemplating the ending of an era. Val had just left for Italy, which was probably his first trip he'd taken without her since they met, and the first time being back to Italy since long before they met. She was happy for him, knowing how much it meant to him, but it also left her with too much time to think.

Then the stone sitting decoratively on the edge of her desk started flashing rhythmically, the bright, white light blinding in its intensity. She jumped up, grabbed the stone, and squeezed. In the blink of an eye, she stood in someone's attic. A door crashed open, and Cara attacked, using a combination of magic and physical prowess.

Cara shoved the man into the doorframe with a solid hit to the solar plexus that left him breathless, then brained him with the doorknob as she slammed the door into his head. He crumpled to the ground, moaning. She went in for the final blow when he attacked, knocking her legs out from under her.

"Gah!" she said as her back hit the floor, creating a billow of dust from the little used attic. She slammed down with her elbow, catching him in the throat.

He rolled away, gasping for air, and she used the opportunity to jab him in the kidneys. He screamed out in pain. Cara pushed herself upright, getting ready to land a blow that would likely leave him unconscious, when he blinked out of existence using some magic that probably used the very last of his reserves from the feel of it.

"Chaos be damned!" Cara punched the floor. She hadn't been that close to hopefully getting some answers in centuries.

"Who the hell are you?" a male voice said from behind her, anger and probably a little bit of fear tinting his voice.

Cara looked over her shoulder, taking in the red hair that reminded her of Ruadh, a jawline that just screamed Conall, and her own purple eyes. She hadn't met a descendant that looked more like her and Conall in years. She turned completed around and stood. "Why, I'm Cara, of course. Cara McKay."