Faith is Fallen (Broken Fantasies Series)

Chapter 11

Author's Note: I'm awake.  I'm awake.  No, I'm not.  <snooze>

Conall stood in shock in the upstairs hallway, watching Cara's back recede through a doorway. Thoughts flitted through his head like arrows, flying at breathtaking speed, and gone just as quickly.

How could she have lied to him? But then, how could she have possibly told him?

What was she? But then, how could he have not known? The feathers in the forest. They had been beautiful, magical. So much so that he'd had someone got to the spot and collect the clean ones. They sat in a bag in his quarters, waiting for him to do something with them.

In the end, the anger abated as he realized that no one who had gone through what she had would be able to trust so easily. He had been working to gain her trust, and he told himself that she would have told him eventually. She would.

Yes, he nodded. She would have.

He picked up the pendant she'd placed on the floor, rubbing the purple stone that matched her eyes with his thumb. Magic. It had to be magic. And suddenly, his anger dissipated, his disbelief gone, curiosity reigned supreme. How did it work? What else could she do? Why it was amazing! Miraculous!

He smiled to himself. Everything was miraculous about his Cara.

Conall walked to the open doorway. Cara lay face first on the bedding, sobbing in a way that broke his heart.

"Cara? My love?"

She spun around, and looked at him, her face wet and red from her tears. Even so, she was still beautiful to him.

"You left your pendant in the hallway."

She stood, and took it, but didn't put it on. "I'm a Sidhe, Conall."

"A what?"

"A fairy."

He shook his head. "No, Cara. You're an angel."

She laughed, and wiped the remnants of her tears from her face. "No, I really am a fairy."

"But they're evil. You're not evil."

"We don't have any concept of good and evil, Conall. Order and Chaos, yes, but not good and evil. For my people, which we call the Seelie, we strive to preserve order. The Unseelie, they strive to create Chaos. Look at it like two religious factions that interpret the same thing differently."

"But no good or evil?"

"Good and evil are tenants that only make sense over short time spans. After all, how many acts actually have significance after a thousand years. More often, it's the repercussions that we see from that perspective. How something organizes and brings peace to a region, or war. But a single evil or good act? Those are often not remembered, nor do they matter expect for how those acts build upon each other to create history."

"And yet, you are so good. Not even believing in good and evil, and yet you are still good."

Cara didn't say anything for a moment, clearly thinking. "Perhaps it is that the acts that lead toward order tend to be acts of good, and the opposite is true for chaos. Maybe order is good on a larger scale. I've never really thought about it. It's not a Fae way of thinking, and it's probably not universally true, but it would be interesting to find out."

"So, you had wings? Those feathers were yours."

"Yes, I had wings. And it hasn't been easy learning to walk without them."

Conall's eyes widened at that truth. Good Lord, she'd never had to walk without them before. "How big where they?"

She smiled, the expression warming his heart, telling him that they could still make this work. Cara stretched out her arms. "They were huge! They would nearly drag the ground when they weren't spread out to fly."

"So, you could fly?"

"Oh yes, I could fly." She hugged herself. "It was a perfect sensation. Freedom, exhilaration. The world in a moment." Her face fell. She shrugged. "Things are different now. Everything changes with time."

"But I imagine that's not something your people usually have to adjust to, is it?"

She shook her head. "No, it's not. I would be a freak. That's not something I want to go back to, even if I could."

"You can't?"

"Not right now. Up until a couple of days ago, I couldn't even use my unconscious magic. I guarantee I'm not strong enough yet to go through a Faery gate."

"What's that?"

She shrugged. "It's a gate the connects your world and mine. You have to have magic to go through it. One like me, a Sidhe, can ordinarily go through at any time as we are the most powerful magically. Others can only go through on holidays like Samhain where the ambient magic of the worlds are strongest."

"That was the night I found you."

"It's customary to travel here on that holiday."

"And thus all the supertitions about that day. Which were caused by the Unseelie, yes?"

"Precisely." He shook his head in amazement. "Huh. I could go on like this all day, but there are people waiting for us downstairs." He reached out his arm for her. "Shall we?"

"You still want to go through with it," she said incredulously.

"More than ever."

"I can do magic. Wouldn't that make me a witch by your religion? And thus evil?"

"You could never be evil. Come. Let's become man and wife."

She gnawed on her lip fetchingly, but put her hand on his arm, allowing him to lead her downstairs, where they said their vows, without interruption this time.

When they kissed, the only thought in his head was Finally.