When Kendra is seventeen, she becomes an Eternal. Nearly everyone is against it, but in the end it becomes her choice. The effects aren't immediately apparent- to her surprise, she still grows slightly. Apparently, she's not stuck at seventeen. When she voices her concerns to Agad, he tells her not to worry. Something like this happened last time- she'll stop aging when she's ready to stop aging.
Kendra's worried that it might take a while.
When Kendra is twenty one, her grandfather dies- Grandpa Sorenson, that is. A funeral is held, and Kendra hasn't cried this much since Gavin's betrayal really sunk in. Grandma Sorenson follows soon after, and the Larsens pass just two years later. It's a hard time for all, to be sure.
If she had been paying closer attention to Seth, she might of noticed that he wasn't crying as much as he should have been. There end up being lots of should haves in Kendra's life.
When Kendra is twenty one, she ends up becoming the caretaker of Fablehaven. Seth is named assistant caretaker.
They fight over it, of course.
There's yelling, and blaming, and at one point the room spins and she's pretty sure Seth did that, but in the end no agreement is reached. Afterwards, she can't find Seth. He's missing for a week and three days before he comes back. All is apparently forgiven.
Kendra ignores the sinking feeling in her gut.
When Kendra is twenty seven, she and Seth have another fight.
It's over Kendra being made an Eternal. He wasn't even in the lineup, Seth points out. Kendra nearly lunges at him for that- it wasn't that she relished the thought of being alive forever, (although actually being with Bracken is a plus) it's a sense of duty, obligation. Why can't he get that through his head?
In the end, they both storm off. Two hours later, she goes to her brother's room to apologize.
He isn't there.
When Kendra is twenty seven, her brother disappears off the face of the earth.
(Later, she notices that the adamantine breastplate and one of the adamantine swords are missing. For some reason, she doesn't say anything.)
When Kendra is thirty one, she stops aging. She notices this at forty, when very few of her hairs have turned gray, and she's just as physically fit as she was nine years ago.
She's still not quite over mourning Seth. A funeral hasn't been held for him, but everyone believes he's dead. Kendra suspects he isn't- if he didn't let demons or dragons get to him, he should be able to live pretty much anywhere without much trouble.
She hopes.
When Kendra is forty six, she's made Captain of the Knights of Dawn. Not that they really do much, nowadays, but the new recruits like meeting her. She is legend, and everyone who's anyone wants to get her signature.
"So," some poor fool asks one day "how did you obtain Vasilis?"
Kendra stares at him in shock before breathing in deeply and walking away.
It doesn't help when she hears one of her Lieutenants whisper to the boy.
"Shhh," he says "don't ask her about that, her brother was the one who retrieved it, and everyone knows he's dead."
When Kendra is fifty one, her brother returns. It isn't pretty.
There are still some demons out there. They are few and far between, but they exist. And it's still the Knights of Dawn's duty to protect people from them.
This one is called Yan Farat, a towering creature much like a spider. It's already sucked the life out of three of her twelve Knights, growing with each human it consumes. Despite this, the remaining ones stand strong- she's almost close enough to lay her hands on it. She's learned, with Bracken's help, how to channel her inner light. Her touch sears the flesh of creatures of the darkness, and the demon is injured enough that it might bring the creature down.
It is then that she hears two of the Knights behind her cry out in pain. She turns, and that second is enough for the demon to slay another of the Knights in front of her.
She doesn't notice that. Not yet, in any case.
Because her brother is here. That's the good news.
The bad news is he's the one commanding wraiths to attack her men. In another instance, it might be humorous to see him holding an umbrella over one of the wraiths so it is shielded from the sun. Now, it only horrifies her.
"Sorry," he says, not really sounding the part. "but I kind of wanted to talk to the spider guy, and while I get there's a line I don't feel like waiting."
The two Knights attacked by the wraiths collapse. Yan Farat snatches another one with a spindly leg. She is forced to retreat.
Seth lets her.
When Kendra is fifty three, she has to go to a press conference on how to stop her brother. He's described only as "a dangerous shadow charmer". It pains her to see what he's become.
They've faced four more time. On the fourth, he stabbed through her stomach with a slender blade. Adamantine, she realizes.
"Don't worry," he says as she falls to the ground. "I know you'll live."
Not many people know she's an Eternal. Seth is one of the few left alive who does. (Their father has died, but their mother is still around. Warren, Vanessa, Tanu- they all know, but they won't be around too much longer either.)
They don't know about the stabbing thing. But they do know he made a direct attack on their Captain, and hence needs to be stopped.
One of the things that worries her is that he hasn't aged very visibly. She wonders what he's done to himself.
When Kendra's seventy five, she and her brother come to a stand still. Occasionally, he'll pop by the Knight's main headquarters with useful (more frequently, useless) information. Other times, it's just a social visit.
People are noticing something's up with her aging, or lack thereof. She tells them it's a fairykind thing, and people believe her.
She and Seth coexist for a very long time.
Many years pass. The Knights fall, and rise, and fall, and rise. Frequently, she is the one who drags them back up.
She misses her family. In a way, she begins to understand Mark- a thought that scares her. At least she still has her brother and husband. While Bracken always stay nearby, Seth will go missing for decades, one time a century and a half, and each time Kendra wonders if she missed her chance to say goodbye before he pops back up again.
There are rumors starting- rumors of a mysterious society named after the evening star. Seth swears he isn't behind it. She believes him.
She gathers her Knights. Kendra is ready to fight.
When Kendra is two thousand five hundred and fifty two, an archer fires an arrow at her. She doesn't see it in time, and phoenix fire begins to consume her body.
Bracken is with her. As she burns, he holds her and cries- there is no way to put out the fire, and he is forced to see his wife turn to ash in his hands.
The image she sees last is her brother appearing on the scene. He commands wraiths, and liches, and zombies, each one more terrifying than the last. He hurls fireballs, shoots rays of ice from his hands. Kendra completely sees why people are so scared of shadow charmers- and this one has centuries upon centuries of experience.
But this is not what strikes her about it. Because for the first time in over two and a half millennia, he truly stands with her.