Disclaimer:

I do not own any of these characters. Brandon Mull is the creator and owner of Kendra, Seth, Bracken, Grandpa and Grandma Sorenson, Kendra's Mother and Father, and anyone else in the story except for Lillian.

Chapter 1- The Ceremony

One month before my sixteenth birthday, my grandpa Sorenson, the owner of the magical preserve named Fablehaven, called my younger brother Seth and I into his office to talk.

"Kendra, Seth, we need to discuss some matters of business," he started. "Soon Agad will be sealing up the new artifacts and choosing five new Eternals."

"Oooooo! I want to be one," Seth exclaimed practically jumping out of his chair.

"Well Seth, this topic is more angled toward your sister. The age limit is 15. Sorry, but you're too young. So, Kendra would you like to be one of the five new Eternals?" he asked me.

"I would love to," I exclaimed. This was the one thing that I wanted the most! Being an Eternal meant becoming immortal. That means that I get to stay with Bracken for ever! And, I'm also protecting Zzyzz from opening again. It was the best of both worlds!

"Wonderful! You will have to contact Agad right away. The ceremony is supposed to take place to nights from now. Sorry about the short notice, we did it for safety purposes." He explained.

"Oh, it's ok. I thought you had already chosen the new Eternals and I was to young or something. Do you think becoming an Eternal will interfere with me being Fairykind and all?" I asked a little scared for a second. I loved being Fairykind! Being able to talk to the fairies and be close to the Fairy Queen was amazing! I definitely was not ready to give all that up!

"That's what the Fairy Queen asked when we told her that we were going to see if you were interested in being an Eternal. We checked immediately and found no known source that says that it would interfere with your unique talent. Everything is ready for you to become an Eternal," Grandpa concluded.

"Well, that's wonderful," I said with a smile. I was screaming on the inside! The Fairy Queen wanted to make sure it was ok for me to be an Eternal! That must mean that she wants me to be one! This was terrific news.

"Well, Kendra the rest of the meeting really doesn't apply to you, so if you want to leave you can," grandpa said, interrupting my thoughts.

"I think I'll go. Thanks grandpa!" I said as I got up.

"Don't forget to contact Agad! He'll be delighted to find out that you decided to help seal Zzyzz," he said.

The wait was killing me. It had been two days since I had made my decision about becoming an Eternal. The ceremony was to take place tonight at the stroke of midnight. When I had informed Agad, he was overjoyed. He said that he and the four other Eternals would be there soon. He gave me one rule. It was that I was not aloud to tell anyone about my decision. I thought that would be easy enough to follow. I was way wrong though.

Bracken was over today. I couldn't stop thinking about the ceremony. I hadn't told Bracken, but I knew he knew there was something on my mind. We were walking through one of the five garden mazes when he stopped.

"What's the matter Bracken," I asked him.

"Well, I was just thinking about my mother and how she's been acting strangely to me for the past week. And now you're acting strange. Is everything ok," he asked, questions burning in his silver eyes. Oh no! Was it to soon to tell someone? Would Agad get mad? How could I lie to him though? He was always honest with me. I should be totally honest with him.

"Well, you know how Agad is sealing up the new artifacts and all?" I asked him hesitantly.

"Yah, I gave him my horn again," he said a smile playing on his lips.

"Well, he's making the new Eternals tonight… and I'm one of them. Your mom knew even before me. I made my decision two days ago. I'm sorry I didn't tell you. Agad said that I should keep my decision a secret. Please don't hate me for not being honest with you," I said hiding my face from him.

He pushed my hair back behind my ear and pulled my chin up so that I was looking him straight in the eye.

"Kendra, how could I ever hate you? You kept it a secret for your own safety. I'm so happy for you… and for us," he said. He caressed my face in his left hand and used his right to pull me closer to him. When our lips touched, it was like an electric jolt. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled my self closer to him. I loved him so much!

Finally, I had to pull away for air. I only pulled an inch away and leaned my forehead to his. We were both breathing heavily.

"I love you Kendra, and I always will," he said with all the certainty in the world.

"I love you to," I said. We spent the rest of the day walking through the gardens and talking. At about 8:30, my mom called me inside.

"Kendra! You need to come inside and get ready. Vanessa and I are going to do your hair and make up," she said.

"Well, I'll see you tomorrow," I said, not wanting to leave his side.

"I'm going to escort you to and from the ceremony! Your guardian and I are going to be your number one protectors from now on," he said with a sly grin. I gave him a quick kiss and then ran into the house to get ready.

I had to wear all white to the ceremony for some reason. They told me that it was to symbolize light. For my make up, my mom and Vanessa decided to go with a more natural look. They used light browns, tans, and a light green to help accent my hair. They choose to curl my hair. They wove bits of twine in my hair to give it a forestry feel. To top it off, they used a flower pin that matched my dress perfectly to pin back my bangs. The finished product looked beautiful!

"Oh Kendra, you look gorgeous," my mom said as she looked over her work.

"I agree! You look like a fairy," Vanessa said.

"Thank you so much! I love it," I said. "Well, I need to go now. Wish me luck," I exclaimed.

Outside, Bracken was waiting on the porch. He stood up when I came out.

"You look ravishing," he exclaimed. "Like a beautiful fairy."

"That's what Vanessa said. And thank you," I said with a smile.

The walk to the shrine zoomed by. One minute we were leaving the yard and the next, I was getting ready to get in my boat. Before I left, he pulled me up to his face and kissed me as a mortal for the last time.

"I love you," he said. Then he sent my boat off toward the island were the ceremony was to take place.

When my boat hit the shore of the island, I got out and headed towards the statue in the center of the island. When I got there I saw five people standing and conversing quietly amongst themselves.

"Ah Kendra. I was beginning to worry," I heard Agad say. He walked away from one of the other future Eternals and came to my side.

"Here is your rock. At the end of the ceremony, it will turn into your guardian," he said handing me a small, dark-purple, smooth rock.

"Now that we're all here, we can start. Please clasp hands and make a circle. Put the rock that I gave you in your right hand…" after he said this, the rest of the ceremony was in a language that Kendra didn't know so she knew that it was not some kind of Fairy language. He started singing after awhile and the circle began to glow. The light was coming from everyone in the circle. It was like we were light bulbs being turned on for the first time. Then the light died out and I could tell Agad was coming to a conclusion.

"You may now break the circle. Congratulations to all of you. You are officially Eternals," he said. Everyone looked looser like a huge weight had been lifted off of them.

"You may now open your hands and meet your guardians. One of you will have the alpha of the guardians. This just means that if one of them has a problem, they go to the alpha for the answer," Agad explained.

When everyone opened their hands animals came out. There was a wolf, a German shepherd, a lion, and a monkey. They were all so beautiful.

I waited until everyone had opened their hands to revel my guardian. When I opened my hand, a fairy flew out. She had long read hair curled with twine in it and natural looking make up on. She looked exactly like me. She was slightly bigger than a fairy, about 1 foot tall. Everyone gasped including Agad and myself.

"This is amazing! I have never seen such a thing. She looks just like you Kendra. What is your name," he asked my guardian.

"My name is Lillian. I am the alpha of the guardians. You may introduce your selves," Lillian said to the other guardians.

"Hello Lillian, my name is Kendra. Do you know why you look like me," I asked.

"I look like you because you are the prettiest fairy in the world and the Fairy Queen herself choose my natural form since you are Fairykind," she explained.

"But I'm not a fairy," I said. I knew that my family and Bracken had said that I resembled a fairy, but I sertantly wasn't one!

"Yes I know, but you look like one. The Fairy Queen choose you to be my natural form because you are so beautiful," Lillian concluded.

I could feel myself blush as everyone agreed with the last statement.

"Well, I'm going to go, I'm tired," I said looking for a way to escape all of the attention. I liked it, a lot, but it felt wrong some how. I needed someone else's undivided attention, not the other men here.

When my boat stopped at the pier, Lillian and I got out. I walked over to my favorite pavilion were I kept a couple extra books for when I was waiting for Bracken. I picked my favorite, Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis.

"You don't realize how beautiful you are, do you," Lillian said after a minute of silence.

"Well, I just didn't feel comfortable with the other men looking at me like that. There's only one man in this world that is aloud to look at me like that and that's my boyfriend Bracken. I felt very vulnerable back there," I explained.

"I understand, but you'll have to get over it when you look like a goddess," she said with a smile. I couldn't help but smile back. She came over and sat on my shoulder and read with me. After a while, I started to worry. Where was Bracken? Then, to my relief, I heard him calling for me.

"Over here Bracken," I called back to him. "Bracken is the Fairy Queen's only son so he's ok. I really hope you like him," I said to Lillian.

"Kendra," he exclaimed as he ran up and picked me up and held me in his arms. Our lips met and I kissed him happily. Then he set me down.

"This is Lillian. She is my other guardian," I said with a smile.

"Nice to meet you Bracken! I've heard nothing but good things about you," she said shaking his hand.

"Well, you look like your about to fall asleep right here. Let's go back to the house," Bracken said. I went to get up, but fell back down. I started laughing quietly at myself. I was really tired! Then, out of nowhere, Bracken picked me up and cradled me in his arms.

"We can't have you getting hurt now can we," he asked smiling. He carried me back to the house. Good thing I've been working out so I lost a few 15 pounds!

When we got to the yard I expected him to set me down, but he surprised me because of taking me to the attic, he carried me to a different room.

"Why not the attic," I asked. The attic was the safest place in the entire house.

"Well, since you became immortal, the protection on the attic doesn't work on you any more. So, while you were gone, everyone pitched in and made you a new room," he explained.

"I'm going to guard the door. If you need me I'll be right outside," Lillian said. Have fun, but don't get to crazy.

The room was gorgeous. The four walls switched between lime green and purple and the ceiling was a light blue like the sky. The rest of the room followed the walls example. The theme of my room was fairies. My bed spread was lime green with little fairies that came in all different shades of purple. There were two doors leading from my new room. One was my own bathroom and the other was a walk in closet! I looked at the closet; the cloths in it weren't mine.

"Vanessa and Warren supplied a whole new wardrobe for you, well, not entirely new. They kept some of your more favorite ensembles," Bracken said coming up behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist. He leaned his head on my shoulder and we stood like that for a little. Then he let go and pulled me back out into the room. He sat on the bed and I sat next to him.

"So, how did the ceremony go," he asked. There really wasn't much to tell since I didn't understand what Agad was saying.

"Well, Agad spoke in a language that I didn't recognize so there really isn't much to tell. Did I tell you the Lillian is the alpha guardian," I asked.

"No you didn't. Well, that means that she is the strongest. You lucked out, but then again so did I," he said with a smile. I leaned in and kissed him. I wrapped my arms around his neck and he pulled me onto his lap. After a while I pulled away. I stifled a yawn and he laughed.

"You need to go to bed," he said. I got up and walked to the closet and looked for my pajamas. I found things that resembled pajamas but they all lacey underwear and tiny tank tops. Where were all of my pajamas? I picked out the most modest outfit I could find. I'm pretty sure that there was only one pair of shorts in that whole draw and they barely covered my butt! I looked in the full length mirror on the inside of my door. The shirt said "Kiss me, I'm Irish" who picked these out for me? Not my mother for sure! The pajamas covered up only what they needed to. Oh well.

When I came back out I found Bracken in nothing but pajama pants sitting on my bed. He was reading a book, but when I came in he almost dropped it.

"Hi," I said. I walked over to the bed and pulled back the covers and got in. That's when I realized that the bed was a King sized bed.

"Hello Kendra. Would you like me to turn the lights off before I get into bed," he asked walking towards the light switch.

"Sure," I said I wasn't ready for this! I had promised my mom that I wouldn't until I was married! No, Bracken wouldn't do this, he wouldn't push me.

And he didn't. The only thing we did was cuddle and then I fell asleep, in his arms. It felt right. I knew that I wanted to fall asleep in his arms every night for ever.