Carpathian 20 - Dark Slayer

ran strong whether he wanted it or not. When he touched those faces, the love there, the sorrow, nearly drove him to his knees. Every single stroke of the implement used to forge those beloved lines from memory was done with tears running down her face and absolute love in her heart.
    As the pads of his fingers traced over the hair and foreheads, down to the eyes, noses and mouths, he felt the difference in her. At first those hands had been innocent of knowledge of the fate of her brothers. Little by little, the knowledge had been gained over centuries, until she knew of the betrayal of her five older brothers. His hands stilled and he drew in his breath sharply. Vampires . Betrayers. Master vampires banding together and plotting the downfall of the Carpathian people with... His heart sank. Her enemy. Her worst enemy. Xavier .
    It was all there in the stone. Every detail, every emotion, the blood and the tears and every ounce of love and forgiveness she had in her. She resolved never to see them as they were now, only to remember them with love in her heart where she could touch their faces here on this memorial and remember nothing but love from them.
    He wanted to weep for her, for her lost family. He couldn’t imagine what strength it must have taken for her to go on, so alone, so lost, the pain of her loss nearly intolerable, the strength of her love enduring. The other five faces were family—yet not blood. He felt her deep love for them, the caring, but fear was woven in there. She dreaded knowing their fate, and so he had stopped looking, afraid that they had taken the path of her brothers. The love shone through along with her dread of the truth.
    Below the faces of the ten men were six wolves, carved in exquisite detail, so real looking he touched the rock to see if the fur was really of stone. Each face was different, as if she’d studied a wolf and transformed the living creature into part of the earth for all time. The room was beautiful yet very simple and felt like home and love.
    He studied each face carefully, both man and wolf, knowing these were the important beings in her life. He wondered, if things had been different, whether his face would have been on the wall, immortalized with her family.
    Along the bottom of the wall she had carved sentences in the Carpathian language, the letters intricate with vines and leaves weaving in and out of them along with finely etched flowers woven into the sentences.
    SÃv pide köd. Pitäam mustaakad sielpesäambam . Love transcends evil. I hold your memories safe in my soul.
    Once again, as he passed his hand over the words, he felt the emotion pouring from the wall, so much so that he felt burning behind his eyes. Her love for her brothers, for her family and her pack, was tremendous and unwavering. Even with the knowledge that her brothers were dead to her, that they had betrayed her memory in the worst possible way, she not only was determined, but she succeeded in remembering them only as the family she had loved and adored.
    There was courage in those words, he decided. Courage and strength and determination. If there was a way to recover the lost souls of her brothers through sheer love and forgiveness, she would find a way. He traced the small crosses cut deep beneath each of her brothers’ faces and those of the De La Cruz brothers. Protection sparked back at him, as if that wall held the safeguards to protect her loving memories should she encounter the evil that her family had chosen to become.
    A short tunnel veered off to the right and an open arch led through to a third room. He glanced inside the third room, which was nearly an extension of her family room to find a soothing pool, with a small real waterfall spilling out of the rock. This room had carvings, but just the faint beginnings of them. He could make out a huge tree trunk, with many long, sweeping branches reaching across the rock as if to shade the pool. It was a work in progress and he wished he’d be there to watch her work.
    He ducked his head and entered the tunnel. His shoulders scraped against either side. Above the archway leading down into another room there was a cross cut deep. Already, before he even entered, he sensed a difference. Where the other rooms were feminine and homey, filled with soothing peace, love and comfort, this room was all about business and purpose. This was a workroom—a war room—and just as she had been