The Caein Legacy’s Long History

On May 24, 2019, I started writing something “new.”

It was a story that had been brewing in my head for years, one that I’d started and stopped countless times, often with different characters featured as the main, but nothing felt right. Not until that date, anyway.

There were several iterations with a character named Castin, a boy with the Mage’s Mark kept hidden from the kingdom’s authorities. The original concept was meant to be YA. But it was scrapped at least three times that I can remember. Castin did not make it into the final story.

In a few of those early renditions, a Merael girl named Emmarie appeared. In some she was just an acquaintance while in others she had a special gift, one that allowed her to speak with animals. Emmarie survived the myriad changes I made in the final rendition of what became The Caein Legacy. She first appears in the later chapters of Exile, is a constant throughout Guardian, and holds a minor role in both Harbinger and Legend. She was one of the few characters that has been a constant throughout the evolution of this story.

As my ideas finally started to coalesce, I decided on a story of brothers. Andrew, the eldest, would be the main character. I understand the oldest sibling role, as I’m one myself. It felt more natural to cast him as the lead. And it’s one of his brothers, Alexander, who ultimately became the bearer of the Mage’s Mark. But the final version of this story veered out of the realm of YA when I opted to make both brothers adults at the onset of the tale. It felt right to write it from an adult perspective, and I believe it worked.

Colin, the antagonist, is also one of Andrew’s brothers. In the early versions, I hadn’t named the fury-driven king, nor had I fully developed his personality or tone. By making him a sibling, it gave the story a sibling-rivalry angle as well as the complicated dynamics of family that binds the villain to the main character.

I’m not going to say Andrew is a hero, because that implies things that don’t properly fit the story. He does what he believes is right, but others are hurt along the way. If the story were flipped and told from Colin’s perspective, I think most readers would cast Andrew in the role of villain, even if Colin could never be considered heroic himself. Both characters have many facets to their personalities.

In one of the early versions, Claire (Andrew’s wife at the beginning), was his ally. She was the supportive spouse, the one who would stand at his side no matter what… But that was drastically altered in the final manuscript. Their marriage was arranged, and her devotion didn’t make sense. Instead, I altered their dynamic to one of contention and outright hostility on Claire’s part. She was horrible toward Andrew in Exile, but I’ll share that she redeems herself later in the series. This change was necessary to increase the stakes—and the sense of loss Andrew feels later on. As Claire says at one point in Harbinger, “We were a poor match, you and I.”

But all of those early versions were set aside for one reason or another. None of them worked. None of them felt right.

And then something happened on May 24, 2019. Something clicked.

I’d been struggling with this story for over a decade, and I was hesitant to start yet another version that would end unfinished, but it continued to nag at me. I had to write it down. I had to.

So, I did.

And what resulted became The Caein Legacy, a story of four brothers on different paths, a story of a kingdom in turmoil, of ancient laws and old prejudice set in a land laced with magic, monsters, and the last of the dragon-kind.

It took four books to tell the story in full. I finished drafting Legend in September 2020, on a day I remember well only because the smoke plume from the Cameron Peak Fire was casting a shadow over everything in my area. I don’t recall the exact date I finished Legend, but it was early September, the sky was red even at noon, and ash was raining down everywhere. Considering how the final battle in the series went, it was a fitting backdrop.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I tried to query this series for some time. I started querying Exile while I was still writing the other books. I continued to query into early 2022, when I made the decision to give up. I’ve written about some of my reasons previously, so I won’t reiterate those here.

The Caein Legacy has significant meaning for me. It wasn’t just the concepts rattling in my brain for years (maybe decades) that propelled me to pursue publication. Exile was the book that really got me into writing again. Andrew is the character I resonate with most out of all those I’ve written—and I don’t believe that will change, at least not any time soon.

The Caein Legacy is a work of the heart, my heart, and I won’t see it languish. I may not have secured an agent for this series, but I’ve since learned indie publishing has a number of unexpected perks, and I’ve started to see some success with my other books. It’s a slow road, but it has been worth it so far. And I want to see this series published. It’s too important to me to allow it to fade into obscurity in my drawer of discarded and doomed pieces.

And so, I’m on the path to seeing this series published. I have cover art for all four books, they’ve all been revised and edited, and Exile is currently with the proofreader. I have a release date set (but preorders are not available yet – wait for April.)

Exile will release on May 24, 2023.

It’s the fourth anniversary of the date I started writing the final iteration. And I think that’s fitting.