Winter scowled at the closing door of Tom’s workshop. Curses, the man was just as cryptic—

and just as confounding—as Father Daar.

Winter finally urged Snowball toward town and spent the ride home trying to imagine what Tom was hiding under that sheet in his workshop.

And what he was hiding in his past.

She would have her answer in exactly three months from yesterday, Winter realized with a sudden smile—on the winter solstice, on her and her sisters’ birthdays.

Chapter Four

W hile Winter was visiting with Talking Tom, Greylen MacKeage was standing in a cabin halfway up TarStone Mountain, trying very hard not to lose his temper and kill a priest. He knew damn well Grace would be mad at him if he did; but then again, if his wife could hear what Daar was telling him now, she just might offer to help.

“Ye promised I would be long dead before Winter came into her powers,” Grey reminded Daar, his eyes sparking with anger as they bore into the old drùidh. “That she would have a normal life up until then, and be an old woman herself before ye started her schooling. She’s not even twenty-five years old. Ye can’t have her yet.”

“But that was before,” Daar said, moving to put the tenuous safety of the table between them.

“I miscalculated, Greylen. I thought I would have more time. But as I’ve been trying to explain, there’s terrible trouble brewing, and I need Winter to come into her powers now.”

“Nay. I forbid it. Ye’ll not have my baby girl as long as there’s breath in me, priest.” Greylen took a threatening step toward him. “And if ye so much as even hint to Winter about her destiny, I will dispatch ye to hell myself, old man, my own soul be damned.”

Daar had been inching farther away throughout Grey’s tirade and was now pressed up against the back wall of his cabin. The old priest took a calming breath and held out his hands in petition. “Laird Greylen—” He took another shaky breath and tried again. “Grey. Ye don’t understand. Winter won’t even reach old age if she doesn’t step into her destiny now. None of us will be here. Hell,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Life as we know it will cease to exist.”

Grey crossed his arms over his chest. “Yer penchant for melodrama no longer affects me, priest. The sun will not stop shining if Winter has another forty or fifty years of peace and happiness. Ye cannot have her yet.”

“But it’s already happening,” Daar whispered. “The energy has already begun to alter. Have ye not noticed the fierceness of the storms that have been coming with unusual regularity? They’re the first sign of the trouble that’s brewing, Greylen, and it’s escalating at a rate even I didn’t foresee.”

“Weather is just weather, old man. Since the beginning of time, it has run in cycles. Grace can explain it to ye, if need be.”

The old priest reached up and scrubbed his face with his hands, then scowled at Grey through narrowed, crystal blue eyes. “This is different, I tell ye. Something is disturbing the continuum, which in turn is causing my tree of life to die. And if it dies, the others will soon follow.” He waved his hand wildly again. “And when they all die, the earth dies with them.”

“What exactly is killing your tree?”

Daar shrugged and finally stepped away from the wall. He moved to the hearth and stretched his hands to the fire’s warmth as he stared into it. “A transgression against the life force,” he said without looking up.

“What sort of transgression?” Greylen impatiently growled.

Daar shot him a quick frown, then went back to watching the fire. “Well, I’m guessing it might be a drùidh or guardian…ah, misusing his powers,” he said to the flames.

“Now what have ye done?”

“Not me!” Daar yelped, spinning to face him. “I’m not the one causing my tree to die. I’m trying to stop it!”

“Then who is?”

Daar shook his head with a calming sigh and dropped his gaze to the floor. “It could be any one of fifty or so souls. It matters not who, only that my tree is feeling the effects.”

“Fifty?” Greylen whispered in horror. “There are fifty of you drùidhs running around?”

“Nay,” Daar said, looking up. “There’s only six to ten of us at any one time. The other souls are guardians.”

“Then why isn’t one of these guardians dealing with this problem? Ye told Robbie MacBain that it’s his duty to protect us from you interfering bastards.”

“That is precisely why I’m thinking it’s a guardian causing the upset,” Daar said, scratching his beard.

Grey let his arms fall to his sides and took a step back. “A guardian?” he whispered. “Are ye saying a rogue guardian is killing yer tree of life?”

“Nay, he’s not doing it directly. He’s just turned against his calling, I’m thinking, and that’s upset the continuum. And that in turn is causing all the trees to weaken, until they die one by one. They cannot thrive when their energy is spent fighting to restore the balance.”

The old drùidh stepped closer, his hands clasped tightly in front of him. “Winter is our only hope, Greylen. My powers have faded to the point that I can’t keep my tree alive much longer. It will take a much younger, much more powerful wizard to save it. It will take yer daughter.”

“Nay. Ye can’t have her. She’s still only a bairn.”

Daar threw up his hands with a sound of disgust, then pointed at the hearth. “Do ye see that?”

he growled. “Right there, that little knot of wood sitting on the mantel, do ye see it? That’s all that’s left of my once-powerful staff. I’ve spent almost all of my energy trying to save my tree, while at the same time trying to find out who in hell has upset the continuum. But without my staff, I can barely toast bread now,” he ground out, still glaring at Grey.

“Then what do ye have to give Winter, old man? If yer powers are gone, what is there for her to inherit?”

Daar waved an impatient hand toward him. “Winter was born a drùidh, Greylen. She inherited the power from you.”

Grey paled. “Me?” he whispered. “I don’t have any powers, priest. I’m a warrior, not a wizard. Hell, I don’t even have the power to control my own daughters most of the time.”

Daar smiled. “Oh, Greylen. Ye have always carried our legacy in ye. Along with giving her yer warrior’s heart, ye also gave Winter the knowledge of the universe. From birth, Winter has been a drùidh.”

“Then why hasn’t she—” Grey suddenly stiffened. “Ye said our legacy. What do ye mean by our?”

“Just that,” Daar said with a smug grin. He angled his head. “Have ye never wondered why I chose you to father my heir, MacKeage? It’s because you and I are descended from the same ancestor.

We’re cousins, Greylen, with only five score of generations between us.”

It was Grey’s turn to scrub his face, as he tried to rub away the horrifying notion. He was related to Daar? Holy hell!

He still wanted to kill him.

“I couldn’t father my own heir,” Daar continued. “Because if a drùidh has a child, his powers are lost to a future generation. That’s what happened with our mutual ancestor. He chose marriage over what Providence asked of him, and so his power was handed down to me, his grandson.” Daar pointed at Grey. “But you also received the power of a drùidh, held dormant for all those generations, in case I gave up my own destiny or for when I finally needed an heir.” Daar clasped his hands behind his back. “I chose to serve Providence, so I became a priest instead of a husband. Then I simply waited until I could match ye up with Grace Sutter, so ye could have seven daughters together. And yer last daughter, Winter, is my heir.”

Grey thought about that. And he thought about his baby girl’s destiny. He leveled his narrowed, evergreen eyes on Daar. “So you’re saying that each drùidh has the choice of renouncing his destiny? All he has to do is have a child?”