Winter sucked in her breath. “It’s for my birthday?” she squeaked. “You’re carving something just for me?”
He stepped outside with a chuckle and called to Snowball before turning back to her. “I thought that might pique your interest, if not drive you nuts for the next three months.”
“Can you give me a hint? Is it made of wood or stone?”
“Maybe it’s made of both,” he said cryptically, picking up Snowball’s bridle and slipping it onto the old draft horse. “Then again, maybe it’s made of nothing more than dreams spun from moonbeams.”
He leaned down and cupped his two hands into a step, so she could climb onto Snowball.
Winter let Tom vault her into the saddle, then took up the reins and smiled down at him. “I’ve never known anyone as secretive as you are,” she told him.
He squinted up at her. “No? Maybe you should look in the mirror more often. You bring your Mr. Gregor over for a visit. I’m anxious to meet him.”
“He is not myMr. Gregor.”
Tom patted her knee. “Don’t lift your hackles at me,” he said with a laugh, turning to Gesader, who was still standing in the cabin door. “Come along, Enchanter,” he said. “Time to escort your lady safely home.”
“Why is it all you men think I need a babysitter?”
Tom looked up at her. “When people care, we tend to get protective,” he said as he turned and headed back to his workshop. “Remember your promise,” he added over his shoulder. “And if you see a tall stranger in a kilt carrying a sword, Miss Curious, you run as fast as you can in the opposite direction.”
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 visitingwith 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 drùidhor 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 drùidhsrunning 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 drùidhstepped 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 borna drùidh,Greylen. She inherited the power from you.”