Seeing evidence of that made me question why he kept himself aloof. Was there more to it? Was he being an asshole, not to protect himself but to protect me? To make sure that I had the fire in my belly to get up every morning and continue to fight? To give effect to the prophecy and come into my legacy? Again, asking him was pointless, because I knew he wouldn’t answer me.
But this revelation was just enough to hold onto hope—to understand that Gage was much more than he appeared to be. Ian’s earlier comments regarding Gage, back in his apartment, only cemented that.
When he first healed me, I’d been scared and uncertain, disbelieving at the use of his magic and how my bones and flesh knitted together. The process wasn’t completely painless either, for, in order to re-forge bone or knit flesh, the pain was akin to when the injury occurred.
This level of daily exposure meant that magic had become normalized, a large part of my life. It also meant there were no sick days.
Ian, McKenzie, and Aiden regularly observed my training lessons. Ian mainly visited on the weekend, but McKenzie and Aiden would sidle up at least once during the day to observe my actions from the benches on the lawn. They never said a word, but they didn’t need to. I could read their body language and expressions on their faces as I tried and failed to stand my ground against Gage.
They also watched me fail to find my spark, to find anything within but the gaping void of emptiness that greeted me every afternoon.
11
Cailleach
3rd Century BC, Ancient Scotland
Cailleach raised her hand to rub it against her brow, feeling every one of her thousand years after releasing the last mountain spring from winter’s icy grasp.
Her body ached as it always did near the end of winter, her soul drained from the power she’d exerted these last six months unleashing turbulent deluges, raging blizzards, and vicious thunderstorms. For nature required a balance, and it was her role to see its due.
And she had. Her lightning bolts had unerringly hit the trees struck by disease, her snowstorms burying the dens of those animals who had begun to dominate the forest, and the swollen springs and rivers had washed away all the dead debris, clearing the land like a fresh, blank canvas. And with the release of this last mountain spring, her role was finally complete. Because tonight was the eve of Beltane, the night before her sister, Brighid, would reign. Winter’s mantle had been paid in full, and Cailleach would finally be able to put her stone hammer away and replenish her power for the warmer half of the year.
The thought made her heart race. Because this summer she wouldn’t spend that time alone. This summer, she would share it with the Druid.
Tritus.
Against her will, her eyes shifted to the object of her thoughts.
Tritus was crouched protectively over some young seedlings, his brows knitted together in concentration as his hands hovered protectively around the delicate stem of a pine tree. She watched in silence as he used his magic to thicken and lengthen its thin trunk, at the pine needles that extended to twice their length until they resembled the fifty other seedlings that lay similarly nurtured along the bank of the stream.
Tritus had worked tirelessly alongside her these last six months, and Cailleach marveled at the power he now wielded. A power that had been awakened. She suspected that, just like his horns, his power had flourished when the prophecy enacted by her brother’s machinations had led them together.
It was a power inherited from his father, because Cernunnos, her older brother, had not only been able to master the weather as she did, but to nurture the earth as well. It was a complementary suite of powers that he, together with their mother and father, had wielded to establish this world they lived in.
When winter’s mantle had been forced upon her, the balance of that power had shifted. No longer was there a fair trade-off between death and new growth, because Cailleach had only been given the power to wield the weather—a power of death and destruction. Although she’d managed to twist and bend the role to her will. By living with mortals, and on the land itself, Cailleach had been able to understand where the scales of nature were unbalanced. So when she unleashed her power, she made sure that the center of her storms were directed to those areas that needed eradicating, and the periphery of those storms affected those areas that needed replenishing. It wasn’t an easy role for Cailleach to fulfill, for it required time and extensive knowledge of where and when to hit. As such, every day of the last six months had been spent traveling around her domain, trenching through the snow over frozen streams to hidden glens and hibernating dens, to determine which areas were diseased, which were overpopulated, and which areas needed support.
Cailleach admitted to herself that this time it had been more exhausting than usual, particularly because of the tension associated with this man in her presence—this man who was her fated mate.
At that moment, Tritus cut his eyes to hers as if he’d felt her stare.
“What is it?” he murmured as he lowered his hands from the seedling, the small pine tree now replenished by his magic.
Cailleach gave a minute shake of her head. “Nothing.” Then realizing it wasn’t his fault that he was the reason for her exhaustion, she amended softly, “I’m just tired.”
He stared at her, emerald eyes darkening as they traveled over her face and down her body. “You’ve been pushing yourself too hard,” he said quietly as he moved to his feet. He held out a hand. “Come, we should return home. Your job is now complete with the release of that spring, and I can finish these seedlings later. They’ll still be here tomorrow.”
Her chest tightened at the comment. She wasn’t ready to face the jealousy—not the freedom Tritus would have to wander outside the cave during the summer months, but rather the opportunity he would have to come across others, particularly other women.
What if he came across Brighid?
The thought speared her like a deadly arrow. Her sister shone like spun gold and had always been the most favored of all her siblings, desired more than any of them. There was no way she could compare with Brighid—even before she’d been given the visage of a crone by Morrígan.
Swallowing her anxiety, Cailleach stepped forward and accepted his hand. “Yes,” she returned quietly.
Tritus tugged her in the direction of the cave, and she fell silently into step beside him.
Through the internal bond they shared, Cailleach could feel his searching gaze, the unasked questions he curbed, and knew that in turn, he could feel her emotions and the anxiety she was trying to hide. But she wasn’t going to share what was in her thoughts because, since their verbal claiming when that gossamer thread had reformed into something stronger, their private thoughts were the only barrier left between them, and one she didn’t want to bring down—maybe not ever.
They walked in silence through the forest, and Cailleach did not miss the crunch of snow beneath her boots. Another reminder that her time to reign had come to an end. Her thoughts turned inward on the journey back, conscious of nothing but the feel of Tritus’s hand wrapped around her own, and it wasn’t until he stopped that she realized he hadn’t led her to the cave. Instead, before them was a small clearing, and in the middle of that clearing lay a sparkling mountain tarn with a large flat stone next to it.