The hell with the legend! he’d thundered defiantly. But even in his grief, he’d known better. Whether or not the legend was true, he would not be the first MacKeltar to trespass on such sacred territory. Nay, he would accept, as all his ancestors had accepted, and honor his oaths. He had not been given unfathomable power to abuse it or use it for personal gain. He couldn’t justify using the stones to mend his own heart.
If he saved Dageus and became a dark Druid, what then would he do when Silvan grew ever older? Cheat fate again? A man could go crazy with so much power and no limits. Once he crossed such a line, there would be no turning back; he would indeed become a master of the black arts.
And so he’d bid farewell to Dageus and resworn his oath to his father. I will never use the stones for personal reasons. Only to serve and protect, and to preserve our line, should it be threatened with extinction.
As it was now.
Drustan ran a hand through his hair, exhaling. Dageus was dead. Silvan was dead. He was the only remaining Keltar, and his duty was clear. For five hundred years the world had been unprotected by a Keltar–Druid. He had to return and do whatever was necessary to restore a concurrent succession of the Keltar. At any cost.
And what about the price the woman will pay? his conscience chided.
“I have no choice,” he muttered darkly. He plunged his hands into his hair and massaged his temples with the heels of his palms.
He knew by rote the formulas for the thirteen stones, but he did not know the critical three, the ones that would specify the year, the month, the day. It was imperative that he return to the sixteenth century shortly after his abduction. Whoever had lured him beyond the castle walls would not be able to penetrate the fortress of Castle Keltar—even with a full army—for at least several days. The castle was too well-fortified to be taken easily. So long as he returned a day, or even two, after his abduction, he should still have time to save his clan, castle, and all the information within its walls. He would defeat his enemy, marry, and have a dozen children. With Dageus dead, he finally understood the urgency Silvan had tried to impart to his sons to rebuild the Keltar line.
Drustan, you must learn to conceal your arts from women and take a wife—any wife. I was blessed with your mother; ’twas a miraculous and uncommon thing. Though I wish the same for you, ’tis too dangerous to have so few Keltar.
Aye, he’d learned that the hard way. He rubbed his eyes and exhaled. He had a minuscule target at which to aim, and he’d never studied the symbols he now needed. He’d been forbidden to travel within his lifetime, so there had been no reason for him to commit to memory the symbols spanning his generation.
Yet…in a dark moment of weakness and longing, he’d looked up the ones that would have taken him back to the morning of Dageus’s death—and from those forbidden symbols he could attempt to derive the shapes and lines of the three he needed now.
Still, it would be a guess. An incredibly risky guess, with dire consequences if he didn’t get them right.
Which brought him back to the tablets. If Silvan had been able to hide them somewhere on the grounds before he’d suffered whatever fate had befallen him, Drustan wouldn’t have to guess—he could calculate the symbols he needed from the information on the tablets, with no fear of error. He felt fairly certain that if he returned himself to the day after his abduction, the leagues between his future self and his enchanted body, coupled with the thick stone walls of the cave, would be enough distance between them.
He had no choice but to believe that.
Drustan glanced around the ruins. While he’d brooded, full night had fallen and it was too dark to conduct a thorough search, which left him tomorrow to hunt for the tablets and try to recall the symbols.
And if the tablets weren’t there?
Well, then, that was why there was wee, sweet, unsuspecting Gwen.
Wee, sweet, unsuspecting Gwen perched on the hood of the car, munching celery sticks and salmon patties and absorbing the remaining warmth of the engine. She glanced at her watch. Nearly two hours had passed since she’d left Drustan at the ruin.
She could leave now. Just hop in the car, slam it into reverse, and squeal off to the village below. Leave the madman alone to sort out his own problems.
Then why didn’t she?
Pondering Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation, she considered the possibility that since Drustan’s mass was so much greater than hers, she was doomed to be attracted to him—so long as he was in her near vicinity—as much a victim of gravity as the earth orbiting the sun.
Lost in thought, she hummed absently as she huddled on the hood, shivering as the indigo sky deepened to black cashmere, arguing with herself and reaching no firm conclusions.