In his own far-off corner of the land, Iain MacLean again ran through the chaos of Baldoon’s great hall, two brimming water buckets in his hands. He emptied them in the still-burning chapel as he and his kinsmen had been doing for hours. The only difference was his certainty that every saint worth his wings watched him. They surely frowned on him in fine, haloed fury.

He didn’t want to think about the old Celtic gods.

How could he, anyway?

There wasn’t time with clouds of smoke still pouring from the chapel. An accidentally toppled candle-stand and all hell had broken loose.

A shame he’d carry all his days.

Certain of it, he tossed aside the empty buckets and grabbed two full ones. He blinked against the sting of smoke. He also tried not to cough. Though he should welcome the choking, the heat-blistered air.

The truth was…

If the saints or ancients had a shred of mercy, they’d let the chapel fire claim him as well.

He deserved such an end.

Unfortunately, his brother, Donall, had other plans.

Every inch as tall as Iain, and of the same impressive build and dark good looks, Donall stepped before Iain, blocking his path to the smoke-clogged chapel. Iain frowned, his mood darkening as a group of Donall’s warriors joined him.

Donall gave them a nod and they formed a tight line behind him.

A barrier between Iain and the chapel.

Donall glanced that way now, then whipped out his sword with the loud zing only the most lethal of blades can produce. He aimed the sword’s tip at Iain’s middle.

“Dinnae even think of going back in there,” he warned, his gaze hard as ice-frosted stone, his voice equally cold.

Iain ignored the threat. “Every MacLean here is running in there.”

“No’ in the way you were just planning.”

“So?” Iain didn’t deny it.

“I willnae allow it, Iain.”

“You would stay me with your sword?” Iain held his older brother’s gaze. “Our own father’s blade?”

“I have no desire to hurt you.” Donall kept the sword in place. “Even so, I will cut you if I must. If you attempt further foolishness.”

“Then have at me.” Iain lifted his hands, palms out. “You think I fear steel more than flames?”

“I know you fear nothing.” Donall threw another look at the ruined chapel. “I’m still warning you to consider God’s wrath. And no’ just His. Dinnae forget that our chapel, indeed the whole of Baldoon, was built on a site sacred to the ancients.”

“So it was.” Iain hooked his thumbs in his sword belt. “The old ones will also want a piece of me.”

“They’d have every right.”

“I’m no’ arguing.” He wasn’t. “I ken what I did. I’m no’ proud of it.”

He dashed at his eyes, stinging and streaming from the smoke haze. If something else had a hand in his eyes watering, he hoped his brother wouldn’t guess.

He didn’t want sympathy.

Even so, he clenched his hands around his belt. The damning truth was that if he’d loved Lileas as fiercely as MacLean men were legended to love their women, he would have sensed the danger stalking her that day. He could have kept her from going anywhere near the Lady Rock.

But he’d felt nothing.

He hadn’t even thought of her that morning – until it was too late.

So he staunched his guilt the only way he knew. He kept his shoulders squared, his gaze on Donall. “I should care for gods so cruel they’d allow Lilieas to be murdered?”

“Neither God or the old ones had a hand in her death. But they will no’ be pleased that you’ve set fire to hallowed ground.”

“Aye, you have the way of it,” Iain seethed, no longer trying to contain his anger. “None of them had anything to do with the deed. They were all sleeping that foul-dawning day, just as they did when my grief sent me wheeling away from the altar and into the candle-stand.

“Or…” Iain leaned toward his brother. “Are you accusing me of deliberately toppling the candelabrum? Do you think I wished to set fire to the chapel?”

Donall studied him for a long, uncomfortable moment.

“Everyone knows you’ve spent more time on your knees in there than in your own bedchamber,” he said at last. “Why should you burn the one place you seek sanctuary? Nae, my brother, I think your own torments and fury blinded you.”

“I’d say it’s my right to feel both.”

Donall lifted a brow, his silence telling.

Iain drew himself to his full height, cocked a brow of his own. “You dare say I’ve no claim to those rights?”

“I say you forfeited them when your temper caused you to knock over the candle-stand.”

“Someone moved it.”

“Nae. The candelabrum stood in its usual place.”

“It scarce matters now.”

“No’ true.” Donall gestured to the kinsmen still battling the flames. “It matters to them.”

As it does to me! Iain’s temper roared. So much that I see no purpose in living in the dark, chasing shadows all my days…

He also wouldn’t be pitied.

So he took a step forward, then another, until the point of Donall’s sword pricked him. Only then did he risk a smile, his first in longer than he could recall.

And meant to be his last.

Eager for the peace he sought, he readied himself for a sprint into the flames. His decision made, he let the smile spread through him, bringing sweet, blessed relief.

The welcome surety that his agony would soon end.

“You err, brother mine, for I do know fear,” he said then. “I fear living and” – he made an impatient gesture – “I’ve grown weary of it.”

Realization flashed across Donall’s face.

“Nae!” He flung aside his sword and lunged forward, throwing his arms around Iain in the same moment a strange prickling in the back of Iain’s neck made him spin about.

His agility rewarded him with the glimpse of a bonnie raven-haired lass rushing at him. Wild-eyed and screaming, she held a large earthen wine jug above her head.

His sister, Amicia.

And the descent of her jug was the last thing he saw before numbing darkness claimed him.

Miles away on the other side of Doon, strong winds swept across the isle’s moors and peat bogs, but skirted a certain cliff-top glade, not daring to bend a single blade of grass within its enchanted circle.

A thatched cottage stood there, thick-walled and silent. Perched on the edge of nowhere, high above the sea, the cottage was sheltered by silver birch and rowan trees, and the magic of Devorgilla, Doon’s resident crone and wise woman.

The cailleach who even now as Iain slept, used her skills to borrow some of his darkness to cloak her own doings from the gloaming’s light.

“No’ the time of year for spelling,” she muttered, fastening a length of dark linen over a window. The last one to receive such a blackening treatment.

Tsk’ing, she smoothed the cloth into place. Her most potent incantations had failed to conjure sufficient gloom.

And no wonder.

Iain MacLean’s disbelief thwarted her.

The window-draping done, she hitched her skirts and peered at her small, black-booted feet. As she’d expected, her red-plaid shoe laces weren’t glowing as brightly as usual.

The lad’s doubt cast a powerful shield.

“Nae bother.” She rubbed her hands. “I be stronger.”

Sure of it, she shuffled across the stone-flagged floor toward an oaken bench against the far wall.

“‘I want none of your fool mumblings and even less of cauldrons bubbling over with newts and bats’ wings,’” she mimicked him as she sat down on the bench.

Once settled, she allowed herself a well-earned cackle and pulled a wooden bowl filled with stones onto her knees.

She beamed, a familiar thrill racing through her.

“Iain the Doubter shall have a more potent cure than toenail of newt and wing of bat,” she informed the stillness, her focus on the softly gleaming stones.

Special stones.

Highland quartz, mostly, though some came from sacred places throughout the Isles.

Faery fire stones, rare and precious. Each one collected by her own hands or gifted to her by those more appreciative of her talents than a certain dark-eyed scoundrel too stubborn for his own good.

She knew better.

So she poked through her treasures until the tips of her fingers grew tingly and warm. Satisfaction prickled inside her when the stones began to vibrate.

Delighted, she plucked his stone from the bowl and placed it beside her on the bench.

Her stone, the one she’d selected to represent Iain MacLean’s one true love, was found with equal ease. And while his stone still felt cold to the touch, its core a deep and chilling blue, the maid’s grew warmer by the day.

Savoring its heat, Devorgilla set the female stone in the palm of her left hand. She smiled when a teensy point of reddish gold appeared in the faery fire stone’s core.

One be you, and one be she. When your lady’s heart catches fire, you’ll recognize her, she’d explained as she’d tried to give him the stones the last time she’d gone to Baldoon.

A visit she’d made solely to offer him her assistance.

Regrettably, he hadn’t appreciated her efforts.

His lady’s heart couldn’t catch flame, he’d informed her, claiming her heart was cold as the grave and would never warm again.

Clucking her tongue at the scowl he’d given her, Devorgilla placed his icy stone next to the maid’s warm one and closed her ancient fingers over the two.

Leaning forward, she again peered down at her red plaid shoelaces, pleased to see them bright again.

Her magic was great, as always.

So she straightened, tipped back her head, and curled her fingers tighter around the stones, her gaze now on the cottage’s low, black-raftered ceiling.

Iain MacLean was mistaken.

Though the flame in his true lady’s heart might not yet be a blazing inferno, it’d already caught a fine healthy spark and was very much alive.

A truth he’d soon discover.