She smiled. “I love him. I’ll be at his side every step of the way,” she vowed firmly. “Doona be getting yerself all in a fankle, Silvan,” she added in a teasing lilt, hoping to lighten his somber expression. “I’ll take care of your son. I promise.” Her gaze skimmed back to Dageus. He was carrying Robert while chasing Ian, and both were squealing with delighted laughter. His dark hair was loose, and his chiseled face fairly blazed with love.

“Believe me, if I have anything to do with it,” she added fervently, “I’ll be putting my own babies in that man’s arms.”

Nell laughed delightedly. “Now there’s a fine lass,” she clucked approvingly. Silvan heartily concurred.

Chapter 24

24

Dageus finished etching the second to last of the formulas necessary to open the white bridge. Though they’d spent weeks in the sixteenth century, they would return to a time in the twenty-first century, a mere three days after the day they’d departed. He would etch the final complex series of symbols when they were ready to go.

Outside the circle of towering megaliths, his da and Nell stood with his wee brothers in their arms. He’d long since said his good-byes. Now Chloe was hugging and kissing them, and both her and Nell’s eyes were suspiciously bright. How easily, he marveled, women faced those canyons of grief men were wont to venture far and wide in hopes of circumventing. He wondered if women were, in some intangible way, stronger for it.

While Silvan and Nell gave Chloe messages for Drustan and Gwen, Dageus pondered what he’d discovered last eve, after Chloe had fallen asleep. In the wee hours of the morn, he’d crept back down to the chamber library. He was no fool; he knew his canny father had broken off too abruptly when reading the final passage in the fifth Book of Manannán.

And indeed, there it had been. One crucial bit of information Silvan had opted to keep to himself. Dageus didn’t need to ask him, to understand why he’d omitted the telling words. Silvan would argue that a prophecy was no more than a foretelling of a “possible” future. However, Dageus knew (and hadn’t Drustan’s experience with the seer Besseta proved it?) that the future foretold was the most likely future, which meant it was going to be damned difficult to avert.

Inscribed in the fifth Book of Manannán, in a slanted majuscule script, had been his most likely future:

The thirteen shall be made one, and the world will descend into an epoch of darkness more brutal than mankind has ever known. Unspeakable atrocities will be committed in the Draghar’s name. Civilization will fall and ancient evils rise, as the Draghar pursue their unceasing quest for vengeance.