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“No, I’m just looking for the restroom…”

“Come, sweet.” The woman clasped Bryanna’s hand and led her towards the pile of rocks. “Just sit down. Ye’ll be all right. I’m here.”

Her hand was cold and as smooth as polished stone, and it soothed Bryanna. The woman was right. She could do her test here, after all.

She helped Bryanna to sit on one of the flat rocks on the pile. Bryanna realized there were some sort of carvings on the rock, though she couldn’t concentrate enough to distinguish what… But she did notice a handprint…odd. In the stone? She itched to put her hand there and see if it would fit.

“If ye do that, ye’ll travel in time,” said the woman.

Bryanna chuckled and looked up at her. “What?”

“I’m Sìneag, a faerie. Ye dinna have much time, sweet. Yer sickness is making ye weak, I see, so I’ll explain quick. Ye’ll travel in time and ye’ll meet Raghnall Mackenzie, the love of yer life. He may also be yer destruction. The rest is up to ye.”

Bryanna blinked and shook her head. The woman’s words were echoey, and even though she heard them, she struggled to place their meaning…something about travel and love and destruction…

“I need to measure my glucose,” she said as she opened her purse, but she lost track of her thoughts again as her eyes fell on the carvings and on the hand. Something about that print made her really, really want to put her hand against it…

She reached to the print with her right hand.

The carvings began glowing as though neon colors had been painted over them.

“Cool.” Bryanna chuckled. “Reminds me of a prom two years ago in the school where I work.”

She looked up, but the woman in the green cloak was gone. “Hello?” Bryanna called.

But no answer came. She returned her gaze to the rock. She would just touch it…just to see if her hand would fit…

Raghnall Mackenzie…she thought as her hand came closer and closer.

And as it did, the air around her hand became cooler, and she felt a draft brush against her skin. And then the force with which her hand was advancing towards the print became unstoppable. Her hand practically slammed against where the rock would have been. She gasped as it went through empty air, and she was falling and falling.

Falling through darkness, tumbling, until she finally fell into sleep.

Chapter 2

Eilean Donan, September 1310

Raghnall undid the bull-leather money purse and looked at its contents again. Three silver merks were the last of his savings, worth two months of a knight’s wages. He didn’t have much left, but if today went well, he wouldn’t need coins for a while because his estate would finally belong to him. He tied the straps of the money purse together, leather smooth against his fingers, and wrapped them around its mouth to make sure nothing could fall out. Then he handed it to Iòna, one of the Mackenzies’ best warriors, who eyed him solemnly.

“This should do, Iòna,” Raghnall said. “Just bring the lad to me safely.”

Iòna took the purse. “Of course I will. But are ye certain ye dinna wish me to tell Angus about yer son? I’m sure the laird will wish to ken about the nephew he never kent he had.”

Wind brought the scent of lake water and seaweed from Loch Duich, which lay behind the Dornie houses with their thatched roofs. Every single curve of the mountains that rose along the shores of the loch was familiar and dear. Dogs barked, and sheep bleated on the pastures in the distance. Raghnall’s jaw worked. He hated lying to his clansman, especially to Iòna, who’d been like another brother to him. They all had grown up together, trained on swords and in archery, hunted and fished and pranked village lasses.

But Raghnall knew Iòna wouldn’t have gone to the Borderlands for a strange lad, not when the Ross clan could attack them again at any moment. Not when his clan needed him.

“I’ll tell Angus myself.” Raghnall glanced behind Iòna at the small square in front of Dornie church. His family would come to the wedding soon. As would his bride. “But dinna ye fash about him. There should be enough coin to buy passage with the MacDonald ship, and to bring ye both back. And this…” He went into his belt purse, ignoring a tremor in his fingers as they clasped around a small circle. When he retrieved the simple silver ring that Mòrag never got to wear because of him, his chest clenched painfully as though crushed between two boulders. “This ring belonged to his mother…Mòrag. Show this to him and he’ll ken ye came from me. He’ll trust ye.”

Iòna nodded, his pale blond eyebrows drawn together, and took the ring from his hand. Raghnall inhaled deeply to release the pain that felt like a stake pierced right through the middle of his chest. As Iòna hid the ring in his own belt purse, Raghnall swallowed a hard knot in his throat. He could almost feel the sting of fire burning his eyes, smell the smoke of the farm where he’d been so happy, where he’d thought he’d spend the rest of his life.

He clapped Iòna on the shoulder. “Just bring him to me safely,” he repeated. “The MacDonald clan are friends and their ship will take ye as close to Carlisle as they can. I told ye how to find Seoc’s uncle’s farm.”

“Aye.” Iòna clapped Raghnall’s shoulder as well and climbed onto his horse. The man wore the leine croich, the heavily quilted Highland tunic, and a long cloak. The sword in his sheath had seen enough battles, and the scars on Iòna’s weathered face would tell anyone to stay away. Really, Raghnall couldn’t have wished for a better chaperone for Seoc.

And yet, worry nagged him. Was he right not to go himself?

He needed to marry today, to satisfy Angus’s ultimatum. To prove Raghnall had changed his rebellious ways and was ready to settle down. Then Angus would give Raghnall back Tigh na Abhainn, the small estate to the west that their now-deceased father had taken from Raghnall when he had chased him away and cast him out of the clan fifteen years ago.