Defending Destiny (The Warrior Chronicles) by Leigh Morgan Page A

said Lauren’s hiding something.”
    “I think he is. Even so, he’s more trustworthy than the Arm-Righ. He also loves you like a daughter. He won’t let anyone hurt you. That I am sure of.”
    Daisy said her goodbyes and disconnected. She needed to get out of the house without anyone seeing her leave. She also needed to sleep for about fourteen straight hours. She’d make arrangements to leave in the morning. Alone.
    She had artifacts to find.
     
     
    CHAPTER FOURTEEN
     
     
    Magnus needed some good local intelligence if he was going to find anything that might lead to the Druid’s Scroll. The information he’d gathered from historical writings was limited. What Taryn was able to share about what the Scroll may contain and where to start looking from her sources, including the charm-bracelet map her father left her after his death, was frustrating in the extreme. It led nowhere. Conjecture and guesswork was the best anyone in the field was able to come up with to describe the Scroll and the secrets it may hold. A female Druid, afraid that Christianity would wipe out her earth-based religion, wrote down in words and symbols the secrets of her ancient order. That was the legend. Precious little, but no one said chasing myth was going to be easy.
    Taryn’s father, the noted Celtic historian James Campbell, believed the Druid’s Scroll was real. Most recognized experts did not. The prevailing theory was that the Scroll was a metaphor symbolizing the quest for ultimate knowledge; sort of pagan’s take on the search scientists have been seeking—an ultimate unifying theory of everything in the universe.
    Magnus had been firmly in the metaphor camp when he first learned of the Scroll. Then the letters started coming.
    First the letters contained bits of Druidic lore sent anonymously from someone he assumed was a fan of his jewelry designs. He took the information and incorporated most of it into new lines of jewelry. Then, Daisy left Potters Woods and he eagerly pursued every bit of knowledge he could about everything even tangentially related to Celtic myth, legend, history or culture. If Daisy was interested in Celtic lore, he learned all he could about it. Even the fringe theories. If he was dispensable, as far as Daisy was concerned, then he’d do his level best to ensure that his knowledge wasn’t.
    The letters kept coming, each more detailed and more…theoretical than the last. Before he knew what was happening, he’d absorbed a way of looking at life and the world around him that was more inclusive, interrelated, and magical than he could explain. He became part of his world, influencing it, rather than merely observing and reacting to pressures exerted on him.
    He’d been searching for something without consciously knowing it, and that something had found him.
    Somewhere along the line, the science and the magic of it became his passion. The more he learned, the more important he became to Lauren, and, by extension, to Daisy. But that wasn’t his only purpose now. Now, his expertise in Celtic nature-inspired spirituality kept him in Daisy’s world. More importantly than that, Magnus now found himself on his own spiritual journey that had nothing to do with romance and everything to do with finding his center.
    Magnus opened the door to the coffee shop and sat in the booth closest to the kitchen. There were no other customers in the shop, just a family of four winding their way through the hands-on exhibits in the glass and steel building across from the museum’s gift shop. Merry came through the swinging kitchen door with her hands full. She set a large slice of chocolate cake in front of him along with a small jar of double cream, a pot of steaming tea, and a blue stoneware mug. Magnus didn’t ask how she knew he was there. He had more important questions to ask right after he finished his tea and cake.
    Magnus spooned every last bit of double cream he could from the jar onto the chocolate cake.