It is a dangerous time with an uncertain future: the late eighth century in the land now known as Scotland. For hundreds of years, the Picts have fought with the Irish across the sea and in Dal Riata, the Irish colony on the western coast. But now the Picts face a new and barbarous enemy--the Vikings. To save their society, they arrange a political marriage between their best warrior, Drosten mac Gormach, and Mhoire ni Colman, a beautiful Irish princess who has inherited her mother's fort in Dal Riata. But Mhoire, skilled with bow and arrow like the Irish warrior-queens of old, is determined to live alone. In a magical land of tall, glistening waterfalls and mystical standing stones, their story, and their love, unfolds.