Eight hundred years ago and half a world away, Mirren lives a life of grace. She is a healer for whom magic is simply an intimate partnership with nature, certainly nothing that could incite some men to murder.
But she has yet to meet Prelate Lorcan.
Ruthless and carnal, he invades Mirren’s world, bringing nightmares that reveal her fate to either doom or redeem one hundred generations of women to come.
Stunned by the burden and her escalating peril, Mirren urgently hones her magic, seeking the skills to prevail against Lorcan’s violence without resorting to violence herself. Her first brush with the prelate delivers her into the care of an otherworldly stranger named Ariel. Posing as her student, Ariel shelters and guides Mirren’s struggles to master her primeval power. In so doing, he unleashes mutual longings that neither one dares voice.
Fearing that Ariel will become a fatal distraction, Mirren flees to the forest alone. Lost to everyone, even herself, she surrenders to Erce, the ancient Earth Mother. In vision quests and nightmares, Mirren treks between the worlds and ventures into the elemental realms, always seeking Lorcan’s Bane.
Though Mirren inhabits a time, place, and circumstance far removed from our own, our dangers and dilemmas are not so dissimilar from hers. Ultimately, we, as did Mirren, must learn whether courage, heart, and a little magic can overmaster hate and violence.
