Eight hundred years ago and half a world away, Mirren gives little thought to the new religion. She is a healer and mystic for whom magic is the natural result of her devotion to Nature ~ surely nothing to incite madness and murder.
But she has not met Prelate Lorcan.
He upends Mirren’s world prompting ghastly dreams of her fiery doom and the bondage of one hundred generations of women yet unborn.
Mirren stubbornly faces her terror, desperate to master her arts and determined to conjure Lorcan’s Bane. Unschooled in such deep mysteries and haunted by recurring nightmares, she struggles with despair until Ariel inexplicably arrives to direct her skills and to ward her from the prelate.
As breathtaking as magic itself, Ariel remains an enigma, but pushes Mirren to embrace the full scope of her powers.
Despite his occasional sternness and her occasional frustration, neither can deny, nor can either express, the longing that simmers beneath the surface of every encounter.
When Mirren finally learns Ariel’s true identity and the magnitude of her fate, she disappears into the forest.
Secluded in the ancient woods, Mirren discovers Erce, the primal Earth Mother, and learns about the oneness of life. Ultimately, she returns to face Lorcan and his men, alone, armed only with her wisdom, the courage to love without limits and the hope that her magic will suffice.
