Foretold Read online

  Foretold,

  Sisters of the Stone Circle,

  Book One

  Antonia Cyn

  Foretold, Sisters of the Stone Circle, Book One

  Copyright © 2016 by Antonia Cyn

  SECOND EDITION published by Arctic Fox Publishing

  First published in 2014 by Blushing Books Publishing

  Cover design by Arctic Fox Publishing

  Cover Image ©RomanceNovelCovers.com, All rights reserved, Used with Permission

  All rights reserved

  Thank you for purchasing this book.

  This work of fiction is direct from the imagination of Antonia Cyn.

  Aside from actual geographical locations, any resemblance to actual people, living or dead is pure coincidence.

  Just a quick reminder: no part of the book may be reproduced, or redistributed to others by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system for commercial or non-commercial purposes without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotation in reviews.

  If you enjoyed this book, please take a moment to spread the news and by leaving a review.

  Special Thanks to:

  My husband and hero, Rob: I couldn't do this without you.

  My kids: For acknowledging, I need to pursue my own dreams.

  Kathy H., Lucy N. and Beverly H. for encouraging me to keep writing.

  Frances Dayee and members of the Lake Forest Park Writers Group: for all the writing support through the years.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  About Antonia Cyn

  Interested in more books by Arctic Fox Publishing

  Chapter 1

  836 A.D., Hibernia

  Dara opened the weatherworn door of her rustic, circular hut and wandered outside. She closed her eyes, deeply inhaling the fresh air. The gentle wind smelled of drying leaves and earth from the recent harvest. Opening her eyes, she strolled down the leaf-lined path as the refreshing breeze exhilarated her skin. The heat of the autumn days receded into cool evenings that she spent at the River Bóinne taking cleansing swims.

  The path to the riverbank was a peaceful walk through the forest not far from her home. Some of the folk from the village of Droicheada believed the legends about the area being haunted by spirits of ancient Celts who came to this land, while others thought her a mystic because she was the Priestess of the Sisters of the Stone Circle. Either way, she didn’t worry about anyone watching her while she followed the dark path in the twilight.

  She thought about the other women who participated with her in celebration of Samhain, one of the four fire festivals of the year. These women were wives or widows of farmers and soldiers from the baile, who secretly joined her at the stone circle in Brugh Na Bóinne for special rituals. The women performed the ancient mystical arts for their personal enrichment—in secret—so not to alert the church to their activities, or their husbands for that matter. While many people from Droicheada shunned her for her practices, some sought her help as a healer.

  Dara sat on a large tree stump at the edge of the river and untied the laces on her leather shoes, setting them on the ground beside her. She unbuckled the brooch from her green woolen cloak. The material slid off her shoulders, down her body, and landed in a heap at her feet. She shivered as the cold night air chilled her skyclad flesh.

  Stepping to the riverbank, Dara slowly placed her feet into the water and little waves lapped against her ankles. Small hairs on the back of her neck stuck straight out, a chill running up her spine. She shuddered and quickly scanned the bank while the river rippled along. Frogs croaked nearby. Shorelines were considered sacred meeting points, where spiritual forces could link directly with the living.

  To free herself of the restless sensation, Dara closed her eyes, took a deep breath and plunged into the brisk water, skimming under the top of the waves.

  She resurfaced for air and pushed her hair back from her face. While she tread water to keep afloat, Dara watched her breath rise like steam over the water, remembering the feast of Samhain festival she and her Sisters of the Stone Circle performed two nights prior.

  They’d welcomed the runner who brought the flaming torch from the High Druid’s sacred fire. They’d swayed rhythmically to the bodhrán drum beat during their ritual divination as the sweat-drenched runner set ablaze the oak branches in the fire pit and then departed.

  Dara brought the requisite herbs to purify the air for the spirits during the ceremony. She stood entranced by the flames. The heat of the bonfire seemed drawn to her as she neared the fire, bent and ignited the tips of the plants. She inhaled deeply as the air filled with the scent of myrrh, along with a hint of heather for the closing ritual of the ceremony. She placed the glowing herbs in the cauldron for divination. Still, the flames of the bonfire felt like they wanted to burn the bare skin of her arms.

  A sudden buzzing of insect wings by her face startled her back to her swimming.

  Sighing, Dara reclined, luxuriating in the way her body felt as she floated on water, her breasts reaching upward to the moonless night. The refreshing water rippled over her body. Her nipples peaked into hardened flesh against the cool breeze that licked them dry as it passed over her body.

  Gazing at the stars flickering against the indigo of the night, she imagined herself floating into the sky. Half listening to the whisper of buzzing insects, Dara hummed a little song to herself. The water lapped against her, and she finally relaxed, letting the tranquility of nature surround her again.

  “Thank you,” she whispered to the frog that croaked loudly from the shore after Dara finished her little tune.

  She recognized the constellations of late autumn. From the corner of her eye, something different appeared. Dara lost her concentration and choked on the water in surprise.

  She tread water and watched a star, with a blazing white tail behind it, streak across the nighttime sky. The star didn’t fade away like most heavenly bodies that shot across the sky for brief moments when harvest time neared. This star stayed high and traveled in an arc.

  Noticing the sounds of nature had ceased their soft rhythm, she quickly swam back to the edge of the river, water dripping from her body as she climbed out. Dara ran back to the stump, grabbed her woolen cloak and wrapped it around her shivering form. With trembling fingers, she stuck the pin of the metal brooch back through the loop. She sat on the stump, shoving her shoes onto her feet, half-tying the laces around each ankle. She frequently glanced up to stare at the unfamiliar spectacle.

  “Is it a good omen?” she wondered as she hurried back to the hut. What mystical prophecy might come of this enchanted light in the sky?

  Once home, she lit the beeswax candle on the small table. She uncorked the bottle of mead on the table, poured some of the light amber liquid into a wooden goblet and took a long
sip. Savoring the sweet drops on her lips, she stretched her back while the liquid began to warm her. She set the goblet down on the table next to the book she needed.

  Dara eased herself on to the stool next the table, opened the well-worn, russet-colored leather-wrapped cover, and searched the vellum for information of a star. The book was a journal of the past fire festival celebrations, herbal remedies, celestial occurrences, and divinations of Goddess Danu that had been handed down for generations by those women accepting the role as Priestess.

  She turned the pages carefully, as the corners had curled with age. She found a small reference to star showers streaming from the sky, normal early harvest season occurrences, so she kept scanning the parchment pages carefully for other references.

  Finally, near the middle of the book, in the lower right margin of the page, she spied a depiction, a star with a tail flying behind it. It was under the year 760 A.D. A small notation of the date, “Beltane plus twenty-one days,” had been made next to the star.

  Dara calculated the date to be just over seventy-six years prior. She examined the book further but found nothing more about the star.

  The mead had finally taken away the chill and relaxed her muscles. Dara closed the book and drummed her fingers on the table while wondering, with trepidation, what the star foretold.

  Chapter 2

  Rain beat on the stone window ledge. Abbott Sean Dermott stared out the narrow, unglazed casement in his cell at St. Feckin’s church. His woolen robes fluttered in the breeze when he looked out over the seaside village. The once peaceful gray sky, which had followed him on his week-long trek from St. Columba’s monastery in Kells to the coastal church in Termonfeckin for his long-awaited sabbatical, grew dark with ominous clouds carried by gale winds. The clouds released pounding rain that swept over the monastery, then thundered east to the sea. A flash of lightning lit up the skyline for an instant, revealing glimmering wet stonewalls of the nearby round tower. A flicker of a distant memory came and went through his mind, leaving him motionless.

  An abrupt brush of silky fur against his ankle startled him back to the present. Sean reached down and gently picked up the calico cat, whose purr deepened while he scratched its ears. He smiled.

  He pulled the heavy woolen tapestry of the crucifixion over the open window frame to keep the storm from blowing out the candle on the corner of the small wooden writing desk.

  “I have work to do, Simon, and so do you,” Sean said, releasing the cat to the floor. “Now, go find some mice.” He observed the feline slowly saunter away before he settled on the narrow oak seat next to the desk.

  From the drawer, he brought out a new page for his transcription of events. His journal was a weekly record that he was required to keep as part of his position as Abbott of the Monastery. This book would be sent to the Catholic Church in Rome at the end of the year, as part of their contribution to the church for sharing the Catholic doctrine with the people. Even on sabbatical, he wrote important events in the journal.

  The parchment was set alongside the treasured bible he’d illuminated upon since he was a young scribe. He sharpened the quill with the small blade, dipped the end into the gall inkwell, and began to write.

  “With such a storm raging outside, I feel that we, my fellow monks and I, can rest easy this night. No Norseman would be out to raid during such a storm, or would survive its fury, to terrify the coast of Hibernia.”

  Sean paused, wondering whether he should write about the radiant star with the giant tail he had seen the night before. He remembered reading a similar passage of a brilliant star near the beginning of the ceremonial bible. The same bible he’d illustrated the Lord’s words in, next to his parchment on the small desk. Making a mental note to himself to find that passage again after his required journal entries, he struggled to continue his writing.

  The thought of the mysterious star would not leave his mind. Putting down the quill, he opened the precious book, perusing the pages until he found the passage with the illustration of the luminous star.

  Finding only a date from seventy-six years prior, late spring, next to the star drawing, he searched through the book again.

  He spied the first page he’d illuminated in the bible. His eyes closed, and he thought back thirty years to when he first was a novice scribe, at St. Columba’s Monastery, on the Island of Iona.

  AT ONLY SIXTEEN, SEAN had been given the exceptional opportunity to be the caretaker of the ceremonial bible Abbot Matthew had been working on since Matthew was a young scribe. The large book was held together with a leather cover and decorated with a jeweled binding. Abbott Matthew kept the special book in a golden shrine, except when he was busy scribing and illustrating upon the vellum.

  The Abbott had observed Sean’s work in the scriptoria, along with over a hundred other scribes. Matthew appraised every scribe for his quality of an exact replica of the document they were given to copy, from bible gospels to Greek comedies and tragedies.

  Nothing special, Sean remembered, all scribes were to make their manuscripts exact. Only the lead scribe had caught him drawing a bird in one of the margins of the parchments. The page with the doodle was immediately brought to the attention of the Abbott.

  Sean went to Abbott Matthew for further instruction from that day on.

  Sean remembered how the Abbott watched him practice the fine details transcribed into the work along with the other novices. The Abbott remarked on how well he made the letters in accordance to the first book, although Abbott Matthew admonished Sean for the little eccentricities he made with color and details of the gospels.

  Since he was a young scribe at the time, Sean asked for indulgence to add detail with illustrations. He explained to Abbott Matthew that these illustrations would stand out as a visual representation, enhancing the passage described, especially for those who could not read.

  Late one night, while the Abbott Matthew watched Sean transcribe a passage, Matthew explained the history of the book to Sean.

  In 760 A.D., Abbott Stephen began transcribing the special book of gospels that Sean now held. After years of careful depiction, Abbott Stephen had given the book to Matthew to continue.

  Matthew drew his own special illustrations on this manuscript while a novice scribe. The addition of illustrations by Matthew angered Abbott Stephen, for it changed the book from Stephen’s own concept. Afterwards, any elaborate illustrations by Matthew were kept to a minimum apart from the original text.

  In one of their conversations regarding the book, Sean remembered Abbott Matthew say, “Over the years, as a scribe and now Abbott, I took pride in my work on the book, even though that trait is one of the seven deadly sins. I also knew that someday I’d have to pass it on to another promising scribe.” Then he stared straight into Sean’s eyes and said, “Don’t disappoint me.”

  Months passed, and Sean observed how Abbott Matthew’s hands ached from stiffness in his joints, preventing him from holding a quill. Only the honey mead the monks brewed and stored in the tunnels underneath the monastery helped relieve some of the pain.

  Then it came, the sound of doom. He shuddered to himself.

  He remembered how the peaceful rainstorm outside suddenly exploded into nightmarish horror. It began with thunderous pounding against the bolted door of the monastery.

  Sean witnessed the terror in the eyes of the Abbott as Matthew made the sign of the cross over himself and muttered, “Not again! Lord, help us all!”

  The wood door finally shattered, smashed open by a battering ram.

  Sean sat frozen while the raiders screamed curses of death and charged into the room, terrifying the monks.

  “Norsemen! Run!” Matthew screamed and pushed Sean forward off the wooden stool.

  Sean’s eyes filled with shock when he glimpsed the large double-bladed bloodied axes silently slashing through the air in wide strokes.

  Sean remembered he was responsible for the Abbott’s book. Keeping low to the ground, away from the s
laughter, he scrambled back to the table. With a slow, shaking hand, he slid the book from the desk. It teetered on its binding and landed on the floor with a clatter that echoed through the screams.

  He peered around the desk legs to see if anyone noticed, grasped the book to his chest, and quietly crept away. He slid along the wall to keep hidden and out of range of the deadly blows by the Norsemen.

  Passing several of the slaughtered men who lay in a heap of blood, he felt nausea begin to take over. At the sight of Abbott Matthew lying with his head clinging to his body by only the skin at the back of his neck, he crossed himself, backed away and vomited.

  Sean scanned his surroundings again and spied a fire blazing bright from the room behind one of the raiders. He noticed that the man was covered with a leather jerkin, only spotting the darkened image of a wolf on his chest as the man turned towards him and sneered.

  With the book clutched in his arms, he quickly scrambled under rickety scribe desks and over chairs to escape from the carnage behind him.

  Running down the path, he spied the hatch to the tunnel that stored the mead. He quickly opened it, stumbling downward, and dragging the door closed behind him.

  The gloomy darkness enveloped him as he paused near the door catching his breath. The blood coursing through his body, made it hard to hear anything but the rush of fluid in his ears. When it appeared no one had followed him, his breathing calmed.

  Sean rushed through a tunnel, slammed into the side of a mead barrel, and dropped the book. He cursed himself silently. Now he had to find the book again without the aid of any light.

  He stopped moving when the door hinge squeaked. His heart pumped harder as he searched for a place to hide. Sean accidentally kicked the book in the dirt at the end of the cask.

  His eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he watched a Norseman enter the room. The raider seemed to be heading straight towards his hiding place. Sean quickly grabbed the book and took off running.

  He followed the tunnels to the exit door, pushed open the door and fell into the gardens. His tired legs could move no more. He dragged his body forward with his arms, coming to rest behind one of the beehives, waiting silently, watching his warm breath hover before his face in the cold autumn night air.