Truth Seer
Irish Mystic Legends Book Three
Jennifer Rose McMahon
Copyright © 2018 by Jennifer Rose McMahon
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover design by Rebecca Frank
Edited by Naomi Hughes
Dubhdara Publishing
For my Family
Contents
Book Three
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
Epilogue
Afterword
Also by Jennifer Rose McMahon
Acknowledgments
About the Author
21. Sample of Bohermore, Book One of the Pirate Queen Series
Book Three
TRUTH SEER
by Jennifer Rose McMahon
Chapter 1
We promised we wouldn't come back here.
They said it was too dangerous, that it was best to leave the burial chamber undisturbed.
And we had agreed, whole-heartedly.
At first.
But then, our true natures took over. After all, we were jinxed with curiosity and conjuring, gifted with extrasensory abilities that went beyond what some would call witchcraft or black magic. And now, we were also in the realm of a full-blown ancient Druid curse.
So we couldn’t be blamed for our defiance in coming back here. We couldn't help ourselves.
I squeezed Maeve's hand as we moved through the darkness of the subterranean catacombs. My racing heart led the way while the beams of light from our phones illuminated ancient artifacts intended to be left unseen for all of time.
We’d come to explore the secret burial chamber further. Just the two of us this time, to search for clues of the coming of the assassin Druids which Maeve had seen in a recent, disturbing vision. And to explore the ancient carvings and the elusive meaning of the altar, which was a portal of some form, with hidden secrets.
But we also came to visit Maeve’s final resting place, nestled within the numerous peaceful alcoves. She had to see it for herself to truly believe that her legendary journey to the past had come full circle.
The massive stone statues of the guardians, the Keepers of the Ovates, didn't flinch when we crept out of the narrow passageway leading down into the sacred tomb. Their job was to guard the catacombs, but also to protect the seers—the honorable, gifted Druids. And I was one of them—newly initiated, with the nervous-twitch to prove it.
It was as if the guardians expected us, with their wide eyes and haunting expressions, showing off their adept skill at scaring away unwanted intruders. But for us, they granted safe passage.
Did they expect our murderous trackers as well, though? Did they know we were being followed?
A few weeks ago, at the solstice, we thought we’d ended the ancient curse of the deviant Druid clan, but it hadn’t been enough to stop their aggressive pursuit of us. Maeve had seen it in her shocking vision that turned everything we believed on its head. We thought the curse had ended. But she saw differently. The rogue Druids had a back-up plan to reinstate a stronger plague, one that couldn’t be easily broken. It involved their unyielding victory. And our damnation.
And that absolute victory was attainable in only one way:
Stopping us.
Dead in our tracks.
We moved through the dank, echoing tunnel into the silent sanctuary of the burial chamber. My mind awakened with the ancient knowledge of millennia that filled the sacred space. The information that had been revealed to me during the ritual of the solstice had tapped into parts of my brain I hadn't known existed, and complex images of time overlapping on itself whirled in my head without rest. The source of that infinite knowledge of the time continuum, the stone altar, stood solid in the center of the chamber. It was surrounded by alcoves filled with skulls, long bones, and small doors concealing the stillness of final rest.
Celtic carvings along the sides of the mystical altar danced in our light beams, drawing us closer. My hand moved along the symbols and intricacies of the ancient dead language, but then I lifted my fingers from the grooves. Following the etchings of their elusive code could activate the power of the portal, or worse, conjure a jarring vision that might launch us back into the abyss.
The altar was a vulnerability and a danger. What if the enemy Druids knew its power too? What if they understood its ability to facilitate time travel? It was a power only the honorable Druids, the seers, should have access to. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Of course the deviant Druids understood it. It was created in their time. The time of divine mysticism and supernatural magic. I had to accept it. The evil ones had access to us.
"Isobel. Which one is mine?" Maeve turned to the catacomb vaults, moving her eyes along the numerous burial chamber doors and crevices.
My thoughts jolted back to our mission and my throat constricted from the thought of what Maeve must be feeling. Her two worlds were colliding, past and present.
I stepped to the small door that had been revealed weeks earlier by dawn's light on the day of the solstice. A ray of golden light had lit up the secret location, hidden among numerous similar chambers, showing me where Maeve's final resting place lay.
But when it had popped open in the mystifying dawn light, her chamber was devoid of any evidence of a body. The only item within her crypt had been a small box that held the ring.
The ring of the pirate queen.
That relic was exactly what had been needed to bring Maeve back through the portal of time, and back home to us.
It had been placed there five hundred years earlier with the hope, or plan, that it would be found at just the right time. And that time had been the solstice, predicted in the Book of Druids as the most sacred time of year.
And it proved to be true.
I’d come of age, finally, and found myself in the tomb that day straining to make contact with Maeve. To pull her out of the abyss and deliver her back to her original life here.
But I knew she still struggled with the complexities of her leap through the dimensions of the time continuum, not knowing which realm was truly hers. She had lived her life hundreds of years earlier, by choice, but had now returned, six years later from the date she disappeared from our sight.
That day, six years ago, was the day I grew up. Or more specifically, woke up.
I watched her wandering through the catacombs as I remembered that moment six years earlier when she disappeared into the mist. The time when I realized my own curse couldn't be ignored any more. The moment I knew it was real and I, too, could become lost in the abyss. Maybe forever.
Maeve reached for the aged limestone door of her burial chamber and ran her hand over it. Her eyes closed as she made contact with her own death.
Then her eyes widened in surprise.
"There's a carving here,” she said as she rubbed the small door. “Too dull to see." She closed her eyes again and traced the carving with her finger. "I reco
gnize it.” She gasped. “It's a symbol I created when I was in the deep past at Rockfleet. Two hearts intertwined as Celtic knots."
I nodded my head in understanding. I'd seen that carving before too. Maeve revealed it to me in an earlier vision—like an attempt to help me find her hidden resting place. And ultimately, to find the ring that had the power to bring her back.
When the light of dawn on the solstice had illuminated her chamber door, I felt the subtle carvings on its surface too and knew it to be the right one. I'd never forget the relief that poured through me when there was no evidence of a body within; no bones, nothing. It confirmed to me that she was still out there. Trapped in the void. Alive.
"The only thing inside your chamber was a small box,” I mumbled. “It held the ring." My voice stuck then and struggled to leave my mouth. "When you…back at Rockfleet…at the end. They said you just faded away. That there was nothing to bury. You were just…gone."
She paused with her hand on the stone hatch of her grave, remembering.
“How do you know that?” she muttered.
I thought back to the words of the Immortal Druid. “A messenger had been waiting here for me. He called me the truth seer.”
Her hand fell from her burial chamber door.
"Truth seer?” She paused and then exhaled. “Yes. I suppose I knew that about you.” She nodded.
“Well, I sure didn’t. Kinda took me by surprise.” I thought about it for a second. “Or not, maybe.”
She shifted back to the topic of her ‘death’. “Faded?” she repeated. “Like, no body?” She looked back at the burial door. “It must have been a part of my crossing over, Isobel. I moved into the abyss of our visions. The void of time.” Her face fell. “It was as if I was trapped. For what could have become eternity."
Shades of sorrow darkened her eyes, proving how much she grieved for her life at Rockfleet. For her true love, Rí.
I had no idea how she would accomplish her transition back to the present—to her original life, after everything she had experienced in the deep past, five hundred years earlier. After she had experienced real happiness and belonging.
It scared me. I was afraid she would never transition back. Never find true happiness again.
But more so, I feared for my own life too.
The rogue Druids were coming for us with a vengeance that burned in their souls. They were coming to take the only life I knew and now, finally, loved. The thought of it being taken from me, through the misguided actions and greed of others, terrified me deep in my bones.
But for Maeve, it was a second chance at life. Could she embrace it and make it work? Or would she be forever trapped in grief and longing for what she once knew and loved?
I moved back to the altar, refocusing on searching for clues. Anything to give us information on how or when the ancient Druids would be coming for us.
They were tracking us through time, their evil intent clear from Maeve’s vision: they wanted to end us.
Stopping them, and the deep-rooted curse, was critical if I wanted to continue to live my life the way it was. The way it was meant to be.
And I did.
I loved the people around me. I wanted to be with Ryan, completely. I wanted to share time with everyone I cared about—Declan and Michelle. Gram. Mother Maureen. And my true friends. The ones who all put themselves on the line to help me, every time I needed them.
But not everyone put themselves on the line—because not everyone knew all the details about my supernatural adventures. Like my brother Declan. If he found out he’d freakin’ kill me. His protective nature was like Fort Knox and he couldn’t handle it for even a second when I tampered with my second sight.
Maeve stepped back from her burial chamber with a stumble, as a shade of emotional green moved over her face. Within two seconds, she was hunched over, dry-heaving at the stone floor.
I jumped to her and rubbed her trembling back as she retched with convulsing shakes. I pulled her hair away from her face as she battled her emotional overload.
Crumbling to the floor, she shuddered from the violent, empty retches. Then dropped her head onto her knees and rocked in a self-soothing rhythm.
I reached around her shoulders and squeezed in an attempt to hold her together.
“It’s a lot, Maeve,” I whispered. “You have to give yourself time to adjust.”
She lifted her head slightly and the glow from my phone illuminated the side of her face.
“I don’t know, Izzy.” She gazed at the door of her quiet resting place. “I was happy there, at Rockfleet. It was…different. Everything mattered. And everyone. They mattered.” She flipped her phone around in her hand. “The clan. It was like a tight-knit family and we all relied on each other. We needed each other.” She hesitated. “There’s a loneliness in our existence now. Here. And I can’t help but think these psycho Druids have a point.”
I turned my light beam directly on her. “What are you talking about?”
“They predicted the future would be like this,” she said. “Cold. Detached. Broken.” She squinted into my light. “They want to keep the magic and the mysticism of the past alive.”
“But, Maeve, what they are planning is murder. Ending time as we know it.” My voice cracked with tension. “And it’s more than just preserving the beauty of the past. They want power. It’s no different from the dictators of the modern world. Power hungry to control the world around them. But instead of man-made nuclear weapons and modern terrorism, they are tapping into the natural sources of the infinite universe—time itself.”
“I know. You’re right.” Her head dropped again. “The time periods are just so vastly different, between Rockfleet and now. I can’t help but ache for that feeling again. Of love. And camaraderie.”
Her voice caught in her throat as it tightened and I knew she fought tears. Her love for Rí was rooted deep in her soul and her experience at Rockfleet was full and profound. But she was here now. And we had to fight for what we had, what was possible, and for our futures.
I was familiar with the camaraderie and support she was speaking of in my own life. I felt it in the people I surrounded myself with and I had to help her feel it again too. It could sometimes get lost in the static and chaos of modern life, but it still existed.
Searching all around me, not knowing what else to say or do, I stared into the darkness of the catacomb. I moved my hands along the dusty floor in a nervous motion, and my fingers trailed through indentations and imperfections in the stone slab beneath us.
I traced the curves and swirls over and over, and then gasped.
There was a repeating pattern.
Hopping up to my feet, I stepped back and shone my light on the floor around Maeve. She looked up at me through heavy eyes that brightened with curiosity. I moved further back, and my eyes widened as an entire slab of ancient carvings presented itself beneath us.
"Look!" I blurted. "All around you. It's a language of some kind. Sentences. Like a list." My eyes darted along the systematic structure of the ancient etchings.
Maeve jumped to her feet with renewed vigor and stepped off the carvings on the slab. Then she bent down, squinting for a better look, and pressed her finger along some of the grooves.
She shot up to her full height then and stared at me. As if being choked by her words, she fought to spit them out, one by one, in sounds that brittled my bones.
With terror in her gaze, she whispered, "The prophecies."
Her harrowing words set my spine rigid. They carried warning and ancient mystery that generated the unnerving feel of judgment day all around me.
"Prophecies?" I stepped further away from the carved slab for fear of conjuring something. "What the hell does that mean?"
Maeve knelt for a better look and traced some more of the indentations as if reading Braille.
"The prophecies of the ancient, honorable Druids," she mumbled while attempting to read them more thoroughly. "Predicting the coming of th
e rogue clan of the Secret Order."
"The bad guys’ coming?" I stepped further away from the carvings, knowing the evil intent of the Secret Order. They were the ones coming for us. Terrorists from the deep past.
She nodded, moving her fingers toward the beginning of the carvings.
"They're a warning," she murmured. "A list of signs, basically, predicting the coming of the deviant clan. The Soldiers of Death, they’re called here." She tapped on a line of mystical carvings.
"So, these were written by the good guys?" I bent my head for a better look.
"Yes," Maeve replied. "They're basically warning us. Foretelling..." She paused.
"Foretelling what?" I begged.
I watched her lips moving as she mumbled her interpretation of the symbols, over and over.
She examined the carvings further and then pulled back in fear. Her eyes widened as she stared at me. "The coming of doomsday."
I stepped back again until I pressed against the far wall of the catacombs. My heart pounded in my chest as I tried to steady my erratic breathing.
It was really happening.
Maeve saw them coming in her vision, but here it was right in front of us. Etched in stone from thousands of years ago. Ancient prophecies predicting the arrival of our hunters. Forecasting the end of the world.
"How could this still be happening?” I kicked my foot at the carvings on the floor. “How could they have known that we would stop their original attempt? We ended their curse at the solstice. But somehow they knew it would fail and so they were prepared to try again. How could that be?" I pleaded.
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