Chapter Sixty-Eight: Echoes Beneath Iona Abbey

Chapter Sixty-Eight: Echoes Beneath Iona Abbey

At high tide, the Abbey of Iona shimmered like a memory.

Built by St. Columba in the 6th century, its weathered stones still echoed with prayers layered atop older songs—ones older than parchment or psalms. Beneath its worn cloisters, the very ley-lines trembled.

They entered through the cloister gate—Lucien, blade at his side; Isabelle, mirror and stormglass tucked in her cloak; Lydia, whispering Fae rites of protection; Ciarán, sea-salt wind in his steps; Seraphine, silent and fierce; Aisling, head low beneath the weight of ancestral fire; and Aibhilín, watching their rear, every footfall calculated.

Down beneath the abbey, in a chamber sealed by time, they found it—a Tuatha crypt, untouched since the first monks buried what they could not name. The sarcophagus at its heart bore carvings from two eras: Christian crosses overlapped by spiral glyphs older than the Abbey itself.

Lydia knelt, palm to stone. “This is it. The stone of dawn-light. One of the oldest. Pure Tuatha.”

Isabelle moved forward. Before her hand could reach the carved lid, a shadow cut across the room.

Torches flared.

Figures moved.

A blade hissed.

Duval’s shadow cultists descended, cowled and whispering incantations. Their blades bore fire-runes scorched black, their eyes feral with borrowed flame.

Lucien moved first—wolffire singing down his arm as he met the first attacker. Isabelle raised a shield of spectral light, blocking a thrown dagger. Ciarán flanked them, calling a wall of ocean mist to divide the room.

Seraphine spun toward a cultist bearing a sigil of the Abyss. “You defile what you cannot understand.” She raised her hands—salt and light coalescing into spears of water-hard magic.

Aibhilín struck silently from the shadows, blade flashing—three cultists fell before they could speak.

Aisling stepped forward, flame dancing between her fingers. One cultist paused at the sight of her—recognizing the Anunnaki sigil burned into her collarbone.

“I know you,” he hissed. “You’re one of us.”

Her eyes blazed. “I was. Not anymore.”

She unleashed a bolt of dragonfire, purifying the shadows clinging to the sarcophagus.

The cultists screamed—retreating in swirls of smoke and curses.

Silence fell.

Isabelle placed the sapphire tear into the carved socket at the crypt’s lid.

It opened.

Inside, wrapped in sacred silk and golden moss, lay a crystal glowing with dawn-light. Isabelle touched it, and her breath caught as visions rushed through her: sacred groves, flame-kissed altars, druids bending to a green-cloaked priestess.

She pressed it to her chest.

The Accord pulsed. The chamber glowed. And the shadows fled.

Lucien caught her as her knees buckled. “Another bond,” he said quietly, holding her steady.

Isabelle smiled, breathless. “Another promise kept.”

They turned toward the Abbey stairs—one more stone bound. The Accord, near completion.

Above, the bells of Iona rang once—clear, defiant.