Broken Rites

Ireland's soul is unraveling.

The Lia Fáil-the sacred coronation stone and the heart of Ireland's spiritual network-has vanished. Without it, the ancient connections binding groves, wells, and standing stones collapse one by one, leaving the land vulnerable to a growing force known only as the Hollowed. Their influence spreads with chilling precision, stripping druids, monks, and kings of the very thing that makes them human: the power to choose.

High Priestess Neassa feels the rupture like a wound in her spirit. With Tara's rituals failing and sacred sites falling silent, she summons the one woman who has faced this darkness before. Ríona-reborn by divine will after her sacrifice in the Otherworld-returns to a land sliding toward spiritual extinction. Her divine sight reveals a threat more insidious than war: a perfect, peaceful emptiness that convinces its victims to surrender willingly.

As corruption spreads across the island, Ireland's leaders fracture. Some resist. Some falter. And others, like Queen Medb of Connacht, seize the moment to forge dangerous alliances that could shift the balance of power forever.

With kingdoms gathering at Tara and the Hollowed tightening their grip, Neassa and Ríona must assemble the remaining bloodline keepers-descendants of Ireland's first kings whose ancestral memories may hold the key to resisting the tide. Among them stands a mysterious warrior with a history steeped in rebellion and loss, and whose arrival changes everything they thought they knew about Ireland's future.

Together, this unlikely band must confront corrupted rituals, twisted diplomacy, and an enemy that turns unity into weaponry. To save Ireland, they must defend the very thing the Hollowed seek to erase: the messy, painful, beautiful chaos of consciousness itself.

Broken Rites is a sweeping historical fantasy of Celtic gods, ancient power, spiritual warfare, and the resilience of the human will. Rich with mythological depth and driven by high-stakes emotion, it continues the epic saga begun in Echoes of the Otherworld-a story of guardianship, sacrifice, and a land fighting not only for survival, but for meaning.