EALA'S TALE is the prelude to the Between Heaven and Hell series. It tells the love story of Shaddock, a Fallen Angel of the Under Realms of Hell, and Eala, a Druid wizard's daughter, and their ill-fated romance.

EALA'S TALE          

INTRODUCTION - DARK LOVE 

It was an ill-fated love from the start. For he was born to darkness and I was born to light, and I knew there would come a time when dusky moments spent in each other’s arms would no longer satisfy. The sacrifice would be mine, for though Evil can love with all the passions of the gods, it is a selfish love bound to mortal flesh and lust. And so I waited, and when I felt the child quicken in my womb, I knew Time had come.

I have chosen an obsidian dagger forged in the fiery bowels of the Misty Mountains by a Druid wizard’s hand, the shard of glass taken from a fallen star and so believed to be Heaven sent. As I hold it to my breast, I pray it proves true, for my love’s fury will be terrible when he learned of my betrayal, and his retribution swift.

In the silvery light of a solstice moon I stand in a circle of stones that reach up to the Upper Realms of Heaven, on a hilltop that looks out over the rugged highlands I have walked all the days of my life. And with one hand resting upon my unborn son... I drive the dagger through my heart.

There I die. A death of mortal flesh only! My body seen lying in a pool of blood shrouded in moonlight as I am taken into the stones. The Stones of Anara are both my prison and my sanctuary. Behind their walls I am protected from my lover’s wrath, but until the Time of Reckoning I am bound to them. For five thousand years I will stand in their obsidian embrace, my soul revived every time a solstice moon takes rise, the last of my magic used to carve the banfili’s prophecy onto their faces.

It is the banfili who revealed Shaddock’s true identity to me, for a seer does not see the world through mortal eyes. They are blind to it, and so they see all. And would that I had done the same, for until that moment I’d believed my lover to be the traveling bard he claimed to be. But I was deceived! Seduced by his great beauty and his charms, and the stories that had flowed like honey from his flawless lips, and a lover’s touch I can still feel upon my skin and in my heart.

An ill-fated love born of deception! The child in my womb to be used as a pawn in the endless games Hell wages against Heaven, and that I cannot allow. And so in the darkness of these stones I will wait until the prophecy is fulfilled. I will cry out with joy when my son is reborn again, and I will weep when the Mist Riders bind themselves in blood and brotherhood to him. And I will praise the goddess when the Lost Man is found.

They are Maghodian’s chosen! It is his magic that will keep the Highlands safe until my son returns, and I am his daughter. Eala! Moon Priestess of the night goddess Luna, lover to a Fallen Angel of the Under Realms of Hell.