Under starlight blood, beneath the heart of the sun,
We bind your power to the bones of the earth,
With the wind’s voice and the tears of stone.
There is no path home,
Unless you turn back upon your own heels.”
Ward wrapped one arm across his chest and pressed his closed fist to his mouth as he considered the options of what he’d read. A chill ran across his neck, which had nothing to do with the coolness of the underground air.
They’re not talking to Fionn.
They are talking to anyone who dares try to break some sort of seal.
What seal?
What is the chant a key for?
He stared at the final symbol, tucked into a side recess deeper into the curve of the tunnel. It was different than the rest—less eroded, yet almost more deeply cut. A spiral with three arms, each tipped in small circles that had once been inlaid with something—metal or pigment that long since leached away.
Ward didn’t touch this one. He stared at it as the words of the chant echoed in his head, no longer in translation. They were speaking for themselves.
There is no path home—unless you turn back upon your own heels.
Was it some sort of failsafe, a warning, or maybe a curse?
Ugh, think.
Think.
Damn it.
He stood in front of it with his heart pounding so hard he almost expected it to jump right out through his rib cage as he racked his mind, trying to remember the legends he’d heard around a Seanachí’s fireplace close to Dungarvan, about twelve miles from the stone at Coumshingaun.
The Irish legend said Fionn Mac Cumhaill and the Fianna had gone west into the fairy mounds, into Tír na nÓg. But no one ever said what had happened to Fionn himself. Not clearly. Not definitively. There were whispers in Irish oral traditions that Fionn never crossed over, maybe even that he was betrayed and separated from the rest of the Fianna.
Was he taken here?
What if this isn’t a myth?
What if Fionn wasn’t a king who died, but one who was locked away?
What if this chant and these symbols are the key to his tomb?
Ward’s head spun. The archaeologist in him demanded caution. The scientist in him wanted proof. But something older—some buried part of him, the memory that had dragged him through field after field in Ireland as a teenager—whispered:
You’ve found him.
He didn’t speak the words aloud. But he looked at the chant again, written line by line in his notebook, the symbols aligned to each translation. The chant was complete. The circle was unbroken. So why did the air feel like it was waiting for something to happen?
His entire body ached from hunching over his journal as he backed away from the final symbol. His breath came in shallow huffs as if the oxygen had gone thin. He turned back toward the entrance, paused, and glanced once more over his shoulder.
I should go. Now. Before I do something stupid.
His lamp caught the edge of the wall, and for a moment, just a flicker, the glyphs shimmered like veins of obsidian catching firelight. Then the ground beneath his feet hummed, along, low, subsonic sound. Ward stumbled and braced himself against the wall. “What the hell—” A small tremor ran through the floor like a pulse. He held still, waiting to see if anything else happened. But thankfully, there was no collapse, smoke, or sound. He closed the notebook and packed it with shaking hands.
It’s fine. Probably just some kind of seismic echo.
