An ancient curse broken, a new prophecy foretold, and a grimoire of dark Druidic magic.
After a year of unimaginable violence, magic, and an all-consuming love that has followed her through countless incarnations, Julia Harrison has not only come into her own as a magic Bearer—far surpassing those women in her bloodline who came before her—but is about to start down a path that can end in only one of two ways: with her fulfilling her prophesized role as Sovereign, chalice of the World Ruler; or with the death of everyone and everything she holds dear at the hands of Cassius Longinus, The Child of Rome, in his brutal and inexorable quest to finally achieve true immortality.
Mantle of the World Ruler—Book Two of the Lost Wells Trilogy—begins directly after the events of its predecessor, and with it, author Kate Gateley draws the reader right back into the romantic, magical, and often terrifying world of Bearers and Wielders, Knaves and Wraiths, and Domhnall O’Brien, cursed by choice to follow his love through one life after another until they can save each other at last.
With the Sovereign standing tall, the World Ruler too must bear his crown…
…Darkness reigns where light cannot, and from its root, the land will rot.
A centuries-old rebirth curse, an otherworldly Celtic prince, and an inescapable prophecy.
Thirty-year-old magic Bearer Julia Harrison had never given the notion of past lives or grand destinies any real credence or thought. She has knowledge of magic, and the power she shares with the women of her bloodline. She’s aware of the difference between Druids and Sorcerers, Wielders and Bearers, and so on, but regardless of all of that… her everyday life has always felt quite normal—distinctly unmagical—and never more so than as of late.
With the recent death of her beloved grandmother, Julia finds herself severed from the only sense of place she’d ever known. Grandma Gertie had all but raised her and was easily the strongest connection she’d had to her own magic, and that of the natural world. Without it, she feels lost. Disconnected. Unable to rely on (or even effectively access) her own limited magics in her current emotional state, Julia’s primary focus turns to placing one foot in front of the other as she resumes a linguistics degree that has taken far longer to earn than it should have.
But when a visiting professor arrives on her Vancouver campus—one who brings with him an odd sense of familiarity that’s almost as compelling as his raw Celtic masculinity—Julia knows that her life’s journey is about to change, heading off on an entirely new path. What she could have never predicted, or even dreamed of, was that somehow, they had walked that path together countless times before… each time towards their own inescapable deaths at the hands of Marcus Cassius Longinus, the indomitable “Child of Rome.”
