Magic, Mystery, a little Whisky, and a Cat
Green lightening strikes a black castle. Celtic runes in fiery red letters border the bottom of the castle. Zoraida Grey and the Pictish Runes by S.K. Dubois Book 3 in the Small Town Witch Trilogy

Zoraida Grey and the Pictish Runes

Hostages in the tower, vampires in the caverns, witches in the drawing room.

Castle Logan lives up to its dark reputation when Zoraida returns to Scotland with vengeance on her mind.
To rescue her best friend forever, she’ll have to use every skill she’s learned. Will it be enough? How can a small-town fortuneteller hope to defeat the powerful witches of Castle Logan? The mysterious black crystal hidden beneath the East Tower offers certain victory––but the price is high.

The last book in the Zoraida Grey Trilogy finds Zoraida pitted against the entire clan of Logan witches. But if they think it’s going to be easy, they've got another think coming.

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A rustle  of leaves and the spark of a newly kindled fire pulled his mind from dark thoughts and he became aware of a group of men, short and hairy, crouching in the snow just inside the sheltering branches of the thicket. He would have shrouded himself in magic and melted into the deeping winter wood if not for the blue stone they guarded.  Twice as tall as he and twice as thick, its size alone caught his eye. Blue flecks against black agate glowed like rising stars in a cold sky, and he wanted it.

He strode toward the group and, with a quick flick of his fingers, snapped the hairy men back into senseless mud. Then, he conjured the stone to rise, measured its heft, tested its cold roughness against the white skin of his hand. With its touch, a frisson raised gooseflesh along the indigo tattoos on his arms and torso. The short red hair on the back of his neck prickled.

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Strange magic, sickening and sweet like spoiled cherries, clung to the stone. The hairy men had not hewn this monolith from its place and dragged it here. Nor did the sheet of ice just now receding push it this distance. Someone else knew how to conjure stone to rise and if they knew that, what else did they know?

He sniffed the fresh breeze, smelt nothing save the distant sea and the musk of the deer he would eat before moonrise. But he felt them—these spell-casters. In the pit of his stomach, he felt them.

And so the first rune he carved was a shield knot.  With a fiery twist of his long fingers, he etched protection and savage redress on the wide flat base of the blue stone. The spiral design squirmed and writhed as the magic worked itself into the heart of the obelisk.

He would inscribe the secret tale of his life, the mysteries of his being, on this monolith—a shrine to the riddle of his existence. A confession none save his own should see; a warning, none save his own would need; and a tombstone none save his own would cherish.

 None save his own.

Later, his stomach full, he watched the moon rise and noted the bloom of campfires across the snow-bound plain.  He wrapped himself and the stone in moon-blue sorcery and began the long journey north—homeward.

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