The Oath

The Oath opens with the arrival of Caelym, a young Druid priest, at the outer walls of the Abbey of Saint Edeth in search of Annwr, the sister of his cult’s chief priestess, who was abducted by a Saxon war band fifteen years earlier and is rumored to be living in the convent. Weary, wounded, and starving, Caelym is on the verge of collapse when he meets an elderly woman who takes him to her hut in the nearby forest.

There he discovers that she is the priestess Annwr and that she has spent her years of captivity caring for Aleswina, a Saxon princess who has been consigned to the cloistered convent by her cousin, King Gilberth, after he assumed her father’s throne. Just as Caelym and Annwr are about to leave together, Aleswina learns that Gilberth, a tyrant known for his cruelty and vicious temper—and for having five wives die under mysterious circumstances—intends to take her out of the convent and marry her. Terrified, she flees with the two Druids beginning a journey that unfolds in ways none of them could have anticipated.