Priestess

By Alyne de Winter

Sacrifice or Love, Which is Stronger?

This is a short story, a tale of Dark Fantasy inspired by the High Priestess card in the Tarot. The seventh of seven daughters, Sylvana is taken at birth to be raised in the Temple of the Moon Goddess Diana. When she is initiated into the Rites of the Hunt she flees, on pain of death, because she cannot bear the sacrifices.

Protected as Seer and High Priestess in the Temple of Proserpina, she learns through the oracular Book that she has been tracked by her ex-lover, Aurelius, who, to save his own life, has pledged to take hers.

This highly atmospheric, dramatic tale is full of pagan mythical imagery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alyne de Winter
• Release date: Mar 16, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476345970

Alyne de Winter

Alyne de Winter is an author of Gothic Mysteries and Occult Thrillers featuring tormented beauties, eerie settings, night religions, secret histories... After years of drawing and painting, by a fluke ended up as an English major. She wrote and published award-winning poetry but always wanted to write fiction. The stories did not come to her until she went to Europe, then they flooded in and still haven't stopped. She loves the tradition of the writer establishing themselves with short stories while building the novels, so you will find many short stories on her page. The short story requires intensity of focus, economy of language (so every word must be effective) and must keep the plot lines tight. She likes to think of the short story as poetry's second cousin. Major influences: Grimms' Fairy Tales, Complete Works of Shakespeare, Angela Carter, Tanith Lee, Daphne du Maurier,Charles Dickins, Anne Rice, Theophile Gautier, Edgar Allen Poe, the films of Barbara Steele and other 1960s horror films. (Not a gore fan) Religion, History, costume, Ancient dance and folk cultures, and witchcraft. The Gothic novel has always been a love letter to the past, a grieving for lost beauty and an elegy to the soul.

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