Bugarach — The Mountain of God

Pic de Bugarach rises 1,230 meters above the Languedoc plain in southern France, its jagged peak perpetually shrouded in cloud. The locals call it the Mountain of God.

I chose Bugarach as Merona's first elemental mastery point — the place where she learns to command the Wind — because no location in the Languedoc better embodies the raw, untamed power of air.

In the book

Murdach leads Merona to Bugarach in Chapter 14, calling it by its ancient name: the Mountain of God. The Morrigan is waiting.

The wind spell Merona casts at the summit is written in authentic Irish Gaelic, calling on the Cailleach, the ancient Celtic goddess of wind and winter:

"Cailleach na gaoithe, eist le mo ghuth, Tugaim dom do gaoithe, a thiarna na gaoithe! Feach ar na scamaill, ag gluaiseacht le mo ordu, Gabh mo dhochas, mar a thagann an gaoith!"

Cailleach of the winds, hear my voice — Give me your winds, O lord of the winds!

The sacred geometry

Bugarach sits at the outer limit of Lincoln's pentagram — the wildest, most elemental point in the pattern. When I placed Merona there, I was not inventing a location. I was sending her to a place the sacred geometry had already designated as a node of power.

The wind knew she was coming.

— Michaela