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I'm trying to find a fantasy book from my childhood library, about 45 years ago. I distinctly remember a quote from it,
a ring, a stone, a finger bone
describing three talismanic objects. There was mention of spells being "the crucible that held the will of the spellcaster". I think there was also an element of time travel, when the hero (heroine?), realised that the finger bone was actually their own, lost from centuries in the past.
Could this be “The Winter Players”, from Companions on the Road by Tanith Lee? Googling the phrase quoted in the question led me to this Google Books result
She could hear instead a priestess, speaking the Ritual in the shrine. It began with one voice, but shortly there were countless voices. She was hearing all the priestesses who had ever served the shrine. She was reaching back, back into the past of the shrine, back to its beginning, to the Relics themselves, which were the source of the shrine's holiness.
A Ring, a Stone,
A Finger-Bone-Abruptly, she was no longer in the cedar. She was running on a black road in a black mist, and something hopped before her-the Bone.
It's frustratingly difficult to find more detailed information about this book that would prove its match to the question. Wikipedia and Goodreads puts it at a 1977 publish date - exactly 45 years ago. A blurb:
The Ring, The Jewel, The Bone:
These are the Relics. The Mysteries of the Shrine, known only to the priestess. Only to Oaive. Yet he knows of them--the wolflike stranger from beyond the mists. And when he profanes them, there begins a game of cold sorceries and burning shadows to be played through all eternity...one way or another.
