by Frewin Jones
They walked together out of the drowned graveyard of ruined Caer Fior and began the long climb that would take them out of the sea and onto the dry land of the Earldom of Weir.
And then?
A ship—a ship to take them across the Western Ocean to journey’s end.
Epilogue
The slender white-hulled sloop crested the waves, skimming like a flat stone, running fast before the strong east wind. The triangular sails belled, straining against the single mast; the fine rigging hummed.
Rathina was at the tiller, singing lustily, her hair whipping about her face, her cheeks red and her eyes bright.
Connor was sitting up against the mast, coiling rope and practicing knots.
Tania stood at the prow, their speed driving her hair like fire into her eyes, the spray spangling her face, the morning sun already hot on her back.
She stared out over the fretful sea, away and away to the clear blue horizon. She thought sadly of her Mortal mother and father, lost to her for all time behind impenetrable barriers. And she thought also of the King and Queen and her other sisters in Veraglad Palace, struggling against the dark tide of a disease that threatened utterly to overwhelm them.
I will save them! I will! Nothing is going to stop me! I won’t rest until Nargostrond’s plague is driven from Faerie forever!
At her back the dark coast of Weir was falling away. Ahead of her lay new lands where lay the answers to all riddles: a cure for the plague.
Over the shimmering horizon…
She recalled her mother’s words, spoken to her long ago and far away. She had not realized at the time how those words would resound in her mind and in her heart.
Beyond the flaxen coasts and heathered glens of Alba, beyond the emerald hills of Erin of the enchanted waters, beyond even dragon-haunted Hy Brassail, far, far away to the land of Tirnanog, where the Divine Harper spins his songs at the absolute end of the world.
And now she was in a ship, racing headlong toward those half-remembered islands of Faerie lore. In her hands she held the fate of every soul who dwelled in the Immortal Realm.
She would not fail them!
About the Author
Frewin Jones has always believed in the existence of “other worlds” that we could just step in and out of if we only knew the way. In the Mortal World, Frewin lives in southeast London with a mystical cat called Siouxsie Sioux. Visit Frewin online at www.myspace.com/frewinjones.
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Also by Frewin Jones
The Faerie Path
The Lost Queen
The Seventh Daughter
(also published as The Sorcerer King)
Warrior Princess
Credits
Jacket art © 2009 by Ali Smith
Jacket design by R. Hult
Copyright
THE FAERIE PATH #4: THE IMMORTAL REALM. Copyright © 2009 by Working Partners Limited. Series created by Working Partners Limited. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition April 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-190593-3
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