Behind the tangled throne, gossamer-winged faerie maidens cast Brea pitying glances. A nearby band of goblins cackled, clearly pleased by her plight. The queen held up one hand and called forth her magic. In a burst of violet light, a silver medallion appeared. It swung, dangling on a bright chain from the queen’s fingers.
“Take this,” she said, thrusting the medallion at Brea. “It is your passage back to the realm—but do not call upon it until Lughnasa is nigh.”
Brea took the medallion. It was cool against her fingers, the silver disc inset with a pale moonstone, the edges inscribed with runes. She folded it into her palm, proof of the journey she must now undertake.
“Away with her,” the queen said to Puck.
Without a further glance at Brea, she signaled for elderberry wine and music. The creatures of her court bestirred themselves, returning to their dancing and feasting.
“Come, maid,” Puck said.
Brea rose and followed him. She did not look behind her as they left the clearing of the Dark Court, though the strains of a plaintive jig followed her into the shimmering darkness beneath the trees.
“I am afraid,” she said, once the sounds of the court had faded.
“You are wise to be so,” Puck said. “Yet who knows what doors will open to you in the human world, or what fate might hold in store?”
She did not want fate or a queen’s commands to rule her—but she had no choice.
Puck led her along mossy paths faintly illuminated with starshine. Overhead, the dark oaks wove their tangled branches across the star-dappled sky.
“Quickly,” the sprite urged. “We must slip you through before the battle commences. I have folded time, but we must make haste.”
Brea gulped back her questions. She doubted she wanted to know the answers. Battle? Folded time? Instead she quickened her pace, until she and Puck were nearly flying through the forest. Or perhaps they truly were airborne. Her feet did not seem to touch the ground, and she would not be surprised if the sprite’s magic propelled them forward. Overhead, the sky lightened to a pearly grey.
“Here.” Puck halted before a strange clearing, still floating in the air. “We are in time.”
Brea’s feet landed on the cool moss, and she blinked at the clearing. It was not a single glade, but three, lined up like a triple reflection. The one nearest them held a faerie ring of moon-pale mushrooms, the far one was lit by morning sun and its circle made of white-speckled red mushrooms, and the one in the middle was a mixture of both—sun and shadow, pale mushrooms and red growing together to make the faerie ring.
Puck strode to the middle clearing and flourished his fingers in a strange gesture. Colored mist began forming in the center of the faerie ring—golden and violet and emerald swirling together.
“Keep the medallion safe,” the sprite said, nodding to the silver pendant still clutched in her hand. “Step into the mist, and be brave.”
She was not brave, nor had she ever been. She’d merely done what had to be done—which seemed only to take her from one trouble to the next.
“What must I do, once I reach the human world?” she asked, slowly walking toward the bright eddies of mist.
“Mark humans with a touch of faerie magic, so that they are called into the Realm,” Puck said. “But most of all, trust your heart.”
The sprite ever spoke in riddles, with few answers. She let out a low sigh.
Beside them, the clearing holding the moon-pale ring began to glow. Puck gave it a wary glance, then gestured at her to hurry.
“Farewell, Maid Brea,” he said. “Luck be upon you.”
She hoped the fates heard his words.
“Farewell, Puck.”
Gathering the shreds of her courage, she stepped into the swirling mist of the center clearing. The world tipped, dizziness pouring over her until she fell to her knees. She could feel the sweet magic of the Realm of Faerie ripping away, and she cried out from the pain of it.
It was not the first time she’d been pulled from one world to another, though, and she vowed that whatever happened, she would survive this transformation.
Human or faerie, she would stay true to her word. And perhaps, one day, she would find her way home. Wherever that might be.
_____
Brea’s adventures continue in Royal: Feyguard Book 2
About Anthea Sharp
Growing up on fairy tales and computer games, Anthea Sharp has melded the two in her award-winning Feyland series, which has hit the USA Today bestseller list twice and sold over 200,000 copies worldwide.
Anthea is often ranked in the Top 100 Fantasy/SF authors at Amazon, and is thrilled to have 6,000 fans and over 1 million reads at Wattpad. Her novels have won or placed in the PRISM, the Maggie, the National Reader’s Choice Award, the Write Touch Reader’s Award, the Heart of Excellence, The National Excellence in Romance Fiction, The Judge a Book by its Cover, and the Book Buyer’s Best competitions.
Anthea lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she writes, hangs out in virtual worlds, plays the fiddle with her Celtic band Fiddlehead, and spends time with her small-but-good family.
Find out more about her books at https://antheasharp.com and join her mailing list to stay on top of all the news and current releases – plus get a bonus free short story when you sign up at http://eepurl.com/1qtFb
A Note to Readers
Thank you so much for reading Chronicle Worlds: Feyland, one of the many titles in the Future Chronicles anthology series in speculative fiction.
Through the work of a number of talented authors, editors, artists and other contributors—and the amazing support of readers like you—the Future Chronicles series has become one of the most acclaimed short story anthology series of the digital era, hitting the top ranks of not just the science fiction, fantasy and horror anthology lists, but the overall Amazon Top 10 Bestsellers list itself.
The Future Chronicles has also inspired several other quality anthology series in speculative fiction and in other genres, and inspired scores of spin-off stories, novels, and series. It’s been amazing.
If you enjoyed the stories in this book, please keep an eye out for other titles in the Future Chronicles collection.
A full listing of titles, which can be read in any order, can be found at
www.futurechronicles.net
Finally, before you go, we’d like to ask you a very small favor, if you please: Would you write a short review at the site where you downloaded this book?
Reviews are make-or-break for authors. A book with no reviews is, simply put, a book with no future sales. This is because a review is more than just a message to other potential buyers: it’s also a key factor driving the book’s visibility in the first place.
More reviews (and more positive reviews) make a book more likely to be featured in bookseller lists and more likely to be featured in bookseller promotions. Reviews don’t need to be long or eloquent; a single sentence is all it takes. In today’s publishing world, the success (or failure) of a book is truly in the reader’s hands.
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Table of Contents
Foreword (Samuel Peralta)
Introduction (Anthea Sharp)
The Skeptic(Lindsay Edmunds)
The Sword of Atui (Eric Kent Edstrom)
The Huntsman and the Old Fox (Brigid Collins)
Unicorn Magic (Roz Marshall)
City of Iron and Light (Jon Frater)
The Gossamer Sha
rd (David Adams)
The Glitchy Goblin (K. J. Colt)
On Guard (Deb Logan)
An Artist’s Instinct (Andrea Luhman)
Tech Support (James T. Wood)
Brea’s Tale: Passage (Anthea Sharp)
A Note to Readers
Chronicle Worlds: Feyland Page 29
