The Fisherman's Daughter

By K. Scott Lewis

An Ahmbren Chronicles novella.

“You are meant for the fair folk,” the shaman with hungry eyes says to the fisherman’s daughter. Meiri dismisses his mutterings as those of a lecherous man trying to lure the beautiful young woman into his cult. She leaves his temple behind, but his words bear the hauntings of fate, and fate punishes her for ignoring them.

Aeons ago in the kingdom of Aradheim, dangers lurked in all forms; humans enslaved humans, powerful wizards manipulated the hapless and each other, and the High Elf Imperium itself hid a secret that could destroy them. Like the fish Meiri and her father snatched from the water and sold to the temple, Meiri is captured, caged and sold in the slave markets of Fairholm. With her village burned and her father dead, she can never return, but the fight in her spirit will not resign itself to a life of servitude. Through wit and audacity, she escapes the house of the human lord who owns her and becomes lost in the forbidden Sutonian Woods, knowing but uncaring that she will surely face the ire of the elves. She is free.

But her liberty is short-lived. The High Elf Prince Kaladan finds her. Obsessed by a secret glamour he can’t control, he falls in love with the beautiful human and breaks all his people’s taboos to possess her, vowing to never let her go. From bondage to a gilded cage, Meiri is at her prince’s mercy. But desire makes slaves of its owners, and once more calling upon her wit and cleverness she uses the prince as her instrument of vengeance on the lords who destroyed her home—even as she negotiates for her freedom.

The power of the glamour and the price of the prince’s passion are greater than Meiri can comprehend. As she maneuvers for the rule of her own fate, the same obsession that had ensnared the prince spreads throughout his domain, infecting the fair folk with hopeless love for their own human pets. Their depravity becomes a death knell that rings loudly enough for the remaining High Elf Courts of the Imperium to hear. To protect their race from the same fate, the Courts swiftly pass a judgment that promises not only Meiri’s final doom but all of humanity’s.

• Language: English
• Publisher: K. Scott Lewis
• Release date: Dec 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310866579

K. Scott Lewis

Hello! I'm K. Scott Lewis, and I write epic fantasy for the series called The Ahmbren Chronicles. The Ahmbren Chronicles is set in a fictional world on another planet where dragons, gods, and magic exist. My stories are written for mature audiences and feature elements of horror, the supernatural, romance, social issues, religion, and a dash of science-fiction. I draw heavily on world mythology and current events for inspiration, and interweave the complexity of life into a magical backdrop, to include faith vs. skepticism, sexual identity vs. sexual conformity, ambition vs. compassion, substance addiction, and balancing the needs of family vs. the call of duty. The entry point into the series is either the novella, The Fisherman's Daughter, or the full length novel, Myth and Incarnation.

Book preview

THE FISHERMAN’S DAUGHTER

An Ahmbren Chronicles Tale

by

K. Scott Lewis

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either fictitious or are used fictionally. Any resemblances to real people or places are coincidental and unintentional.

THE FISHERMAN’S DAUGHTER

Copyright © 2014 by Kyle Scott Lewis

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

The Ahmbren Chronicles® is a registered trademark of Kyle Scott Lewis

Cover Art by Kyle Lewis, Copyright © 2014.

Edited by Tammy Salyer

First Edition v1.1, December 2014

For those who seek Love through Art

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to all of Ahmbren’s fans, beta readers, and contributors for your continued encouragement and feedback.

Author’s Note

Welcome to Ahmbren! Inside these pages, you will find a world of enchantment, passion, romance, and danger. There are many shades and facets to the world, from high fantasy to steam-age adventure.

If this is your first look into the world of Ahmbren, welcome! If you like what you find and want more in this world, the first book is Myth and Incarnation, a high fantasy about dragons and avatars coming to terms with their destinies. The second book, When Dragons Die, is proto-steampunk and sets up the world for future tales in a magical Age of Reason. When Dragons Die is published in three volumes: Lightfall, Covenant, and The Tides of Artalon.

If this is not your first time walking the fields of Ahmbren, welcome back! The following story takes place after the events of When Dragons Die, and is part of an intended series of shorter tales leading up to the next set of Ahmbren novels.

I hope you enjoy this tale from The Ahmbren Chronicles. May you always find magic in story!

~K. Scott Lewis

The Fisherman’s Daughter

Mind my words, child, lest the elf king take you.

Don’t look long at the woods, child, lest the shining ones keep you.

Once the elf Courts catch you, they never let you go.

~Aradic saying

Part 1: Fairholm

1

Two elven women sat on a veranda in the seaside town of Tavenport, watching the gondolas take tourists through watery streets. Tavenport was usually the first stop for sightseers on their way to Erindil to see the wizard’s tower of Taer Iriliandrel and the old cathedrals of the ancient Archurionite Church.

The elven women, however, were well familiar with Taer Iriliandrel, and after what they had lived through in Artalon a year prior, the smaller wonders of the world had lost a little of their fascination. Each of them held something in common: they appreciated the calm serenity of quiet charm, such as the smaller city of Tavenport with its canals and waterways, and a good pastry in the morning accompanied by fresh coffee topped with frothy sugared milk.

Other than that, however, the two elven woman couldn’t have been more different. The blonde elf looked every bit the idealized picture of what humans thought of when they said the words elven beauty. She had golden hair, blue eyes, and a soft porcelain face caught somewhere in time between maiden and mother. The one feature that made her stand out from other ladies of the sidhe were her ears. Instead of extending upwards, they fell to the side and gently sloped to her shoulders, ending in soft rounded tips almost reminiscent of a floppy bunny. She was a sidhe, one of the ancient race of high elves who had built cities on Ahmbren when humankind still hunted and gathered from caves and hide tents.

The other elf was one of the light elves, the much younger seelie race. They had only existed on Ahmbren for a few decades, and she was one of the first, having manifested in the world from lightfall as a fully adult woman. She’d never been born or had to experience growing up, yet in some ways she had a younger mind than the sidhe. Her skin was dark gray, and she had slate-colored hair and purple eyes. Indigo whorls, indicators of the dead Fae spirits she held within her, covered her body like tattoos.

It’s good to see you again, Eszhira, the sidhe said, setting her cappuccino down on the white delicately wired iron table.

I’ve noticed you haven’t returned to the Frost Court, Eszhira replied. I’d thought you would have gone home by now. The two of them had become pleasant acquaintances in the past year, and Eszhira knew they could grow to be true friends in time.

The sidhe glanced away at ships offshore. The pier also held new airdock towers, wooden platforms of ratling construction that allowed airships and zeppelins to land and take on crew and cargo without having to rest on the ground. I’ve lived outside the Frost Court for so long now. I prefer the world, I think, to our secluded Courts.

Eszhira leaned back and nodded. Tallindra, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. The world is changing, for the better I think. The seelie have integrated throughout the human Realms. I think the sidhe can too.

Tallindra raised a skeptical eyebrow. It’s a nice thought, she agreed. But there would be… complications.

The high elves have stayed secluded far too long, the gray-skinned woman insisted. It’s time to think of opening your borders. Let the world into your cities and share their beauty. Send your people out to live in the world. We need to start thinking of ourselves all as Ahmbren’s children. One world, one people.

Tallindra looked at her for a long moment. "The sidhe will have a