Brea's Tale

By Anthea Sharp

A novella set in the USA Today bestselling world of Feyland, where faerie magic collides with the high-tech human world~

Once a mortal girl, Brea Cairgead discovers her magical heritage and escapes the human world to dwell in the Realm of Faerie. But fate has more in store for Brea than a simple existence as one of the fey folk, and when she runs afoul of the Dark Queen, she must embark on an adventure that will change her future... forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fiddlehead Press
• Release date: Oct 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9781680130492

Anthea Sharp

~ Award-winning author of YA Urban Fantasy ~Growing up, Anthea Sharp spent her summers raiding the library shelves and reading, especially fantasy. She now makes her home in the Pacific Northwest, where she writes, plays the fiddle, and spends time with her small-but-good family. Contact her at [e-mail], follow her on twitter, find her on facebook (http://www.facebook.com/AntheaSharp), and visit her website.

Book preview

BREA’S TALE

A Feyland Novella

ANTHEA SHARP

Once a mortal girl, Brea Cairgead discovers her magical heritage and escapes the human world to dwell in the Realm of Faerie. But fate has more in store for Brea than a simple existence as one of the fey folk, and when she runs afoul of the Dark Queen, she must embark on an adventure that will change her future forever.

Also by ANTHEA SHARP

USA Today bestselling Urban Fantasy author

~ The FEYLAND books ~

Feyland: The First Adventure

Feyland: The Dark Realm

Feyland: The Twilight Kingdom

How to Babysit a Changeling: A Feyland Novella

Trinket: A Feyland Tale

Spark: Feyguard Book 1

Brea’s Tale: A Feyland Novella

Royal: Feyguard Book 2

Marny: Feyguard Book 3

Chronicle Worlds: Feyland

An anthology of 12 Feyland-set stories by top SFF authors

Brea’s Tale: A Feyland Novella copyright 2016 by Anthea Sharp. Portions of this work have appeared in the Nightshade anthology, and The Shapeshifter Chronicles and Chronicle Worlds: Feyland, edited by Samuel Perlata

All rights reserved. Characters are fictional figments of the author’s imagination. Please do not copy, upload, or distribute in any fashion.

Front cover by Ravven.

Professional editing by LHTemple, Ellen Campbell, Crystal Watanabe

Copyediting by Editing720.

Visit www.antheasharp.com

QUALITY CONTROL

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART 1 – WATERBORNE

PART 2 – PASSAGE

PART 3 – ARRIVAL

OTHER WORKS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

WATERBORNE

Connacht, Eire, 9th century

Brea Cairgead bent over her father’s second-best fishing net, her fingers crusted with salt as she mended the coarse weave. A warm wind blew in from the sea, ruffling her long, dark hair and the thatched roofs of the cottages, and making her neighbor’s bright flowers sway.

The sky overhead was a pale summer blue, the weather fair for a good catch. Heat reflected from the whitewashed wall behind Brea, and before her lay the harbor and an endless view of the broad back of the sea.

Brea glanced at the waters, searching for a sign of her father’s boat, but there was nothing to see but the white tips of the waves. He would not return home until deep into the twilight hours.

The long days cannot be wasted, he’d told her once, when she had complained of his absence. Come winter there will be time enough to sit by the fire and tell tales—but if I do not work now, what will we have to eat when the darkness descends?

And so Brea had learned to bite her tongue and accept loneliness as her constant companion. The other children had always treated her warily, and as they grew into young men and women, paired off. No one came courting for Brea.

Finally, two summers ago, she had discovered why.

Brea shook her head, trying to dispel her melancholy mood. Sometimes she thought she should visit the sacred spring, located some distance from the village, and fasten a fluttering thread of a wish upon the hawthorn tree growing there—but she had no wishes to leave for the Fair Folk. All her hopes were kept imprisoned deep in her heart. Speaking them aloud, even tying a wish upon the tree’s branches, would only increase her sorrow sevenfold.

I wish for a true love of my own. I wish I had sisters and brothers. And the biggest, most painful of them all: I wish I could remember my mother.

Her father would not speak of Brea’s mother. If Brea pressed him too closely, he would storm out of the small cottage and down the road to Biddy’s Pub, and not return until he was reeling drunk, the fumes of uisce beatha filling the room until Brea barely could draw breath.

So, she had stopped asking.

But two years ago, on a summer afternoon much like this one, something had possessed her to go over to her father’s bed and pull the mattress up. It was heavy, stuffed with straw and a thin top layer of goose feathers. She’d grunted as she heaved it up, bracing it against her shoulder.

And found, lying against the thin slats of the bed frame, something altogether mysterious.

It shimmered, opalescent, roughly the size of her hand. Brea snatched it up and let the mattress fall back onto the frame, then went to the window to examine her find.

She might have thought it was a fish scale, but no fish she had ever seen would have a scale so large. It was flat and thin and roughly triangular. She held it up to her nose and sniffed, but it carried no odor. A quick taste yielded a faint salt flavor, but that might have been the sweat from her own hands.

Brea turned the scale back and forth in the light, so caught up in its rainbow shimmer that she did not see her father arrive. One moment she was admiring the scale’s glimmer, the next it was yanked from her hand. She looked up in surprise to see a storm gathering in her father’s eyes.

Da, she