Free Faerie Path #6: The Charmed Return by Frewin Jones Page A

needed.”
    Suddenly Rathina was there at her side in her vision, and Jade, also, staring around as though stunned to find herself in such a place.
    Is this real, then? I thought it was all in my head. . . .
    They were no longer running now. They were upon a hilltop crowned with huge blue crystals that threw out a vibrant light. It was night—a night of huge and pulsing stars. They were in a ring, hand-in-hand, dancing in a circle among the shining stones. The air was like spice and the grass was alive beneath their feet.
    Anita could feel the love of her family rushing through her. The love of her mother and father, the love of Jade and her Faerie sisters; and deepest of all, like a warm hand that cradled her heart, the love of her own Edric.
    Faster and faster they whirled, forming a chain that threaded in and out among the great blue crystal stones.
    Then there was no ground beneath her feet. She was soaring upward through the night.
    She was winged, alone, suspended in darkness, surrounded by stars.
    Every star was a memory, rushing at her in a hail of sharp light, pouring into her eyes, filling her mind.
    She saw a vision of a solemn-eyed, brown-haired girl with a sighing voice. “He had a mausoleum of white stone built to honor our mother. . . .”
    Herself, kneeling on a forest path, clutching a leather-bound book.
    That same sad voice, but terrified now. “I am in a small dark room, in a hovel, lying in a bed with filthy sheets over me. . . .”
    She saw Zara and herself being helped into a rowboat by a man in sky blue livery. A silver galleon lay at anchor in a wide bay.
    A freckled girl with red-gold hair cut at the shoulder. “Are there cows in the Mortal World?” she was asking.
    Edric’s voice. “I’ve got house keys and some coins on me. . . .”
    A riptide of gray unicorns with mauve manes and purple eyes.
    A withered heath. A battle. Herself standing, a sword in her fist. The memories were coming at her too fast. There were too many—too insistent—heaping into her mind until she was lost under the weight of them.
    Screaming and clawing, she felt herself drowning in memories.
    The last thing she saw was a great whaleback of white rock jutting out into a crashing ocean. . . .
    Tania was in a boat on a wide dark river. It was night. She knew there were other people with her, although she could not see them. She could hear uneasy horses. The stamp of a hoof. A snort in the darkness at her back. Was this a dream or another memory?
    A woman stood before her. An ageless woman in a dark cloak. A woman with a sweet, round-cheeked face and clear blue eyes.
    The woman spoke gently. “Do not fear. You are strongest where you are split—and I see your many selves, plucked out of time, coming together to heal you when your need is greatest.” The woman released Tania’s hand, and she and the boat and the river began to drift away.
    “No, wait!” Her own voice was shrill in her ears. “What does that mean? I don’t understand!”
    She was being held down, stifled in a dark place. Panic erupted through her as she struggled and fought, unable to escape, unable to breathe.
    There was a pale light above her. She clawed frantically in the darkness. She had to get to the light. She had to.

Chapter X
    Tania Aurealis, princess of Faerie, seventh daughter of King Oberon and Queen Titania, awoke in the gloom of her bedroom in North West London.
    She sat upright, gasping for breath. Sharp, thin lines of light shone at the edges of the curtains that covered her window. She was fully dressed, save for shoes, and she was in her bed under a thin white duvet patterned with pink roses.
    The Faerie part of her had come alive again—and she remembered everything.
    Everything. From the moment when she had been sitting in her hospital bed reading the story of her own life from the book that had been blank pages only a few minutes previously. From that to the moment upon the white stone in Tirnanog when the sea