Read Online The Immortal Realm by Frewin Jones - Free Book Online

if…as if—” She came to a choking halt. She had been going to say, as if you’re outsiders, as if you’re different from them. But the truth was they were ; they were totally different. They were aliens from another world.
    The King looked from face to face. “Is this the will of the entire council?” he asked. “Banishment for all time?”
    â€œIt is,” came a quiet chorus of voices.
    â€œIs there no other way?” asked Rathina. “Surely there must be?”
    â€œI don’t think there is,” said Mary Palmer. She looked at the King. “Do it now—before we cause any more harm.”
    Oberon stood up from his chair and raised his arm, lightning flickering at his fingertips.
    â€œNo!” Tania screamed.
    â€œSilence, daughter. The council has made its willclear. Your Mortal parents must be sent from this place—never again to return to Faerie!” Oberon gestured toward them. Lightning crackled through the tent.
    Tania threw herself in front of her parents, her arms spread wide. “You can’t do that!” she shouted. “I’m their daughter, too!”
    â€œStand clear, Tania!” boomed Oberon.
    But it was too late. Before Tania had time to react, the lightning struck her and she staggered back, caught in a blazing ball of white fire that dazzled her eyes and filled her ears with roaring flames.

V
    Tania had the sense of hurtling through the air in a haze of white sparks. She could move but only slowly, as though under fathoms of water—and through the frosted halo that surrounded her she could see into a deep velvet blackness studded with huge stars. She was flying through the sky high above Faerie.
    Moving with her were three other balls of white fire racing like comets through the darkness, trailing beards of flame.
    The stars wheeled around and her stomach launched itself into her throat as the four fireballs plummeted and a great stretch of green land came racing up to meet them.
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    Tania found herself standing on a grassy hillside. Beside her, wide-eyed and gasping for breath, were her Mortal mother and father.
    â€œYou are safe,” came a deep, gentle voice. “Thehorse of air is swift and wild, but it does no harm.”
    Tania turned and saw Oberon standing with his back to a tall round tower of brown stone.
    â€œBonwn Tyr!” she murmured. She knew this tower well: It was the portal through which she could come and go from her bedroom in London.
    The ways in and out of Faerie were called portals or doorways, but really they were neither. Faerie and the Mortal World were shadows of each other divided by an invisible membrane through which only a few people had the art or skill to pass. Princess Eden and some handful of similar lore-masters could do it, but they relied on long study of the Mystic Arts to allow them to open a portal between the worlds. For Tania, whose ability to walk between the worlds was a gift of her royal heritage, moving between the worlds needed but a simple, effortless side step.
    Tania turned and gazed down the hill to the endless profusion of towers and courtyards of the Royal Palace, stretching away in either direction along the snaking course of the River Tamesis.
    Tania’s Mortal father seemed dazed from the journey, his face red and the sweat standing out on his forehead. He was leaning forward, his hands on his knees, panting for breath. A frown deepened on Oberon’s face, and he stepped forward as if to help him.
    Clive Palmer pulled himself upright and stretched out his hand. “No! Oberon, no. Don’t touch me. It’s too dangerous.”
    Oberon nodded. “So be it,” he said.
    â€œWe’re sorry for the harm we’ve done in your world,” said Mary Palmer, moving to her husband’s side.
    Mr. Palmer held a handkerchief to his mouth, stifling a cough. “We must go. Tania, you have to take us through into London—and then