The Star

Chapter 2: Charms the Vile

He was walking before Amee could process what he'd said. He walked with his head craned to the sky, surveying the leafy canopy above. "Where are we going?" she asked, following just far enough behind him to be out of arm's reach.

"It's a surprise," he called back. "Who would I be to spoil a surprise?"

"I'm ... I'm not sure I desire a surprise. I'd like to know, I think."

He faced her then. His grin was wild. "Amee, don't you trust me?"

She scoffed. "Should I?"

He only kept plastered on his lips that shit-eating grin. Eyes went to the sky once more, and then, before she could process it, his arms were around her. She yelped, but it was drowned out by wind rushing around her. They were hurtling upwards, at a speed she didn't think possible for anything.

Amee heard her shouts then: they were screams. She scrambled up his body like a squirrel might a tree trunk and wrapped her arms around his neck. She clung tighter to him than she'd clung to anything. Tighter than she had clung to her mother after a nightmare, tighter than she had clung to her handmaiden when she leanred she'd be married off to Vaely. Her hyperventilation ricocheted off his neck.

"Amee!" she heard Dane shout. The world had quieted, the chaos dissipating. "Amee! Stars, Amee, calm yourself! Look around." He was laughing.

Her fingers trembled as she lifted her eyes. Her jaw dropped.

They had flown above the forest, the treetops below them spreading for miles in every direction. They seemed to stretch to the end of the world itself. The sun bathed every leaf, as if intentionally paying attention to illuminating each one. The trees varied in size, creating valleys and hills in the sky.

"It's breathtaking," she whispered. Somewhere, in the haze of her awe, she had released her deathly hold on him. Her hands rested on his shoulders as she pushed herself higher. Only when she realized his face was a breath away from her chest did she lower herself, falling back into him. "Sorry," she muttered. "But it's stunning."

"Isn't it?" He sighed. "I come up here every day, but ... it never gets old."

"It never could," she agreed. Then, far, far north, she noticed oranges and reds rather than the overwhelming green everywhere else. She pointed. "What is that?"

"A tour for another day, perhaps. Here, clamber onto my back, I fly better that way."

"Fly," she uttered as the insanity of it all hit her. "Fly, yes, you can fly. How in the world can you possibly be flying right now?"

He chuckled. "Faeries. Well, their dust, specifically."

"Faeries? They're real? They're here!"

"Calm yourself, again, a tour for another day."

"If all of these are being omitted from the tour, than where are we going? Dane, please, tell me."

"I suppose you won't adhere to formalities. I am a king, after all, you could address me as such."

She huffed as she (with his help) moved to his back, hands locked around his neck. "You have only yourself to blame for that. You introduced yourself as Dane, and nothing more in that moment, so Dane to me you'll be."

He began flying them southwards. "You'll soon see all my subjects address me in ways such as 'your grace' or 'his majesty' or-"

"And what will happen if I do not? Will I be punished?" When he gave no response, she smiled. "Dane, it is."

They were silent, then. He picked up speed, and soon they neared what she assumed to be the Star's southern tip. She could see normal land beyond it, grassy plains, sparse trees. She wondered if she'd ever know those again. Before she could ponder too long on it, though, Dane dove downwards. She couldn't help the shriek at the sudden motion. The world was a blur of branches and leaves until he landed in mud. It came spattering upwards, wrecking further her dress. When she hopped down, her feet sank into it.