The Faerie Path by Frewin Jones Page B

arms. She took both his hands and they danced in a slowly spinning circle.
    His gaze was constantly on her face, but his silvery eyes had a faraway look in them.
    “What are you thinking about?” she asked.
    “I was remembering the last time we danced together.”
    “That was some time ago, I suppose,” she said.
    “Indeed, a long, long time ago.”
    She shook her head. “I don’t remember it at all.”
    “Your true self will return in time,” Gabriel promised.
    She looked pensively at him. Had she loved him—“a long, long time ago?” She could see how it wouldbe possible to fall for him. He was very appealing—charming and kind and extremely attractive. She smiled to herself. And rich and powerful, she assumed, although she wasn’t sure whether that ought to matter to a princess.
    He gazed back at her, and now his eyes were focused intently on her, as if she was the only point of interest in the whole whirling world.
    They were such strange eyes. Silver-gray. Like moonlight shimmering on the surface of a deep, dark lake. Like a white flame reflecting on burnished steel. Like sparks flying as the hammer strikes the anvil. The room spun and she found she could not look away.
    The intimacy of their eye contact began to make her feel uneasy, as if she needed to break loose from him before something momentous happened. She tried to pull her hands out of his.
    “Do not let go of my hands, my lady,” he said softly.
    His eyes seemed to expand until all she could see was the silver of his irises and the black of his pupils. The silver shone like moonlight and the black sparked with points of white light, like a whole sky full of stars. Silver and black. Drawing her in. Holding her fast.
    “No,” she whispered. “I won’t.”
    “Look down,” he said. “And have no fear.”
    Anita looked down. The floor, the Great Hall, and the dancing courtiers had vanished. Instead, the night sky surrounded them—star-strewn and lit by a crescent moon that hung low in a thin veil of lacy mist. There was nothing under her feet; Gabriel was holding hersuspended in the rushing air, and the night-washed land lay far below them.
    Overwhelmed by a sudden panic, she let out a moan of fear and clutched at his hands.
    “You will not fall,” he said. “Trust me.”
    She swallowed hard. This time she had no wings, no control. She had only Gabriel to save her from falling. She had to believe in him.
    They were moving very fast through the sky. The wind was on her face and in her eyes, cool and refreshing after the heat of the Great Hall. Her ears were full of its soft voice as it whispered and sang to her. It rustled and hissed in her dress. It plucked at her hair until she felt it streaming out into the night.
    Far away, and far below, she could see a ribbon of tiny bright lights, sparkling like scattered diamonds. It was the Faerie Palace speeding away from them, the lights winking out one by one until the night swallowed them all.
    Vast stretches of empty heath slipped beneath them, deep purple hills rising and falling like a swollen sea of petrified shadows. At the edge of the moorland, a vast forest stretched out to the edge of sight, dark and dense in the glancing moonlight.
    “Where are you taking me?” Anita asked.
    “Over the hills and far away,” Gabriel said lightly. He dropped his right hand and lifted his left and she gave a breathless scream as they plunged earthward.
    “No! Don’t!” she shouted as the trees hurtled toward them. “Please!”
    Her feet were brushing the leaf-laden upper branches when Gabriel lifted his right hand again and their precipitous fall ended in a smooth curving ascent. The stars swam above her head, the moon rocked on the black horizon. The air hummed in her ears.
    She gasped. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
    “For your delight, my lady,” Gabriel said, smiling.
    A little uncertain about his definition of delight , she forced herself to relax and gazed down between her