"You must be so lonely," she breathed, and took a step towards him. "We should have come to see you long before this." She took one of his hands in hers, brought it up so it was cradled between their bodies. Behind her his brother watched them both.
"You wouldn't mind waiting a bit before you go, would you?" he asked, his voice gone low and hinting at things David didn't know. He crossed towards them, stopping when he was by David's side, both him and his sister in his sight.
"I--" David said, and his brother took his other hand, rubbing his thumb across David's knuckles.
David stared at him, then looked at his sister again. He felt very strange, something hot and shivery and dark stretching inside him. His sister tugged on his hand, placed it where his brother had touched moments ago, draping his fingers to rest along the edge of her dress, nudging them a little so they scraped over trim and onto skin. David let his fingers drift and heard his brother draw in a breath. His sister smiled. It was the most unpleasantly beautiful thing David had ever seen.
The servant coughed delicately, and his sister's smile faded.
"I've packed the shawl, just as you asked," the servant said.
"I don't remember--" his brother said, and his sister finished, "giving you leave to speak," a sharp wild heat in her voice. "Leave us."
"I'll tell the…guide you hired to return another day, then?"
Between him, his brother and sister locked glances, looking at each other as if he wasn't even there.
"The guide. He's--"
"All heart."
His sister dropped his hand. "It has to be today then. Too bad," she said with a little sigh. "And you," she told the servant, turning towards him in a swirl of glorious silks and furs, a shining star in the small dim cavern of the room. "I'm going to want to talk to you later." Her voice was like a song, light and sweet, but the melody behind it made David's skin crawl. The servant paled, but nodded.
As they walked through the castle to meet the guide David listened to the servant breathing behind him. He sounded winded, his breath coming in quick sharp pants like he was in pain. His brother and sister were in front of him, walking arm in arm and somehow not with him at all, moving as if they were in their own world. Their footsteps sounded unusually loud and the air around them somehow shimmered, as if with every step they took they somehow changed the world around them, shifted it into something different, brighter. Everyone they passed bowed to them; bending so low their foreheads touched the floor.
David looked at everyone curiously but no one seemed to notice him. When they reached the end of the last hall and passed through its doors his brother and sister stopped, paused at the top of the steep stairs that led down to the courtyard. His sister snapped her fingers. A blast of air hit David in the face and as the doors closed behind them he could hear a voice saying, "Was someone with their Highnesses? I thought I saw--." Behind him he could hear the servant moving carefully, his breathing still irregular, coming in great jagged gasps.
"They wanted to spend time with me," he said and turned, took his bag out of the servant's hands.
It wasn't heavy. He didn't own much. "For the first time ever I could have talked to them, really talked to them." He could hear the hurt in his voice, couldn't help it. He could feel snow begin to fall, hear it as a whisper filling the sky, felt it drifting cold and dry down over him.
The servant looked directly at him and David had to fight not to turn away from the empty white of his gaze.
"They once spent time with me," he said quietly. "They were the last things I ever saw."
David looked at his brother and sister. They'd descended the stairs and were standing in the courtyard talking to a bearded man, their faces alight with smiles, his sister on one side of him, his brother on the other. As David watched, his brother trailed one hand up the bearded man's arm as he turned to signal the guards to open the gates. The bearded man's eyes went soft, glowing helpless and hot. A smile crossed his sister's face and she said something, her mouth barely moving. The bearded man turned to look at her then, the same helpless look on his face.
His brother turned to him then, motioned for David to come join them.
"There is no trip, is there?" he said. He knew as soon as he said it that it was true.
"They know about you," the servant said in a rush. "What you can do. They want it to stop. They paid for a spell to make sure no one would see you leaving. You must have noticed it. It didn't hurt you though. You could breathe just fine. You have power. You could--"
"Did you pack my nurse's shawl?" David said, and the servant's face shifted, a look of pity and scorn crossing it.
"I did," he said, and then, as if he couldn't help himself, "Don't you care? Don't you realize you could stop them? Don't you--"
"Thank you," David said, and turned away. It had started to snow harder. He walked down to meet his brother and sister, watch them look up at the sky and then at him. He said hello to the guide, who said his name was Joseph and didn't look at him at all. He said goodbye to his brother and sister, watched them smile at each other. He brushed snow out of his eyes.
"Can I--may I take the servant with me?" he asked. His sister's smile disappeared and something deeply unpleasant flashed in her eyes. His brother put a hand on her arm and she looked at him.
When she did her smile returned, as if he'd reminded her of something she'd forgotten.
"Of course," she said. "Joseph can easily take care of the two of you. How silly of me to think otherwise." She smiled at Joseph, who paled before his eyes heated, staring at her as if she was the only thing he could see. When he nodded the Prince clapped his hands, motioned for the guards to bring the servant to them.
David turned back as they left, the servant walking pale and silent by his side. He noticed Joseph turned back too. His brother and sister were watching them. They waved farewell at the same time then turned away, arms linked about each other's waists.
Joseph finally looked at him when the gate closed behind them, a quick glance as if he wanted to pretend David wasn't there, as if he didn't want to look at him. His hands were shaking. "You'll need a walking stick," he shouted at the servant. "I'll go find a branch for you to use."
"Of course," the servant said politely and just as loudly. "But I'm not sure I heard you, what with my inability to see. Would you repeat yourself, please?"
"I was just trying to--" Joseph said, and broke off. "Never mind. Just wait here till I get back."
"Go," David said as soon as Joseph disappeared into the trees. "I'll tell him I changed my mind and sent you back."
"What?"
"There must be somewhere you can go."
"I--" the servant stammered. "I have family, or used to. I could--"
"Then go. Find them."
"No, no, I can't," the servant said quickly, anger thick in his voice. "We have to go back. I have a friend who works at the gate. It's all he can do now thanks to--thanks to
them
. He'd let us in, take care of the murderer they've hired to kill you. We could find them and --"
"You should leave," David said. "I'm not going back."
"Look at what they did to me!" the servant said and pointed at his face, his eyes. "You can see it.
I can't. I
can't
. Do you know what it's like to live in darkness? She was the last thing I saw. She stood in front of me and laughed, held her brother's hand and watched him…. They should pay. I want them to pay. And you could do that. You could make them suffer. You could--"
"I could," David said. "But I don't want to. I don't want to be like them."
"You're a million times worse already," the servant said, and spit on the ground. "You're a curse and a fool."
David stayed silent, stood listening to the snow fall, stood watching the servant's clouded eyes.
"Good riddance to you, then," the servant said and ran off, stumbling as he went, hands stretched out in front of him so his skin could see what his eyes couldn't.
"Goodbye," David said, and waited for Joseph to come back.
He'd promised, Joseph told himself. They needed him to do this. They were counting on him.
The Princess had whispered that to him right as the gate was being opened, a throaty, "I need you.
We
need you," rushing into him.
The Prince had clapped him on the back before he crossed through the gate, his fingers sliding up and crossing warm over the skin at the nape of Joseph's neck, a brief caress, a reminder of what he'd had and would have again.
He looked at the pale man beside him. He's no one, The Prince and Princess had told him, our brother but an embarrassment, hidden from sight because he's nothing more than a simple fool, and they were right. He'd asked for a servant and then sent him back, stared at everything as if he'd never seen anything before and never asked where they were going or what they'd do when they got there. There was nothing to him. Killing him wouldn't be any different than killing a stag. All it would take was one blow to the heart and then he could go back and they'd be waiting for him, call him to them right away.
They might even be waiting for him together, both of them lying curled up and golden, arms reaching towards him. The night he promised them he'd do this one thing--a simple thing, they'd said, a nothing -- he'd had them both at the same time, the Princess writhing against him, her mouth biting his neck as he pushed inside her while behind him the Prince's teeth raked across his shoulders as he pushed inside him, both of them promising him more nights like this, promising him forever, their hands linking together and wrapping him between them.
Just thinking about it--he took a deep breath and forced himself to focus. They'd been walking for at least half a day. They'd come far enough. If he hurried, he would be home tonight. Perhaps they'd already have someone there waiting for him. Of course they would. They'd promised. Just as he'd promised them.
"Do you want to stop for a minute?" he asked.
"If you want to."
Now, Joseph told himself. Do it now. He isn't even looking at you. He's staring at the trees. He brushed snow out of his eyes and let one hand fall to the handle of the knife resting snugly in a sheath by his side.
"Thank you so much for doing this. I've never seen a forest before, you know."
"I'm sure you've seen trees before, your Highness," Joseph said, and let his fingers close around the knife. He could see the Princess's face; hear the Prince's voice. He could feel them all around him. He couldn't wait any longer. He had to do this. They wanted him to.
"David," the man said. "I told you before, remember? And I haven't. Well, in pictures. But that doesn't really count, does it? This--" he swept one arm out, "is much better." He smiled at him.
And it was nothing, Joseph told himself, just a smile and nothing more. No promises like those that lay behind the Prince and Princess's, no memories. Just a smile, but he knew he'd never seen a look of such pure happiness on anyone's face. He knew he'd never seen anyone so beautiful.
His fingers slid off the knife.
"I--" he said, and he could hear the Prince and Princess urging him on but for once their golden call wasn't warming him, wasn't drowning the world around him. He saw himself standing poised in the middle of the deepest forest ready to kill instead. He tried to picture them the way he loved them and that they said they loved to be, all of them naked and together, but instead thought of the light of their eyes the night they told him what they wanted him to do, the way their smile at each other had made his flesh crawl.
Even then he'd known what they were going to ask him was something he wouldn't be able to do.
He'd known it.
"I have to go on ahead and check the path," he said helplessly. What was he going to do? Their voices weren't as strong as they'd been, their faces not as clear, but they were still what he wanted to see. "Sometimes hunters put out traps and I don't want you to get hurt."
"Really?" David said. "You don't?"
"Of course," Joseph said automatically, mind racing through possibilities. A fall, maybe? There was a hill not too far away, one that dropped into what had once been a river but was now nothing but solid ice. No, he couldn't do that either. Maybe--
It stopped snowing. Joseph blinked and shook his head, not sure if what he was seeing was real, but it was. The snow had stopped. He looked up. Gray clouds were rolling across the sky, moving so fast it was as if they were being pushed. Behind them he thought he almost saw hints of blue. He shook his head again. He'd heard stories--he looked at David, who was still smiling and who had actually sat down in the snow, as if submerging himself in it didn't bother him. As if he didn't feel it.
But he would. No matter what the stories were, Joseph knew no one could survive a night in the forest. The cold was too bitter, too strong. And if by some chance the cold didn't kill him--well, he knew the wolves would. As soon as night fell they'd come out eager for food. Years of living in this snowy world had made them merciless, willing to strike at anyone or anything. David wouldn't live to see the morning. All he had to do was walk away.
"I'll be right back," he said. "Wait here."
"I will," David said, wrapping his arms around his knees. He waved as Joseph walked off. Joseph pretended he didn't see, and kept walking.
He looked back once, when he'd walked far enough ahead so that he could veer off the side and circle back without David ever seeing him. David was just a dot, a blur in the white of the snow that lined the forest floor, impossible to truly see.
"I'm sorry," he whispered and then turned, headed back out of the forest, and he was sorry. But not sorry enough to stop. He walked away, headed back home to wait for the Prince and Princess to summon him, back to what and who he wanted more than anything else.
***
The Princess shook when she announced the King was dead and the Prince had to hold her up, cradling her in his arms. Everyone wept at their grief, at how it had made them lean so strongly on each other. They continued to hold each other as they announced with tear-filled voices that now they'd have to assume the burden their father had worn, that they would rule wisely and justly. They looked fragile standing there, as if their only support was each other, and everyone vowed silently to do anything to help them, anything at all. The Prince folded the Princess more tightly into his arms and let her hair drape over them so no one would see her smile. So no one would see his.