They reached town as night was starting to fall. David wished he could see more but all he could make out were close clusters of buildings, the huddled shapes of people moving through the streets, bowed against the cold, and the occasional flicker of fire or candlelight in a window. The ground sounded different though, like the inside of the castle, and when he peered over the edge of the cart he saw they were riding over stones buried in the ground, slicked by ice and snow but still barely visible.
The cart stopped. David straightened up and looked at Alec, who said, "We're here," and didn't quite look back at him.
"Oh," David said. "Okay." He put the blanket away and grabbed his bag, climbed off the cart.
The stones felt strange under his feet. They weren't smooth like the ones in the castle. They were pitted, cracked from where they'd iced over and split open again and again. He looked around.
There was a child sitting huddled in a doorway nearby, scrawny with white pitted scars all over his face and too-wise eyes that met his and quickly looked away. Some of the buildings had signs on them, a few with words but most with pictures. One had an eye, another a pot. The stones led off in three directions, one back the way they'd come, one branching up and off into a curl that snaked out of sight, and one that went straight ahead. David squinted, but all he saw in that direction was dark.
"The pale," Alec said. "You do know about that, right?"
"No," David said, because he didn't. "It doesn't look very pale. What is it?" The child in the doorway laughed, a sharp coughing bark.
Alec looked at him for a long moment, eyes glinting. Then he sighed and said, "Never mind.
There's an inn down by what used to be the river. They probably won't overcharge you too much.
You do have money, right?"
"Yes," David said, because he did. He'd packed the coin his nurse had kept in her coat.
"Great," Alec said and lifted the reins, turning to look out at the street. "Good luck with…whatever it is you're doing."
"You too," David said. "Thank you for being so nice to me."
Alec's mouth tightened. "How much?" he said abruptly.
"What?"
"How much money do you have?"
David fished in his bag and held up the coin.
"Why did I even ask?" Alec muttered. "All I had to do was keep driving. I swear I am never ever--" He got out of the cart and pointed at the child, said, "If you have someone steal this I'll find you and cut off your thumbs."
"Four bits to watch the horse," the child said disinterestedly. "Eight to watch so your stuff don't get taken."
"Eight? Do you think you're bargaining with--" he pointed at David. "Five."
"Seven."
"Okay, three."
"Five," the child said quickly. Alec nodded and walked off. After a minute he turned around and beckoned to David.
"Come on," he said impatiently. "One glass of ale and you'd better not order anything that comes covered in sauce because that always costs extra. And then that's it, you understand?"
"Not really," David said.
"I supposed I asked for that one," Alec muttered.
He took David inside a building that had a sign hanging from it, a swinging picture of a cup and a swirling word underneath. The first letter looked like a tree, long with two branches winding off it on either side. Inside it was smoky and dark and smelled like his nurse used to on holidays, a warm yeasty smell. It was hot too, almost furiously so, and David saw two fireplaces, one on either side of the room, both of them glowing red bright. It seemed every inch of space was filled with people, all of who were looking at them. At Alec. And the expressions on their faces at the sight of him were ugly, twisted mean smiles and angry frowns. Alec didn't seem to notice them.
"Troll," someone muttered as he passed by, eyes narrowing to slits.
"You mean miner," Alec said, and kept walking. David followed him, watching everyone watch Alec and feeling the room grow warmer still, as if something was starting to simmer under its surface.
Alec sat down at a table wedged against the back wall and motioned for David to sit across from him. As David did the men next to them got up and moved away, distaste on their faces. Alec didn't seem to notice that either but then David saw his hands resting folded on the table in fists curled so tightly his knuckles were white, and knew that he had.
A woman walked up to them then, tall and raw-boned with a coil of gray hair snaking around her head and an enormous white circle scar on her chin. "We don't serve dirt dwellers in this tavern,"
she said. "Take yourself elsewhere."
"Are you sure?" Alec said. "About your policy, I mean. Because you look really familiar to me.
Blue gem mines over the southern mountains about four years ago, right? You were the one who was too stupid to realize that blue gem mining meant picking out the blue rocks."
"Shut your worthless mouth," the woman hissed. "Go back underground and stay there."
"Do you own this place?"
The woman glared at him. The scar on her chin quivered as her mouth worked and settled into a heavy frown.
"That's what I thought. Bring us two glasses of ale," Alec said, and added "Please" in a way that made the woman's mouth frown more.
"Fine," she said. "Coming right up." Her knuckles cracked as she squeezed one hand into a fist and then made a motion with it as she turned away, a gesture that made Alec strain forward in his chair for a moment before he sat back, a fake mean smile on his face.
"I don't understand," David said. "What's going on? Why is everyone--?"
"Shut up," Alec said fiercely, not meeting his eyes, and David heard laughter from the men nearby. It didn't sound like anything that made him want to smile. It made him hurt inside, cold sparking scraping hurt that made him think of the song he'd sung to the animals in the forest.
The woman came back carrying two glasses. "Ale for you," she said, and slammed them down hard enough to shake the table. David looked down at his glass. It was full of dark brown liquid and smelled like the yeasty scent he knew, that he'd recognized when they'd first come in. But floating on top of the liquid in both glasses was something else, a thick yellow blob. The woman made a peculiar throat clearing noise, liquid sounding like it was rattling up from her lungs. She spat on the floor and a yellow blob just like the one in the glasses landed next to Alec's feet.
"Ten bits," she said. "You want anything else?"
Alec pushed his chair back and stood up. He barely came up to her shoulders. The woman smiled then, baring brown yellow teeth that were clearly made of wood. David stared at her. She didn't look at him, was still staring at Alec. Behind her the two men stood up from their seats, their faces creased with anger.
"Just try it," one of them said to Alec. "Breaking you in half would be the best thing that's happened to me all day."
Alec looked at them and then at David, who was still staring at the woman's teeth. His mouth twisted into a bitter smile and he reached into his pocket, slammed a handful of coins down on the table. "I'm leaving," he said, and his voice was a furious snarl. He stalked through the tavern without looking back.
The woman bent down and put her face close to David's. "You see something you like?" she hissed. "Bet not, coming in here with that ugly dirt splitter. I ought to--"
David touched her hand then, black sparking behind his eyes. "I didn't know people could have teeth made out of wood," he said and there was no need to call forth the darkness inside him. It was everywhere already, flowing out of him. The woman's hand turned blue and the color raced down her fingers, across her wrist, up her arm. Her eyes widened and she pulled away from him.
Now the look on her face was one David knew. He smiled at her.
She took another step back, eyes heating and filling with terror at the same time, and he watched her try to speak. She couldn't. Ice had coated her mouth, sealing it closed. Behind her the two men were staring at him, alarm in their eyes. When David stood up they backed away and he heard words whispered all around him. King. Queen. Son. Cursed. He pushed through the crowd, heard the woman fall to the floor as he walked out the tavern door.
"You need to go," he said to Alec, who was standing staring out at the street. "Now."
Alec looked at him. Then he nodded and tossed some coins to the child sitting in the doorway still, climbed onto the cart. Behind them noise was building, voices in the tavern rising in terror and anger strong enough to spill out into the night.
"Do I want to know what happened?" he asked.
"No," David said, and listened to the voices. They were growing louder. They'd be outside soon.
He thought of the animals in the forest, of their angry smiles and sharp teeth and felt shaky inside, the fury that had driven him cooling. He looked at his hands.
"Hey," Alec said impatiently. "You can stare at yourself later."
David looked at him.
"You pick the oddest times to be slow," Alec said. "Just get in the cart already, will you?"
David did and held on as it lurched forward, racing down the street.
***
"So who are you, really?" Alec said. They'd left the town behind, were crossing through another forest. The pale. David still didn't know what it was but looking around he saw that there was no snow, that the trees looked lush and full, their leaves rustling as they swayed in the dark, the ground underneath them littered with small dark spheres that dripped trembling from their branches. He felt something in the air, could taste it sharp and bitter on his tongue.
"I'm--" he said, and thought of who he was supposed to be, knew he wanted to leave it behind.
"I'm David. I mean, that's who I am. It's my name."
"Is it?" Alec said quietly. "Because I've heard stories. Stories about a King and a Queen and--" he paused. "You ever heard any of those stories?"
"No," David said hastily, too hastily. He felt like he couldn't breathe, the something in the air coiling tight around him.
Alec was silent for a moment. "Okay," he finally said. "Thanks for whatever you did back there, David, but I don't need saving. You got that?"
"I wasn't--"
"What I'm looking for is 'Yes, I understand'."
"I was--I was angry. What they said to you--"
"I'm used to it," Alec said flatly. "And I can take care of myself. You, on the other hand--I thought you couldn't but I guess I was wrong. Did you--whatever it was that you did--the look on your face when you came outside..." His voice trailed off. "You liked it," he finally said. "What you did."
"Yes," David said softly.
This time, when it started to snow, Alec just reached in the back and handed him the blanket. "If we have to stop don't touch anything, okay?"
David nodded and wrapped the blanket around himself, watched Alec pull on his coat. The wind blew some of the shining specks sprinkled across it into David's eyes. He rubbed at them and his fingers came away glowing slightly. It made him think of his father. Of his brother and sister. He rubbed at his fingers and the glow went away, faded into dark dust that stung his skin.
"Why--" he cleared his throat, "why not? And why is this called the pale?"
"There was a Queen once, a Queen who--" Alec paused. "I think you know this story."
"I--I don't," David said. "I--"
"Grew up in a castle and never heard about the people who lived in it?" Alec said lightly, but his voice was edged sharp.
David stared at the snow swirling around them. "I only know part of the story," he said softly.
"The part after--after she was gone."
Alec was silent for a moment and then he said, "She was born here. When she died it changed.
People moved here, thinking they could escape the snow but everything is--"
"Cursed," David said dully. The wind picked up speed, blowing the falling snow back up into the air, as if trying to push it away, and the trees rustled and creaked fast, sharp cracking sounds like a scream. This was his mother's world and he knew she felt him here. That she didn't want him here.
"Poisoned," Alec said. "The trees, the ground, everything. Some people say it's a curse. Others--"
he shrugged. "It doesn't really matter. It's easy enough to deal with. You just ride straight through. But tonight-" he looked at David and in the dark his gaze was impossible to read,
"tonight something else is going on."
"I--" David said. "How do you know?"
"It never snows here," Alec said grimly. "In all the stories I've heard, that's always been the end.
That this is the one place where no snow falls."
The trees they were passing under bent down, branches heavy with fruit that dropped into the cart, onto David's lap, resting there just waiting for him to push it off. Calling out for him to. Just a touch, they seemed to say. He thought of his nurse, of the things she said when her life was fading. What his birth had brought. What he was. From the stories he'd seen in pictures in prayer books or heard whispered in his nurse's voice he knew what he was supposed to do. He should get off the cart, face whatever was left of his mother and let her speak to him. He should let Alec go on his way, watch him drive off and know he'd be forever safe.
He moved, sliding across the cart seat, the fruit tumbling away. He didn't move toward the edge.
He moved toward Alec.
"Are you--?" he said and felt words clogging his throat. He knew what he should say but he didn't want to say it. He didn't want to be like a story.
"I'm not going to stop," Alec said.
As dawn broke over the pale the trees shaded from dark shadows to tall brown trunks capped with deep green. They continued to sway and moan and the horse strained forward as if frantic to be free of where they were. Fruit continued to fall from the trees, one piece landing softly next to David. In the light he saw it was beautiful, a perfect circle colored a deep dark red. It looked like it would be warm to the touch and he wondered what it would be like to taste that, have all that warmth inside him.