He thought about the papers, about the words on them. He'd never loved David. He was sure of it. But he hadn't ever stopped thinking about him. He'd waited and waited but David was still there, drifting through his mind. Drink didn't wash him free and wormwood only made him more real, took Alec back to moments between them and made his life now seem like even more of a shadow.
"I never loved him," he said and the moment he heard himself say it he knew it was a lie.
When he was called he went on stage. "A miner with a voice of gold," John's voice boomed.
"See what the earth has yielded and marvel at its strangeness, at this creature that forgets who he is. See him squint as he steps into the light‑‑truly, he was never meant to be here and yet here he is, just for your entertainment!"
That was John's gift. He'd figured out their dreams and saw them for the impossibility they were and then sold them, let others watch them wish for what everyone knew would never be.
And so now here he was. He stood and looked at the crowd, the bright lights John had beaming down on him showing row after row of faces he couldn't quite see watching him, only him.
He thought about David. About how he'd told himself he would forget him, that what he felt was nothing. He'd been wrong. What he felt wasn't nothing and all he thought he'd forget he never would. He sang and looked at all the washed out faces he couldn't see.
Chapter Thirteen
Michael didn't tell her first. He always told her everything first but the day he announced David would be his consort Judith was caught surprised, stood staring at him as he sat holding David's hand and spoke.
Everyone bowed and murmured praise and promises of prayers of blessing and she waited until they were all gone before she said, "Consort?" She knew there was sharpness in her voice, a fury she'd never shown Michael before, and his mouth parted, shocked. She saw his hand tighten around David's momentarily.
"It pleases me," he said and his voice was tight. Hurt. Maybe even a little angry. "And the Prince and Princess‑‑what else must they do but sign the agreement I've sent forth? They know I can muster an army far greater than theirs and now a ruler to replace them, of truer blood than they, if I so desire."
"You've thought of everything," she said softly. She couldn't bear to hear him speak in his voice of before again. Not toward her.
Michael grinned at her then, appeased, and pressed a kiss to David's palm. "My heart's desire and the land stronger than ever," he said. "What more could any man ask for?"
She looked at David sitting holding Michael's hand. Sitting silent and unsmiling beside him. So beautiful, she thought. And so cold.
"I wish you much joy," she said to David, the formal words of praise.
"And I you," he said, looking steadily back at her, and she knew there was nothing else she could say.
***
The day a royal courier arrived every noble in attendance at the castle trembled. The news from afar had not been good for a long time and had been even worse lately and that never boded well.
The royal herald's voice cracked when he read the name of the King whose courier had been sent and felt the Prince and Princess's eyes on him, began to tremble so badly his throat closed up tight.
"We shall expect you in our rooms later," the Prince said and reached for his sister's hand.
"Yes," the Princess said and wrapped her hand around her brother's, her fingertips sliding over his.
The herald threw himself off a parapet that afternoon. His body was burned in the courtyard.
There was no one there to mourn him. To be seen was to risk attention and everyone knew better than that now.
The Prince and Princess received the royal courier in silence and sent him away without saying a word, even when the courier said, "Surely you wish to send along blessings of joy to King Michael and the consort he has chosen?"
For a long time after the courier left they didn't speak and their attendants trembled, knowing what such silence meant.
"Leave us," the Princess said as the sun was setting and watched as everyone who served them scurried away, running as if there could be an escape.
"He's alive," the Prince said and his voice was low, steady. The Princess pressed a kiss to the back of his hand and could taste his fury.
"Yes. The woodsman we sent with him‑‑"
"I'll summon him," the Prince said. The Princess smiled.
***
He no longer sat waiting for them but he never left the house either. Joseph had never been able to venture back into the forest, not even when he'd finally realized that the Prince and Princess were never going to send for him, that they'd forgotten him. He stayed at home and listened to the cries of excitement that had come when the snow had stopped falling fade, watched bleakness return to everyone's gaze as the land stayed blanketed in winter, in snow. His mother found joy in the shining sun still, sometimes, but those moments were few and far between.
He never looked at the sky. He sat indoors, never facing a window, never facing the door. He sat in his room and remembered and dreamed dreams he knew would never come to pass, gorged himself on them because they were all he had left. And so when there was a knock on the door one evening and his mother's voice rose sharp and surprised he thought nothing of it.
He thought nothing of it until she came into his room and knelt before him, said, "You've been summoned to the castle." Her eyes were wide, terrified. The joy that had greeted the Prince and Princess at the beginning of their rule hadn't lasted long. Winter never let go of the land and taxes had risen and then risen again and those that grumbled, even the faintest of complaints, were led to gruesome deaths. "I'll tell them you aren't here. I'll say you've gone to your cousin's.
It will take them a few days to journey there and meanwhile you can‑‑"
"I've been summoned?"
She stared at him, her mouth parting, shocked at the joy in his voice, and then nodded once, slowly.
He got up and walked toward the door. There were two guards waiting for him. "Take me to them," he said and could not contain his smile, watched the guards blink startled at it. Finally he'd been called. And finally he would go. He would see them again. His mother hugged him tight and kissed him before he left. He returned her embrace absently, his mind already racing far away.
He began to shake when they reached the castle. After so long he would see them, touch them.
For the first time in ages his body began to stir, heat. Hope and lust filled him and he felt alive, eager.
They were waiting for him in a room he'd seen many times before, a beautiful room filled with mirrors and tapestries and soft pillows blanketing the floor, two long, low wide couches the only furniture. He pictured them pushed together and knelt down, still trembling.
"There, now," the Prince said, and his hand was gentle on the back of Joseph's neck. "Did you think we'd forgotten you?"
"Because we wouldn't," the Princess said and her hand joined her brothers, traced over and around the Prince's, her nails scoring the skin at his nape lightly. "We never forget." Her other hand touched his chin, lifted his face up toward them.
They glowed as brightly as he remembered, golden and perfect and smiling at him. "I missed you," he told them. "It's been so long."
"Too long," the Prince said, still smiling, and slid his other hand inside his sister's robes. Joseph watched, blood racing, and then the hiss of a knife being drawn filled the room, the Prince's hand tracing delicately across his sister's stomach, the gleam of a blade showing through his fingers.
The Princess shuddered, mouth parting.