"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.