"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.
"You know what happens if you eat them?" Alec said.
David shook his head.
"Me either," Alec said. "But I don't want to find out. And neither do you."
David curled the hand hovering over the fruit back against his side. The cart hitched over a bump and the piece of fruit fell away. He saw it split open as it hit the ground. Inside it was white, the deep endless color of snow.
It cleared the moment they left his mother's forest. David could feel it, the air no longer rushing thick and bitter around him. He could see it too. Dawn had broken in the pale but outside it was day, bright and full. The sun lit the world, casting shadows and calling forth colors David had never seen. He stared at everything, enchanted. The trees weren't as green but there were different kinds of them, leaves shaped long and pointed or short and round, the wind rustling gently through them. Under them were flowers, not like the diamond and gem‑colored ones he'd seen women in the castle wear but delicate ones with petals that blew when the wind crossed them and green stems trailing down into the ground. And the ground‑‑the ground wasn't white from ice, from snow. It was green, dark in some spots, worn and faded brown in others, speckled with pebbles and the marks of other carts, of feet.
They crossed a river mid‑morning, wide and almost crystal smooth, and David trailed a hand through it as Alec spoke soothingly to the horse and crossly told David to "try lifting your feet up" when he told Alec there was water rushing into the cart, pooling around his ankles.
On the other side they stopped, Alec doing something with the horse, unhitching him from the cart and walking him over to a patch of tall grass. David realized the horse was eating after a minute and watched for a while, fascinated‑‑he knew horses ate but had never actually seen them do so‑‑before realizing he was hungry too.
"Can I have something to eat?" he asked.
"Sure," Alec said. "Drink all the water you want. River's right behind you."
"I’m not really thirsty," David said and Alec looked at him.
"Oh," David said. "You don't have any food?"
"I was planning on eating in town. But then‑‑" he shrugged.
"Oh," David said again. Alec looked away. The horse twitched his tail and started eating flowers.
***
David knelt by the riverbank after Alec hitched the horse back up to the cart, looking down into the water.
"Who's that?" he asked.
"What do you mean?"
"There," David said, and pointed at a figure rippling up at him.
There was silence for a moment before Alec said, "That's you."
"Me?"
"Yep. Let me guess, you've never seen yourself before."
"Not really," David said. "In ice, sort of, sometimes."
"Uh huh. And you've, what, never heard of a mirror?"
"I've heard of them. My father didn't like them." He touched his face tentatively, watched his fingers trace across his cheekbones. He stood up and the man in the water rose too. He smiled and the man looking at him smiled back.
"Well, at least you don't have any ego problems," Alec muttered.
David smiled more, seeing Alec's face next to his. "You're a lot shorter than I am."
"And to think I didn't comment on your nose," Alec said sharply. "Are you just about done?"
"I'm looking at you," David said and watched, fascinated, as the watery Alec's eyes grew wide, surprised. "When we were in town that woman‑‑" he paused for a moment. "She said you were ugly. Why did she say that?"
"Because I'm a miner," Alec said tightly. "Or maybe because she'd just finished looking at you.
Who knows? Now shut up and get back in the cart."
David sat in silence for the rest of the day. Mostly he was looking out at what they passed but sometimes he thought. He thought about Alec's face, the shape of his eyes, of his nose, the way the hair at the nape of his neck curled.
"Oh for god's sake," Alec finally said as the sun was setting, exasperation in his voice. "I'm sorry I said something about your nose. There. Can you stop sulking now?"
"Sulking?"
"The whole staring at nothing and not talking routine."
"But you said‑‑"
"I know what I said."
"Can I ask you something?"
Alec sighed. "What?"
"Why did that woman call you ugly?"
"I already told you why," Alec said tightly.
"But I don't understand. It's the wrong word to use for you."
Alec's face flushed dark red. "You're not funny."
"I'm not trying to be," David said, bewildered. "You look‑‑"
"Go back to not talking," Alec snapped, and urged the horse to move faster, stared straight ahead as if David was no longer there.