"Did I fall asleep, love?" his nurse asked when she woke.
"Just for a minute."
"You look so sad," she said. "Are you unwell? I could make you some tea or‑‑"
"I'm fine," David said, voice cracking, and ice bloomed across the wall behind his head. It took two weeks to melt.
***
The year he turned fifteen the new mother he'd never met died. She threw herself off the far tower, right down into the frozen river. Her body broke through the ice and came back up encased in it. It took four days in a room full of candles for all the water surrounding her to melt.
David saw the funeral from a hallway looking out over the courtyard, stood next to his nurse while far down below his father lit a funeral pyre and then turned to hold his children's hands. He waited while his wife burned, nobles passing by and pressing ornate twisting folds of paper into his hands. "Sorrow notes," his nurse whispered when he asked what they were. David wished he was down there with paper resting in his hands. He wished his father was waiting to touch his hand. He would like to write out words for him, dozens of them, but he didn't know how to. He made gingerbread instead, later, but his nurse ate it all before he could think of a way to find his father.
"You're a love to make this for me," she said, and her eyes were sparkling. David could see the swollen joints in her hands pressing hard against her skin.
"We need to get more onions tomorrow," he said, and passed her the last piece of gingerbread.
***
Two years later the second chamberlain's wife died of a wracking cough. She said the cough was nothing until the end, until she couldn't hide the red‑brown drenched handkerchiefs any longer and blood streamed out of her mouth with every breath she took. In the days before she slipped into a sleep she never woke from David's nurse never left her side. David learned how to cook eggs and brew tea and tried to wash the sheets. The chamberlain's wife said it was fine that they ended up with holes in them. He heard her say, "The King never asks about him?" in a whisper‑cracked voice to his nurse toward the end of her last day.
"No," his nurse said. "The poor little love. Almost grown and what will happen to him then?”
"Does he ever ask? About anything?"
"He used to ask about his father. But never about anything else."
"Odd," the chamberlain's wife said, and her voice was a wheeze now, a creaky wind whisper.
"He asked me what a curse was once but then never brought it up again. Never asked another question. He's a strange one, you know. Just drifts along like he's asleep."
"Who does he have to wake up for?" his nurse said, and her voice was sad.
David rested his head against the window and watched the cup of tea he was holding freeze in his hands. He hugged his nurse when the chamberlain's wife breathed her last breath. Her tears rolled down her face in freezing cold rivulets, fell as tiny pieces of ice that shattered as soon as they hit the floor.
Chapter Two
Joseph met them in the forest. Night was falling and he was walking home, a stag slung over his shoulders and dripping blood down over his coat. He was whistling. He stopped when he saw them, two well‑dressed figures appearing out of the woods right in front of him, mounted on horses that hadn't ever known hunger.
"You've been hunting," one of the figures said, he dropped to his knees, looking at the ground.
There was nothing to see but white, nothing to feel but cold.
"Look at my sister when she's addressing you," another voice said, deeper but a twin to the first one, and he looked up.
He knew who she was as soon as he saw her. His mother's sister had journeyed to the cathedral to pray for the safe return of her daughter, who'd decided to follow a prophet who'd decreed that the world would end unless the faithful journeyed West and visited a sacred spring. His cousin never returned and all his aunt had were stories of her own travels, of the great glass windows in the cathedral, of the priests' soft hands and the oil they used for anointing. Of the Princess and the Prince, who she'd seen at an afternoon service, sitting together with their heads bowed throughout. "So beautiful," his aunt had said. "The Princess‑‑it's like the very stars of heaven shine through her. And the Prince! Oh my," and here her voice had gone fluttery and she'd paused, pressed one hand over her heart and shared a knowing smile with his mother. He hadn't said anything but thought that his cousin's certain death had loosened his aunt's mind. No one shone like the stars.
He was wrong. The Princess did, glowed golden sitting on her horse, dressed in furs and jewels, hair streaming out around her with diamonds woven through it. Her eyes were enormous and dark, soft with an emotion he couldn't name, and her skin wasn't pitted from disease or gray from hunger. Her cheeks were flushed a gentle pink and the rest of her, forehead to the slash of skin that showed where her furs overlapped, was the softest, warmest color he'd ever seen. He'd never seen anyone so beautiful.
She smiled then, a gentle curve of her mouth. "Stand up and tell me who you are."
He did. "My name is Joseph," he said. "I'm a woodsman, Your Highness." Looking at her was making him dizzy so he bowed to her and then turned, bowed to the person riding beside her.
He knew at once it was her brother. They did not have similar faces‑‑her brother's was sharper, longer, his eyes bright where hers were dark ‑‑ but there was no way they could be anything but siblings. He had the same glow she did, the same look in his eyes.
"You're a hunter," the Prince said. His voice was low and soft, as golden as his skin. The woodsman actually felt his words rush over him, soothing and exciting at the same time. He wondered if he was about to die. Hunting was illegal except for those of noble birth and blood.
He looked at the Prince. The Prince was watching him, eyes bright.
Joseph nodded, and the Prince smiled.
"We won't keep you," the Princess said, and her voice was softer now, warm and low, a caress of words. Joseph looked at her and knew he'd do anything to have her speak to him in that voice again. "Do you live close by?"
"In the village," he said. "In the house with the mark of the stag on the door." He flushed then, saw how the Prince and Princess had turned away from him, were looking at each other. He wanted them to look at him again but knew, somehow, that they wouldn't. He walked home.
"I'll send a summons," the Prince said on the ride back.
"For me?" the Princess said.
"Greedy," the Prince said, laughter in his voice, and smiled at her in perfect understanding.
***
Joseph was summoned to see the Princess, but before he saw her he was told he had to meet with the Prince. He rubbed his sweaty hands along his best trousers and nodded, watched the guards who had escorted him into the castle stare at him blankly, their eyes giving nothing away.
The Prince was waiting for him in his rooms. "I'm shocked she wants to see you," he said. "But I can deny her nothing. She's my sister, my heart, and I love her. But she is not to be trifled with.
Do you understand?"
"I would never‑‑" Joseph said, aghast. "Not ever, Your Highness. I don't know why she would want to talk to me. I don't know what she wants from me."
"But you have hopes," the Prince said, and smiled. "I see them written all over your face."
"I don't‑‑"Joseph said and then broke off, silenced as the Prince moved forward and touched the back of his hand to Joseph's face.
"You realize," he said, "that I want to make my sister happy. It's very important that she be happy."
Afterwards, he helped Joseph straighten his clothes before he went to see the Princess. "That was…you are," Joseph said and reached eager hands out, swept them down across the Prince's golden skin. His eyes shone hot and longing. "I want to stay with you."