Snow

He'd hoped for a while and that had carried him across an endless sea of sand with a caravan full of traders who tolerated him because he asked no questions about the wares they carried, but then he'd passed to the other side and learned the land beyond contained nothing new. There were mines, resting inside mountains at the far edge of the horizon, and wherever he went that's where he was told to go. Even with the dust on his hands fading he wasn't able to escape who he'd always been told he was supposed to be. He thought about moving on, going farther, but knew that no matter where he went every land would be the same. It always was and always would be.

That was when he'd met John. He was standing in a square in a tiny parched town, singing and watching people stare markedly at his hands, at him, as they walked by and left nothing behind and John had stopped and asked him to sing a song. When Alec was done he asked him to sing one more.

"Miner, are you?" he asked, looking at his hands, and Alec said,

"Do you see me standing in rock now?"

"Surely don't," John said, a grin crossing his face and seeming to swallowing it, and then he'd offered Alec a job. Singing, he'd said and there was a little pause at the end of the word. Alec hadn't much cared about the pause then because suddenly there it was, a chance at the one thing he always thought he'd wanted more than anything.

The watcher John employed came out and squinted yellow-eyed at him then, cracked the knuckles on one hand slowly, fist flexing. "Almost time," he said and when Alec was ready, the watcher would be the first one he'd tell about how much money John held.

He went back inside. He could hear the crowd, rowdy and laughing, calling for more, more and tossing coins at the stage. He sat down in a corner and painted dark onto his hands. He hadn't lost all the dust and knew he never would but it wasn't enough for John. He wanted Alec to look like he'd just staggered out into the light. He laced up his boots and hefted the pick John had made for him, lightweight and dull-edged--John was careful when it came to those kind of things--into his hands.

Beside him Roberta shrugged her shoulders and shuddered, her neck and shoulders rippling into pale green flesh laced with tiny moving mouths. She was half mer, she'd told him once, had left the sea town that had been her home in hopes of becoming a dancer. "Wanted more than sliding about in the sea gathering pearls for princes," she'd said and he'd nodded. They didn't talk much but they drank together sometimes or sought out those who sold wormwood and shared a few lungfuls, held each other while they dreamed.

She went out before he did and he stood exactly where he was rolling the pick around in his hands. He didn't need to see her perform, didn't want to. Roberta had wanted to be a dancer and now she was, of sorts. She swam in a small clear tank John had made, dipping and twisting through water so those who had never seen her like before could watch.

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.