“Black, red, or white,” answered Dinah glumly. Any other colors would remind her of Alice, always.
He flung a deep-cranberry gown onto her dresser. Dinah looked away from it. The color reminded her of blood, of a head rolling on the floor. “Get out of my room.”
“Not a chance. Yer going to get dressed and go to council, and then yer going to rule yer kingdom. Otherwise Cheshire is going to take over; in fact, he already has. He’s talking about imprisoning all the king’s former advisers. . . .”
Dinah lifted her head. “What?”
“Yes, he’s saying that they couldn’t possibly be loyal to you, and so we should throw them into the Black Towers. . . .”
Dinah stood. “I will never throw anyone else into the Black Towers. And I appointed those men to my council. He has no right to remove them.”
“Yes, well, yer words mean very little to Cheshire. And to be honest, since yeh can’t be bothered to oversee yer kingdom, then he might as well.”
“But without those advisers, we might not have the support of the court. And without the support of the court, we could be vulnerable to a rebellion. Not that a rebellion of clucking ladies in expensive dresses couldn’t be easily quashed, but still—why would he want that? Why would he want to divide the council?”
Sir Gorrann grumbled, “These questions are why yeh should get dressed.”
Dinah did. She washed and put on her makeup, something that Vittiore—no, Alice—normally did. Sir Gorrann placed the crown on her head, and Dinah stared back at herself in the mirror.
“I don’t deserve it,” she said quietly.
Sir Gorrann let his hand linger on her back. “Nope, yeh don’t. Not after what yeh did. But maybe now yeh can earn it. Yeh’ll have to start at the beginning, make yerself new.”
“I will,” she whispered.
She glanced at Ki-ershan, who stood silently beside her. “I will, I promise.”
He stared back at her with his harsh blue eyes. Then he gave her a half nod.
Sir Gorrann clapped her on the back. “That’s my girl. Now come, we need to hurry to the council.”
They walked quickly through the palace halls and Dinah noticed that the servants smiled when they saw her in the hallways. A Card they passed bowed before her. “Your Majesty, I am so glad to see you up and well.”
Dinah thanked him and continued on her way, then paused. “Wait!” she called to him.
The Card, a young man she recognized, jumped and bowed again. “Your Majesty.”
“Derwin! Derwin Fergal.”
“My lady.”
Dinah paused for a moment, weighing her options. Derwin had betrayed his king and helped her take the palace. She could trust him.
“Please take a message to Wardley. He is ill, so shove it underneath the door. Write that he is to meet me by the Julla Tree tomorrow, at sunset. Do not speak of this to anyone else, do you understand?”
The Card nodded, and Dinah knew he would never tell anyone. Not Derwin, so eager for promotion.
He bowed at the waist. “Of course, my queen.”
“And Fergal?”
“Yes, Your Majesty?”
“Your arrow shot true.”
He grinned.
Dinah and Sir Gorrann continued down the hall to meet with the council. She had neglected to address the needs of her domain—she had almost abandoned her kingdom.
She allowed herself a fleeting moment of fantasy. Perhaps if she showed Wardley she could be a good queen, if she could rule with grace, then maybe he could forgive her one day.
In her heart, she knew it would not be so.
Fifteen
Dinah’s hands were damp with sweat as she wrung them together, harder and harder, until her skin blistered. She paced back and forth before the Julla Tree. She had never been this nervous, not even before the battle when she rode out to an almost certain death, her heart hammering with fury and ecstasy. Now, her heart was slow, its dull beats echoing inside her chest.
She wore a simple black dress, her short hair pulled back in a low bun. Her dazzling crown rested on a mossy rock nearby, as did Ki-ershan, who sat patient and silent, his eyes taking in the ever-darkening sky. The stars lined up in a giant whorl tonight, the corners of the swirling creation touching just above the Western Slope. Behind Ki-ershan, she knew, sat a loaded bow and arrow. It was just a precaution.
As she waited, there was a crack of light in the darkness, followed by angry mumbling of men. Sir Gorrann appeared along with two Spades, each of whom walked beside a man whose hands were bound in front of him in chains. Wardley. The last few weeks had changed him greatly. He was painfully thin and his muscles were softer, looser. The brown curls that Dinah so loved were slick with grease and dirt, and he wore nothing more than a worn pair of wool pants. Dinah was furious.
“I told Cheshire to move him from the Black Towers!”
“He did, Your Majesty,” answered Sir Gorrann. “Wardley’s been given a room with clean clothing and more than enough food. He just refuses to eat or bathe or change.”
Wardley let out a wicked cackle. Dinah winced as he came closer. The shadow of a bruise covered the top of his forehead all the way down to his left eye. Dark circles, the color of ripe plums, stretched below his eyes to his pale and sunken cheeks. His eyes were hollow and dead, and he stared at Dinah with complete indifference.
“Leave us, please,” she ordered.
Sir Gorrann and the Spades walked away, leaving Wardley standing just a few feet from the new queen. Dinah pulled a key from her pocket and walked over to him.
“Here, they are surely hurting your wrists.”
Wardley yanked back, trembling.
“Don’t touch me! Don’t come near me, you, you . . . monster!” He fell back over one of the Julla’s roots and scrambled into a crouched position near the ground. “Please go away. Leave my chains be. Otherwise, I will strangle you where you stand.”
His words pierced her heart, and she felt her eyes sting with hot tears. She had been expecting his raw hatred, but seeing it before her was like sinking into dark, seething waters. Slowly, she sat down beside him, making sure to put some room between them.
“Wardley . . . I’m so sorry for what I did to Alice.”
“Don’t say her name. You never get to say her name, not ever again!”
He struggled to control the pain on his face. Dinah studied him, her love, so lost in grief that he could barely look at her.
“I lost control. I didn’t know what was happening.”
“You cut off the head of the woman I loved. She was the light in my life, and you cut off her head. Every time I close my eyes, I see her blood. . . .”
Dinah reached for his face. “Me too. I dream of her every night.”
Wardley spat at her. “You would be so lucky to dream of her. My dreams are filled with nothing but unending sorrow. Caused by you, Dinah. She was everything I lived for, everything to me—”
“I don’t want to hear that,” replied Dinah quietly.
Wardley smiled. “And yet you will. You will look at me and you will listen to our story, so that you can know what you took from me. You will hear how deeply I loved her.”
Dinah focused on him, the circling stars tracing light on his chin. He was as lovely to her as the sun, and she would never have him, not ever. Listening to his words would be akin to torture, and yet, she had no choice. This was the beginning of a lifetime of penance. She nodded. “All right.”
“I met Alice even before you did. Alice in Wonderland, my heart, my life. The first time I saw her, I was walking through the palace, searching for some rare bird that I wanted to catch and show you. She was walking with your father—it was that same day that your father announced her to the court. She walked by me, this tiny creature, delicate and light and lovely. Her eyes . . .” He shook his head, his own eyes full of tears. “They were so blue, so sad. Looking at her was like being blinded by light. I surrendered immediately to her gaze, to the
fact that I would be her slave forever. I desired to run my fingers through her golden hair, trace my lips over her pale skin. Seeing Alice ignited something in me that I had never even known, a passion, a need, a love. She was like a dream, only she was my dream. I watched as your father introduced her to you later that day, and I immediately saw in your eyes such fierce hatred.”
He shuddered.
“Your eyes chilled me. At the time, I thought you were justified, but now I know the truth: you were insanely jealous of her, of the imagined love that you assumed the King of Hearts lavished on her. She gave you even more reason to feel isolated and betrayed. She represented so many things that you would never be: innocent, loved. My darling little Alice, so quiet and scared. She never had to work for people to love her like you did. She was kind, and saw beauty in all things and all people.”
Wardley took a deep breath, choking on a sob.
“And gods, did I love her. I began bringing her gifts, leaving them at her door. I wrote her letters, and she wrote me back, sharing stories of the sea, fairy tales of flying boys, talking animals, and wondrous creatures of the deep. My letters were confessions of love. Hers were stories, though her affection for me grew in each stroke of her pen. She was lonely. The King of Hearts treated her terribly, as did Cheshire. The king forced her to become what he wanted in a daughter—someone who would someday be a meek queen, silent and content to let her father do the ruling. He was sculpting her into everything you could and would never be.
“You and I, we went into the Black Towers like foolish children on a treasure hunt, and for that the king beheaded Faina, her mother. I will never forgive myself for causing her that pain. After that, Alice told me the truth—where she was from, her real name, and the vague inkling that the king was planning something sinister. She tried, so many times, to befriend you, and you—you stubborn, wicked girl—would have none of it. She could have been a sister, an ally, and you made her your enemy, though she never viewed you that way.”
Dinah could take no more. Hearing of their love was like a black root twisting into her brain, each curl penetrating into her deepest secrets and desires. He had lied to her. So many lies, she couldn’t even trace where they began. Everything she believed about her life had been untrue, and now the tapestry of her existence was nothing more than a pile of string. All those imagined passions between her and Wardley—they were nothing now. Anger rose inside her. Dinah had told herself to be patient, to listen, but she felt a pressing and silly need to defend herself. Wardley needed to know.
“She stole my crown. She took the crown made for me and wore it upon her head. She was a stranger, and you knew it!”
Wardley leaped to his feet with a roar, the chains rattling in front of him.
“She never wore your crown! She never wanted the crown, never! All she longed for was a quiet life by the sea—with me!”
He took a deep breath, and it seemed to Dinah that he hadn’t taken one in a while. A smile crept over his face and he closed his eyes.
“We began meeting, in secret. It was like coming home, only my home was her hair—which smelled like salt water and honey. With her, I was completely at rest. Completely myself. Whenever we could manage it, we would stay together until the sun rose in the west, tangled together, in sweat and tenderness. In love.”
A sharp corkscrew was turning into Dinah’s chest now, silver and hard. She ached with longing for this to be her story, but it wasn’t.
“I loved her more than I’ve ever loved anything, or anyone. It was as if my soul had taken residence in her body. That day, when you found Charles thrown out the window, Vittiore woke me from slumber and told me that the king was in a fury, telling people that you killed the prince. I ran to the stables to meet you—”
“And you sent me off. Into the Twisted Wood, alone.”
“Dinah, I couldn’t leave her! I knew you didn’t kill Charles, but if the King of Hearts was willing to kill his own son, what would he do to Vittiore—to my Alice? I couldn’t leave her behind, defenseless. But as you rode away, as I lay bleeding on the stable floor, a part of me was ripped away. My loyalty was torn. I felt I had done something shameful.”
His brown eyes met hers, and Dinah’s guilt was overwhelming as she saw the pain in them. The pain she had caused with the single stroke of a sword. A pain that she could see now would never be forgiven.
“You were my best friend, like a sister. I knew that you wanted me to be more, but since the day I saw Alice, I have never been able to even see another woman. Dinah, I was destroyed when you left. I kept imagining you lost, alone in the Twisted Wood. I stopped sleeping. My nights were filled with the joy of Alice’s lips, but my days were torturous, thinking I’d betrayed you, my queen. When Cheshire approached me with a plan to convince the Spades to join your side, I leaped at the chance. I should never have sent you out on your own, without my protection.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Of course, now I would have fed you to that white bear myself. Alice told me to go. She promised she would wait for me.”
His mouth trembled with anger. Tears dripped down his cheek as he screamed in her face.
“Do you understand? I left her for you! We both knew that we couldn’t stay together once you became queen, and I became king, but I could no more avoid her than I could stop breathing. I love . . . loved her. Then you came that night. . . .”
The wind howled, and the trees of the Twisted Wood answered with a low moan, a sound that Dinah knew well. She turned for just a moment. Wardley moved swiftly, pushing his chained wrists out from his body and leaping forward, knocking her to the ground. The man she loved was on top of her now, the irons of his chains pulled tight against her bare neck. Dinah choked as she stared up at him.
“You killed her . . . the woman I loved! You cut off her head because you couldn’t have me, and couldn’t love me, even though there are thousands of men in Wonderland who would have you!”
Dinah began to struggle, her hands reaching for his face.
“You burned her body! You burned her eyes, her curls, my Alice! Now I can’t even say good-bye. You took everything from me!”
His tears dripped on her face, and Dinah stopped struggling. She dropped her arms to the ground and lifted her neck.
“Do it,” she coughed, barely able to speak. “Do it. I deserve it.”
She would rather die than face the pain she had caused him. The world around her began to fade into spotty blackness as the chain pressed harder against her throat.
Wardley was looking down at her now, his face contorted with pain as he pushed the life out of his best friend. Finally, with a loud cry, he sat back and jerked her up to a sitting position, the chains still around her neck. Ki-ershan stood silently nearby. Ki-ershan had let this happen to her, because she needed it. Wardley needed it. The love of her life began sobbing into his open hands.
“Why? Why did you do this to me? You were my best friend. I would have gladly died for you.”
Dinah rolled over and put her head against his knees.
“I love you, Wardley,” she whispered. “I wish I could say more, but . . . I love you. I’m so sorry. I know you will never forgive me, but know that I will live with the guilt over the pain I caused you both for the rest of my life.”
Wardley brought his elbow across her nose, and Dinah felt blood begin to run down her face as her nose went numb. Hatred contorted his face as he hissed damning words at her.
“You are just like your fathers. Both of them. You are the worst of both of them. I see you now for who you really are.”
Dinah wiped the blood dripping from her face onto her sleeve and stood shakily as sobs broke loose from her throat.
“It is not who I will be! What do you desire? What do you want from me? Freedom? Money? Take Corning tonight, and I’ll fill your purse with gold. Go to Hu-Yuhar, or to the Western Slope. Live out her dream. Just go!”
Wardley shook his head and glanced up at the palace, glowing
now from the hundreds of burning torches that lit its many halls.
“This is where I loved her. This is where I knew her. I can be in no other place. Besides, I want you to see my face every day. I want you to see what your fury wrought.”
Dinah’s heart, it seemed, gave one final thump and grew silent.
“Give me your chains,” she said quietly. Her hands shaking, she unlocked the iron shackles, watching as they fell into the grass.
Wardley looked again at Dinah, his eyes darkened with exhaustion and hatred as he rubbed his wrists. “I might still decide to kill you, you know.”
She nodded.
“I’m sorry for what I’ve done, Wardley. I will make it up to you, someday.”
“You never can. She was the love of my life, Dinah, and you were my best friend. I have nothing left.” He began limping away from her, toward the palace, but turned, offering yet another scornful, “I was wrong—you never deserved, and never will deserve, the crown on your head.”
Dinah let a wave of dizziness wash over her in the darkness, and her stomach turned over. Something about the crown . . .
“Wardley! Wait!”
He turned around again, this time defeated and sad.
Dinah narrowed her eyes, her forehead crinkled in thought. “What did you mean, when you said she never wore my crown?”
“What?”
“You said she never wore my crown. But she was crowned queen, was she not?”
Wardley walked over to the rock where Dinah had placed her crown and picked it up, turning it over in his hands. The Mad Hatter’s elaborately crafted crown of diamonds sent thousands of tiny lights across his pained face.
“Alice never wore this crown. I’d never even seen it before your coronation. Hers was small, and blue. Perfectly lovely. Just like her.”
He let the crown drop from his hands, and it bounced off the rock and landed in a bed of wild thistle with a heavy thud. Wardley started walking away, the soft whisper of his voice dancing on the wind. “I wish you had died on the battlefield. It’s what I wish every day, when I wake up.” Dinah let his words cut into her, a swift blade to the heart. Then she bent over and picked up her crown, her face puzzled as it reflected the moonlight.
War of the Cards Page 15