He held out his arms and motioned with his fingers. “Come now, come now.” He giggled and squirmed with uncontained excitement. When I didn’t move, he snapped fast as a dry twig. “Give it to me!” His face contorted into a ghoulish mask of rage.
I shook my head slowly, his moods throwing me off. “No.”
Red Queen glared at him. She held out her petite arm and positioned the shield in front of me then took a couple steps forward, asserting herself in a way that finally made Hatter look at her. She lifted her chin, full of royal disapproval. “Lord Hatter, if you continue with these traitorous acts, steps will be taken against you.” She might have been tiny, but in that moment she seemed like she was ten feet tall.
His eyes widened and his eyes shifted away from hers, cowed under her royal aura.
My brows rose, surprised at how powerful she came across just then.
“Ali!” Ace’s voice echoed from somewhere close again.
My heart hitched painfully and I looked around, desperate. I still couldn’t see him.
My movement triggered something in Hatter. He gave a grating snarl and lunged at us, hands out like claws. “I am the true Queen!”
Red Queen gasped and stepped back, causing me to almost fall as I wrenched the sword away from her. Hatter missed completely and landed on his knees, sputtering in shock.
“His hat!” I gasped. Hatter’s closeness sent Blood into a new fit of rage. I gasped and bent over with a moan. My insides suddenly felt like they were on fire.
At first I didn’t think she’d understand, but she gave a slight nod. She swung her shield out and smacked his ridiculous hat right off his helmet with a bell-like ring. The hat flew to the side, and the crown flung off as it tumbled through the air. It flopped onto a black square, upside down, as the crown skittered across the ground, only to be crushed under the foot of an ice monster.
Hatter screamed and grabbed his head. “HAT! HAT! HAT! HAT!” His eyes widened so big, it was amazing they didn’t pop out. He clawed at his head, screaming and frantic.
Red Queen stumbled back from him, startled as he writhed like a madman.
But I could barely move from the electric pain causing my body to go numb. My right knee buckled and I wobbled, almost dropping to the ground, but I was able to put my weight onto my left in time to stay up. But not for much longer. Someone was calling my name, I thought, but it was hard to hear over the ringing in my ears. I stared up through blurry eyes at Red Queen as her mouth moved and she hurried to me, but I had no idea what she said.
Ace. It was the only clear thought in my foggy mind. Need Ace.
My feet shifted to the side and I wobbled like a frail old lady as I desperately looked around. It was hard to understand what was happening around me because everything was blurred with double images overlapping each other as all the color bled out.
All at once, the ground exploded into whiteness.
Simultaneously, the Vorpal Blade and the wand reacted, vibrating in anger together. A yellow shield appeared in front of me, created by one item—or both. I was protected from the piercing of the whiteness, but the ice crystal thrust into the shield with enough force that I was thrown from my feet. I hit someone small behind me and we were both taken out. We both screamed as we fell. She exhaled with a painful gasp when I landed full on her. I steamrolled over her and tumbled several more times across the ground before coming to a stop face down.
It was all I could do to huff breath in and out with my face pressed flat against the ground. The smell of dirt filled my nose and dried out my open mouth with its gritty texture. Even so, I just wanted to lie here forever.
My whole body hurt. It tingled painfully from the torture of the Vorpal Blade. My back was bruised from the fall, and my head felt like it was in a vise from hitting the ground somewhere. The only thing that didn’t hurt was my left hand. It was warm and so oddly not in pain that it didn’t seem like it belonged to my body. Like the soothing water of a warm shower, the wand continued to send healing pulses to my body, the soothing sensation creeping up inch by inch.
It felt so nice, as if the angry attack of the Vorpal Blade didn’t exist anymore. I felt only the high, never the low.
A chilling warning clicked somewhere in the back of my hazing mind. I flexed my right fingers. There was nothing but dirt in my fist.
The Vorpal Blade was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Panicked adrenaline opened my eyes. With a moan, I pushed up to my elbows and looked around, the stretch feeling good on my sore back and stomach muscles. Slowly my eyes came into focus.
Five feet in front of me, Red Queen lay on her back, unmoving, with her face turned away from me.
She was the one I’d flattened? I tried to jump to my feet, but my body wasn’t ready to move yet. I sagged back to the ground, muscles like jelly. Desperately, I clawed at the dirt, trying to get to her. Get the wand to her. How badly was she hurt? I didn’t kill her, did I? She would have turned into dust, right? But what if she had been touched by the Vorpal Blade?
Horrified anew, I looked around.
There it was. The sword lay so innocently five feet ahead of Red Queen, right next to a pile of dust and a cluster of sharp ice crystals poking out of the ground. It took a second to process that that’s where I’d originally stood. And the pile of dust was Hatter.
It took a second longer to realize that no one was moving. It wasn’t that my ears were clogged up, there was a stilled hush in the air. Everyone on the entire Game Board was standing motionless, weapons lowered and staring as if waiting to see what would happen next. At me and Red Queen.
That’s when movement drew my attention and I gasped. I was wrong. There was someone moving on the Game Board.
White Wizard walked confidently across the checkered ground, leaving icy footprints in his wake. He barely even looked like he’d been battling at all. There were a couple wrinkles and maybe three dirt smudges on his white clothes, but not even a lock of white-blond hair was out of place. His chiseled face was tight, his pale eyes wide and intense. And fixated on Red Queen.
Barely visible behind him was Lional, on the ground and covered in ice from the waist down. His sword was gone and one arm was limp at his side. With his other hand, he desperately hacked at the ice around his legs with a short sword.
But I didn’t have time to focus on Lional. White Wizard was getting closer. He was almost at the Vorpal Blade. I took it out of the Emerald Castle. If he got it now, then I as good as killed Red Queen. I pushed up to my hands and knees. They were shaky but I was at least able to stay up now. Unfortunately, my knees buckled painfully when I tried to stand. I gasped and collapsed back to the ground.
Come on wand, I begged. Help me!
Hareson pushed his way out of the crowd on my right. He was bent over, left arm wrapped around his middle, his long, thin sword gripped in his right hand. Even from here, his breathing was visibly labored and there were cuts in his clothing. Still, he gritted his teeth and pointed his sword at White Wizard. “Ozians, gather—”
“Silence!” White Wizard yelled and stomped a foot on the ground. Frost exploded from him and spread across the ground like white ants, covering everything it touched.
People scampered out of the way in terror, but no one gave a peep.
Hareson was left alone, unmoving. He gasped as frost climbed up his legs and solidified into a chunk of ice encapsulating his feet and sword.
White Wizard scathed Hareson with a look. “I’ll take care of you animals later. But first, there’s something I’ve been waiting for, for a very long time.” He turned back to his goals.
The Vorpal Blade had repelled the frost, causing it to divide around it, coincidently protecting Red Queen and me from the frost as well. That was something, right? It seemed like everything that had to do with White Wizard repulsed it. So it wouldn’t let White Wizard use it. Right? It was a desperate, and probably vain, hope.
I pushed up and staggered to my feet, legs shak
ing and head spinning. I only made it a couple steps before I collapsed to the ground again. If only I could make the wand work, do something with it, instead of waiting for it to heal me. Frustrated, I bit my lip until I tasted blood. No, this wasn’t happening. White Wizard couldn’t get the Vorpal Blade. What had I done?
My muscles protested all the more, but I tried to stand again and fell right next to unconscious Red Queen. I pushed the wand into her hand and closed her fingers around it. In any other game, this would have locked White Wizard up, but since the Vorpal Blade was out, it was essentially anyone’s game now. I just hoped that the wand healed Red Queen fast enough.
“Are you actually trying to resist me, Alice?” White Wizard asked coolly. “And here, I was trying to figure out if I should reward you for bringing me the Vorpal Blade, or punish you for not coming when I called your name.” He might have been talking to me, but he didn’t take his eyes off the sword vibrating on the ground.
He’d called me? I never heard him. There must have been too much noise going on for my compromised ears to hear. It’s not like I would have come anyway.
I glared at him and tried to retaliate, but my voice was too raw for proper words.
White Wizard stopped in front of the Vorpal Blade and stared down at it, eyes like frigid flames. “You will obey me,” he ordered it. The aura that pulsed from him was threatening and belittling. It might have been aimed at the sword, but even the people backed away even more.
The sword vibrated harder on the ground as if it was fighting White Wizard’s will. It rocked and shook on the ground, like it was caught between opposing magnets. Then slowly, the vibrating stopped. It lay on the ground, a beautiful, blood-stained but ordinary sword.
My last shred of hope died. I never found Ace. Red Queen was hurt too much to use her wand. And now the Vorpal Blade has given in. It was all my fault because I thought I knew better.
I was wrong.
White Wizard reached for the sword. A silver flash shot in front of his hand, blocking his path. White Wizard’s hand jumped back up to his chest, fingers curling with anger and he made an annoyed sound low in his throat.
With a thud, a familiar blue and silver throwing knife sank into the ground next to the Vorpal Blade.
I gasped.
Ace materialized, crouching low over the Vorpal Blade. His hand wrapped possessively around the hilt and he stood up, stepping away from White Wizard. His eyes were wide in an almost childlike way, ears flat against his skull, almost disappearing entirely in his hair.
The crowd shifted and bumped into each other, but their terrified noises never rose higher than a murmur.
“Cheshire Cat,” White Wizard spat the name in annoyance. “What are you doing?”
Ace opened his mouth, paused and closed it. Almost like he didn’t know what he was doing yet. His gaze slid away from White Wizard’s until he stared at the ground, shoulders bowed. Even so, his hand fisted on the Vorpal Blade, thumb rubbing along the hilt affectionately.
White Wizard gave a dismissive sound and waved a hand. “Nevermind. We’ll address this later. Well, now that you have the Vorpal Blade, Cheshire Cat, kill the Red girl.”
Ace flinched and looked at her. All emotions slid away from his face until it was nothing but stone cold.
“No.” My voice was barely audible to my own ears.
Just then, Red Queen moaned and stirred. Her eyes drifted open and blinked into focus. Confused, she looked around then gasped up at Ace, holding the Vorpal Blade and staring at her. “Ace?” she mouthed, what color was left draining from her face.
“Kill her!” White Wizard’s yell echoed in the still air.
Red Queen flinched.
Ace looked at me, his usual laughing eyes dead except for one emotion. Shame. Standing in front of me, being ordered to do what he was, he was ashamed. It was like he was saying, This is what I really am. I’m sorry.
It broke my heart. Slowly, I shook my head. “Don’t listen to him.”
He looked back at the ground, face contorted in confusion.
“I told you to kill her!” White Wizard pointing at Red Queen.
She gasped and scooted back into me, almost crawling into my lap and knocking me over. It wasn’t Ace that scared her like this, it was White Wizard. She might have her wand now, but being this close to him, she’d lost her nerve.
Slowly the confusion cleared on Ace’s face, replaced with bitter resolve. “No.”
White Wizard froze, eyes wide with shock. In a flash, he lunged forward, grabbed Ace’s hair and shoved him face first into the dirt. “You do not say that word to me!” Ice crystals formed around his hand, seeping onto Ace’s hair.
Ace didn’t fight, just lay there as if knowing what was going to happen and accepting it.
My stomach twisted, seeing the scene play out. Ace had already warned me about the abuse, but it was still jarring to see it firsthand.
Red Queen gasped and slapped a hand over her mouth. “Don’t!”
“Stop it!” I yelled at the same time, but our voices were overpowered by White Wizard’s.
“You don’t have the right to ever tell me no. You are nothing. You have always been nothing. If it wasn’t for me, you would still be nothing. I made you. And you are my slave,” White Wizard drove his words into Ace by grinding his face into the dirt.
Angry now, I pushed Red Queen off and stood up. My legs were still shaking, but I stood anyway. “You’re wrong!” I yelled with all I was worth.
White Wizard looked at me, furious. It wasn’t hard to understand what was going on in his mind. Just like his father subjugated him, White Wizard was obsessed with making sure that Ace was below him. It was a need that went deeper than even his desire to kill Red Queen.
Ace turned his head, alarm bright in his eyes. Funny, when he was dealing with White Wizard, his face was like a stone, but as soon as I or Red Queen was involved, he showed emotion. He showed what was in his heart. He didn’t care that he was hurt, but every time White Wizard looked at us, he’d panic.
“He’s not nothing.” My hands fisted, nails biting into my palm. For the first time, it didn’t matter that everyone was staring at me. There was only one person that mattered. I didn’t do all this for him to keep being tortured like this. My voice was quiet, but it still carried because there was nothing to compete with. “He’s not you and you aren’t your father. You might have tried your best to crush him, but he isn’t poisoned like you. He may be ‘cursed’ and have all those skills you forced on him. And own the Vorpal Blade. But it just made him better at his true Role. The Knight of Oz.”
There were gasps all around.
I lowered my chin and glared at White Wizard. “I know you know his Role. You know exactly what he can do. That’s one of the reasons why you’re so obsessed with keeping him down.”
Ace was staring at me, eyes wide and hanging onto my every word. Like it was the first time the idea had occurred to him. Slowly, the dead expression in his eyes melted away, leaving wonder.
White Wizard’s fury turned to loathing. “It was you,” he seethed. His tone went from hot to deadly cold, that frigid concentration that took him from scary to terrifying. “You’re the reason he defies me. You’re trying to take away my slave.” He let go of Ace and stood up slowly, tilted his head back and to the side so he could look down on me, eyes white with hate. “Here I thought you were a smart Alice. I’ll teach you to touch my things.” A sword made out of ice appeared in his hand.
The blood drained from my face, leaving me light headed in fear.
Red Queen’s tiny hand grabbed mine and she pulled me back, trying to make me run.
White Wizard thrust out his hand.
Ice wrapped around our feet, freezing all the way up the ankles. We wobbled, mid-motion. I gasped at the sudden biting cold, and goosebumps covered my body.
“No, no.” White Wizard tsked. “You can’t go anywhere. Not until you’re made an example of. I was going to use that stupid lion and
the stuffy hare first, but I think you would make a much better example.” He took a step forward.
Ace appeared in front of him. White Wizard was just barely fast enough to bring his sword up and block Ace’s thrust with the Vorpal Blade. There were still ice chunks in Ace’s hair, making the orange locks stick out in places, but all the muscles in his back and arms strained as he put pressure into his attack.
Gasps and echoes of shock echoed around us.
White Wizard’s eyes were wide. “How dare you attack me?” He grunted with the effort of fending off Ace’s attack.
“Don’t touch my Ali.” Ace’s voice was hard and strong, the same voice I heard when he was the Cheshire Cat. But for the first time, it didn’t scare me.
My eyes widened as a gentle burning fire lit in my heart and masked the discomfort of my feet. Too many emotions tightened my chest, actually seeing him face off against White Wizard. The way that he said ‘my Ali’ made me feel so special, like no other title had. Like I was one of kind, irreplaceable. I was also so proud of him for standing up to his demon, the man who had been tormenting him for centuries. Those emotions were battling with the gut-wrenching fear that he could get hurt.
“Ace,” Red Queen whispered beside me in shock, as if she was seeing a whole new side to him.
“Everything in Oz belongs to me.” White Wizard glared at Ace, his betrayal adding a new light of hatred in White Wizard’s eyes. “You, the Alice, the Vorpal Blade. Oz belongs to me. I’ll take great pleasure in reminding you of that as you watch helplessly.”
Ice grew over Ace’s feet, but before it fully solidified, Ace vanished and materialized behind White Wizard, who had to turn and block another attack.
“Not anymore.” Ace attacked again, this time forcing White Wizard back a step. A chip appeared in the ice blade where it touched the Vorpal Blade.
Alice Games Page 22