The black devil gave an impatient stamp of his hooves as she pondered what she came here for. What had Sir Gorrann said? A conflict between two Yurkei, oh yes. She climbed down from Morte, who gave an angry snort when she attempted to tie him to a pole. His saucer-sized eyes shimmered with anger. Would she never learn? Instead she dropped the reins and Morte galloped off. He would return when she needed him, dragging along a bloody carcass of some poor animal to place at her feet. He would then feast on it until Dinah heaved up her supper in a bush.
Dinah ducked into Sir Gorrann’s tent. The men were waiting for her—Cheshire, Sir Gorrann, and Bah-kan—all stood silently as she peered curiously at each of them. Their faces were twisted. They looked alarmingly happy.
“What are you staring at? Where are the warriors? Have they already killed each other?”
Cheshire let a devious smile creep over his face. “There are no warriors. Follow me.” Without another word, he stepped out of the tent, with the two other men following.
“What?” Dinah ran to catch up with him, her sword bouncing across her hip. “Stop! I’m in no mood for a game right now! I think you have played enough with me for a lifetime.”
Cheshire’s grin stretched even wider, a naughty cat, caught in his deception. “I think you will much enjoy this game, Your Majesty.”
They were climbing a low grassy ridge, slick and wet from the evening mist. Dinah slipped a few times as she made her way up the rise, her boots squirming in dark water that ran uphill. “Have you found more rogue Cards? Send the ambassadors to speak with them at once.”
“No,” replied Cheshire. “Not rogue Cards.” He stopped Dinah and held her by the shoulders. “Listen to me now, as you didn’t before. Climb to the top of the crest and see what we have brought you, a gift to our Queen from your loyal servants.” He bent his head to her ear and whispered, “But mostly from me.”
Sir Gorrann and Bah-kan hung back just before the crest of the hill. Dinah gave Sir Gorrann a strange look as she walked away from them. He gave a small nod and so she continued climbing. The top of the hill looked out onto a low meadow, dotted with white mossy trees and small pools of still water. She squinted, unsure of what she was seeing. Then her heart began hammering. Men. It was a line of men. Men wearing black. Thousands of them, each armed, bearing the familiar uniform, black on black. A man on a large white horse led them forward. Dinah’s breath caught in her throat. Had she been tricked? Was this her father’s doing? Had Cheshire played her? The white horse was plunging toward her now, but it didn’t move like a Hornhoov—he was too slow, and the rider was smaller, with a mane of curly brown hair blowing in the….
Dinah didn’t feel her body start to move, but soon she was sprinting over the meadow, screaming his name, tears falling freely down her cheeks, the opposite of a queen, a woman lost, a child coming home. There was no majesty, no decorum, only him, always him.
“WARDLEY! WARDLEY!!”
He abandoned his horse, sprinting toward her as she screamed his name.
“WARDLEY!”
They collided in the middle of the field in a tangle of limbs and a crushing embrace. Both fell to the ground, sobbing, pressed into each other with a breathtaking fierceness. Wardley was kissing her forehead, his arms wrapped tightly around her.
“I thought I would never see you again!” sobbed Dinah.
“I’m here now. I’m here. Shhh.”
She raised her hands to his face, feeling his cheeks, his new beard. “It’s you. You’re safe.” Dinah was babbling now, close to hysteria. “I’m sorry, Wardley, I’m sorry, please forgive me. Forgive me for hurting you, for stabbing you.” She pressed her hand against where she knew his wound to be. “I’m so sorry!”
Wardley’s eyed filled with tears. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I’m the one who is sorry. I’m a coward. I should have left with you. I should have found you sooner. You are the rightful Queen, I should have protected you.” Wardley crushed her close to his chest.
“You did, Wardley. You saved my life.” They leaned their foreheads together, their hearts hammering loudly in the damp wind. Dinah wiped away her tears, suddenly aware of making a scene in front of throngs of armed men. “What are you doing here?” she whispered. Wardley looked down at her, his eyes the color of warm chocolate, eyes she had loved her entire life. Her heart was captivated by him, even after all this time.
“Dinah, don’t you know? I’m here to command your army.”
He grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. Dinah looked out at the sea of soldiers in black, all standing motionless: warriors, murderers, and prisoners. The Spades had arrived.
A smile crept across her face.
With these men, she could crush the King.
Chapter Fourteen
Sleep was of paramount importance, yet Dinah couldn’t think of anything she needed more than to let her eyes feast on Wardley’s slumbering face. She watched silently, mesmerized by the way his lips parted slightly with each deep breath, with each rise and fall of his chest.
After their joyous reunion, once they returned to camp, Dinah had seen how exhausted Wardley was. His lips were cracked and bleeding, and dark circles shadowed his eyes. He was thin, thinner than Dinah had ever seen him, and there was a tortured ache present in his face that broke her heart. The Spades, eight hundred and seventy-two in number, had marched for a week under his leadership and arrived hungry, weak, and irritable. They possessed a begrudging respect for Wardley, but the Spades as a group were independent and unruly, and he held onto his command by the skin of his teeth and the ferocity of his blade. After he made sure that the men were settled into their makeshift tents, he promptly collapsed into Dinah’s open cot and fell asleep within minutes. Dinah perched on a stool nearby, her hands folded together, her sword across her lap, her black eyes drinking in every breath of him. He’s here, she thought, he came for me. I wasn’t wrong to believe he’d find me. Wave after wave of relief washed over her, a flood of penetrating joy. It wasn’t just that he was alive and unhurt—not on the surface, anyway—but that she had someone here she trusted without hesitation. Sir Gorrann was a fine companion, but Wardley had known Dinah her entire life, in the intimate way that only a childhood friend could.
She continued to watch him sleep until her own weariness closed her eyes. She curled up beside him and they slept. She awoke to Morte’s impatient, thundering steps outside the tent. He was hungry; he was always hungry. So Dinah found a live chicken and gave it to Morte, who enjoyed chasing his prey around, toying with it, before he mercilessly speared it through the middle with one of the bone shards encircling his hooves. He then settled into the dirt to feast on its still-flailing body, and Dinah returned to the tent with a distaste for breakfast. Wardley, however, awoke starving and Dinah couldn’t feed him fast enough. She knelt by his bedside as he devoured dried bird meat, loaves of bread, and apples. Crumbs drifted down onto his long legs. His brown eyes bore into hers, overjoyed to see her, and yet filled with a terrible guilt. Wardley insisted that Dinah tell him everything, down to every last detail. She took a deep breath and recounted her story, alarmed at how dangerous everything seemed in retrospect. She started when she was awakened in her bed by a hand over her mouth and continued on through the details of Cheshire’s affair with her mother. The night on the mountain with the cranes and the shadows she kept to herself. That moment was hers alone, concealed close to her heart, next to the place where she held Wardley. He watched her with amazement as she told her tale, his face reacting boldly to each turn. When she finished, he sat quietly for a few minutes before speaking.
“So Cheshire is your father?”
“So it would seem.”
“And you believe him?”
“I don’t have to believe him. I know it to be true. Look at him, and look at me. I looked nothing like my father—” Dinah corrected herself, something she was starting to do more often. “I’m sorry, the King of Hearts. I look nothing like the King. And I believe that my
mother had an affair. When I was young I heard them arguing about it. There are so many things that fell together when he told me, so many disparate pieces that fit perfectly into place. My life makes sense now, even though the whole thing is a bit alarming.”
Wardley was quick to see through her easy cadence. “A bit alarming?” he scoffed. “That’s how you feel about Cheshire being your father?”
Dinah walked over to the tent flap and looked through the narrow sheaf of light. Thousands of tents littered the damp ground as far as she could see. “He’s clever. He’s organized this entire war, all to put me on the throne. He saved my life and probably will again. The King never even looked me in the eye. He hated me. He murdered Charles, Wardley.”
His voice softened. “I know. But be wary that your gratitude turns into blind trust.”
Dinah shook her head. “I won’t. I promise.” Cheshire was the least of her concerns. Right now there were a thousand Yurkei warriors, three hundred rogue Cards, and almost nine hundred Spades all gathered in one wet field. The Spades were the most loathed of all Cards among the Yurkei. If they all weren’t careful, the war could start and end right here.
Wardley looked past her, casually resting a hand on her shoulder. “It’s good to see you, Dinah.”
Dinah’s skin tingled at his touch, at being near to him. A smile crept across her face, and she forced herself to take a few quiet steps back into the tent.
“Sit down. You are exhausted and in no shape to be moving around. But tell me all that’s happened in the palace since I’ve been gone.”
“I’ll tell you later, but right now I have to get ready to meet with the war council. Do you mind if I clean up?”
Dinah rolled her eyes. “I’ve seen you bathe a thousand times.”
“That is true.” Wardley crouched next to a small bowl of water and pulled his shirt over his head. Dinah struggled to keep her face motionless as her eyes raked over his tan, taut skin and she watched with pleasure as he scrubbed the grime off his lean chest. As he lathered a bar of soap through his hair and scraped the dirt from under his fingernails, he repeated most of what she already knew: after she had stabbed him (way too deep!, he was kind enough to remind her) he was transported to the infirmary, where the King of Hearts had found him and demanded his head. Wardley had assumed that he would die right there and then.
“He was mad with rage, Dinah, furious and insane. You’ve seen him drunk—well, this was a thousand times worse. He began striking the midwives and the nurses, screaming, ‘Off with his head! Off with his head!’” Wardley shook his head. “I was terrified. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t fight. I could barely stay conscious, for gods’ sake. Luckily, one brave doctor convinced him that my blood on the table was price enough. No man would let himself be injured that deeply on purpose. The King stuck his fingers deep into my wound to make sure.”
“Oh, Wardley. I’m so sorry.”
Wardley let the wet rag linger over the jagged, ugly scar on his shoulder, four inches long and barely healed. Dinah felt tears flood her eyes as she looked at the hideous wound she had inflicted. “I’ll get you some Yurkei medicine for that. Their potions possess incredible healing powers, surprisingly much more advanced than ours.” She let her fingers softly trace the scar before stepping away.
Wardley nodded as he mopped at the back of his neck. “As I healed in the infirmary, I heard rumors of my fate. The King wanted my head, but had been dissuaded by his council.” Wardley pronounced the word sharply, making it clear that he meant Cheshire. “I was stripped of all my titles and duties. I was still technically a member of the Heart Cards, but I was no longer the future Knave of Hearts. Xavier Juflee dismissed me from being his apprentice.” Dinah winced. Wardley practically worshipped Xavier. “The King ordered me into service before I was completely healed. All I did after that was labor in the stables, forced to rebuild each wooden gate by hand with inadequate tools. It was my punishment.” He puffed up his chest and gave her a sad smile. “I have a new title, I’ll have you know: Wardley the Weak, the Card who was bested by a princess. A title fit for a king, don’t you think? Most days I was unable to work in the stables because of my wound, so I would just lie in the hay, dreaming of an escape from the pain.”
He paused. “Many times I woke up in the stables, not remembering that I had fallen asleep. The days seemed never ending, and the nights….” Wardley had a faraway look in his eyes, a look that Dinah had seen before—it was a place she could never reach him. His mind was elsewhere and for a second she saw a flicker of something pass in front of them.
“Wardley.” At the sound of her voice, he snapped back to attention, his eyes filled with tears. “And then…?”
“After a while Cheshire found me. He told me bits of his plan, each week a bit more information—never enough that I could act on it alone, and never enough that I could ever accuse him of treason. He’s crafty, Dinah.”
So am I, she thought, because he is my father.
“Finally, the man told me what he wanted. He wanted me to lead an army of Spades south to meet you, here in the Darklands. To fight for the rightful Queen, to fight for you.” He smiled. “But I did not need convincing. You are the rightful Queen of Wonderland, and like a sister to me. I wondered: how do you convince an army of Spades to fight against their fellow Cards? What would make a single Spade drop their loyalty to one crown to fight for another?”
Dinah had no idea. Wardley leaned forward, a drop of water falling off a curly lock of brown hair. “Rights, Dinah. The Spades long for their own rights. As it turns out, I didn’t have to convince anyone. They have been waiting for this for a long time. Combine that with the King growing madder every day and it was an easy sell. Our departure date was set, in the middle of a long night. I stole away from the stables and came to the place that Cheshire had told me, half-convinced that this was some sort of insane game that the King was playing to test my loyalty. But there they were in the darkness, a silent army of Spades just waiting in the courtyard, with their commander Starey Belft at the helm. Here’s what I’ve learned, and what you should remember: the Spades’ loyalty is not to the King. It has never been to the King. It is to Starey Belft, for he lives the depraved life of a Spade, and so they respect him. They would follow him into hell, and they did. We marched for two weeks’ time and lost more than twenty men. We only have a few horses. The things I’ve heard from these men, you wouldn’t believe….”
Sir Gorrann poked his head into the tent and looked surprised to see Wardley soaking wet and Dinah watching silently.
She smiled. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“I couldn’t care less. The council is waiting for yeh both.”
Dinah gave a slight nod. “We’ll be there shortly. Thank you, Sir Gorrann.”
He left and Wardley eyed the door skeptically. “What about him? Do you trust him? You know he was in Cheshire’s pocket, don’t you?”
“Aside from you, I’m not sure there is anyone I fully trust, or ever will again. The man I thought was my father tried to kill me. My mother lied to me my whole life. And yet, I believe that Sir Gorrann has my best interests at heart. I consider him a dear, eternally grumpy friend.”
Wardley pulled a ripped tunic over his head. He softly took Dinah’s face in his hands and her heart stopped. “You do know what you are doing, don’t you? You’re planning a war, Dinah. A war in which many people will die, perhaps even yourself. This isn’t playing swords in front of the stable. This isn’t a game.”
Dinah pulled back from him, her face flushed. Wardley always knew how to get under her skin. “Of course I know! I’m the rightful Queen. Shouldn’t I fight for my throne?”
Wardley shook his head. “You are, but I worry for you. You’ve never seen a battle, you’ve never seen a man….”
Dinah slapped him hard, across the face. “What? I’ve never seen a man die? I’ve seen my brother’s body crumpled on a stone slab. I’ve seen a farmer with an arrow buried in his back
just because he happened to be near my path. I killed more than a few Cards on my way out of the palace, and I see their bloody faces in my dreams! So don’t tell me that I haven’t seen death or war, or that I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve been at war with the King of Hearts since the day that I was born.”
“You slapped me!” Wardley laughed a bit before stepping back and shaking his head, his eyes searching her furious face. “You are not the same girl that I kissed under the Julla Tree. That hurt!”
“Don’t forget that again,” she snapped, resentful that Wardley had riled her up, as he always did.
“Let’s go, they are waiting for us.”
“Don’t be mad. I’m sorry I doubted you.” He reached out and tugged playfully on her braid, and Dinah’s fierce heart melted.
Chapter Fifteen
The war council met in a circular black tent that sat squarely in the middle of all the other tents, a dark spot in a sea of clouds. Long onyx flags with the symbol of the Spades stitched haphazardly across their front panels snapped in the wind, blowing out from the tent pillars. Before the Spades had arrived, the war council’s conversations had taken place over fires, or in regular tents. This tent was new, large, and intimidating. It carried a message: the Spades were not to be trifled with. As Dinah walked toward the tent with Wardley, several Spades bowed before her. It had been a long time since Cards knelt before her, and Dinah felt a rush of pride as their heads tipped to the ground. I will be their Queen, someday. Dinah ducked inside the tent flaps, Wardley behind her. A large circular table made of light wood filled up the room, forcing them to stand pressed against the soft black fabric of the tent. Rising up from the table stood a model of Wonderland Palace. Dinah marveled at its construction—every window, gate, and turret was present, each tiny shutter accounted for. She ran her fingers over the model of the stables, the rose garden, the Black Towers, and the iron walls that surrounded the city in a perfect circle. The hardened tips of her fingers rested on the Great Hall and she looked up in amazement.