Wardley looked at her quizzically before pushing her hair aside to whisper in her ear. Dinah’s heart beat rapidly as his breath brushed her cheek. “Tomorrow we begin our march north, Dinah. The war is upon us.”
The time she had missed in the Caterpillar’s fog had left her confused. He was right—they would march out the following day, headed for Wonderland Palace. How had it arrived so suddenly? The Spades continued to stare at her.
“Move along!” Wardley snapped, and they begrudgingly obeyed.
“Why were they staring at me like that?”
“Probably because you are the only woman in this camp.” He fidgeted awkwardly.
“Tell me the truth,” ordered Dinah. She had known Wardley long enough that it was painfully obvious when he was lying.
He sighed. “Cheshire has been telling everyone how you survived the encounter with the Yurkei witch doctor, how in return he gave you a vision of our victory.”
Dinah looked at Wardley and gasped. “That is a lie!”
He clamped his hand over her mouth. “Shh. It doesn’t matter. It gives the men hope, letting them believe that you have some special knowledge of a victorious battle. Who knows, it might even be true. The men will have less fear when they go into battle if they believe fate is on their side.”
Dinah grabbed Wardley’s arm. “That is a false hope. There was no word of our victory. Although . . .”
Throne. Crumbs. Grass.
“There might have been,” Dinah admitted. “I can’t remember. Still, I want the men to believe in themselves, not some false prophecy. They need to have faith that we can win.”
“And why exactly will we win?” asked Wardley.
“Because we are on the right side,” answered Dinah, unconvinced. “Because we have to.”
Dinah looked out over the camp. She knew the odds. Her men were outnumbered and perhaps outmatched. The Yurkei and the Spades would fight with a certain fervor, but did fervor and righteousness matter when the numbers were not in their favor? Dinah felt a fresh stab of fear. “Do you believe we can win? As the onetime future Knave of Hearts, do you think we will win?”
Wardley glanced down at Dinah, his face painted with weariness as a lock of curly brown hair fell over his eyes. Dinah felt her heartbeat quicken. “Take a walk with me, Dinah. There’s something I want to show you.”
Sixteen
Morte dutifully followed Corning, Wardley’s obedient white steed, out of the camp and into the wilds of the Darklands. They walked in silence for about an hour, through hot swamps and over a field of strange rubbery plants that produced in Dinah an uneasy feeling of being watched. The plants unfurled themselves toward Morte’s hooves as they passed by them before recoiling, rejected and hungry. As the valleys grew wetter and wetter, Wardley turned them slightly east, and the horses began a laborious climb up slick grassy hills, their hooves slipping on the slimy moisture that permeated the ground. Before long, the rolling peaks ended at a tangled bramble patch that defended itself from invaders with wicked-looking black thorns, each the size of a hand. They dismounted their steeds. Wardley tied Corning to the bush and Dinah simply dropped Morte’s reins. He slashed at the bramble in front of her as they pushed through its sharp tangle. The bramble grew thicker, the light dimmer. Dinah thought she heard water. Dinah pricked her hand on one of the thorns and watched her blood pool in her palm.
“Wardley . . .”
“We’re almost there. It’s just around here.” Wardley stepped to the left and disappeared behind a wall of thorns. Her hands out in front of her, Dinah pressed on. She followed Wardley’s footprints until they led her out to a small, magical clearing. Behind them was a silent blue pool of water, so still and clear that the light reflecting from it cast turquoise waves across Wardley’s handsome face. At the center of the pool, unattached to any rock or other structure, a waterfall flowed up from the middle, its stream turning into mist once it hit a certain height. The mist then spiraled and disappeared into the sky. They stood in silence for a few minutes before Wardley spoke softly as Dinah stared in fascination.
“Incredible, isn’t it?” Wardley pulled off his boots and soaked his feet in the shallow pool. Dinah followed his lead. “I’ve never felt water this clean. It’s the perfect temperature—not too hot, not too cold. I found this while you were sleeping off the hallucinations. Cheshire was watching you, and I couldn’t just sit there wondering if you would ever wake up, so I wandered.” He shook his head. “I prayed that I could take you here one day, that you would wake up. Dinah, think about it—where does the water come from? There is no visible spring under the surface and yet the water keeps rising. It’s a miracle.”
A smile crept over his face, so lovely that it hurt her heart. “Wonderland is a pretty wondrous place, wouldn’t you say? I had no idea that so much lay outside the palace walls. It makes me want to climb on Corning and just disappear.”
His eyes followed Dinah as she pushed herself into the pool and waded toward the middle until she stood right before the waterfall. She reached her hand out. Streams of warm water flowed upward through her fingers, as if Dinah herself was the source of this wonder. The water seemed to have a mind of its own between her fingertips, and tiny droplets crawled from the bottom of her wrist to her fingers before lifting off into the sky. She walked back to the edge of the water and climbed out, the hem of her tunic soaked. Smiling, she sat beside Wardley and dipped her wiggling toes into the pool. She glanced over at him, lounging easily beside her on the bank. This was how it always was: Dinah and Wardley. Together. She poked him.
“Remember that summer you stole the tarts from the kitchen, when Harris chased us down the hallway screaming? I’ve never laughed so hard. You had flour all over your face, and yet when he saw you, the first thing you did was scream ‘I didn’t do it!’” She laughed at the memory—Wardley, a lanky young boy, his face covered with jam and powder, stuffing as many tarts as he could into his pockets. The sun had filtered through the red heart windows as his thin body tore through the castle, Heart Cards and Harris bellowing behind him, and Dinah too, always a few steps behind, watching him with adoration. Together they hid in the courtyard behind her mother’s white rosebushes that snaked over the walls, stuffing their faces with the tarts and giggling uncontrollably.
“It wasn’t like you were starving. You just wanted to steal something.”
“I did. I was a good kid, but at that moment, stealing tarts seemed dangerous, like a crime punishable in the Black Towers.” He grinned. “It was infinitely exciting.”
Dinah shuddered at the memory of the Towers and looked down at the pool. “When I’m queen, I will tear them down, until not even the roots remain.”
“You have always been fond of making grand queenly statements.” Wardley smiled as he tucked her black braid behind her ear. Then a profound sadness pierced his gaze. “It will never be good like this again, will it? War is coming, and somehow you and I are right in the thick of it.”
Dinah nodded and stared at the waterfall, completely aware of Wardley’s hand resting mere inches away from hers on the bank. She watched a pink fish swim up the waterfall, its tiny fins flapping in the miraculous stream. Suddenly realizing what was happening, the fish reversed course and struggled to swim against the current. It was no use. With a tiny plop, the fish was sucked up into the sky with the water. Wardley continued on, unfazed.
“You know what I keep thinking about? How I hope that my parents have the good sense to stay out of the fight. My mother will stay huddled inside with the rest of the court, holed up in the Great Hall, but my father might just decide to be a hero and don his Card armor for one last battle.”
Dinah gave his hand a squeeze. “He won’t. He’ll know it’s you coming.”
She wasn’t entirely sure she was telling the truth.
Wardley swallowed. “Yes, but . . . what if he doesn’t? What if he puts on a helmet, and I don’t recognize him on the battlefield? What if I . . . ?” His words faded on h
is tongue. A few moments passed as they both remained silent. “What are you afraid of?” he whispered.
Dinah took a breath before lowering her voice to a murmur. “Everything. I’m afraid that the men will see that I am just a girl who was rejected by the king. I’m afraid I’ll die silently and quietly, like the flame blown from a match, and I’ll be nothing more than a child who played at war. I’m afraid of losing you, or Sir Gorrann, or even Cheshire. I’m afraid of letting down the Yurkei people.” Dinah lifted her foot and watched droplets of water roll off her muscular calf. “Mostly I’m afraid that I’ll die, and it won’t matter if I have a crown on my head or not. I’ll die the same as other men, with a bloody sword through my chest, one final breath lost in the madness.”
A sword. What had the Caterpillar said to her? “You will pierce the heart of one man and . . .”
Her memory was there, but then it was gone again, the way a butterfly would land on her hand but leave the moment she glanced at it. “I’m even afraid of what happens if we are victorious. I’ll be queen. Can I rule? Will I be a good ruler or a terrible one like my . . . ?” She stopped. “Like the King of Hearts. If that even happens. If we can get through the gates.”
Wardley absently clasped her hand in his, their palms slick with comingled sweat.
“Do you believe we can win, Wardley?”
He stared out at the small pond. His face was ruddy and flushed from the walk, and for a moment he reminded Dinah of the boy with the stolen tarts. But then she saw the stubble creeping up his cheeks and the way his sculpted muscles tensed under his shirt. He had become a man since she had seen him last. He sighed and rubbed his face with his other hand.
“We can win, but it’s not in our favor as it stands right now. The king has us outnumbered almost two to one. The iron walls are perfectly round, which means that to surround them, we will be stretched thin in all places. We have the Spades, which will help, for they are ruthless in battle, but he has the Heart Cards, who are the most-skilled fighters in Wonderland. He has Xavier Juflee.” He gave a laugh. “We have an exiled princess, the king’s Hornhoov, an army of wild natives, and the Spades. And even if we win, once we are inside the gates, the people of Wonderland Palace will not welcome us with open arms. They loathe you, do you realize that? The people fear you, Dinah, and for good reason. You are bringing death and war upon this city, a city that has never seen a battle. Almost every man in the kingdom is a Card, and the king will deploy all of them in his defense.”
“Yes, but we have the Yurkei . . .”
“The Yurkei have never attacked a city. What do they know of walls and Iron Gates and a palace made of stone and glass? The mounted Heart Cards will smash against the Yurkei on the north side, while we battle our way through a sea of Hearts, Clubs, and Diamonds, all while the Fergal family rain arrows down around us.” Dinah had forgotten about the famous Fergal archers.
Wardley shook his head. “If we are captured, our fate will be much more terrible than dying quickly on the battlefield. They will throw us into the Black Towers to rot, until we become one with the tree or worse. The King of Hearts is a hateful man.” He looked over at Dinah, his brown eyes gazing with adoration and sadness on her drawn face. “I swear to you this day, here in this place, that I will kill you before I let the king torture you. And I hope you will do the same for me.”
Dinah smiled back at him, knowing that she would never be able to take Wardley’s life. No, not even to save him. Love had made her impassively hard and needlessly soft at the same time.
“I keep thinking,” he muttered, “that this might be the last time I do anything. The last time I eat bread. The last time I dip my foot in a pool. The last time that I get to speak with you as a friend, and not as a commander to his queen. Are we ready for that? Am I still to be your king?”
There was an edge in his voice, a need to share with her. Dinah realized with a ragged breath that their relationship was about to change. Her heart started to gallop within her chest, racing so fast she felt it might explode. Despite all the oxygen running through her veins, she was frozen in place. Wardley seemed oblivious to her discomfort. He leaned back onto the mossy ground, stretching his arms above his head, his words shaping her world.
“Tonight could be the last night that I watch the stars simply to remember my place in this world. Everything that we have can be taken away. It will be taken away for many men that rest in those tents, maybe from you, maybe from me. There is no time to waste.”
Dinah felt a fury climbing up through her chest, only this time it was different. This was a longing, a need, something that felt like falling, like a string was yanking her heart out of her chest. Toward him, only him, always him. She was no longer in control—all she could feel was the desire to touch him. The passion crawled up through her until she became its puppet. It moved her limbs, her mind, her lips. She wanted him. She had waited long enough, and had almost lost him once.
“If this is the last time we will be together, then there is something . . . Dinah, what are you doing?”
He was still speaking when Dinah leaned over him, her arms on either side of his body.
Tenderly, she bent over him, her lips brushing his, as gentle and soft as dew drops on a petal. His were warm and moist, and tipped with everything good Dinah had ever tasted. Her red lips dusted across his, feeling his mouth staying painfully still. He lay motionless, frozen. What am I doing? Dinah yanked her head back and looked down at him with confusion and hesitation.
Wardley remained perfectly still for a moment, and then he grabbed the back of her head roughly and pressed his lips hard against hers. Dinah gasped at the force with which he kissed her. It was a hungry kiss with more than a hint of anger beneath it. With a grunt, he flipped Dinah onto her back and leveled his body over hers before he started kissing her again, ever harder, until Dinah felt her lips going numb. She lost herself in him, tasting the sweet hint of mint leaves on his tongue, feeling the muscles rippled across his shoulders as he pressed down against her. A whimper escaped his lips, falling into her own, hungrily sucked down into her core. The kisses were delicious and full of pleasure, and yet, something wasn’t right. His weight was too heavy, his motions too hard. Wardley’s hands were pressed against her shoulders as if he was holding himself back. His pose was defensive, his body tensed in anger. As he kissed her furiously, Dinah felt a wet tear drip down his face onto her cheek. She pushed his face back. It took her a minute to catch her breath. This was not how she dreamed their first true kiss would be—aggressive and accompanied by tears.
“Wardley, what is wrong? What are you doing?” Her eyes traveled over the face she knew so well, and she could feel her heart wrench painfully when she recognized his grim determination. He was forcing himself to kiss her. Dinah felt the creepings of a familiar dark emotion as she looked up at the man she loved so much: rejection.
“I’m sorry, Dinah.” He turned away from her, his voice shaking. “I can’t do this.”
Dinah’s hands clenched. “What do you mean, you can’t do this?”
Wardley sat back and extended his hand to help her up. Dinah slapped it away. “Please don’t touch me.” She sat up, her limbs trembling with unfulfilled passion.
This couldn’t be happening. No.
“Dinah!” Wardley grabbed her roughly, his hands on the sides of her neck, his forehead pushed up against hers. His voice was filled with desperation. “Don’t you understand? I want to love you this way. I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want to love you in this way, the way you love me. I’ve begged and pleaded with the gods to give me those feelings for you! I want to be your king, your husband, your lover. But I cannot . . .” He struggled with the words. “I can’t force myself to feel those things for you, no matter how much I wish it.”
“You don’t mean it. I can’t . . .” Her voice trembled.
Wardley jerked backward, and the look of devastation in his eyes shattered her hopeful, delicate heart.
D
inah finished. “I can’t lose you too.”
Wardley cringed.
“You are my best friend, a part of me! I will fight for your right to rule to my death! Does that mean anything?” His face was contorted in agony as he looked into her black eyes. “Dinah, please say something. I can’t bear the silence.”
They were both breathing heavily now. Dinah stared at him, her heart falling, spilling like blood down her chest, pouring out from her feet, seeping into the ground. The world was cracking, reassembling itself into dark, jagged places.
“Dinah, please say something. I can’t bear the silence.”
Her eyes were opened anew.
“Do not speak to me.”
Dinah felt a ripping that was both parts of her soul and her vision of their future. It was like being plunged into icy waters when you were burning hot. She was left empty, drained—without her love, without him. . . . He would never be hers.
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t bear to look at his beautiful face for another second.
He didn’t want her.
“Please leave.” She turned away from him, her voice flat and dead. “Please leave, Sir Wardley. You have done your duty here.”
He grabbed her arm and tugged it. “Don’t turn away from me. I won’t leave you, not in this state. Please, look at me.”
She turned to him, her face a grimace of stone. “Is this all a game, Wardley? One more secret of my twisted upbringing? Did someone hire you to make me love you? Do you remember that day under the Julla Tree, when you kissed me? Was that part of the plan?”
Wardley grabbed her hands. “There was no plan. You were always my plan, but I can’t . . . make myself want you, not in that way. And of course I remember the Julla Tree. I kissed you because I wanted to. Because you were the first girl that I ever cared for. But even then, I knew that my feelings for you were not of that nature, no matter how much I tried to force them.”