Once the birds had completely disappeared into the night sky, she breathed deeply until her heart stopped pounding. Dinah left the fire to burn itself out, but not before she glanced once more at her imposing shadow, so ferocious and secure, with the pointed tips of her crown brushing the top of the cliff face. A nagging voice told her that while she wasn’t as mighty as that queen, she would have to try to be. No matter the fear that would inevitably get in her way, she had to try.
Dinah begrudgingly pulled all her clothing back on and gave one quick glance at the Hu-Yuhar valley below. A crowd of Yurkei was gathering, and their voices gave way to silent awe as she walked down the steep path carved into the rock wall. A nervous group of men waited for her at the bottom of the narrow staircase: Cheshire, his purple robes billowing in the wind and his hands resting together as if in prayer; Sir Gorrann, his weathered face a mask of concern; Mundoo, fierce and proud, the leader of his people; and Bah-kan, who towered over all of them, terrifying and vicious, clutching his Heartsword. The men watched her as she made her way down, her emotionless face betraying nothing. She drew ever closer to the small group of men who had played her like a pawn, those men who had deftly moved her toward her destiny. Cheshire’s face broke into a wide smile when he saw the crown on her head. He quickly bent at the knee and bowed before her in grand fashion. Sir Gorrann followed. Mundoo and Bah-kan simply nodded in her direction. They would not bow before her.
Mundoo cleared his mighty throat. “Princess. We have much to speak about.”
Dinah wouldn’t realize until later that three simple words would forever change the face of Wonderland.
“It’s Your Highness,” she corrected him. “And I imagine we do.”
Eleven
Seasons changed the landscape with alarming ferocity as the next few months flew by. Dinah and her army marched south. Even the grass is different here in the Darklands, thought Dinah as she watched the pale blue ferns ripple across the murky landscape. Everything was softer and wetter. Her steed pawed impatiently at the ground, thirsty and ready to plunge his head into the swirling currents of cool water that ran just beneath the moss. Her hair, damp and twisted with white ribbons, blew out before her. Dinah shuddered in the morning air as something round and glowing slithered just underneath the foamy brush. She had expected the South to be warm and humid. She had been right about the humidity, but with the moist air of the Darklands came a certain chill in the early morning, the wet air holding on to the bite of night.
It had been a hellish march. They had lost several Yurkei along the way, between the hidden bogs and the strange poisonous creatures that seemed to lurk under every rock. Disturbingly, the Twisted Wood seemed downright tame compared to the Darklands. As she dug her hand into her steed’s tangled mane, Dinah hummed a song softly under her breath, a song her mother had taught her so very long ago. A song, she now knew, Davianna had learned from Cheshire.
The landscape was brutal, but even with danger surrounding her on all sides, Dinah felt stronger than ever. Her crown rested on top of her head, its rightful place, and Dinah felt powerful in the high saddle. Her stomach grumbled loudly. She was hungry, as she had been ever since they started their march southward. Moving a small army required much food, and there was never enough, it seemed, to satisfy. Everyone could eat at least five times more—even the future queen, who slept in a battered tent, curled around her sword. Dinah was still humming when Sir Gorrann trotted up next to her on Cyndy.
“Sir Gorrann, good morning.”
He didn’t waste time with pleasantries. “Yer Highness, there is a conflict between two of the warriors. Ju-Kule and Freyuk are about to come to blows. Yeh must come quickly—their quarrel will surely end in even more divided loyalty among the Yurkei.”
Dinah nodded her head and with a click of her tongue sent her steed galloping toward the camp—a small city of circular white tents that held a thousand Yurkei warriors and, so far, about three hundred rogue Cards. Wonderful, she thought. Another problem, another small battle. Preparing for a war, it turned out, was very complicated and took months. She bit her cheek nervously as she thought back on all the conflicts that had followed her down from the mountains.
The night she had accepted her fate as queen, she had, along with Sir Gorrann and Cheshire, climbed up into Mundoo’s tent. The fear had returned when she stared up at the ladder, but this time she had something other than survival at hand—she had reasons to live: vengeance and the throne. As the ladder billowed out behind her, Dinah forced herself to climb. I am the queen. Almost immediately after they began their tense discussion, it was very clear that each member of the war council entered with their own agenda. Mundoo longed for his people’s complete autonomy and independence from Wonderland Palace. In return for his people’s support in battle, he demanded the release of all their former lands back to the Yurkei, all the way north from the Ninth Sea up through the Todren and to the east, from the Twisted Wood until the end of the Yurkei Mountains. He also decreed that a representative of the Yurkei people was to sit on the queen’s council, once established, and would have a vote in Wonderland’s affairs that both did and did not concern the Yurkei. It was a steep price to pay for her army, one that she would surely feel later if she was indeed crowned queen. Part of the Yurkei lands included Ierladia, her mother’s hometown, the northern Wonderland stronghold. The negotiations over Ierladia had taken three days, but in the end, a compromise had been reached. Mundoo agreed that the citizens and buildings of Ierladia would remain unharmed under Yurkei rule. While the Yurkei would ultimately own the city, Ierladia would still function as it always had—by doing trade and commerce with Wonderland Palace. The Yurkei would then reap a hefty portion of their taxes as the owners of the city. Tax was a strange concept to the Yurkei, but eventually they acceded to Cheshire’s plan.