“I have been waiting to do this since I pulled you screaming from your mother’s womb. Wild and angry even then.” He paused. “Perfect to me, even then.” With a happy sob, he tenderly bowed before her. “My queen. How may I serve you?”
His legs collapsed beneath him, and Dinah eased him back onto the stone bench. He placed his gentle hand on her head, his voice a lullaby that she had dearly missed.
“Be at peace, my dear. Rest finally.”
Dinah then bent her face into his lap and wept unabashedly for all she had seen and done.
Eleven
Dinah looked at herself in the gilded mirror, preparing for the coronation that would crown her queen. She frowned at the thought. It seemed like a lifetime ago that she had killed the king, and yet it had only been four days since the end of the war. The barrage of events that had followed had occurred with such urgency that time had passed quickly.
As soon as peace had been declared and the fighting stopped, Dinah had sent the Yurkei just outside the palace walls to await their release back to Hu-Yuhar. Mundoo remained in the palace, to make sure that Dinah kept her promises and to see her through the coronation, just in case some faction of leftover Cards attempted a revolt.
It was all for naught—there was not a whisper of discontent. The Yurkei and the Spades outnumbered the Cards two to one, and any talk of insurgency would have been a swift walk down the road to death.
Dinah was amazed at and grateful for how quickly Cheshire was able to organize everything—laws, ordinances, titles, and land were all distributed within two days of Dinah declaring herself queen. The result was a sigh of relief from both the people and the Yurkei, who longed to return to their peaceful lives at Hu-Yuhar. Part of Dinah wished she could go with them, live out her life at Hu-Yuhar under the watchful eye of the cranes and Mundoo, who was the kind of leader that Dinah aspired to be. It wouldn’t be the same without Bah-kan, though, and Dinah knew that her soul belonged here, in the palace.
She clutched her hands together, feeling her nerves getting the better of her. Overthrow and kill a king? Fine.
Stand in front of all her new subjects in a dress? Terrifying.
The entirety of Wonderland proper had been invited to the coronation. People stretched out through the Great Hall and into the hallways and stairwells of Wonderland Palace. The high-born members of the court and the low farmhands, the famous and the decorated, spilled out into the courtyard. All longed to see the Queen of Hearts, who had gone from an embodiment of terror to the hero of the people. Their fickle hearts made Dinah uneasy, but Cheshire had explained their motivations away as he helped prepare her for the coronation.
She turned back to him now as he sat in the queen’s reading chair across the room, his dazzling new purple cloak a burst of color against the soft brown leather. He lazily twirled his dagger in his right hand.
Dinah’s bedroom was in shambles, but pieces of her old life remained: a trinket here, a music box or book there. Eventually, these chambers would be glorious, but right now they were little more than a makeshift dressing room.
“Are you listening, Your Majesty?”
Dinah turned back. “Yes. I’m just . . . thinking.”
Cheshire cleared his throat and continued on with his lecture about the coronation. “Remember this. Peasants and regular townspeople care not for the business of kings and queens. They long for stability above all. Unless your war killed one of their family members, in which case you will probably be their sworn enemy forever, don’t worry about their loyalty. These people want to tend to their farms, have their babies, eat their tarts, and live in peace. To them now, you are a fascinating woman, a source of rich gossip, and they want nothing more than to see you take the throne. The masses love to see a leader brought low, and you have given them that. Now they simply wish to discuss what dress you wear, what you say, what you eat, what you do.”
Cheshire stood and handed her a short speech on a rolled scroll.
“This should rouse them sufficiently after the coronation is over. I’ll give you a minute to get dressed.”
As he walked out, the doors to Dinah’s airy chambers burst open, and three maids struggled in with an enormous dress wrapped delicately in bright purple linen. Dinah looked at the dress and sighed. She already missed her boots, her tunic, and her wool pants. The people expected a queen to dress a certain way and so she would, but she would never throw away the muddy, bloody boots that sat beside her bed. Those were the boots that had walked the vast reaches of Wonderland, and the blood crusted on their sides had come at a great cost.
Vittiore ducked her blond head inside the room and gave Dinah a timid smile. With reluctance, Dinah had hired Vittiore as her lady-in-waiting, a more suitable post for a girl born on the Western Slope. This was at the urging of Wardley, who had taken pity on the skinny waif. People were drawn to her glow the way insects buzzed around a wilting flower. Dinah could barely understand it, but she hesitantly allowed Vittiore to serve her. There were some things only they shared: both had been manipulated by the king. He had killed both of their mothers. It bonded them without words.
Vittiore motioned silently for the maids to hang Dinah’s dress by the window. The maids bowed to Dinah, who gave them a gentle nod before letting them scuttle out of her vast chamber. Only Ki-ershan, Vittiore, and Dinah remained.
Ki-ershan, who had been inseparable from Dinah since the battle, stood by the door at the far side of the room. He had exchanged his loincloth for a tunic bearing Dinah’s seal, but the white stripes that ran from his blue eyes to the end of his feet remained. Ki-ershan was everything she had ever wanted in a guard—he was crafty and intuitive, and knew what she needed before she did. He sensed danger before it was present and had already provided her with wise counsel. He helped Dinah look over treaties and ledgers in her room, well after the rest of Wonderland had turned to their pillows.
Vittiore bowed her head. “We’re ready, Your Majesty.”
Ki-ershan turned his head.
With a grimace, Dinah stepped out of her dressing gown and stood naked before the mirror, staring at herself. Her lean, muscular form was so different from the stout and soft body she had left behind. So many scars, she thought as her black eyes took in the damaged form before her. One large scar ran across the back of her shoulder where Mundoo had “reminded” her of his power. A jagged wound crossed her palm where she had pulled a bone spike out of Morte’s leg. It had never healed correctly. Neither had her two fingers, which were still a bit crooked. The wide gash across her chin remained, as well as the wound on her head, bruised, sore, and still occasionally leaking. A gift from the King of Hearts.
Vittiore began gently taping a linen wrap over her torso. Cheshire believed Dinah had cracked a rib when the Club had pushed her off Morte. She winced. It was tender to the touch.