He stared back at her with his harsh blue eyes. Then he gave her a half nod.
Sir Gorrann clapped her on the back. “That’s my girl. Now come, we need to hurry to the council.”
They walked quickly through the palace halls and Dinah noticed that the servants smiled when they saw her in the hallways. A Card they passed bowed before her. “Your Majesty, I am so glad to see you up and well.”
Dinah thanked him and continued on her way, then paused. “Wait!” she called to him.
The Card, a young man she recognized, jumped and bowed again. “Your Majesty.”
“Derwin! Derwin Fergal.”
“My lady.”
Dinah paused for a moment, weighing her options. Derwin had betrayed his king and helped her take the palace. She could trust him.
“Please take a message to Wardley. He is ill, so shove it underneath the door. Write that he is to meet me by the Julla Tree tomorrow, at sunset. Do not speak of this to anyone else, do you understand?”
The Card nodded, and Dinah knew he would never tell anyone. Not Derwin, so eager for promotion.
He bowed at the waist. “Of course, my queen.”
“And Fergal?”
“Yes, Your Majesty?”
“Your arrow shot true.”
He grinned.
Dinah and Sir Gorrann continued down the hall to meet with the council. She had neglected to address the needs of her domain—she had almost abandoned her kingdom.
She allowed herself a fleeting moment of fantasy. Perhaps if she showed Wardley she could be a good queen, if she could rule with grace, then maybe he could forgive her one day.
In her heart, she knew it would not be so.
Fifteen
Dinah’s hands were damp with sweat as she wrung them together, harder and harder, until her skin blistered. She paced back and forth before the Julla Tree. She had never been this nervous, not even before the battle when she rode out to an almost certain death, her heart hammering with fury and ecstasy. Now, her heart was slow, its dull beats echoing inside her chest.
She wore a simple black dress, her short hair pulled back in a low bun. Her dazzling crown rested on a mossy rock nearby, as did Ki-ershan, who sat patient and silent, his eyes taking in the ever-darkening sky. The stars lined up in a giant whorl tonight, the corners of the swirling creation touching just above the Western Slope. Behind Ki-ershan, she knew, sat a loaded bow and arrow. It was just a precaution.
As she waited, there was a crack of light in the darkness, followed by angry mumbling of men. Sir Gorrann appeared along with two Spades, each of whom walked beside a man whose hands were bound in front of him in chains. Wardley. The last few weeks had changed him greatly. He was painfully thin and his muscles were softer, looser. The brown curls that Dinah so loved were slick with grease and dirt, and he wore nothing more than a worn pair of wool pants. Dinah was furious.
“I told Cheshire to move him from the Black Towers!”
“He did, Your Majesty,” answered Sir Gorrann. “Wardley’s been given a room with clean clothing and more than enough food. He just refuses to eat or bathe or change.”
Wardley let out a wicked cackle. Dinah winced as he came closer. The shadow of a bruise covered the top of his forehead all the way down to his left eye. Dark circles, the color of ripe plums, stretched below his eyes to his pale and sunken cheeks. His eyes were hollow and dead, and he stared at Dinah with complete indifference.
“Leave us, please,” she ordered.
Sir Gorrann and the Spades walked away, leaving Wardley standing just a few feet from the new queen. Dinah pulled a key from her pocket and walked over to him.
“Here, they are surely hurting your wrists.”
Wardley yanked back, trembling.
“Don’t touch me! Don’t come near me, you, you . . . monster!” He fell back over one of the Julla’s roots and scrambled into a crouched position near the ground. “Please go away. Leave my chains be. Otherwise, I will strangle you where you stand.”
His words pierced her heart, and she felt her eyes sting with hot tears. She had been expecting his raw hatred, but seeing it before her was like sinking into dark, seething waters. Slowly, she sat down beside him, making sure to put some room between them.
“Wardley . . . I’m so sorry for what I did to Alice.”
“Don’t say her name. You never get to say her name, not ever again!”
He struggled to control the pain on his face. Dinah studied him, her love, so lost in grief that he could barely look at her.
“I lost control. I didn’t know what was happening.”
“You cut off the head of the woman I loved. She was the light in my life, and you cut off her head. Every time I close my eyes, I see her blood. . . .”
Dinah reached for his face. “Me too. I dream of her every night.”
Wardley spat at her. “You would be so lucky to dream of her. My dreams are filled with nothing but unending sorrow. Caused by you, Dinah. She was everything I lived for, everything to me—”
“I don’t want to hear that,” replied Dinah quietly.
Wardley smiled. “And yet you will. You will look at me and you will listen to our story, so that you can know what you took from me. You will hear how deeply I loved her.”
Dinah focused on him, the circling stars tracing light on his chin. He was as lovely to her as the sun, and she would never have him, not ever. Listening to his words would be akin to torture, and yet, she had no choice. This was the beginning of a lifetime of penance. She nodded. “All right.”
“I met Alice even before you did. Alice in Wonderland, my heart, my life. The first time I saw her, I was walking through the palace, searching for some rare bird that I wanted to catch and show you. She was walking with your father—it was that same day that your father announced her to the court. She walked by me, this tiny creature, delicate and light and lovely. Her eyes . . .” He shook his head, his own eyes full of tears. “They were so blue, so sad. Looking at her was like being blinded by light. I surrendered immediately to her gaze, to the fact that I would be her slave forever. I desired to run my fingers through her golden hair, trace my lips over her pale skin. Seeing Alice ignited something in me that I had never even known, a passion, a need, a love. She was like a dream, only she was my dream. I watched as your father introduced her to you later that day, and I immediately saw in your eyes such fierce hatred.”
He shuddered.
“Your eyes chilled me. At the time, I thought you were justified, but now I know the truth: you were insanely jealous of her, of the imagined love that you assumed the King of Hearts lavished on her. She gave you even more reason to feel isolated and betrayed. She represented so many things that you would never be: innocent, loved. My darling little Alice, so quiet and scared. She never had to work for people to love her like you did. She was kind, and saw beauty in all things and all people.”