Queen of Hearts

One

“Oh, my future queen, you’re late!” Harris hopped from one foot to the other, his plump face soaked with a cold sweat. He pulled off his thick-rimmed glasses and wiped them on his white checkered ascot. “Dinah! Walk faster, Your Highness! We are late, late, late!” He looked down at his pocket watch with an exaggerated sigh.

Dinah, Princess of Wonderland and future Queen of Hearts, rolled her eyes.

“Harris, I’m walking as swiftly as I can.”

“With all due respect, my dear, we have a very important summons from the King of Hearts. Your father wishes to see you. You know he is not a patient man.”

Dinah continued to shuffle down the Hallway of the Golden Birds feeling quite like one of the ridiculous bronze fowl perched on the golden pedestals that surrounded her.

A little bird ran across her path, and Dinah stomped near its feet, sending it shrieking into the air.

“My child!” thundered Harris. “Control your emotions! I beg of you—do not let your father see that behavior or you will be sleeping in the Black Towers.”

“I doubt it,” snipped Dinah glumly. “I wish that would happen, because then I would get to see inside them.”

Harris gave Dinah a disappointed look. “Never wish yourself inside the Black Towers,” he said gravely. “You have no idea the evil that lurks there.”

Dinah considered slowing her pace just to annoy him but took pity on her guardian and tutor, the man who had raised her from childhood. Harris had once been a dashing Card, or so Dinah had heard, but now he was somewhat walrus-like, a portly man with white hair and a dozen varieties of checkered outfits. Without a doubt, he loved Dinah deeply—something she lacked in other areas of her life. Dinah raised her voice, its sharp tone bouncing off the ornate halls of Wonderland Palace.

“Why should I have to go to the Great Hall? I never get to say anything, and Father won’t even talk to me.” Or look at me, she thought.

Harris patted her roughly on the head. “You shouldn’t say such things about the King of Hearts.”

Annoyed, the Princess of Wonderland turned her head as she walked past a bright, open balcony, breathing in the fresh air that filtered in between red panes of glass.

Her black eyes could make out the various landmarks of Wonderland spread out like the threading of a distorted quilt—the horizon that would soon be hers to govern and rule. Dinah allowed herself a deep breath of pleasure as her eyes hungrily ate up everything in sight. To the north stretched endless fields of wildflowers, and eventually, the Ninth Sea, though she had never seen it. Beyond that, she knew from her studies, were the dreaded Caves of Mourning and the Todren, home to mermaids and sea monsters, of children’s tales and nightmares. To the east, beyond the plains, she could vaguely make out the topless Yurkei Mountains that lay past the Twisted Wood, where adventurers went to die at the hands of the brutal Yurkei Mountain tribes. To the south lay the Darklands, a place of untold horrors.

Closer to her was Wonderland proper: small towns, roads, windmills, and rivers that sat just beyond the iron palace gates. This was her country—the heart of Wonderland, as far as the eye could see. Dinah raised her arms as if to embrace it all.

Harris snapped his watch open. “Stop dillydallying, child! You do not want the king to be even angrier than he already is.”

Dinah gave her body a final shake in the sun and sullenly sped her pace, her feet tripping on the hem of the ornate and ridiculous dress she had been forced to wear. The high, stiff collar of the dress was lined with hard gemstones that bled down her chest in a wild pattern that made her neck itch.

Dinah hated this dress. Dinah hated all dresses.

Her ebony hair was twisted up in an insufferably tight bun, one that exaggerated Dinah’s already-large black eyes. Upon her head sat the princess crown—a thin string of red ruby hearts outlined in gold spikes. Even though it was thin, it was still heavy. It glittered in the sunlight, and it was the only thing Dinah was wearing today that she liked. On her feet twinkled a pair of molded white slippers, inlaid with tiny white diamonds. Before her mother, Queen Davianna, died, she had taken up the lady’s hobby of slipper making. Dinah hated the way the petite stones cut into her toes and heels.

Dinah and Harris approached the Great Hall. Two vast ivory doors loomed terrifyingly before her, elaborately carved with the history of Wonderland. Wicked trees, dead Yurkei warriors, and the four symbols of the Cards danced on the wood. She stopped walking and closed her eyes.

Perhaps, she thought, perhaps if I wish really hard, I could be anywhere but here.

Two Heart Cards, both handsome men, sharp and crisp in their red-and-white uniforms, opened the doors for them as they approached.

Dinah felt her knees begin to shake and she froze. Not now, oh gods, not now.

She felt Harris’s hand on her shoulder, and she was grateful for the calming effect it bestowed. He bent down and looked the princess directly in the face. “Dinah, my child, the king has called you here for a very special reason. He is your father, and he rules over this kingdom. Try to remember that. Everything the king does is for Wonderland.”

Dinah’s heart was hammering wildly in her chest. Something was wrong, she could sense it.

Harris licked his wrinkled finger and wiped something from her face. “Dinah, look at me. Everything will be fine. I’ll be waiting for you out here.”

Dinah was seized by a sudden panic. She grabbed his hand and squeezed. “No. I want you to come in with me.”

“I am not allowed in the Great Hall for this … just for today. The king desires your full attention.”

Harris had never been excluded from an event in the Great Hall. As her guardian, he was welcome even to observe the King’s Council. But not today.

“No!” Dinah flung her arms around Harris. “Please come. I don’t know what’s going on, please, just come with me.”

Harris detached Dinah from his thick waist. “Dinah! Do not forget who you are. You are the Princess of Wonderland. Would you like to embarrass the king?”

Dinah shook her head. “No.”

“Then go in there and greet him in the respectful way.” He gave her a generous smile. “It will be all right, child. Trust me. Now put on your brave face. Let me see it.”

Dinah scowled.

“No, that’s not it. Show me brave Dinah. Dinah the fearless, the future Queen of Wonderland, the future Queen of Hearts.”

Dinah took a deep breath and steeled her black eyes. She stood up taller and sucked in her belly.

“There, that looks a little bit better.” Harris patted her head happily, but Dinah was sure that she spotted tears in his weathered eyes. “It’s time. We are very late, my dear. I’ll be out here.”

With that, he pushed her gently into the hall. The ivory doors slammed shut behind her, the sound bouncing around the vast room. Voluminous red banners billowed from floor to ceiling, a black heart stitched across each center: the blazon of the king. Dinah’s white slippers echoed loudly against the marble floors, and she felt thousands of eyes watching her, judging her. She held her crowned head as highly and regally as she could. The entire court watched her walk up the aisle, lords and ladies of noble birth, their bright fashion a blot of color on the otherwise black-and-white marble room. Dinah walked swiftly toward the thrones, but the front of the Great Hall still seemed to be miles away.

The different factions of Cards all nodded their heads as Dinah passed, some saying “Princess” under their breath. She heard a faint snicker and an insulting whisper from a Diamond Card. “Discard.”

She held her head high and straight, as Harris had told her to do. Someday this will be my Great Hall, she told herself. All these Cards will bow before me when I rule beside my father.

All the Cards were in attendance today, a rare sight. There were four divisions of the men called Cards, each serving their purpose to the kingdom. Heart Cards, handsome and skilled men uniformed in red and white, protected the royal family and the palace. Club Cards, dressed in gray, were in charge of administering justice: they punished criminals and murderers and organized Execution Day. Their most important function was running the Black Towers. Diamond Cards, clad in vibrant purple cloaks, protected and managed the treasury and sought to increase the king’s resources. And then there were the Spades. Spades were the warriors, those in charge of fighting and pillaging. The Spades scared Dinah; cloaked in black, they were hard, grizzled men with dangerous pasts. They were viewed as untrustworthy, brutal, and bloodthirsty. If criminals were reformed and pledged their fealty, they were allowed to join the Spades; that is, if they didn’t die in the Black Towers first.

The Spades were universally loathed and feared across Wonderland. Her father held a firm hand over them, but he was the first king to overpower them with his iron fist. He had executed their strongest leaders and subdued their wildness. The Spades simmered quietly, like a burning ember that could ignite and spread over the entire city. All the Cards, though, no matter how frightening, were the source of much lore and many legends. When Dinah was a child, she loved to lie in her raised bed at night and list the Cards in her favorite order: Hearts first, since they protected her, then the Diamonds, then the Clubs, and finally the Spades.

“DINAH!” A loud voice bellowed from the king’s throne, and Dinah felt a tiny trickle of sweat roll down the side of her forehead. She had been lost in thought, standing midaisle. Dinah bowed her head. “Get up here. Now.”

She walked quickly to the platform, up a set of wide stone steps. Atop the platform sat two massive chairs. They were carved from gold, each in the shape of a large heart. From the top of the thrones, tiny hearts rose upward, growing smaller and sharper the higher they reached. The tops ballooned out and opened into a flurry of sculpted hearts, as if they were taking flight. They reminded Dinah of birds. The pair of heart thrones was a part of Wonderland history: for it was said that once you sat in the king’s throne, magic funneled down through the open hearts and made you wise.

Looking at her father, she knew that wasn’t true.

One of the thrones sat empty, a lone red rose always upon it. Davianna, her mother, had died when Dinah was a small girl. The second throne was commandeered by her father. The King of Hearts stood before her now, a giant man full of fury and righteousness and an insatiable lust for food and women. As his blue eyes lingered angrily on Dinah’s face, she saw him the same way his people did: he was the kind of king who would sooner ride into battle on his Hornhoov than rule from behind the council table. He was a man of action, a brutal and brave man whose rage was legendary. The people of Wonderland respected the king, but only because he represented a force to be reckoned with … and feared. What mattered to the townspeople was that he kept them safe from the Yurkei, and that was worth everything. Dinah didn’t believe he was a great king, but even she knew better than to ever speak those words. As she looked upon the king’s hard face, she remembered the time she had mentioned this to Harris, who had given her a hard shake.

“Don’t ever say that about the King of Hearts!” he had cried. “Do you wish to be beheaded?”

“No,” she cried hysterically, “I only want him to notice me!”

Harris had held her close that day, stroking her hair. “He will never be the father you deserve,” he whispered. He brought Dinah her favorite tart and then they watched the sunset from the croquet green, a rare treat.

“If he wasn’t king,” Dinah sniffled, “maybe he would love me.”

“Oh, child,” replied Harris, “that is not to be. Your father is a brutish man and unsure of his place in his child’s life, even when your mother was still alive. Queen Davianna was all he had, the only thing he ever desired more than the rush of battle and the smell of fresh blood on his Heartsword. Their relationship had a terrible end, and I fear somehow he blames you.”

Dinah thought of this now in the Great Hall as she knelt awkwardly before the thrones. The king’s adviser and head of the council, a Diamond Card named Cheshire, bent and whispered soft words in his ear. Dinah’s stomach gave a lurch at the sight of him. She did not trust Cheshire. The king growled back at him and then gave a sigh and rose to greet her.

“Dinah, my daughter, my eldest child. I see you are wearing your mother’s shoes.” Dinah felt a flush rise in her cheeks. He noticed! she thought. The king cleared his throat. “Look up at me.”

She yanked her head up too quickly, and the crown slipped sideways off her head and landed with a clang on the marble. She saw a frown cross his face.

“Don’t be so eager,” he hissed quietly. “You look ridiculous with that wanting face.”

Dinah felt her lower lip quiver. She clamped her teeth down on it, drawing sweet red blood that she sucked into her mouth. He knelt and picked up the crown, such a diminutive thing in his large hand. He placed it back on her head with a strained smile. The crowd gave a courteous laugh, unaware of his seething anger. The king stood, his long red cloak framing his massive, bull-like figure.

“My daughter, councillors, lords and ladies of the court, Cards, and citizens, it is time for your king to tell you a great truth.” He looked down at Dinah. “Sit,” he said to her and her alone.

Dinah tried to kneel like a lady should, but she ended up plopping on the floor with a hard breath. She stared up at him, intimidated by his powerful tone. She looked around. There was not a face in the room that was not held in rapt attention by his booming voice.

“Fourteen years ago, we were embroiled in a devastating war with the Yurkei tribe. Mundoo and his warriors were raiding the outer villages of Wonderland, killing and murdering innocent citizens. As the king, I could not let that evil abide. As you might remember, I took my best Hearts and Spades through the Twisted Wood and up to the hills, where we smashed the barbaric tribe and sent Mundoo screaming back into his mountains. It was a great day for Wonderland, a great day for the safety of my people.”

The crowd clapped and cheered until the king looked down solemnly, and then they grew suddenly silent. He was able to command a room by his moods alone, Dinah noted—something to remember when she was queen one day.

“We lost many brave Cards that day. I hope that what I confess today will bring them some sort of honor.”

An uncomfortable feeling was churning its way through Dinah’s stomach as she sat at the base of the thrones. Her heart was clutching itself, giving singular, hard thumps that made loud noises when they met her chest. The king continued on.

“War is bloody and brutal, a thing that can rip through the very heart of men. War can make a man question everything he believes in, every truth that he holds dear. Wonderland has never seen war, so allow me to confess that war can make a man … lonely.”

The crowd nodded along sympathetically, and in the corner a woman burst into tears. Dinah imagined shaking her until she was quiet. The king had them in his grasp. His dark blue eyes, deep like the sea, blazed with pride.

“As our laws dictate, one might ask for forgiveness for a mistake made during a time of war. I had been away from my dear wife, Davianna, for too long. Gods rest her heart.”

The entire crowd, including Dinah, made the sign of a heart over its chest.

“She was the love of my life, and when I left for war, I never imagined it would take so long to return to her. And to my eternal shame …” The crowd waited with bated breath as those in the Great Hall stood still. “Gods forgive me, I strayed outside of my marriage vows.”

There was a sharp intake of breath from the room; Dinah gasped as well.

“It was a late night, after the battle, and I had drunk a large bottle of tart wine. Outside my tent, I met a woman from a local village at the base of the mountains. She was kind and generous, and she reminded me so much of my Davianna. My judgment was impaired, and I was grief-stricken for my lost men. We shared that night together, and in the morning I awoke to instant, blinding regret. How could I have betrayed my beloved Davianna? What kind of king was I?” There was a pause.

“That night I found a nearby cliff and prepared to throw myself over.”

There was another sharp gasp, and murmurs erupted in the Great Hall. Two women fainted and had to be carried out by Heart Cards. The king gave a sly smile toward his adviser Cheshire, whose rich purple cloak draped over his thin shoulders. Cheshire gave him a quick wink. Only Dinah was close enough to see the exchange.

“As I stood on the edge of the precipice, looking at the changing stars one last time, I swore that I heard a woman singing over the breeze. Something sang me into a deep and dreamless sleep. The next morning, when I rolled over, I was a different man. My will to live had returned. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had met this common and low-born woman for a purpose. I immediately returned to the village to find her, but she had disappeared. I looked everywhere, and I would have kept looking if Mundoo and a small army of his riders hadn’t raided our camp that very afternoon. It was chaos. Arrows were flying everywhere, but the maiden was nowhere to be seen. We fought and won, though so many more Cards were lost. Fourteen long years have passed, and there hasn’t been a single day when I haven’t thought about that woman and wondered what became of her.”

The king stomped down the steps, passing Dinah without a single glance. “My loyal subjects, I tell you the truth: a fortnight ago, a mad, raving beggar came to the palace. He had come to sell something priceless and refused to leave until I spoke with him. It was late, and I was furious at being woken. I met him in this very hall, though it was empty and silent as a tomb. Imagine if you will, a king in his royal pajamas meeting a beggar carrying a very large sack. I commanded him to open the sack immediately or a Heart Card would be glad to take his head. Truly terrified, he unrolled the sack … and out came a tiny girl.”

The crowd sat forward, titillated, including Dinah. Her heart felt like it would explode in her chest.

“She was starving, a pitifully lovely creature, but when she stood and faced me, I saw greatness. I saw—” He paused again for dramatic effect.

“My lost daughter, Vittiore.”

Two

The Great Hall erupted in a cacophony of sounds, though Dinah sat stunned and speechless. The king’s subjects were screaming and shouting, their tears and applause all dissolving into a wave of happy noise. The king stood still as the crowd rocked and swayed before him. After a few moments, he cleared his throat.

“There could be no mistake that this girl was mine. She had my golden hair, my blue eyes, and the gentle demeanor of her mother, who sadly met her untimely death at the hands of the Yurkei tribes. Since Vittiore has arrived at the palace, I have done nothing but watch and study her, to see if she is truly mine. She has been inspected and interrogated. Though I believed it in my heart, I did not dare to hope it true—until I spoke with her and saw my own reflection in her eyes. Make no mistake: this is my second daughter, who will join her half sister, Princess Dinah, as the Duchess of Wonderland. I will declare it openly, and let no man say otherwise, for he would call the king false and would spend the rest of his life in the Black Towers!”

The King of Hearts let his eyes linger on Dinah, kneeling before him, her body frozen in shock.

“With that, it is my joy and a father’s greatest pleasure to introduce to you the Duchess Vittiore.”

From behind the king’s throne, a small, luminous girl stepped forth. She was young—perhaps fifteen at the most—but already radiant as the sun. Golden curls the color of honey cascaded to her waist, and her bright blue eyes shimmered with happiness and curiosity, her face perfectly unblemished—a picture of innocence. On top of the nest of curls rested a low crown made of sapphire bluebirds, no doubt crafted recently by the palace jewelers. Her long white-and-blue dress brushed the floor, as if she were a maiden on her wedding day.