Czytaj książkę: «Queen of Hearts Complete Collection: Queen of Hearts; Blood of Wonderland; War of the Cards»

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Epigraph

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

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.”