Queen of Hearts: The Crown (Queen of Hearts Saga #1)(37)
“Yoous,” whispered Wardley into her ear, “he can’t see us, or we will be done for. Don’t even breathe.”
His warning didn’t matter; Dinah couldn’t. A single black root, sensing an open presence, was twisting its way up her torso, her breasts, and then onto her face. Something in the tree paralyzed her, and so she could only watch with horror as the delicate tendril reached her mouth and clawed its way inside, choking her. It sprouted a second root that started pushing into her nostrils. She wanted to cry out to Wardley, but she couldn’t. Dinah was part of the tree now, and she would be forever. Visions rushed through her mind—visions of decapitated heads, white cranes, blue smoke, burning wood, pulsating mushrooms, and bright-red blood. And then she was falling, falling forward, falling into the darkness that was warm and comforting. Wardley’s strong arm caught her as she pitched forward.
“Dinah, Dinah?”
She opened her eyes. She was still in the Towers, still in the slot between cells. Wardley held a broken root in his hand, his sword in the other. They watched as it twisted and writhed before turning into ash. Wardley wiped his hand on his tunic with disgust.
“The tree . . . ,” she mumbled.
“You leaned against it,” reprimanded Wardley. “You let it touch your skin, what were you thinking?”
Dinah shook her head. The visions were gone, already retreating back into her brain, already forgotten. “Yoous?” she asked as Wardley steadied her.
“He passed. We’re only one level down from where we need to be. Can you walk?”
Dinah inched one foot out in front of her. “I’m fine.” The longing to escape these towers of death was overwhelming. “We should never have come here, Wardley. I’m sorry.”
“You should be,” Wardley replied. They made it to the same doorway without further trouble, and Dinah marveled at how hidden it was in plain sight, virtually indistinguishable from the roots around it. Their escape hatch waited quietly—its crooked door pouring freezing air into the damp humidity of the towers. Dinah had never seen such a welcome sight. They made their way down the stone teeth, her eyes trained on the skeleton sentry, forever frozen in the ice, forever watching the towers that held him. Dinah let her eyes play over the white holes where his eyes once were, over the gray pieces of skin crusted to the ice. She could feel the terrible vision seeping into her memory, etching its sightless stare there forever.
The thought filled her with terror as they wove their way back under the castle, sliding down the sloping tunnel they had crawled up hours before. She barely remembered the cold and the dark, Wardley leading their way with the glowing pink torch through turn after turn. They silently raced through the Great Hall, finding their way back to the cloak room without a word. It was only when Wardley started pulling off her dress did Dinah blink and realize where they were . . . and that they were safe.
Her lips trembled. “Wardley, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know. . . .”
“No you didn’t,” Wardley snapped. “But I tried to tell you. No one can tell you anything, Dinah, not ever, because you’re the Princess and you do what you want. You’re not unlike your father that way.”
Dinah gritted her teeth. “That’s not true, is it?”
“Yes. Obviously.” He pulled off his filthy Card’s breastplate and stuffed it into his oversack. “We’re both filthy. Wipe your face and hands.”
He turned away from her, and Dinah knew this conversation was over. She wiped off the dirt, layers thick, on a bright-red cloak toward the back of the room. The red reminded her of Faina’s blood-stained mouth, and of her cryptic words, “She’ll wear the crown to keep her head.” Pity and shame ran through her, so strong it made her tremble as she pulled on her expensive silk gown and put on her jeweled shoes, completely lost in her thoughts. The towers were a stain on Wonderland, a blood stain that spread out from their terrible black roots, and through the centuries the Royal Line of Hearts had used them for evil. They weren’t regular prisons—they were instruments of torture, of horror and wickedness.
As she raised her hands to put her red crown back on her head, she felt her first recognition of duty. To be the Queen meant to protect her subjects, even if it was from the practices of the royal family themselves. The Towers were Wonderland’s terrible secret, a monstrosity for the entire kingdom to see and never understand. And when she was Queen, she would tear them down root by sickly root.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Wardley, his brown hair standing out in all directions, a streak of earth lingering on his cheek. Dinah lowered her head before him. “Forgive me for asking this of you. I didn’t truly understand what I was asking.” She licked her finger and brushed it lightly against his face, erasing the dirt from his strong cheekbone. “I will never forget what I saw today.”
Wardley shook his head. “The towers are a monstrosity. All my life I heard rumors and stories about them, but none were as terrible as—” He paused, and Dinah saw his eyes fill with tears. “We should have taken her . . . Faina.”
“We couldn’t,” she replied simply. “We wouldn’t have made it out in time, and they would have known we were there.” She was learning quickly that what was right and what must happen weren’t always the same thing. Dinah heard a quiet shuffling outside the door—the Cards were obviously curious about the suspected passion going on inside the cloak room.