Queen of Hearts: The Crown (Queen of Hearts Saga #1)(57)
The thudding of hooves slowed as they approached and then stopped. Reluctantly, Dinah looked up, expecting to see the shiny reflection of a Heartsword. Instead, Morte stood beside her, his great head lowered so that Dinah could look straight into his huge black eyes.
“You followed me,” she whispered, reaching out her damaged hand to stroke his nose. Morte jerked back in alarm and brought a hoof down very close to her head. Dinah cowered. Not yet, she thought, not yet. He could have killed me for that. Do not forget that he is not a horse. That was a stupid decision. Wiping her eyes, her body shaking with the effort, Dinah rose to her feet and continued walking. She glanced behind her in amazement as Morte followed her, even when she slightly changed directions. His massive presence still unnerved her—she was duly aware that he would find joy in killing her, but it was nice not to feel alone.
Plodding forward ever so slowly, they walked for a few more hours, Dinah swallowed by her thoughts, Morte enjoying the sun on his dark hide. After careful consideration, she tossed him an apple from her bag and he swallowed it whole, not even bothering to chew it. Reaching in her bag, Dinah found a piece of dried bird meat and gnawed it hungrily as she fantasized about a steaming raspberry tart and a warm cup of tea. Before she even tasted it, the bird meat was gone. I have to quit eating like this, she thought. What will I do when the food in the bag runs out? It’s only been a day.
The view around her was changing and Dinah wondered how far she had gone. The sun simmered low in the eastern sky, and dusk would be upon them in hours. Low plains covered with wildflowers still continued on as far as Dinah could see, the view interrupted every now and then by a white tree dripping with silvery moss that drifted even when there was no breeze. Dinah realized that it wasn’t the landscape that had changed so dramatically since they left their little creek—it was the color of the landscape. The wildflowers that had been thousands of different colors when they started out had begun subtly changing their hue the farther she walked. Clusters of delicate pansies, daffodils, thick delphinium, stalks of tall liatris, roses, and tulips were all beginning to shift their rich colors into cooler shades. Red larkspur began taking on a bluer hue the deeper she went. Yellow daffodils bleached white then turned into a light blue, then lavender. The color change seemed to stem from the stamen itself, a swirl, just a hint of a different shade, triggered the metamorphosis.
Her feet caressed the flowers’ changing hues, field after field. It was so incredible that Dinah momentarily forgot how exhausted she was. It was miles of the same breathtaking, flat landscape before a large knoll rose from the ground before her, carpeted in mountain-blue flowers. It reminded Dinah of every picture she’d ever seen of the sea, a wave cresting just as it reached its highest peak. Looking up, Dinah could see that the color changed again just slightly on its peaked curve. Somehow the top of the hill was a different color than the base.
She dropped her bag with a thud. Forgetting everything, she ran swiftly to the top of the hill. Her movement startled Morte, who gave an alarmed buck, his hooves pounding the ground with irritation. When she reached the top, Dinah let herself collapse into the bed of flowers, gazing out at the most magnificent sight she had ever beheld, its beauty sucking all the air from her lungs. It was blue. The deepest blue she had ever seen, deeper than the cornflower blue of Vittiore’s eyes, richer than her sapphire jewels. The most beautiful gowns in the kingdom could never capture this blue, this multi-layered azure, pure blue that stretched out as far as the eye could see. Every hill, from here to the north horizon, was covered in blue flowers, all one shade; one perfect, deep blue spread over a thousand different types of flowers. She watched in amazement as a wind rippled through the valley and the blue shimmered from end to end, rolling in wave after wave.
As Dinah’s mouth fell open in awe, a particularly strong gust swept through the valley, and she watched in wonder as the color shifted into palest powder blue, instantly overtaking one flower after another, as if the flowers were whispering to each other. It was so fast that she could never catch its origin, see the first flower to change. Breath after breath, the flowers shifted their colors: turquoise to lavender, lavender to midnight blue so dark it was almost black. Dinah had never seen anything so beautiful. This was the Ninth Sea, a darkened area in the center of the Wonderland map, a name Dinah had written a hundred times in lessons. On the map it appeared as a body of water, but that was wrong. There was no water, only an ocean of blowing flowers—an endless expanse of blue against the darkening sky. Dinah realized with a start that not only had she gone far enough; she had gone too far north. She had lost track of time in her wandering, and nightfall was near.
Wonderland’s stars began to appear in the sky; tonight they would be hanging directly overhead, low in the sky, but centrally clustered. They seemed brighter out here than from her palace balcony. She squinted east, her breath catching again as the flowers changed to a startling, striped blue. Yes, she had gone too far; they were beginning to inch away from the end of the Twisted Wood. Past the Ninth Sea was a huge expanse of nothingness, which ended at the Todren, exactly the direction her father saw her riding last, and the direction she wanted him to follow. It was time to walk back. She gave one long, lingering look at the Ninth Sea rippling in the wind, the colors shifting from breeze to breeze, never the same blue twice. I could stay here all day, she thought, just fade into the blue, disappear. I wish Charles could see this.
She picked a flower near her feet to toss back into the sea, but it withered and died in her hand. Dinah released the dust instead, and it danced in the wind over the shifting waves of lapis. She let out an exhausted sigh and turned around. Morte looked confused as Dinah carefully backtracked, but soon he followed suit, placing his hooves into the prints they had made just a few hours ago. Dinah was stumbling frequently now, her exhaustion made dreadful by the overwhelming ache in her right hand and the stabbing pain of her left hand. She was so tired, so very tired. I won’t make it, she thought, I won’t make it back. Her heart felt like it was pounding outside of her chest, its beat thrumming in her ears. She stumbled over her feet again and again. Every other step ended on her knees. Finally Dinah stayed down, closing her eyes to the bright stars above. I’ll just rest, she thought. Just for a moment. Morte stood impatiently over her until he finally nudged her roughly with his huge nose, the steam from his nostrils singeing the hairs on her arm. With a punishing effort, Dinah pushed herself up, her legs obeying when her mind could not. Morte lifted his hoof and brought it down hard on the ground, repeating the gesture again and again.