The Wonder (Queen of Hearts Saga #2)(23)
Dinah longed to stop his story, to put her hands over his mouth to save her the horror of what was coming.
A tear made its way down his face. “I was too late, too late for my darling girls. The Cards had come across Amabel while she was tending our herb garden. She lay motionless on the ground, her red hair wet with the blood that flowed from her chest. Her hand clutched a bow and arrow, and I can only imagine that she intended to use it to defend our helpless child, my brave love, the love of my life. For this she had been shot clean through the heart. I longed to hold her there forever, her body still warm, but I had to find my daughter.”
Dinah closed her eyes and pressed against the cool rock face, desperate to hear no more.
“Ioney was inside the house, although there wasn’t a house anymore, just a charred pile of smoking wood and fallen timber. There was only bones left of my little girl, my Ioney.”
Her eyes blurring with tears, Dinah looked away from Sir Gorrann, out into the open air before them, a vast view of honey-colored valleys and gray rock. Up until now, she had mistakenly believed that she was the only one who had suffered, the only one who had reason to grieve. Her childishness convicted her and she felt her face flush with shame.
The Spade continued. “Feeling sad that yeh asked, are yeh? ’Twas a dark night when I laid beside my love, and more than once I pressed a dagger to my throat, feeling that death would be such a sweet relief from the pain, hoping that I could join Amabel and Ioney, wherever they were. The only thing that kept me from burying it into my jugular was the thought of revenge. The next day, I buried Amabel and Ioney under their favorite berry bush in the woods, an unmarked grave. I planted Amabel’s favorite orchids in a circle around their grave, sang them their favorite song and departed with my horse as evening fell. I took nothing with me aside from some food, a blanket, and every weapon I could find.”
A wicked smile played over his face and Dinah feared she might be sick. “I rode my horse so hard he died after two days. I left him in the woods, barely stopping to put him out of his misery. From there, I tracked the Cards to the edge of the Yurkei Mountains, where they were attempting to find their way into Hu-Yuhar, the hidden Yurkei city, and failing miserably. It was a small group of only six men.”
Sir Gorrann smiled and stroked his beard with disturbing fondness. Dinah was suddenly very afraid of him.
“I stalked and killed one each night, so that the rest might live in fear before their death’s imminent arrival. They called me the Night Ghost and wrongly assumed that I was a Yurkei assassin. It took six days to kill them all, and I relished each one. When at last my vengeance was complete, I left their bodies in the Twisted Wood, just like they had left my Amabel to die. I lived for months in these hills, eventually finding the will to continue on living. I made my way to Wonderland proper. There was nothing left for me in my village, or in the Twisted Wood. I never wanted to see those places again, those places in my memory where I had first seen my wife, or where we had conceived our child.”
Sir Gorrann cleared his throat and blinked before continuing along the uphill trail. His voice steadied. “I made my way to the palace, where I was blindsided by its size and wealth. Wonderland was not what I had expected and I was quickly eaten alive by city life. I wasted what little money I had brought with me on drink and women. I fell in with unsavory bedfellows, and soon was stealing to eat, then stealing to live. I was a good thief when I wasn’t drinking, but unfortunately that was more often than not. I was caught breaking into a lady of the court’s house while attempting to steal her jewels, so drunk I could barely stand. Her husband was a beast of a man and rightly beat me to a bloody pulp. I was thrown into the Black Towers.” Dinah’s mouth fell open and he managed to give her a rough smile.
“Yes, Princess, yeh aren’t the only one who has seen the horrors of the Black Towers. Luckily for me I was in the Thieves’ Tower, which only performs minimal torture. I was never strapped against its terrible roots.” Dinah said a silent prayer that Harris was not being strapped to the tree. Seeing him devoured from the inside as Faina Baker had been would surely be enough to break her.
“I was imprisoned in the Black Towers for two years. It was a dark time, but I managed to befriend a young Club who told me everything he knew about Wonderland, the Black Towers, and the Cards. I was let out a year later and forced to join the Spades, for which I am ever thankful. Thanks to the Spades, I had food, a place to live, and a purpose. Eventually I became the lead tracker for the King, and that led me to being here with yeh now.”
Dinah frowned as she sent a scattering of pebbles rolling down the steep mountainside. “I still don’t understand why you sought to help me. You’re a Spade, therefore you are loyal to the King and the Cards. You have betrayed your oaths in a grand way.”
The Spade climbed up onto an overhead ledge to view their surroundings and then looked down on Dinah, who observed him with confused admiration. She scrambled up the path behind him, finally approaching the summit of the mountain.
The Spade stood before her, his stare intense. “Indeed, that’s correct. I have broken my vows by helping yeh. I have abandoned the Cards. I have helped the most-wanted person in Wonderland. And for what? Surely yeh’ve assumed that there was something I left out of the story, and yeh would be correct. One person remains against whom I must take out my vengeance for the life of my family, a man who took everything precious from me. And even though it has taken me thirty years, I will have my vengeance, though not through typical means.