The Wonder (Queen of Hearts Saga #2)(29)
Tenderly, she probed the wound near her temple. Dried blood covered the area, and a lump the size of an apple protruded from just over her ear. Her head was pounding, and the pain pressing against her skull made her grind her teeth. She sat still for a few minutes until the pain decreased to where she could move around. Dinah took a breath. She was fine. She was alive. It was enough. She looked longingly back at the mattress of grass and considered simply curling up and playing dead for the rest of the day, but she had a feeling that wasn’t in her best interest. There were questions to be answered. Her eyes finally adjusted to the light of the tent and she saw that two Yurkei warriors stood silently near the door, their hands locked around their bows.
Dinah turned back to the mattress. A simple red tunic and a pair of white feather pants had been laid out for her. She dressed herself quickly, vaguely aware that the warriors’ bright blue eyes watched her every move, even while their faces remained unreadable. She attempted to braid her hair, though the thick black curtain that she once so loathed was more a rat’s nest than a hairstyle these days. Her boots were gone, and she hoped that they weren’t gone forever if she was going to live through all this. She had grown quite fond of wearing boots.
When she approached the door of the pod-shaped room, the two guards parted. “Mundoo wish to see you,” said one of them in heavily broken Wonderlander. Dinah nodded, hoping they couldn’t see her growing fear. They haven’t killed me yet, she told herself. That’s something. The seething hatred in one guard’s blue eyes was intense, while the other looked simply intrigued by her presence. Taking a breath, she pulled back the tent flap. White sunlight assaulted her eyes as Dinah struggled to comprehend what she was seeing. After a few moments, she let herself exhale, stunned into a respectful silence. She was in Hu-Yuhar, the hidden city of the Yurkei. She stood in a very narrow valley surrounded by rocky gray cliff faces on both sides that veered up and away. Past these towering walls of stone, the gorgeous Yurkei Mountains rose up around them, their tops always concealed behind a foggy mist that rolled and leapt like a child at play. The mountains were said to be topless, and the closer Dinah got to them the more she believed it.
The entire valley couldn’t have been more than half a mile wide. The ground was covered by a lush, bluish-green grass. Horses were everywhere, roaming free—eating, running, sleeping. The valley floor seemed to belong to them, although she watched several hundred Yurkei going about their daily business on two narrow dirt pathways flanking the rock walls. Dinah looked up, shielding her eyes from the light that draped the whole valley in dewy sunshine. Hundreds of tents—shaped just like the one she had awakened in—protruded from the mountain side, hovering hundreds of feet above the ground like little clouds. Round and flat, they jutted out from holes in the rock or the edges of cliffs, or sometimes, just the vertical, flat rock face. Some sort of wooden structure secured each tent to the mountain with long wooden beams that twisted and wrapped under the pods, supporting them from below. Biscuits, thought Dinah, that’s what the shape reminded her of. Round, flat biscuits.
Soaring through the space between the two mountain faces was a system of lofty bridges, made of the same wooden material that secured the tents to the cliff sides. Yurkei moved across the bridges with alarming speed: children chasing each other, women with baskets full of food or clothing, men carrying handfuls of arrows. The valley bustled with life, although most of it was taking place above Dinah’s head. Something hit her shoulder, something blunt and hard. She winced and turned around. The Yurkei warrior who had looked at her with such loathing stood behind her, brandishing the butt of a long, curved spear at her. “You. Move. To Chief.”
Dinah began walking forward, not sure of where she was going until several Yurkei children ran in front of her and proceeded to lead the way. Their long white hair flowing freely over their shoulders, clean of the white stripes that marked the men. Boy or girl, Dinah found it hard to tell. Altogether they were lovely, until one of them turned and spat in her face.
“C’hallgu Quon!” Then several others turned and followed suit. “C’hallgu Quon!” “C’hallgu Quon!” they chanted. Bad Queen? Dinah tried to translate in her mind as she wiped the spit off her lip. Small rocks appeared out of nowhere and suddenly Dinah was being pelted with all kinds of things: grass, rocks, spit, dirt…. She raised her hands to protect herself and the two Yurkei guards closed in on her, each taking one arm and barking orders at the children. Fervently, she looked around for Sir Gorrann, but his grizzled face was nowhere to be seen. She was alone.
On the sides of the valley, Yurkei women had lined up to watch her, this dirty and humiliated princess. She tripped over her feet as they stared, and she felt even more humbled by their wild beauty and piercing stares. The women wore only white feathered skirts that draped loosely around their legs and a white feathered band that hung loosely around their breasts. Each woman was muscled and lean, with smooth dark skin and shining blue eyes. Their hair was long and twisted back into several elaborate buns accented by sparse blue beads that winked in the sunlight. Dinah felt so out of place, a hideous monster with her pale white skin, black hair, and black eyes. Their eyes narrowed as she passed. The tunic was given to her with a purpose, she realized. She was wearing red, the color of Wonderland Palace, a color to remind those around her exactly who she was. Red, the color of blood, the color of the oppressor. I should have gone naked, she thought, stumbling again. I might have attracted less notice.