The Wonder (Queen of Hearts Saga #2)(45)
“It’s still not enough,” she corrected him. “If it did happen, which I’m not saying it will, how could it… happen?”
Sir Gorrann took his time phrasing his careful reply, one eye trained on the simmering crane nest below. “Cheshire has been meeting with Mundoo for a few days now.”
Dinah bit her lip. So that’s where Mundoo had been going.
“They are still hammering out an acceptable treaty. From what I can gather, in return for fighting for yeh, they will get all their lands back inside the Twisted Wood, and a promise that we will never try to take them again, by any measure.”
Dinah shook her head in amazement. “What are we talking about? Just a few hours ago, I was a prisoner of the Yurkei, and a few weeks before that, an outlaw, and before that a princess!”
Sir Gorrann shook his head. “Yeh never were just a prisoner.”
“Maybe I just want to be a prisoner! Or a nobody! Maybe I just want to stay here and live a normal life. Have you considered that?”
Sir Gorrann’s golden eyes studied her face. “Yeh don’t want that. I know yeh.”
Dinah felt a blush rise up her cheeks. “It doesn’t matter. What you’re telling me is that I’m to lead an army to Wonderland Palace that will surely be defeated? Am I correct? You’re saying that I should lead this fray all in a doomed attempt to sit on a throne because my mother once sat there?” Her voice was growing ever louder, more and more agitated. She felt the fury rising in her chest, the black boiling. She leapt to her feet. “Look at me, and tell me—who am I, Sir Gorrann? Who do you see when you look at me? Do you see my father’s daughter? Do you see Cheshire? Do you see a whimpering girl, or a Yurkei warrior? A spoiled princess? A conqueror? And who are you? A lonely man? Do you hope for a crown upon your head, Sir Gorrann?”
She was yelling now, and she could hear the agitated squawks from below as the birds began to stir once again. Thousands of wings began to flap in the night air, the stirrings of flight.
“Shut yer mouth, girl! Be quiet! Do yeh long to be pecked to death?” Sir Gorrann was growing agitated as well. His face was contorted with an anger that seemed to light up the valley. “Yer acting like a child, that’s what yeh are! A spoiled brat who has been given everything! And now, a man brings an army to yer feet and yeh aren’t sure what to do? That’s not for me to tell yeh! I’m just a dirty Spade, a tracker, a broken man, I know yeh see that!”
They were furious with each other now, yelling in whispers, their sentences overlapping, spit flying from their mouths. Sir Gorrann’s forehead pulsed with a purple vein. “Who am I, yeh ask? I am not who I once was, a man with a wife and a daughter. We become who we must to overcome pain and to make things right again! Everything I have done, I have done to get justice for my family! I have not brought yeh this far to have yeh ask someone else what yeh should do!”
Sir Gorrann pointed to one of the vertical rock faces that divided the west and east sides of the valley. His small fire had thrown its light, and their large shadows danced across it. “I know who I see! No matter what Cheshire said, yer still the same person that yeh were before yeh came upon that tea table. It’s not his arrival that has changed anything; it’s just yer understanding of the past. There’s nothing I can tell yeh, but I would say to look with yer own damn eyes!” He began walking toward the sloping path that led down to the valley. “I’ll say goodnight, for yer in a right mood. And if yeh don’t be careful, those birds aren’t going to stay dormant.”
“Go away,” she said quietly. “I don’t want to see anyone right now.” The black fury was stirring inside of her. She would not let his arguments push her over the edge of sanity.
With a huff, he began descending down the winding path, muttering to himself about “Cheshire’s mad daughter.” Dinah was suddenly alone, comforted only by the crackling fire that continued to project massive dancing shadows on the rock walls. She felt swept away by a surge of emotion, as if she was drowning in a tidal wave of her own confusion. A thousand different hands were reaching inside her head, each yanking at a string. Her once-father, the King of Hearts. Her now-father, Cheshire, with his slippery feline smile. Sir Gorrann. Mundoo. Bah-kan. Wardley, Charles, Harris, Faina Baker, Vittiore. Their faces ran together, each one a part of her, but none of them giving her the answer she needed. Images chased each other through her mind, a game of insane tag: Wardley, kissing her under the Julla Tree. Her mother, looking at her reflection in the mirror. Charles, a finely crafted hat in his hand. Lucy and Quintrell, bloody and piled in a closet. An empty table. She closed her eyes and felt the heat from the fire sear close to her face. Then she willed the thousand voices to be quiet.
Unconsciously, she raised her arms, the pain of her shoulder making her wince through the confusion. Be silent, she shouted to the voices in her head. Be silent! she commanded again. Silence! Finally, she pushed them down until it was only her own voice that she heard. She lowered her hands. Be quiet, all. There was a stillness within her, and Dinah allowed herself to reach inside to gather her thoughts. When she opened her eyes again, she looked up at the rocky cliff face and immediately saw what Sir Gorrann had been pointing at. Stunned, Dinah lifted her chin in a way that she hadn’t done since she fled the palace. With the fire leaping behind her, the shadow of her figure loomed huge on the rock walls: a giant, almost larger than the mountain itself. And on her head, the shadow of the crown that Cheshire had placed upon her.