The Wonder (Queen of Hearts Saga #2)(8)
Unfortunately, as Dinah grew older, she spent more and more time with Harris and less and less time with Charles and her mother. There were so many things to learn before one became Queen, and Dinah was terrible at each and every one of them. How to dress, how to wave, how to address each and every Card, how to take tea and how to send tea, how to eat tarts, how to ride Speckle. Her lessons took all day, but every night Harris and Emily looked the other way when Dinah slipped out of her bedroom door and ran past the Heart Cards all the way to the Royal Apartments to tell her mother about her day.
Davianna would always be preparing for bed, brushing her thick black hair with her pink shell comb and staring at herself in the mirror, her tear-filled blue-black eyes staring back at her, fringed with impossibly long lashes. Dinah knew she had a secret. She could see it in her eyes, in the way she held her body. Every night when Dinah came in, her mother looked as though she was preparing for the visit of a lover, although she was just getting ready for bed. She was always beautiful, always prepared. Together they would climb across Davianna’s heart-shaped bed and her mother would pull her close and listen as Dinah whispered to her all the tiny details of her day—what Harris wore, what Emily said, the things she had learned, how she had cried after she broke a one-hundred-year-old teapot. Every night would end with her asking her mother why her father didn’t love her, and her mother would just shake her head.
“Someday, you’ll understand.”
Like conspirators, they laughed and shared, mother and daughter, so happy to be close and unencumbered by anyone else. When Dinah was on the verge of falling asleep, her mother would always gently shake her awake to go back to her chambers. Exhausted, Dinah would slump back to her room, an annoyed Heart Card always following behind to ensure her safety.
Dinah’s father had returned from war a changed man. He was angrier and increasingly cruel toward them both. She saw less and less of her mother, and when she did, Dinah was alarmed at her shrinking figure and the dark circles under her eyes. Her mother looked exhausted and sad. The care of Charles was taken from her and given to Lucy and Quintrell. Dinah would still occasionally visit her mother’s chambers at the end of the day, but Davianna would often be sleeping, unable to take her visits, and Dinah would be sent back to her room like a child without supper.
On the eve of her ninth birthday, Dinah stumbled across a scene that she would never forget. Her daily lessons in the library had been cut short due to the sneezing of Monsignor Wol-Vor, the language tutor, and the Princess found herself with a few free hours—something she never had. Running happily down the hall, her pink dress in tatters behind her, Dinah made her way to her mother’s apartment. The Heart Cards who normally stood guard at the Queen’s door were oddly absent, and the door was cracked open a few inches. As she laid her fingers on the cool knob, Dinah could hear her father’s voice—he was angry. She paused at the door, waiting.
“How dare you? You are nothing more than a common whore, low-born trash that washed up from the sea on the beaches of Ierladia! I am the King of Wonderland, and I will not be made a mockery of. Is this how you repay me? Who is he? Tell me! I should take your head for this!”
Dinah heard the sound of something crashing—dishes, perhaps. Something hit the door with a loud thud and Dinah leapt back, afraid. She could hear her mother murmuring, attempting to calm her father.
Then, “Don’t tell me it’s NOTHING!” roared the man who wore the crown. Dinah heard the sharp snap of skin against skin—a slap. She desperately wanted to help her mother, but she was afraid of her violent father, who told her terrible war stories that left Dinah feeling nauseated by his cruelty. Her hand lingered on the door as she heard her mother weeping behind it… and then Dinah walked back to her chambers, a coward.
She never told anyone about that day—not even Wardley. It was strange to think of it now, as she stepped over log after log, the muscles in her thighs clenching with the effort as she wove her way through the wood. A tiny stream crossed in front of them, and Dinah stopped to fill her waterskin. Morte lapped at the water and Dinah sat down on the muddy bank to rinse off her sore feet. The tinkling of the stream had a lulling power, and Dinah raised her face to take in the warm sun, resting for just a minute, just one more… one more memory….
Her mother had died on a winter afternoon, when huge mounds of pink snow were piled high against the iron gates outside the palace, and inside everyone was trying to stay warm. Her illness had been violent and sudden. One day, Dinah’s mother had been there—her face thin and worried, but alive—and the next she was lying in her bed, drenched with sweat so hot that it steamed in the cool air. Her lips, once the color of a ripe fig, were blue and withered, and her eyes were somehow gone already—they looked past Dinah, as if the Queen were seeing someone else. The White Fever had raged through Wonderland Proper that year—a quick illness that turned a person’s nails white before it swiftly delivered them to the grave, although it was curious that no one in the palace had gotten it, aside from her mother.
Dinah hadn’t been allowed to touch her mother, or even to go near her bedside. She stood sobbing in the doorway, Harris’s arms wrapped firmly around her, holding her back as she watched her mother’s body convulse and twist in pain. Charles was not allowed in the room, and the King was nowhere to be seen as Davianna took her last breath, her eyes trained on Dinah as she whispered her goodbyes, her body shaking with the effort.