PROLOGUE
The searing wind whipped up around the pair. The Marble Desert of Underland stretched to unreachable, flickering horizons that encircled them. He limped alongside her, squinting in the heavy, pale sunlight. The leather patch over his left eye was most uncomfortable in the heat and his left arm panged from where he had been stabbed in the fight. He was terribly weary and terribly desperate for water or at least relief from the blazing metal shackle that had been rubbing his wrist raw ever so slowly for the past two days.
Ilosovic and Iracebeth had been bound to each other. They had battered each other. They had bruised and bloodied each other. Her legs finally buckled. She brought Ilosovic tumbling down with her. The powdery dust that rushed low across the hard, wrinkled ground swept over the pair. The fall had knocked the wind right out of ilosovic's lungs and it did not help to gasp and have that fine, salty dirt rush into his struggling lungs. Iracebeth sat up, her torn, ruby skirts splayed out around her like shriveled rose petals. When Ilosovic managed to peel himself up to kneel weakly beside her, he noticed the lengthy rip up the side of her dress. Something silver glinted at her thigh. It was a pristine knife, he thought, that was in a thin sheath, which was wrapped around her thigh. She had not used it, not once. She had not even threatened to, not even when, just hours ago, they were gripping each other's throats and trying to strangle one another…
"I knew he would stop me." Ilosovic rasped to her. She looked at him, finally,
"Who?"
"Hightop, The Hatter. I knew he would not let me stab you." This angered her and brought color into her dusty cheeks. She still had strength to fight, apparently. When she had clawed at him the day before, cursing him to hell, kicking at his wobbling, long legs with her jewel studded shoes, Ilosovic was surprised indeed at how much damage the lady could do. With his hurt arm, he had had absolutely no hope of overpowering her in her frenzy…
"You shouldn't have tried, then!" and she gave a fierce yank to the chain that joined her wrist to his. He hissed at the pain and the idea of another bruise blackening under his skin. But he persisted,
"I should have. Suppose we ever went back…"
"We can't. Not ever. Not never…"
"Suppose we do. I was supposing we might," he panted, the wound in his arm screaming out to him, "and I thought 'if we ever did go back, perhaps the White Queen would think I truly did hate you'. Then, at least, she might let me return and from there, Your Majesty, I could have begged to save you, to say you had changed…"
"You do hate me, Stayne. You're a liar. You would have told me this before if this was your plan all along!" And she prodded his chest with a boney finger, looking more cross than ever, "And why would you have been fighting me all this time if…"
"It was you who struck first, your Majesty…"
"It was you!" She barked. Ilosovic knew that he could not waste his strength on one more fight. He knew he had to calm her as quick as he could.
"No, Your Majesty…The heat is getting to you. It was you. You were so furious at me. For these past days I have been but defending myself…" he took a breath,
"No! You were fighting to kill me!"
"I could kill you right now if I liked, Your Majesty. I am a trained soldier. If I truly did wish you ill will I would have strangled you the moment we were released in this place…" Iracebeth considered this,
"Stayne…" in her strange, weary tone, there was no inkling of what she felt exactly. "I am horribly, horribly confused…"
"You were so angry."
"I wanted to kill you! Why did you not say something before. What if I had killed you?"
"You would not have understood." He told her, brushing a lock of his matted black hair from his face,
"I barely do now…"
"Exactly," Ilosovic drew in a long breath, "And I fought because I couldn't have had you kill me. There would be no separating yourself from my corpse had I allowed you to do so. You would have had the burden of the weight body to drag with you through exile. I would not do such a thing to you. "
"Stayne…" And now he knew what she felt. She took his face in her hot hand (the one without the manacle wrapped tight around it). He gave her a fast kiss with his splintering lips.
She smiled a smile he knew very, very well,
"I am glad I am with you."
"Your Majesty…" Ilosovic began,
"I think we are to die out here. I am glad we will die together…"
"Don't. No, no, Your Majesty, you must not think in such a dismal way.." He told her over the blowing winds that encouraged her curls into more of a frenzy,
"There is no other way to think. Life has been awfully unfair to me…"
"It does not have to continue to be so unfair. There is a village, I am sure, a ways from here…"
"A ways!" she sighed, running her fingers over her enormous forehead, which was dripping with glinting threads of sweat, "You know we will not last a ways in this heat in this dust in this dreadfulness. And my head hurts like it used to and my neck hurts worse…And I'm thirsty and I am royal and I should never, never, never be thirsty…"
"Perhaps, Your Majesty, you should remove your dress, as I have removed my armor…" he imagined his silver breastplate miles behind them, the wind rushing over it, the shadows it created becoming home to some nasty desert lizard….
"How humiliating if we are ever to be found or ever to find that village…"
"Better to be humiliated than dead, Your Grace."
"Is it?"
"At the moment."
"It has come to this…" The Queen ordered, "Free me from this heavy hot thing. Just do it."
His fingers knew the back of her gown, but it was quite hard for him to untie her bodice when his fingers were swollen from the heat and one of his arms was bound to hers. However, Ilosovic managed.
Iracebeth wriggled out of the thick dress. The Red Queen was left in her petticoats, corset, bloomers, and stockings. He could imagine that her skin, which was, until now, untouched by the desert sun, burned when the dust drilled into it. But she sighed,
"Better. That is better."
"Shall we move on?"
"Yes."
"We must go North, Your Majesty…" He had just enough strength to take her hand in his and help her to her feet. The chain connecting their wrists clanked together. The silver knife secured at her thigh gleamed brilliantly, for an instant or two, in the white-hot sunlight. Ilosovic stood several heads taller than her on his wobbling, long legs,
"How far?"
"I told you, a ways."
"Are you lying to me?" said the Queen,
"No. There is a town. It is a place for trade, Your Majesty…"
"About us dying, I mean. I thought I would die in my own bed or I thought I'd die of laughter or eating too many chocolates…We are going to die, aren't we, Stayne." Her lip shook "And you're very, very cruel for giving me false hopes."
"Your Majesty." His voice was strained. And in grabbing her damp, pallid shoulder, another slicing bolt of pain leapt through his injured arm, "If we die, I will die with you."
"I don't like to think of it!" She looked ever so troubled and ever so old,
"Then don't think of it." Ilosovic tried to lift her trembling chin and look upon her face, but she resisted, utterly miserable. He tugged his right arm a bit, the restraints clacking, drawing her nearer to him. Iracebeth craned her neck to gaze up at her lieutenant.
"How can I not?"
` "It is very easy, Your Majesty."
And he kissed her like they had kissed a few times before. She wrapped her arms around his middle and squeezed tight as a snake. And Ilosovic let her. And he let the Queen kiss him so feverishly that she her chapped lips bled her blue blood, which was cool on his parched tongue. And he closed his eyes tight and knotted his fingers with hers, the shackles scraping together. He held her hand tighter than he had ever. And with his other hand, Ilosovic Stayne reached down, down, down the laced seam of Red Queen's corset and drew the knife from its black sheath at her side.
And in one movement, he brought down the glinting blade. The hand he held went limp and the woman he held fell backwards into the dust. Chains clacked. Blue blood rushed into the cracks in the earth.