'To you, I offer honey wine and the hospitality of my table. But to traitors and oath breakers, I offer my queen's hospitality. The hospitality of knives.’

all hail the high king & queen of elfhame 🧚

characters by @/hollyblack

"Come home and shout at me. Come home and fight with me. Come home and break my heart, if you must. Just come home"

"I look into his black eyes, hoping to see recognition there, but they are cold and empty"

"And with his bare hands, he cracked the Blood Crown in two"

"I poisoned you. Don't worry. It was a small enough dose. You'll live"

"I change the angle of the knife, turning it against his neck. He doesn't look nearly as alarmed by that as I might expect. Not nearly as alarmed as I bring my mouth to his"

"Time to change partners. Oh, did I steal your line?"

Cardan and Jude - The Cruel Prince

Artist: @_.yumiiko._

I was thinking about Jude and Cardan’s marriage. Cardan came up with this plan bc he wanted his will back, which was perfectly valid and fair, but when you think things through, other than having a brand new wife that he loved a lot, this union didn’t benefit him in anything else. Marriage between them only binds him and she was the daughter of a two time traitor, murderer of an ambassador/prince/his fucking brother and mortal. She wasn’t the best candidate for a queen. He really was willing to give her a fancy title, a crown and all the power she wanted and settle for whatever crumbs of affection she might give him in return.

On the other hand, at that point in their relationship, I think that Jude accepted the marriage proposal bc 1) she secretly loved Cardan and thought that this new station in life and relationship status would make it safe to love him openly and was hopeful that he might love her back 2) she really wanted to be queen and have absolute power 3) she did not want to be so scared anymore. In that order. Jude spent the exile angry and cursing and planning Cardan’s demise but she never took off her wedding ring. Girly was feeling absolutely hurt and heartbroken and betrayed and foolish and I’m pretty damn sure she was suffering a lot more about supposedly being dumped by her new hubby than for being the queen in exile.

Anyways, young love is crazy am I right.

Some boys will let you get a cat even when they don't like cats, and some boys will allow the guy who orchestrated the murder of almost his entire family in a coup and would do it again and also stabbed you personally in the gut to live just because he's your dad and you feel conflicted about it.

Cardan: I don’t want to exile Jude

Cardan: but the parasites in me want to exile Jude 👹👹

thinking about the part near the end of queen of nothing when jude properly grins at cardan and he smiles back with surprise…and you realise it’s because he’s never seen her look so happy

Rereading The Cruel Prince:

Me: Oh no, I'm going to hate Cardan again 😡😡

Also me, in chapter 4: Who is that bitch, Cardan? 🤨🤨🤨

"didn't you get my letters?" "what?" SOBBING

jude "no killer" duarte

Jude and Cardan went from:

--> Kicking dirt into your food and adding salt into your food

To:

--> Tricking you into becoming High King and exiling you

They seriously need to chill it with the pranks

Artists: Lowena Art and Clarywhy on X

Dawn & Dusk

Cardan and Jude - The Cruel Prince

Artist: @honeyypears

cardan: two best friends in a room, will they-

jude: there's no-one else in here cardan

cardan: well, would you look at that?

jude: cute, but did you forget one thing?

cardan: *smirking* and what would that be?

jude: *stands up to leave* we're not friends.

*cue searing kiss*

currently rereading queen of nothing and holy shit the prophecy by taylor swift is literally jude about cardan like….