#she knew he had tricked her into exile and when Jude was like ‘can I pardon myself?’ she thought it was another trick to humiliate her | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

beeirifulmer · 2 years

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Flightless Bird Pt. 1

//Warning, this contains all book spoilers.

This drops off of the request I had, but I have a new part so if the first part seems a bit familiar, that’s why.

~ TRIGGER WARNINGS: This series contains slightly NSFW content, kidnapping, torturing, child endangerment. This series a pretty intense, so if I miss any, please let me know! ~

Jude was still in exile, but it was two years later, and she was happily married to another man. They moved in together, and she discarded all her fears of Cardan Greenbriar ever finding out, in fact, she never said his name again.

“Jude?” The girl perked her head up as she smiled hearing the sound of her husband.

“I’m in the office, Garret!” She chuckled to herself as she continued typing on her laptop. Overtime, Jude accepted that this was her life now. No need to worry and pretend like she belonged with the folk. Jude would be wrong if she said she didn’t miss her old life though, running around in dresses with her sisters, dancing under the stars.

“Good morning, sweet Jude. And how did you sleep?” Garret smiled as he took a seat beside Jude. Garret had no clue about Jude’s past life, Taryn and Vivienne kept their mouths shut, not that Taryn ever came. After Taryn gave birth, she never came to the mortal world, Jude tried to ignore it, but she worried there was more to it than her twin not visiting. Garret knew nothing of Cardan, nor her scars, nor her true story.

Jude explained how she slept, smiling softly as Garret laid her leg on his lap and rubbed her calf. Garret always listened, always kept an eye on Jude, always cared for her, and he was especially careful when they first got sexual, even though he was slightly wondering how a 20 year old was a virgin. Jude loved him, but there was always that small problem. She l-

“I think I’m gonna go on my morning run,” Jude smiled at her husband, kissing his cheek goodbye as she left no room for him to say anything.

On her run, she tried to even her breathing as that small problem ran through her brain. It always did this, she’d think of it and it would flood her brain over and over as she almost felt guilty. She told herself it wasn’t true, that she just missed the memories, but dammit he was the flame and she was a moth.

Jude stopped in the woods, hands on her knees as she leaned against a tree. She tried convincing herself it was just her brain tricking her. It wasn’t true.

“Hello Jude,” Jude stood up straight, thinking she was officially going crazy. “Thought you could get rid of me?” The voice traveled through her body, and she knew exactly who it was.

“Glad to see you back.

Cardan.”

~~~

Opening her eyes, Jude found herself tied to a chair. Not remembering how she even passed out, she struggled and struggled back and forth before the door swung open. In walked Cardan, then the Bomb, then the Roach, then the Ghost.

“Hey it’s a party, huh.” Jude sarcastically joked. “Let me go so I can go home to my husband.”

“See, I told you I wasn’t lying.” The Roach glared as he sat beside the Bomb, the Ghost standing in the corner as Cardan walked over to Jude.

“You’re not going back.” Cardan leaned his hand against the back of Jude’s chair, “you’re staying here, Mrs. Greenbriar.” Jude kept her composure, finding her eyes drifting down to Cardan’s lips. The soft, beautiful pink flesh made Jude’s fighting thoughts disappear.

Cardan slowly untied her, the Bomb having herself ready to grab the Queen if she chose to ruin her chances of freedom. Jude’s breathing grew deeper as Cardan grew closer. Her fingers slowly wrapped around the thin arm of the chair she was still glued to, the Bomb grabbing her knife.

The next moves seemed to move by quickly as Jude grabbed the King’s head and switched their positions. Cardan slammed into the chair and Jude grabbed the dagger out of her thigh garter, Cardan grabbing the knife out of the Bomb’s hand. Jude raised her leg to kick the man, but she was too slow as he grabbed her ankle and yanked her to his body. Just as Jude was to fall on the ground, Cardan - having the higher power being taller - held her tensed bent knee and they both held her up before she fell.

Jude’s palms sat flat on the ground above her as she kicked her leg of Cardan and swung them over in a back walkover as she fell onto her hands and knees before standing up, grabbing what she had been searching for since she woke up. The design of Nightfell seemed to sing to her as her once-calloused hands ran over them.

Cardan panted as he grabbed his own sword, holding it up in a leg-spreaded stance. His chest rose and fell, cat eyes narrowing at his lover. The Bomb, the Roach and the Ghost sat in the rafters now, watching intently as they all hoped they were right with how this would turn out.

The silence between the King and Queen was almost like the quiet scene in a horror movie right before the protagonist gets attacked from behind. The two both eased close to one another, Nightfell dragging behind Jude, opposite of Cardan who stood in a ready stance to attack knowing the woman he fell for. The couple began to circle, Jude staring through her eyebrows as Cardan kept his chin up to assert dominance. “Jude Duarte-Greenbriar.”

“Don’t call me that!” Jude growled, swinging her sword only for Cardan to block it with his own. “My name is Jude Hemmings.” The King seemed to be on his last nerve, letting out a loud cackle of mockery.

“Is that what his last name was?” He looked at her. “Your name is Jude Duarte-Greenbriar,” Cardan dodged another sword swing. “You are the rightful High Queen of Elfhame!” The boy rolled as Jude started a full sword fight. The two went on for a minute or so before Cardan dragged his sword across her ankles, and she tripped trying to dodge them. The girl was now pinned to the wall, sword falling away from her, and Cardan’s sword pressed against her neck. “And you are my wife,” the last part came out as a low, possessive growl, thinking of how he countlessly saw what was his, laughing with a pathetic mortal man.

“Let’s make one thing clear, King Cardan.” Jude began, shuffling her feet a little yet Cardan stayed unaware. “You’re Queenless. You let me go, you fucked up what we could have had.” Jude’s foot finally tucked under Nightfell, and she flipped them over as Cardan landed in the same position Jude was just in mere seconds ago. The Court of Shadows thought this was the end, she would behead the King and leave.

That is, until she kissed him.

“But that doesn’t mean I didn’t miss you.” Jude muttered into the kiss, sword dropping as Cardan took the chance to press her body to himself. Both of them pulled away as Jude moved, walking behind her but Cardan followed. “And that doesn’t mean I didn’t pray I’d get a note, or a servant at my doorsteps bowing to me.”

“You were pardoned by the crown, Jude. You are the crown.” The walking continued slowly as Jude cocked a head.

“I knew it was a trick vow, but you know how to lie even when you cannot.”

“What else then?” The movements stopped, the space between them still remaining. “Tell me more, spew the poison.” His voice almost seemed to beg.

“That doesn’t mean I didn’t lay in bed with Garret imagining it was all you. Taming me,” now with every word Jude named off, she let Cardan step closer. “Ruining me,” step. “Kissing every damn inch of my body,” step. Cardan was now inches away from his wife, “loving me.” The last words came out of her mouth with a dry aftertaste. Swallowing hard, she looked up into her husband’s eyes and both of their mouths stayed shut for once.

Until they both smashed into one another with an animalistic passion. Jude’s back landed on the table behind them after Cardan’s arm swiped everything off to lay her down. Teeth clashing, tongues fighting, lips smashing, cursed mutters, skin on fire. Jude’s hand tangled into Cardan’s hair, his hand landing on the arch of her back and pulling her closer to him again. Finally, after Cardan left light marks on her neck, he looked at her and they stared at one another out of breath.

“Cardan.” Jude started.

“Jude.”

“Where’s my sister?” Cardan’s face fell, knowing which sister he meant.

“That’s why you’re here,” Cardan stood up, Jude’s face twisting into what seemed to be anger.

“Wait,” Jude unraveled her hands and legs from Cardan and stood up off the table. The Court all falling to gracefully stand on the table Jude was just on. “You only brought me here for Taryn? No, ‘I missed you’? No, ‘I wanted you home’?”

“Jude-”

“No, Cardan!” Jude cut off her husband. “If it weren’t for Taryn, would you have kidnapped me?”

“You were married!”

“Do you know how long it took for me to get married?! To find a man that didn’t make me wanna run away because he wasn’t you? Garret still couldn’t do that!”

“Jude-”

“I spent days wishing for you to come to me. For somebody to escort me back home. To my home! The day never came, I almost died countless times for money, to pay my rent, to just get a taste of missions!”

“Jude.”

“I waited on Heather’s couch, I didn’t want to eat, I didn’t want to sleep, I didn’t want to move! My husband exiled me! Now I’m here, out of exile but it’s because of my sister?! What, did you marry her instead to replace me?!”

“Jude!” Cardan now had Jude’s wrists in his grasp.

“What!” He waited for her to calm down before he spoke softly as the Ghost walked out of the room, slamming the door as if he didn’t want to hear what Cardan was about to say.

“We think Locke kidnapped Taryn and the baby and took her somewhere. They’ve been missing for over a year, and we need you to help us.”

#cardanandjude #jude greenbriar #jurdan #jude duarte #high queen jude #cardan greenbriar #high king cardan #cardan my beloved #the cruel prince #the wicked king #queen of nothing #tarynduarte

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anonniemousefics · 3 years

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cardan pov ch 21 anon here— I totally wouldn't mind a long, steamy detailed one 😍

Ps - you're a sweetheart to even give the option 🤧

Yessss -- you are my kind of people. (I was actually hoping someone would want this! lol.) Gather around, my thirsty sinners. You asked for it - it’s His Monstrous Bride Part III. (This isn’t all that explicit -- I tried to make it pretty. :) )

(Also I didn’t do much editing - sorry. I need to get back to work. LOL.)

For reference, here’s His Monstrous Bride and His Monstrous Bride Part II and this little steamy Cardan POV drabble from The Wicked King and also this sappy thing.

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There’s no escaping it this time. Cardan is escorting Jude Duarte back to his bedroom, their bedroom, and there’s absolutely no escaping it. Every eye has been watching them all evening. Surely every conspiring mind has now been examining their relationship from afar for its weaknesses, and Jude must know this, too.

That has to be why she’s taking it this far, Cardan tells himself. She must want to keep up the ruse, a show of their marriage’s fortitude.

So, when the door closes behind them, his first plan is to take the secret passages to the Court of Shadows for the night – as he has every night since Jude returned. He’ll find a cot there and practice attempts at flipping coins through his fingers until he can’t keep his eyes open anymore. He’ll try not to think about Jude.

And one day, that will become habit. One day, it won’t be so bad.

Behind him, Jude sighs and sags against the doorframe. When he turns to look at her again, she almost hurts to look at. She is ravishing, draped in decadent gold that glitters like chain mail. If she is exhausted, she hasn’t looked it yet. Or maybe he hasn’t been paying close enough attention – the gown dips perilously low in the front, and it’s been practically impossible to keep his eyes from taking little trips there.

It’s that sight and more that pulls him back a step against his better judgment -- and then another.

“You were very formidable tonight, my queen,” he tells her. He likes calling her his queen. He likes even better the look she gets on her face when she hears it. She seems as little flushed when he steps nearer.

“After that speech you made, it didn’t take much,” she says, looking up at him with those big, warm brown eyes. When she looks at him with admiration like this, he thinks he might actually be something worth loving. Or at least, he will make himself so if it means Jude will always see him like this.

“It cannot be anything other than the truth,” he reminds her. “Or it never could have left my tongue.”

He’s spent many fantasies in his younger days dreaming up villainous soliloquies, but he finds now, looking down at Jude like this, so close and so soft, her eyes glittering, her pink lips parting, his mind drifts to poetry. He wishes he had better words to give her. He wishes he had the magic to make her understand what he feels.

If she could know, maybe then she could feel something in return…

But then, Jude says, her voice low, her cheeks flushing: “You didn’t come to bed last night.”

Cardan scrambles to hide his surprise. After slapping him in the royal rose garden, he’d felt fairly certain she wouldn’t want him anywhere near their bed. He must be misunderstanding…

“I’m here now,” he says.

How many times has he wished he could see into Jude’s mind? He’s lost count at this point. Is she angry with him? Is she plotting? Is she desiring him? He never knows. He can’t keep up. What’s important is that, right now, in this moment, she isn’t moving. She’s still gazing up at him, her eyes flitting over his mouth, and he’s so aware of her warmth. If one of them were to move, they could be touching.

He’s going to try. He must. He’s desperate for her.

Gingerly, carefully, he takes her hand, and she lets their fingers entwine again. She gazes up at him again, like an invitation. Her eyes are so clearly full of hope, with the tiniest quirk of a smile on her lips – and he’s done for. He gives in to the unseen pull that draws him to her lips.

He’s kissed her before, but this. Oh, this. When he’d tricked her into marrying him and traded kisses with her in the dark, it wasn’t even as good as this – and until this, that had been his favorite. In that moment, he’d felt like he was hers, and she his, and for a moment, everything was safe and right. He’d cursed the memory of that feeling while she was in exile, fearing he’d never again have anything so perfect – but here, he thinks he might have been wrong about that. He hopes he was wrong. It feels like she’s surrendering to his lips, arching into him, each kiss a request for another.

He never wants to stop. When she’s like this, he wants to kiss every soft bit of her she’ll let him. He touches fingers to her chin, leaving kisses across her mouth, her cheeks, her jaw. The sigh she lets out when he dips to kiss her neck sends a bolt of desire, hot and severe, all though his whole body.

“You looked like a knight in a story tonight,” he murmurs there. “Possibly a filthy story.”

She kicks him in the leg, but he feels her smile against his skin – he knew she’d love that. He takes her lips again – he would give anything, everything to keep making Jude smile.

Nothing’s slowing down, and he’s dizzy in this pull of heated desire and confusion – where is this going? What is she thinking? Surely, she’ll shove him off soon, like she did in the room behind the dais. But she’s staggering, too -- maybe just as dizzy -- and he presses her to the wall. The air leaves his body when she pulls at his shirt, sliding her fingertips up his back.

There’s no misreading that, right? She’s clearly into this. His tail seems to think so, the little traitor. It’s wrapped itself around her ankle, and the feel of her calf beneath it sends thrills up his spine. It’s so deliciously indecent – he’s losing his head. He wants so much more. His fingers push into her hair – her skin is hot under his hands. More.She wraps her arms over his shoulders, pulling him flush with her curves. More. He takes her in his arms, his hands at her hips, lifting her feet off the floor.

It’s then she draws in a tight breath. Freezes in his arms.

Of course. Of course. He sets her back down. He knew this was coming. This was too much. He’s too much. Now he’s overwhelmed her. Her cheeks are rosy, her eyes bright – her chest (oh, gods, her chest) heaves like she’s been running.

“We need not--” he starts, and he’s out of breath, too. But Jude shakes her head.

“No, just give me a second,” she says, and bites her lip, and Cardan feels absolutely feverish. He wants to bite that lip.

Jude takes a step back. This may be his undoing. If this is going to end poorly, he may end up running off into the night, shrieking like a feral lunatic, never to be seen again.

“I’ll be right back,” she says, which is somehow not reassuring at all. Especially when she turns and fairly flees for the wardrobe.

Cardan is dumbstruck and breathless as he turns, looking wildly around the room for his own exit. What did he do? How did this happen? She seemed just as desperate for him seconds ago – what did he do? His palms are sweaty – was that it? Did his hands disgust her? He tries to dry them on his trousers, which are feeling a little uncomfortable and too tight. Oh, no – was that what she’d noticed? His – his…

Cardan closes his eyes. There’s going to be no coming back from this humiliation. (At least now his trousers are comfortable again.) It’s time to go feral. Time to join the cats of the wild that raised him. This is his destiny, he supposes.

There’s some rustling behind him from the wardrobe, and he knows it’s Jude returning. Probably to tell him it’s best if she finds her own rooms. He takes a deep breath and swallows to steel himself.

And then turns.

Jude.

Jude is – Jude is – Jude Duarte is completely naked.

Cardan makes some completely embarrassing sound in his shock. She is -- oh, gods – she is exquisite. He has always thought her the only real thing in a land of spirits, and she has never looked more real than she does now. That enticing curve of her ears is nothing compared to the full swell of her hips, the heaviness of her breasts, the formidable curve of every toned muscle. He feels more real just looking at her.

She’s biting that lip again, her eyes glittering with mirth.

“Come here.” He means to ask it, but he can’t help it. He must have more of this.

Her gaze smolders as she sashays to him. Then drops to her knees before him.

Is this a dream? It’s a very good one. Cardan really hopes he doesn’t wake up too soon.

“Is this what you imagined I’d be like,” Jude asks, her voice husky, “back in your rooms at Hollow Hall, when you thought of me and hated it? Is this how you pictured my eventual surrender?”

Cardan’s face burns. Admitting his darkest fantasies to Jude Duarte was not something he’d ever planned on doing. But she doesn’t seem to hate the truth of him – she may not love him, but there is clearly something she doesn’t mind so much.

“Yes,” he hears himself admit. He’ll take the gamble.

Jude presses a hand to his thigh. He wonders if she’ll notice the twitching in his pants.

“Then what did I do?” she murmurs.

This can’t be real. Can it? It’s not even been a week since she slapped him. And he’s not sure she won’t do it again if she knows the truly depraved things that once filled his prepubescent mind.

But she also might not…

“I imagine you telling me to do with you whatever I liked.” Another gamble. The truth hasn’t hurt him yet tonight.

Jude splutters out a laugh. Cardan smiles, nervously.

“Really?” She sounds incredulous.

“Along with some begging on your part. A little light groveling.” He cannot believe he’s doing this. He should be slapped. “My fantasies were rife with overweening ambition.”

And then Jude slides back to the cold stone floor, lying on her back before him, and his heart stops. He’s read that in novels before – about sights making the hero’s heart stop. He assumed it was an exaggeration – hyperbole. It is not. He’s not sure how he’s still alive.

“You may do with me whatever you like,” Jude says, extending her arms out to him. “Please oh please. All I want is you.”

She’s teasing him. He knows it. She thrives on trickery. Still. How can he not at least get a little closer? He must at least try…

He draws in a breath. Drops so that he is on all fours, hovering above her. Beneath him, her auburn hair splays out like a fan across the stones, and the hollow at the base of her slender throat darkens with each breath. She reaches her hands to his shoulders, holding him there. Holding, he notes – not pushing away.

He turns his head to kiss her wrist. Her pulse races beneath his lips – he’s not imagining it. He knows he’s not, and it’s then he’s starting to understand that this may not be a trick. Jude wants him. Jude Duarte wants him – even after learning the truths of his darkest imaginings. That is absurd.

That is…utterly glorious.

“Mock me all you like,” he murmurs and brushes back a lock of her hair, tenderly. “Whatever I imagined then, now it is I who would beg and grovel for a kind word from your lips.” Her lips part slightly in surprise – she is the very picture of his desires. “By you,” he says, “I am forever undone.”

And undone as he is, Cardan is helpless to his body’s call. He bends to kiss her again, and when he does, she slides her fingers into his hair, pulling him to her. When he arches against her naked body, he groans, aching with need. Somehow his shirt is undone – he’s not sure which one of them did it. Only that it’s got to go. He wants to feel every inch of her against him. If she’ll let him.

And just when he thinks he has her figured out --

“I’m not mocking,” Jude whispers against his ear.

That stops him.

He pulls back. It is absolutely unbelievable that she has not been teasing him. She truly wants him to do with her as he pleases? There is still so much about Jude Duarte he does not understand.

“We have lived in our armor for so long, you and I. And now I am not sure if either of us knows how to remove it,” he says.

“Is this another riddle?” Jude asks. “And if I answer it, will you go back to kissing me?”

Gods. He will never tire of the puzzle of Jude Duarte.

And now that she seems to be truly offering, truly wanting, he is further surprised to realize how drastically his own wants have changed. Every fantasy he had pales in comparison to witnessing Jude Duarte want him.

“If that’s what you want.” He moves to be at her side. He mentally kicks himself for not sounding more sure of himself. It’s just… she has hated him for so long. And she may not love him ever.

But wanting him. She does want him. That is enough. That is more than enough.

“I told you what I wanted,” Jude challenges. “For you to do with me whatever--”

“No,” he cuts her off. She doesn’t understand. “What you want.”

Show me you want me. He wants to witness the proof.

And she shows him. She straddles his body, and it is better than anything he could have imagined. She is statuesque – she is monumental. He is in awe below her.

“I want--” But she blushes and kisses him instead, her breasts pressed to his chest. She kisses him again and again.

This is what she wants.

Her hands are everywhere – his face, his chest, his stomach. Her fingers are sliding under his trousers.

This is what she wants.

His hands meet hers, and he lifts his hips just slightly to pull off his pants. He watches her face every second, watches for any sign that she’s changed her mind. But she keeps her gaze on his face the whole time – heated. Expectant.

This is what she wants.

He’s aching, wanting, dripping with desire. He holds his breath – she takes him in her hand as she brings them together in a careful slide.

This is what she wants.

She gasps, and he cups a hand to her soft cheek, the other a gentle anchor at her back while she moves slowly. She turns her head and bites his palm, sharp and fierce, a low sound in the back of her throat. It is agony and bliss all at once.

You are what she wants.

He hasn’t done much worthy in the short span of his never-ending life, but somewhere along the line, he must have done something right. He thinks this must be how lion tamers feel – no, better. Jude wants him. She is taking from him all that she wants, and he will give her everything he can. He’ll give her a map and a shovel to dig through the wreckage of his heart. He’ll let her keep any broken bit she likes.

His thoughts leave him completely as they move together as one toward their pleasure and its blissful pain. He knows only that she sighs his name against his skin, and it is the first time in these many long months that he’s actually felt like a king.

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Tagging: @yellowavocadopit, @dagypsygirl, @ireallyshouldsleeprn, @booklover-sleeplover, @mwejh, @courtofjurdan, @faeriequeenofwest, @sugawsites, @loveyourselfsolid, @owl0y0s, @feelinglikecleopatra, @akaloto, @charrise, @persephxnecoven, @raging-bisexual-alert, @rteme, @nahthanks, @addies-invisible-life, @elorcanislife, @snusbandxknifewife, @poeticbrownmermaid, @duarteegreenbriar, @thefolkofthefic, @alittledribbledrabble, @carmensworld17, @annejulianneh111, @amandlas, @elriel4life, @idk-what-name-to-use, @thewickedkings, @juliazato, @woodsbeyond1, @booksmusicandgoodvibes,

#jurdan #jurdan fanfic #cardan pov #jude duarte #cardan greenbriar #tfota #the folk of the air #the queen of nothing #qon chapter 21 #queen of nothing chapter 21 #jude x cardan #fic: his monstrous bride #fanfiction #tfota fanfiction

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the-chick-of-the-air · 3 years

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Hello my lovelies!!

Ok let me just start by saying- 600 followers?! Are you kidding?? Thank you all SO much! I can’t even begin to describe how grateful I am to have every single one of you interested enough in my blog to be following me! Thank you thank you thank you!!!🥰🥰

Now I’m gonna repay you by breaking your hearts!

This is my first try at anything super angsty, so if your gonna yell at me afterwards please feel free to do so in the comments or in my ask box or even just reblogging and cursing me in the tags🤣 please let me know what you think!

TW: Major character death, mentions of vomiting and allusions to body mutilation- nothing graphic just vaguely indicated but whatever you are comfortable with is up to you! If any of what I warned makes you uncomfortable please don’t read! Your mental health is more important than a work of fiction!

Update: I’m sorry- I posted this and for some reason the tag list wasn’t working but it should be now! If your username has changed please let me know so I can tag you properly down below!❤️

Summary: Someone important dies. Cardan deals with it. Grab your tissues❤️

Final Resting Place

“I’m…I’m so sorry.” The folk are not in the habit of apologizing, much less for something that is so common. It matters not, Cardan has ceased listening, has heard nothing after The Bomb uttered those damning words.

Jude is dead.

He recalls, distantly, a time when Nicasia drug him halfway to her underwater kingdom, wishing to show him its beauty and splendor. He recalls how helpless he felt, how he could breathe but it wasn’t right. How he was silenced and the pressure from the water was crushing his chest so painfully it didn’t matter if he could breathe or not.

This feels near exactly like that.

“Your Highness?” Someone is asking a question he doesn’t hear. He doesn’t even ask them to repeat themselves. All he can do is state,

“She is to be brought back here. Burned on the pyres.” A Queen’s funeral. The only funerals the folk bothered to observe.

Someone, The Roach, likely, grunts in disapproval, “She… we…are not able to bring the body back. It was…”

Cardan isn’t sure what part of that statement makes his stomach churn the worst, the fact that they just referred to his wife, their queen as a body, or the fact that there apparently isn’t too much of her body to bring back.

He tries not to think, not to guess at what death was so brutal that she doesn’t even have a body left.

And that really is it, isn’t it? She, his fierce, vibrant, deadly queen, who always looked over her shoulder, is- was always so cautious, secretly ruling over a land that was designed to kill her, the mighty Jude Duarte, slayer of the folk-

Killed by something mortal.

In the mortal lands.

Where he sent her.

It was almost laughable, Cardan did laugh. Hysteria bubbling up in his chest like bile, which it might have been because suddenly the churning in his stomach was no longer violent but imminent and he’s throwing himself into the bathing chamber.

He doesn’t hear the court of shadows, her court of shadows, retreating as he retches into the chamber pot.

~.~

Time has lost all meaning.

It’s been days, weeks, months. The days pass in a blur, marked only by those who knew what she meant to him coming to give their condolences. Like it could lessen the pain of her being gone. Lessen the pain that came with the knowledge that this was his fault.

It was so ironic it hurt. Had he not exiled her to the mortal lands for her protection, she would have still been alive, ruling where she belonged, right by his side.

And now, she would never get to rule her kingdom openly. She would never share his throne, his crown, his name, his bed again.

She was gone before he got to have her.

And it was his own damn fault.

He refused to hold any audience with Taryn. It wasn’t fair, her twin was dead and she was parading around wearing her face. He knew that should he take one look at her, he would break beyond recognition.

The only thing keeping him alive on the throne being Jude’s memory, how she would have wanted, commanded him to keep ruling, even if she wasn’t there to do it with him.

He did allow an audience with Viviane, once. She had all but demanded it and would hardly take no for an answer. She arrived, eyes puffy and bloodshot, looking as terrible as he felt which didn’t seem fair either.

He wanted to be alone in his pain, for it to be all his own, because no one could understand, could relate to how he felt for her. Why should they share in his grief? The newest plate of armor he has cast over his heart?

She wasted no time on condolences, which in itself was strangely comforting. She got straight to the point, “You missed the funeral.”

“A mortal tradition.” His voice was hoarse with disuse. Had he gone so long without speaking to anyone? That didn’t seem possible.

“Dammit Cardan! She would have wanted you there.” Her anger was refreshing, a nice change of pace compared to the complete emptiness that was left behind in the shape of a mortal footprint upon his heart.

He almost wants to disagree, but that would make no sense. The folk can’t lie, not even half-fae.

When he doesn’t respond, Vivi crosses her arms, “Will you at least come visit her? Say your goodbyes? You have to say yes, we both know you need it.”

And painful as it was, she was right. The one thing that hurt worse than Jude being dead, knowing that it was because of him, was that he didn’t get to say goodbye. That all his letters to her went unanswered. That she died without knowing how much he needed her. How much he missed her and all she was to him. How much he…

Swallowing past the lump in his throat, he silently rises and follows Vivi to his queen’s final resting place.

~.~

The mortal world is bright and loud and reeks of iron and is so alive it feels audacious. How dare anyone else continue living when someone from this place, someone so important, so above them was forced to forfeit that right?

The plot of land where she- what’s left of her- is laid to rest is small. The headstone sits, new and clean, next to two more that are dulled with age.

Justin and Eva Duarte.

Madoc had somehow procured graves for the two mortals he slaughtered, and now their youngest daughter lay beside them.

They are standing there for ten minutes before Vivi speaks, “You know, when someone visits the grave of someone they love, they usually look at it.” Her voice is monotone as she stares at the slab of stone sitting at the head of a patch of newly sprouted grass.

He’s not sure he can. If he looks, if he sees there is in fact a final stop, a final holding place for this restless mortal, then he will know it is real. That this wasn’t all some elaborate trick or punishment of her own making to get back at him for her banishment.

Foolish as it is, that was a dark hope buried deep inside him. That she was really still there, biding her time, waiting until he was just ruined enough to waltz back into his life to teach him a well deserved lesson. Perhaps on gratitude, on not taking things for granted.

It would be such a Jude thing to do.

A hand rests on his shoulder and he nearly flinches away, “I’ll give you a minute.”

Her footsteps recede, utterly fae and silent. So unlike the ones he desperately wishes to hear a final time.

It takes him maybe two minutes more for his eyes to finally find the headstone. He is shocked to find he can barely read what is inscribed upon it through tears that have filled his eyes.

Jude Duarte-Greenbriar

Beloved sister and wife

2001-2019

His tears come in earnest, then. How had he never known she took his name as well? Had cared enough to do so? Or was this something her sisters did to spite him? He pressed his lips together in an attempt to stifle any sobs trying to break free.

Cautiously, so cautious she would be proud, he runs his fingers over the inscription of her name- their name. When he knows his voice will be steady, he speaks.

“Well, wife.” He presses his eyes closed as a fresh wave of tears pushes at his senses, “I doubt either of us saw it coming to this.” Gently, he tugs something out of the satchel he brought with him.

“It was yours. For you to wear upon your return. For when you came home.” He couldn’t stop his voice from breaking as he carefully laid the crown down at the foot of the headstone, glamoured so mortals would see it as a pile of painted rocks.

“I guess in a way, I got what you thought I wanted. For you to…” He can’t even bring himself to say it. He had never wanted this. When in palace lessons, he thought that dreams plagued with her scent, her voice, her touch had been the most horrid nightmares. He was wrong, this was far worse than any dream he had of her angry face, her soft hair. This was a nightmare terrifying enough to cripple the strongest of men.

“Well. I guess it doesn’t matter now. It doesn’t matter that I wish I could take back what I said about you in our childhood. That you would return to the earth, worm food.” He shudders, recalling that he had said those things while imagining that they would have followed a long life. One filled with her aging slowly due to living in Elfhame. Secret imaginings he only allowed himself in the darkest hours of the night- ones where he was by her side and they wreaked havoc together for the rest of their long, full lives. His next words are whispered, “I never imagined it would happen so soon.”

His hand returns to the headstone, gripping the cool rock tightly.

There is nothing left to say aside from one final message. Nothing left to do other than leave this place and continue on in his immortality, letting her fade into the backs of everyone’s memory as the Last Mortal Queen.

Taking a final shaky breath, Cardan utters the truth he had spent nearly his whole life repressing, trying to lie his way around. The words he now so desperately wishes he had said to her before he cast her out of their home in hopes of preventing this very thing from happening.

With one final look upon the place his wife, his queen is forever to rest upon, he whispers,

“I love you.”

~.~

Years and years and years later, young children of the gentry sit in their history lessons amongst their mortal classmates, and learn of the beautiful, treacherous life that was led by the Last Mortal Queen, Jude Duarte-Greenbriar

And that is that! Did I make you cry? Do you want to throw crumpled tissues at my head? Let me know!❤️ (I left out details of Jude’s death on purpose, it’s up to your imagination to come up with what happened to her, sorry for pain😬)

Tag list:

As always, please let me know through the comments or my inbox or any other way you are comfortable with and let me know if you wish to be added to my list so you can be alerted to my future works!

@maleckanejnessienjurdansolangelo @woodsbeyond1 @cardan-greenbriar-tcp @thewickedkings @aneurwin @snusbandxknifewife @jurdanhell @andromeddea @dressedindustandshadows @thesirenwashere @b00kworm @hizqueen4life @unidentifiedblackthorn @iminsanenotobsessed @df3ndyr @brittneyal @aelin-queen-of-terrasen @thefolkofthefic @yafandomsdotnet @fuzzypineapples-blog @nahthanks @charrise @thefolkofthefic @theviolettulip @embersfromink @kittkatandbooboo

Till next time, loves!🥰

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laequiem · 3 years

Text

Mal d’amour - Part 2

/ 5 times the High King of Elfhame missed his exiled wife + 1 time she had enough. Part of this chapter was inspired by @charrise‘s prompt “Cardan during Jude’s exile and wondering why she’s not coming back, began comparing how he treated Nicasia like a queen and Jude like dirt”

Nowadays, I catch myself wondering if giving up the throne to Madoc would really be that bad. Who knows, it might even bring back Jude, even if it is only to plant a dagger through my chest.

read on ao3 • masterlist • part 1 • part 3

The Living Council has been restless this past month. The treaties with the undersea have been signed, but the peace it brings is fragile. Still, I cannot get myself to care. There was a time I enjoyed being High King, in those first few months when it was novel and I had my Seneschal to make all the important decisions for me. Nowadays, I catch myself wondering if giving up the throne to Madoc would really be that bad. Who knows, it might even bring back Jude, even if it is only to plant a dagger through my chest.

"Your Majesty, we received another proposition," Baphen says tentatively as he slides a letter my way, "I know we talked about it before but—"

I look at the note, the bright green paper obvious in its provenance, then glare at the Royal Astrologer. Dancing next to the hearth, Grand Fool Fala is singing a particularly crude song about sleeping with fishes.

"But it's time for you to pick a Queen," Randalin continues, "Your approval rate is lower than ever. With the rebellion growing, we fear that more courts will ally with them."

Baphen is twisting his hands nervously, "An alliance with the Undersea—"

I pick up the algae paper and tear it, “No.”

Baphen cringes visibly and Randalin sighs.

“We also received a proposition from the Court of Teeth,” Randalin says matter-of-factly, “Our mole tells us they are getting closer to the rebels, and marrying their Queen could get them to swear fealty.”

"Queen Suren is a child!” I snarl, “I am not marrying a child."

I'm not marrying anyone. I am already married. I wish everyone knew. I wish Jude was here.

Randalin rolls his eyes, as if I was being difficult.

"We need an alliance to ensure your place on the throne,” he says, unrelenting.

My father would have ordered a cull of the rebels, but I am not my father. What would Jude do? Probably go after Madoc herself. I certainly cannot do that, but I also refuse to get married.

I want to scream. I want to tell them I already have a wife, that she is the Queen this kingdom needs. Would they believe me? Would they think me mad? Surely, they would think me foolish for marrying a mortal.

Not that it matters, since she never replied to my letters. She does not want to come back.

“Make Nicasia our ambassador to the Undersea,” I say, tapping my fingers on the mahogany table, “that should appease her mother for some time.”

“Your Majesty, we know you two have history, but this is about more than… hurt feelings,” Baphen says carefully, “We could get the forces we need to defeat the rebels from Princess Nicasia’s dowry.”

I rub at my temples. We have had this discussion dozens of times now, always the same arguments, always the same females being thrown my way like prized mares. Nicasia is obviously the choice the Living Council favours. I did, too, once. I treated her like the Queen she will someday become. She had made me feel like I was worth loving, chose me over my other siblings, and I loved her like I had never loved anyone before. Together, we were untouchable, a villainous duo to be feared and left alone. She was all I needed, and I had thought she felt the same way about me. Everyday, we spent hours tangled together, learning each other's bodies and desires. And when I found her lying in bed with Locke, something broke. Call it love, call it friendship, whatever I felt for her immediately went away. Everyone mocked me. Faeries don't care about loyalty, about monogamy. Nobody understood that it wasn't about that. She had made me feel like I was enough, and suddenly I wasn't. Like I wasn't enough for my father, for my mother, for Balekin.

Jude, on the other hand, my chosen Queen… I treated her horribly. I taunted her, spat on her, pulled her hair. I did all I could so she would just go away from Faerieland, from my mind. Yet she would be at my feet, covered in dirt, and still I felt small under her stare. She defied me, time and time again, because she saw through me. Jude broke down my walls, saw through the cruel mask I wore. We argued, we fought, we betrayed each other. She tricked me by putting a crown on my head, and I tricked her by exiling her. But with her help, I managed not to burn down the kingdom. She thought me worthy of the throne, even if I were nothing but a puppet for her own goals. I trusted her, she did not need a geas to control me. There were times I believed she also trusted me—until I exiled her, and ruined everything.

“You would rule over land and sea,” Randalin continues, “The Undersea is the biggest Kingdom in size. While they are secretive about their numbers, we believe they are one of the most populous—”

“You seem to forget about the Mortal Realm and the solitary fae.”

“Of course, Your Majesty. The solitary fae can be bound through the tithe by the lower courts sworn to us. As for the mortals,” Randalin snorted, “An alliance with them would not do us any good. Except to produce heirs.”

Mikkel nodded, but Nihuar seemed uncomfortable. The Seelie Minister is more sympathetic towards mortals, but I know she is still against marrying one.

“Cursed king, cruel and cold, wed to a withering queen,” Fala sings from his corner of the room. I ignore him, but I wonder if he knows something the others don't.

“Then, I suppose we are once again stuck,” I say coldly as I wave a hand to dismiss them, “I tire of this discussion. Find another solution.”

They all file out of the room, with bows of varying depths, and leave me sitting alone in the meeting room.

Am I even still married to Jude? Our vows did include an exit clause, and while I still want to be married to her, she might not.

Perhaps I should let her go.

Perhaps I am being stubborn.

#the folk of the air #tfota #cardan greenbriar #cardan #jude duarte #jurdan #judecardan #holly black #fanfiction #fanfic #angst #the wicked king #the cruel prince

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sarahjtrash · 5 years

Text

The Weight of the World

Jurdan, 1.5K, Rated T

Summary: Elfhame and faerie society really weighs on Jude. Cardan tries to help.

A/N: Who’s surprised? I am but a sucker for fluff and bedtime snuggles.

Enjoy!

-o-0-o-

Jude pushed through revelers and servers, fighting her way to the doors leading outside the hall. It was idiotic to come here tonight, to try and help Cardan win over courtiers who never respected him in the first place. No matter what he did to erase his reputation as a careless drunkard, too many viewed him as just that.

She could float through the crowd, try to discover what people actually believed of their king, but nothing would deter their innate distrust and disgust for her, causing them to change topics as she approached. She could wield weapons and lies, but it didn’t mean much when no one even knew her true title.

A queen without a throne, merely a Queen of Nothing. How fitting with how worthless she felt.

Still, their whispers followed her as she shoved her way out.

Too bad the mortal is leaving. What I wouldn’t give to glamour her into submission.

I can see why the High King keeps her so close. She seems like she’d be very fun to trick.

Their vile words followed her as she left. Her time away had lost her any respect she’d gained. To them, she was a child, an insect on the bottom of a shoe, an existence so worthless that it was only mentioned when people were truly overcome with their disgust. The threats and off-handed comments grew to be taxing these weeks after her return.

She couldn’t take it anymore as she stormed out of the ballroom, holding back tears and cursing herself for being this weak in the first place. What happened to the girl with a steel demeanor and a metaphorical suit of armor?

Her forearm wiped across her face and came back covered in glitter and kohl. What a stupid idea to think she could ever make something of herself.

Behind her, footsteps sounded and followed her around corners. She started to walk faster.

How had she become so weak? So desperate that suddenly the gossip of busybodies actually mattered to her? None of this would’ve happened if she was never exiled or better yet, stayed on the sidelines years ago.

Sometimes she wished for that. An easy existence where she truly was the nothing that they believed her to be. Which was idiotic. She’d already been an average mortal in the human world, and it had nearly ruined her. Not that tonight was all that much better

A hot tear rolled down her face.

The oak doors to their bedroom seemed like a beacon of hope at the end of the hall, and she couldn’t help but throw the doors open when she arrived. She didn’t bother to close them, instead leaving them ajar for her follower. Jude still played the game of pretending not to care, but selfishly, she wanted nothing more than to surrender into his arms.

Silence filled the space between them, and Jude crossed her arms over her chest. The only sound was of her heavy, shaking breaths. She knew he could here the tears she held back, saw the restraint in her body; however, he made no move to approach her, simply let her collect herself.

It made her feel painfully mortal.

Cardan cleared his throat before offering quietly, “They’re banished from the palace until further notice.”

His words were meant to soothe, but Jude couldn’t help but wish he’d said something else. Something more.

Part of her knew she owed Cardan nothing and he her, but she still nodded and swallowed before turning back to face him. Her dress seemed to billow around her at the turn, completely disharmonious to her emotions.

Mortal whore, They’d called her. A useless toy kept by the King until she died. Would be better off as a glamoured servant. A fool tricked into thinking she had power. What a desperate, lonely little soul.

It was so stupid to be upset over their jests, but Jude felt all their words, terribly so. It was like she carried the weight of Elfhame on her shoulders her entire life. Her paltry 17 years of life.

And despite the grandeur of her outfit, and their tenuous relationship, her face must have truly betrayed her, for Cardan wasted no time in wrapping her up in his arms and tucking her face against his chest. She brought her arms around his middle and burrowed her face into his chest before tears started to wet his shirt in earnest.

The sounds that she released were ugly and almost inhuman, as she grieved not only the words said tonight but the hardness of everything. Her fists clutched at his shirt as her tears overcame her. She could live with people thinking Cardan had tricked her, but when people slewed her greatest fears as taunts, it ate her.

This world was so unkind to her, and she didn’t even have one friend.

The terrible loneliness that constantly accompanied her reared its ugly head. No one liked being around her, and she had more enemies than she could count. Her husband, though his scent comforted her at the moment, constantly caused her to question his intentions. Her parents couldn’t be accounted for, murdered long ago. Her own twin actively worked to undermine her.

As if sensing her thoughts, Cardan’s hands began to move as rubbed gentle circles on her back, the other cusped the back of her neck, and he kissed the crown of her head. Distantly, she could hear Cardan murmur quiet platitudes into her ear, but it only made her cry harder. Cardan squeezed her tighter, and his tail came to wrap around her leg.

His presence felt wrong, as if she didn’t deserve the simplest desires of her heart. If she chose to find comfort in his presence, wasn’t she living every rumor they claimed about her? She was just a dirty child. Almost nothing in the centuries he was sure to live. Eventually he’d grow to forget her. And yet, she couldn’t help but feel herself relax slightly as she breathed in his scent.

Deep down, she knew she could live with being perceived as the stupid mortal without friends or status. It was their last words that truly bothered her, whispered right before she’d finally escaped that wretched place.

I bet the High King glamoured her into thinking he was in love with her, and she’s stupid enough to believe it’s real.

They’d never really discussed what they felt for one another, but those words had her head spinning with the possibility that every misleading statement she chose to interrupt was actually just him at face value. He truly did hate her and find her disgusting. He thought about her often, but it was not in the light she wished it to be. He kissed her, made love to her, and married her only to toy with her.

However, he still stood here, letting her ruin his shirt, knowing that somehow his presence did more for her than anything else could. Their thoughts still grated on her though, as she pulled back to look at him.

“Tell me you hate me,” she whispered.

True pain seemed to fill his eyes at that, but he looked at her all the same. “You know I cannot,” his hand came to wipe away another tear that had fallen. “I believe we’re far beyond that.”

“Then tell me about how you used to hate me. How my existence relived you.”

He pulled her close once again. “Jude. I don’t know if I ever hated you. I sometimes believe I confused my emotions. There were ones I truly felt, and those that others wanted me to feel. I treated you brutally, this is true, but I am unsure if I did that because I wanted to or if others wished it of me.”

“If what you feel for me is not hate, then what is it?” She knew it was dangerous ground, a place both of them were unprepared to enter.

“I do not believe this is the time for that,” he said defeatedly, before grabbing her hand and leading her to bed.

Cardan helped her undress, his hands communicating nothing sexual in their movement. They both pulled pins out of her hair, and when the final curl came tumbling down, Jude practically fell into bed, makeup be damned.

Cardan stripped next to her, before he too slid under the sheets next to her and pulled her back to his chest. His tail joined their tangle of legs.

Despite her desire to fill the space with her doubts, Jude couldn’t help but match Cardan’s soothing breath. They breathed in a calming rhythm for a while, and Cardan must have thought she was asleep before he whispered what sounded like a private admission, one she wasn’t supposed to hear.

“I wish for nothing more than to tell you how I feel, Jude Dear,” he sighed. “I care for you. It terrifies me. I care for you more than I’ve ever cared for anyone else, myself included. I don’t know how to convince you of that, but I will,“ he paused, before yawning out, “someday.”

He buried his face into her neck and soon he quietly snored. A painful hope began to blossom in her chest. Come morning, she would probably never mention what she’d heard. However, right now, his words cocooned her more than his body. She still thought about it until she drifted into a sweet, dreamless sleep, completely unplagued by the nights events.

-o-0-o-

Thanks for reading!

Masterlist

#jurdan #Jude x cardan #jurdan fanfic #my fanfic #tfota #holly black #tcp #twk #qon #taryn #Jude duarte #cardan greenbriar #high queen of elfhame #High King #jurdan fluff #jurdan angst

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zoyastormwitch · 5 years

Text

pretty lies & ugly truths ;

author’s note ; this was meant to just be some gratuitous smut, but it always has to turn into feelings and more. regardless, i regret nothing. I HOPE U LIKE IT it’s my first time writing these guys. (and hopefully not the last.) word count ; 4826 fandom ; the cruel prince/tfota ship ; jude duarte x cardan greenbriar chapter rating ; explicit tags ; smut, angst, hate sex, smut with feelings, post-TWK ao3 ; here description ; Jude is back in Elfhame after months being exiled to the mortal world, only to find herself feeling humiliated and - angry. Very angry. The thing about being angry at Cardan, though, is that it's never quite as it seems.

pretty lies & ugly truths ;

“Are —“

If the clack of her heels against tiled floors didn’t make Jude Duarte feel powerful, then the blade in hand certainly did.

“You —“

Or perhaps it was the crown, sitting atop her head surrounded by intricate plaits coiled and twisted, that provided the thrill of power.

“Kidding —“

She wasn’t used to the foreign weight of it, neither figurative nor literal, but in her rampage across the now-empty throne room she didn’t even stumble.

“Me.”

No, she realized. It wasn’t the crown. It wasn’t the shoes. Not even the blade, which had been abandoned in her fury and thus clattered to the floor with a deafening thud.

“I hate you,” she seethed for what was probably around the thousandth time just that month.

A hand wrapped itself around her dear husband’s neck, thumb pressed tight against the column of his throat, and Jude decided that none of those aforementioned outside sources contributed to the overwhelming feeling of power as much as her own bare hands and the sheer force of her singleminded will.

“Wife.”

His voice managed to maintain its low and silky texture despite her attempts to cut into his air supply. Her other hand jumped to his throat, both thumbs working their target as her heart beat wildly within the confines of her chest.

“You did that on purpose,” she accused in a wild fury. “Admit it.”

“I can not — admit much with — your hands —“ he choked out.

Pleased by his evident struggle, Jude released him. She didn’t move away however; his coal eyes flared when she lunged closer. She all but caged him into his throne with her arms as the bars, hands propped against the ornate chair’s back on either side of his head. The plush, cushiony velvet felt too nice by far against the callouses of her palms.

“Admit it,” Jude hissed, her face so close to his that anyone passing might simply assume a moment of intimacy between the King and his Queen.

“Admit what, dear wife?”

“That you brought me back here just to humiliate me. That you arranged all that to build me up as nothing more but a poor, pathetic mortal.”

The crown upon her head tipped forward slightly, serving only as a reminder of hours prior: a coronation fit for a fool. The inhuman laughter had echoed throughout the throne room then and rang deafening in her ears now. It was as if they’d taken the Queen of Mirth revelry to a higher, more elaborate scale. More Faerie games designed to get under her skin.

She looked the part of Queen of Elfhame, this time.

Her dress looked crafted from stars themselves, set into a gossamer black canvas that hung from her curves. It glistened and glittered with each step she took, winking constantly in the lights. Sleek black ribbons were entwined into the braids woven atop her head, peeking through walnut curls that cascaded over her shoulders. Delicate horns were crafted of hair and ribbon and bejeweled, creating a frame of sorts for the crown that fit snug atop her head.

She’d be lying if she said her breath didn’t catch when she saw the crown in Cardan’s hands. It wasn’t quite twin to his own, but indeed appeared cut from the same cloth. Silver and gold and bronze twined together, fashioned into severe branches. Crystalline jewels sparkled like moonlight, or maybe like snowfall; something entirely natural and magical all at once.

It was beautiful. It was frightening. It was hers.

She truly looked a queen. Still, it didn’t prevent the murmurs and jeers and blatant laughter that surrounded her and set her body on fire from the inside out in the worst way possible. She felt like she was the butt of a joke. No one took her seriously. Even as they watched the High King take her hand and lead her to a throne that had been fashioned for her; even as they heard Cardan pronounce her Queen of Elfhame; even as he called her his wife in front of the masses. None of it mattered.

He humiliated her in the worst way: with truth, and nothing but.

Because she was all those things. She, Jude Duarte, their mortal rule, their Queen, the wife to the High King.

And yet, she may as well have been Queen of Nothing.

His silence grated on her as she hovered over him, breathing heavily, chest panting with the frustration and embarrassment that prickled across her skin and settled deep in her soul.

“I admit,” Cardan said finally, a hand coming up to tuck an ebony ribbon behind her ear, “that I arranged this coronation knowing full well our subjects would think you a joke.”

She bared her teeth at him like the feral animal she was not; he simply lay his palm flat against her cheek. Unafraid. His skin was cool to the touch, smooth. This close, she was able to study his face. There was a new sort of wisdom in his eyes. Certainly in the time since she betrayed him and put him on this very throne, he’d grown into the role. He looked the part more often than not. His chin held high, shoulders back, steps assured: Cardan Greenbriar was more the High King than she ever imagined he could be.

“You let them laugh at me,” she accused.

“Yes.”

“You humiliated me.”

“It would appear so.”

“I hate you,” she growled.

“Tell me again how much, my darling Jude,” he said, his voice low and eyes heavy.

Jude had half a mind to smack the desire straight off his face, but instead pushed herself off from the back of his throne with every intention to retire to her chambers. She’d figure this out after getting some rest.

Before she could even take a full step, his hand caught her wrist and she found her body twisting to face him again. The momentum of the tug jostled the crown on her head, hair ribbons falling in her face. She tried to catch herself in a flurry of flailing limbs, but the hands that she’d hoped would find purchase against the back of his chair were instead planted firmly against his chest.

He was lucky she didn’t knee him in the groin in the process.

Cardan’s gaze scorched her face; she knew her cheeks were flushed and her heart beat fast against her chest, rising and falling with heavy, quick breaths. She wanted to slay her own traitorous body.

“Jude,” he said, foreign softness tainting his tongue.

Her name sounded a prayer when he said it like that, spoken with a reverence she didn’t know he was capable of. It was startling, really, and the shock of it was enough to loose a brief bit of tension in her body. He must’ve felt the slackening of her figure as it hovered over him, because he used that moment to slide a hand to the base of her spine and hold her close. She blinked, propped upon his lap with her knees on either side of his thighs. Jude opened her mouth to speak but he continued before she could manage a word.

“They’re never going to want you,” he said with all the blunt ease only a faerie could manage. “They’ll never accept you as you are.”

“As I am?” she spat out harshly, coming back to her senses. She tightened against him, but his hands kept her caged in. “And what’s that? Mortal?” The word felt dirty in her mouth, a burden and a curse no matter how she spun it.

“Mortal,” he agreed, a hand dancing up her spine. The dress she wore was cut low in the back so it wasn’t long before skin met skin. She couldn’t keep her brain from flashing back to the other times his hands ran fiery paths across her skin and a shiver passed over her. “They see a mortal girl who slept her way into a crown.”

“That’s not —”

“Prove yourself, Jude.” His hands came up to adjust the crown on her head, straightening the ornate metal workings so it sat proudly once again. Long, slender fingers brushed through the hair that fell around her shoulders. The action was decidedly intimate. His dark eyes studied her with an intensity she felt inclined to shy away from, but Jude forced herself to remain still.

How did he possess the ability to unwind her with such ease? Had all her defenses fallen in her time away?

“We showed them you look every inch a Queen, mortal or otherwise. The spectacle doesn’t hold near enough weight as is needed to convince them of your strength.” His hands trailed down her arms, featherlight touches that left goosebumps in their wake. “What I gave to you is an opportunity now to prove yourself. Make fools of them each, Jude.” His eyes sank to her heaving chest before panning back slowly up to her eyes, though not before lingering on her lips. “They will wish they never once laughed.”

His voice was like a glamour all its own, lulling her into security that frightened her. What could that mean? Prove herself. She’d spent her entire damn life doing just that. The second she was brought to Faerie it had been one trial after another. One jeer, one prank, one intimidation after another. What did Cardan think she’d been doing all these years? If anything, she needed to prove herself to him. He clearly thought so little —

“And what of you, husband?” she said in a sickly sweet voice, her hand jumping to his throat in a flash. If he was surprised by the action, he didn’t show it. “What fool are you, my king, to have been tricked by a mortal?” Jude brought herself closer, her hips shifting forward as she tilted her face to his. His body seemed to tense with heat. “What retribution can I administer against the laughs from you?”

She tightened her hand on his throat, watching as the intensity grew in his face. Cardan’s lips parted ever slightly, and she expected protest to spill from that pretty mouth of his. It never came, though. Jude took advantage of the silence, rising on her knees so her height was at a further advantage. She pressed her legs tight against him as the hand not occupied with his neck found purchase in the curling locks of raven hair. She tugged back so that his face was raised to hers.

The bastard was smirking.

“You took permanent residence in my dreams while you were gone, Jude,” Cardan managed. “Every sleep I had was occupied with your face. Indeed, often with your hands wielding some weapon or another.” At that, she desired a blade back in her possession.

His hands slid from her back down the curve of her bottom, moving along her thighs. The heat of his palms cut through the diaphanous skirt of her gown, the material far too thin to block out the feeling of his touches. She clutched her hand deeper in his hair while that at his throat slackened with a quiver as his fingers traveled back up her body. He pressed her against his torso; she could feel his beating heart against body where they lined up.

What was she doing back here?

“I wanted you to be with me. You are my wife.”

“Enough.”

“I had to do it, Jude,” Cardan pressed. “There was little else I could have decreed that would have yielded a result apart from death. Regardless of who you are to me, justice was required.”

The earnestness in his words and the knowledge that he couldn’t lie caused her stomach to twist into knots. She didn’t want to think about it. Not about who she was to him, nor his schemes that shocked and betrayed. Jude found herself not wanting to think about much of anything, for that matter.

“Shut up,” she hissed.

“You do not command me any longer,” he reminded, voice longing.

“Kiss me.”

“What?” he asked, and she couldn’t help but feel pleased that she’d shocked him. She’d gone off script, after all. It was never Jude asking for kisses, for secret shared breaths and moments where the space between them disappeared into electric nonexistence.

“I said — kiss me.”

So she did.

Or perhaps he did.

Somewhere within the sentence, their mouths came crashing together. She supposed it didn’t matter which way it started, just that it had.

Jude sank back down from her knees, no longer raised above him. Cardan took advantage of her being sat on his lap, winding his hands down to hips and urging her forward. She gasped into his mouth at the friction of the movement, a spark starting in her spine and working its way through her blood.

They were all teeth and tongues, a firestarter kind of kiss that had her breathing heavily and sparsely. She reveled in the feel of his body against her, startled by the forbidden familiarity of his touches. No thinking, she reminded herself, and closed herself off to anything that wasn’t this singular moment.

Her arms wove around his neck, tangling them together further than they had already been. Could Cardan feel how fast her heart beat, or the way her body shook in response? Jude nipped hard at his lower lip while his own hands somehow managed to find their way beneath her skirts. His smooth palms against the expanse of her calf, then thigh elicited a breathy moan as she arched her body with an instinctual desire, her heat aching for his fingers.

“Patience, Jude,” he muttered against her lips before his mouth covered hers again before she could protest that they were in a rather public throne room and was patience really of virtue here?

Cardan’s arms wound tight around her back, bracing her against him with a surprising strength as he flipped her gently beneath him. Jude let out a gasp of shock when her back hit the plush throne. He hovered near above her, a knee propped up between her legs, his fingers working with deft movements to unlace his shirt while his tongue and lips paved a fiery path down the column of her throat. He parted only brief enough to shed the frilly shirt from his body, and her darkened eyes scanned the planes of his taut chest and stomach. It was sight enough to quicken her breath, her hands shaking slightly as she reached out to touch him.

He caught her hand in his, fingers twining over her own and guiding her palm up, up, finally to his mouth where he kissed the inside of her wrist once, twice, a third time to her fingertips — painting her with an intimacy that tugged strangely at her heart.

“Cardan —” she breathed, hating how shaky and uncertain her own voice sounded.

“I missed you,” he whispered, and she caught a flash of fear in his eyes at the admittance.

She hadn’t time to ask after it, however, before he was kneeling before her. He slid her shoes from her feet before traveling his hands from her ankles, brushing her knees, slowing over her thighs. Swollen berry lips parted and chest rising heavily, Jude watched, enraptured. Her dress was pushed up around her waist in the process, something she was thankful when Cardan’s lips followed the path of his hands.

The sight of his head between her legs as he kneeled in front of her was almost too much to bear. He paused to slide her knickers down the length of her legs, his eyes raised to study her face. She whimpered when he hoisted her knees over his shoulders and her head lolled to the side when he finally lay his mouth to the spot where she ached most for him.

His fingertips pressed hard against her hips as he held her to him, his tongue working slow at first as if to tease her. It was working, certainly, her heart racing far too fast for any poor mortal as she desired something deeper, faster, more. She dug her heels into his back, trying to resist the urge to buck her hips up. As if sensing her impatience, his hands held her harder, pressing her down against the velvet cushion.

“Cardan,” she moaned, voice laced with desire.

A finger replaced his tongue, sliding into her heat with ease. He planted a wet caress to the side of her thigh before nipping the soft skin there. A high pitched noise left her lips, and he rewarded her with a second digit entering between her lips.

“Did you miss me, Jude?” he asked, his voice like gravel on her skin, his teeth grazing her thigh again.

“No,” she said quickly. A lie, perhaps? Or maybe it was more complicated than that. She wasn’t in the market for complicated thoughts at the moment, not with his fingers thrusting and curling inside of her.

And as if knowing her response for what it was, a non-truth, he rose to his full height. Her legs slipped from his shoulders and she moaned at the change in angle as his fingers continued to work their ministrations. He kissed the spot between her breasts, his mouth moving heatedly up her neck and to her ear. She shivered at the puff of breath that was released there.

“Did you miss me?” he asked again, the low timbre of his voice hitting her very core.

Jude wasn’t sure when her hand had joined his between her legs, but her fingers wrapped around his wrist and she writhed her hips, her mouth parted as another “No” escaped in a breathy moan.

Cardan slipped a third finger into her heat, and the change in pressure was heavenly enough that she jerked forward, her arm coming around his shoulders and holding onto him as if he were the last lifeline in this terrifying, twisted life she led. She rolled against his hand, eager and needing and unthinking. In a final crash, she clenched around his fingers, body shaking as she allowed the pleasure to wash over her in tumultuous waves.

He gathered her dress where it was bunched at the waist, his hands sliding to tie at the small of her back and unlacing it enough so that he could slide the gown up over her head. He was careful of the crown that sat atop her head, though the dress didn’t receive the same treatment and was instead tossed aside with no care for whether it snagged or caught on anything.

Jude didn’t care.

Their eyes met, equally heavy and desirous in the golden light of the throne room. His gaze roamed her body and she was surprised by how unaffected by embarrassment she was at the intensity. She slouched bare on his throne, and Cardan seemed positively thrilled by the notion.

He breathed heavily as his hands fell to his laces. She watched, entranced, as he pushed his breeches down his legs. It wasn’t the first time he’d been exposed to her, nor she to him, yet the effect was as heady as ever. She was frozen still, save for her panting breaths that echoed his own. His tail flicked behind him, betraying impatience before coiling around her calf. She shuddered.

Broken from her own spell, she lifted her hands to the crown at her head, making to remove it.

“Leave it,” he breathed. His hands caught her wrists and lowered her hands from the ornate headpiece that sat between unkempt braids. She looked curiously at him, question in her eyes. “You look just like in my dreams,” he added, by way of explanation.

“Oh,” she breathed lamely.

He cupped her cheeks with a gentle touch, kissing her soft on the lips. His fingers slid to the back of her neck, catching on waves of hair in the process. She was too stunned to do much other than kiss him softly back. It was in complete contrast to earlier.

He tugged her to her feet, and he stepped out of his trousers that had pooled at his angles, feet already bare having ditched his pointed silver shoes much earlier on. With a quick turn, he was sat on the throne and he pulled her to straddle him.

She rubbed against him, luxuriating in the feel of his hard length straining beneath her. He groaned at the friction she created, his lids falling heavily in response. The black-tipped tail flicked against her back with slow sweeps eliciting shivers in their wake. She kissed him harder, desiring more. Desiring him. Desiring —

“I want you,” he said. “My Jude. My wife. My queen.”

Jude nodded, moving to kiss him again but he pulled back and put a finger to her lips in pause.

“Say it.” A request, his body shaking under her.

“Yes,” she breathed. An answer to earlier questions, perhaps. Her voice shook even as she added, “I want you.”

“Again,” Cardan pleaded as she reached between their bodies.

She wrapped her fingers around him, watching his eyes darken in pleasure as she applied her own ministrations to his throbbing length. His palms left her hair, dropping to the small of her back, fingertips digging into the soft skin there. He groaned as she quickened her motions, her hand slick with his desire.

“I want you,” she said, rising to her knees and angling his cock at her entrance. Her body quaked in the anticipation, heat pulsing heavy in her core. She stared down, watching as she slid over him to join their bodies.

“Jude.”

Neither moved for a moment, reveling in the feeling that they created together within a world of passionate harmony. He dropped his forehead to her shoulder, his body trembling. It was perhaps the most vulnerable, intimate thing she’d ever witnessed and all the truths she didn’t say, wouldn’t say, couldn’t decipher got caught in her throat. She wrapped her arms tight around his shoulders, holding him to her. Her fingers curled in the soft curls at the nape of his neck and his mouth lavished her collarbone with sloppy kisses.

She rolled her hips, testing the waters with a tentative air. A low, quiet moan spilled from her lips and she did it again, and again. The pressure within her was unlike anything she’d ever felt before, heat rising in her body with incredible force.

“I shouldn’t have come back —” she whispered, the words slipping out without a single thought. He raised his head to look at her before swallowing her statement in a kiss and a breath. “I shouldn’t have —” she tried again, and he nipped at her ear.

“Tell me all your pretty lies, Jude,” he whispered, thrusting his hips beneath her.

“It’s not a lie,” she shuddered, fingers grasping onto his shoulders as she met his next movement with a deep moan.

“You belong beside me.”

“Cardan,” she warned.

His hands reached her hips and she braced herself with one hand against the back of the throne while her other held onto his shoulder, fingernails digging crescent moons upon his smooth, creamy skin.

Jude moved over him with more fervor, as if she could fuck his words from existence. She couldn’t hear those things, didn’t want to. She’d gotten her hopes mixed up with reality and desire and lost so much already. Months in the mortal realm couldn’t wipe away that betrayal. She didn’t know her next move, and that didn’t frighten her nearly as much as not knowing Cardan’s.

The anger she’d felt earlier bubbled back to the surface of her emotions. She couldn’t trust his truths, the words he managed to wield like shiny new weapons. The worst of it was that he believed the things that came out of his mouth. Somehow, for some reason, he truly believed she belonged in a crown at his side. But why?

The humiliation, the embarrassment, the sound of the court’s laughter as they stared at her during the coronation —

She dug her fingernails deeper yet, her mouth crashing against his and tugging his lower lip between teeth. A metallic taste tinted with something almost flowery and decidedly Cardan hit her tongue and she knew she’d drawn blood. It pleased her, spurning her on and she rode him harder, faster, licking the taste of him off her lips.

“I hate you,” she panted. While those words sometimes hid an array of deeper emotions, in that moment, as the sounds of their bodies slapping together and his groans filled her ears and her own moans echoed throughout, Jude knew they were a perfect truth. Tell me your lies, he’d asked, but she gave him entire honesty.

She hated not knowing his intentions. She hated that she couldn’t trust him, never truly did. She hated that — she wanted to believe it all. She’d lost so much her entire life, given up whole parts of herself to become someone that would fit into this world of tricks and fears. Was it so much that she wanted to be able to let down her guard just once, to stop fighting, to stop feeling so much anger?

“Show me how much you hate me, Jude,” he prompted, voice guttural.

“Shut up, Cardan,” she hissed, placing a palm over his mouth and thus giving him little choice but to obey the command. Her other hand met his throat yet again, applying pressure enough that she supposed he might grow lightheaded though avoid harming him.

He growled, his tail tightening against her thigh, no longer flicking languid strokes in pleasure but growing taut in a climax. She felt it herself building inside, sounds pouring from her mouth as she thrust his length deeper into him, her movements now shallower and quicker and harder than they’d been until now. His own hips bucked up with intent, his palms holding her close and driving her deeper atop his cock.

She slipped her palm away from his mouth, fingers sliding to the back of his hair, tugging into the locks as she kissed the metallic taste of him so that she’d not be tempted to cry out his name as she reached her climax in one crashing moment. He hadn’t the same restraint, and her name was like a mantra as he came inside her, “JudeJudeJude.”

Her vision swam and she let out a whimpering moan as her body collapsed against his, spent. Her skin was sticky with sweat, walnut curls plastered against her neck and back. Cardan seemed not to mind as he wound his arms around her, keeping her against him as they both rode their final waves. She slouched into him, all tension gone from her limp figure.

“How do you not see it?” he whispered after their hearts began to slow back to normal, low enough that she nearly didn’t catch it.

Jude lifted her head to meet his eyes, trying to read him. She kept expression from her face as she shivered, pulling herself out of his arms and separating them with a sense of finality. He watched her move, his lean form stretched across the throne having no shame at his nudity. She noticed his lips to be painted red from her ministrations, bruises and crescent cuts along his shoulders.

She reached for her gown, slipping it back on in a hurry. The shoulder straps were twisted, one of the layers of black skirt caught in on itself. Her hair was a complete mess, no longer arranged in intricate braids and twists but rather collapsed and fallen and frizzed. She looked every bit the mess she felt, and nothing of the Queen she fancied herself at the start of this day.

“See what, Cardan?” she asked, wiping her mouth on her palm. She came away with blood — his, she presumed. She removed the crown from her head, her shoulders rising in a deep breath as though the weight of the world had been lifted from her. “Don’t you get it? This is all a game.” She threw her arms out to either side in a sweeping gesture encapsulating the whole of the throne room. “I don’t even know who’s playing anymore.” She took several steps until she stood at her shoes, slipping her toes back into them. “We’re just pawns to one another.” She paused, the crown dangling from her fingers at her side as she fixed him with a heavy stare full of too much emotion for even herself to decipher. “It’s time to cut the puppet strings, King.”

She turned on her heel, crossing the expansive throne room in silence save for the clacking of her shoes against the floors. Budding flowers settled in corners and vines crept up the walls — foliage that wasn’t there before. She resisted the urge to look back at Cardan, determined to keep any upper hand possible in a world where words were twisted and meanings hidden.

tag list ; @rayonfrozenwings @theyretheirthere @the-right-way-to-get-lost @cardansbishh @ellie-in-the-hat @samayla @thejiminsjamsowner@cute898 @prince-dolokhov @mintyvina @salchik @illyrianbeauty @feysandmaraudersdramatic @adgedarling @notesfromalabprincess @starlightfound @courtofdreamsandterrasen @ysitsohardtofindaname@starzablaze @reedingandbleeding @greenbriaars @cathyve19 @killer98queen @thesassybibliophile @the-bookloving-girl @dreams-of-feysand @poisonwhiterose @kayivy-terrasen-velaris

#jurdan #the cruel prince #the wicked king #jude duarte #cardan greenbriar #twk spoilers #the wicked king spoilers #my fic #mine*

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lynyrdwrites · 5 years

Text

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Okay, so this took me a while to complete... but here it is! This was initially born out of an idea of crack fic about Jude staying in the mortal world because she likes wifi. Instead it became 7K that is actually relatively serious. But Cardan does take a baseball bat to the ribs at one point, so there’s that at least.

You can also read it on AO3

---

So he’s good at ice skating now?

Jude contemplated the cartoon, and wondered if she maybe should have paid more attention to it. Somewhere in the back of the house, something crashed, and she wondered if Oak had broken another plate. When she didn’t immediately hear Vivi rushing towards the sound, she shrugged and levered herself off the couch.

Leaving the cartoon to play out to its end, she wandered into the kitchen. Her brother stood on a stool, staring down at the floor. Not a plate; this time it was a glass.

“Don’t move,” she ordered, pointing a finger at her brother. “Let me get a broom.”

Within moments, the mess was cleared off and Oak was sent off with warnings to be more careful. They both knew he wouldn’t be, but he smiled at her and ran off without actually promising anything, and all Jude could think was faeries.

Of course, that made her think of one particular Faerie, with his dark eyes and dark hair, and that odd smile he had worn, when he had banished her and let his people think her a fool.

Then again, wasn’t she one?

She had taken a Faerie at his word, and instead of being content with the power she’d had in hand, she had let herself reach for more, only to come away with nothing at all.

There was probably a lesson to be learned in that, but Jude was still too angry to search for it.

She grabbed a coffee mug and shoved it into the Keurig, hitting the brew button hard into that it almost slid off the counter. The action made the ring on her finger glint, and Jude froze, staring at it. The light caught on the ruby and seemed to mock her.

Queen of Faerie. Queen of Nothing.

She tugged at it, until it slipped free of her finger and sent it flying across the room. It hit the wall and then tumbled to the floor, and Jude watched it until it rolled out of sight beneath the table. By that time, her coffee had finished brewing, and she grabbed it by the handle, drinking it black like she had that night with Roach.

She’d developed a bit of a taste for it like that.

She tapped her fingers on the counter and looked around for something, anything, to distract her from thoughts of Faerie and betrayal and her husband.

Who even wanted a husband anyway? They were clearly useless.

Her gaze darted towards the table, where the ring had disappeared, and she forced herself to look away again. To look anywhere else.

But the table kept drawing her eye.

She felt humiliated, as she went to it and knelt down, feeling around until her fingers contacted metal and she was able to slide the ring back to her. She stood and stared at where it rested in her palm.

Defiantly, she slid it back on. It was stupid, to act like it was a real wedding ring anyways. He had stolen it from her, after all. It had always belonged to Jude. She was wearing her own jewelry, and Cardan had nothing to do with it.

Feeling almost righteous, she grabbed her mug again, and returned with it to the couch. This time, she was going to pay attention to the figure skating cartoon. She would know if he was a good skater or not. And maybe she’d order a pizza, too. Oak loved pizza.

Jude just kind of loved delivery.

---

She had received a letter from Madoc, done up with a seal and calligraphy and everything, and she wasn’t entirely sure how it had gotten there.

But it had been a month since she had been banished, and she had decided that she shouldn’t care anyway.

How many times had Vivi told her she could be happy with the humans? Hadn’t Heather said the same thing, too? That Jude didn’t need stay amongst the Faeries and their machinations and life threatening tricks and stupid attractive faces that made her want to kiss them, even though she should be punching them.

Okay, maybe that last was too specific to a certain Faerie… but she didn’t need him either. After all, it had been a month and he hadn’t sent her a fancy envelope with a crest. No, he had just banished her, and if Jude ever saw him again, she was going to cut his throat out.

You have one solution to every problem. Murder. No key fits every lock.

His voice was an echo in the back of her mind, and how was it that she could recollect how his voice sounded so perfectly? How she could remember the stern look on his face, down to the last detail. Weren’t humans supposed to forget about the Faeries the longer they were away from them? Jude was positive she had read that on a Wikipedia page.

She nudged the letter, which she had tossed onto the coffee table two days previous without opening it, with her toe. Could Faeries create curses? The Wikipedia page hinted towards it, but most of that page was so off base that Jude had actually laughed while reading it. Then she’d considered getting an account so she could edit it. It would serve them right – Cardan and Madoc both – for her to update a page anyone could read with all their deepest, darkest secrets.

Maybe no one would believe it, but they’d still know.

“Are you going to open that, or just stare at it?” Vivi came to join her on the couch. She handed Jude a mug of coffee, and then sipped on her own. Jude caught the scent of chocolate, and wondered what sort of hellish concoction her sister was trying this time.

Vivi liked her coffee sweet, and she liked to experiment. Two things Jude didn’t understand.

“I’m considering burning it,” Jude replied. “I read online that it can be cathartic, to get rid of the things that belong to the people you need to cut out of your life.”

“Oh, Christ, you’ve fallen into the self help pit.” Vivi eyed her over the top of her mug. “Please tell me you haven’t started watching cat videos for hours at a time.”

Jude sniffed and sipped from her mug, turning the tv up. It was still the figure skating cartoon, but Jude had figured out that the main character began the series with a minor break down over his dead dog, and would later be coached by his childhood idol. Who he then fell in love with.

It was all very romantic and easy to watch, and Jude knew she might be developing unhealthy habits, but did Vivi have to look at her like that.

It was so judgmental.

“Okay, that’s it. We’re going out!” Vivi patted Jude’s knee and then got to her feet, yelling into the house. “Oak, come down, we’re going to the park!”

“What’s at the park?” Jude asked, scrambling to her feet. Because sure, she could try and fight Vivi… but that took effort, and fresh air probably wasn’t a bad idea at this point.

“For Oak and I? Fresh air and a play park. For you? Park yoga.”

---

“Vivi, have you seen my boots? Ah, never mind. They’re over here!”

Vivi stared at her from where he sat next to Oak, watching some cartoon. Not the figure skater one, although Jude had moved on from that, and was instead working on some comedy about a host club now. It was stupid, but in a fun way. But they weren’t watching that, either.

It was some kid’s cartoon. One of the ones that Oak adored.

“Where are you going?” Vivi asked, while Oak just stared at her over the back of the couch. He reminded her of Cardan in a way, and Jude tried not to wonder, when anger had turned into a pang in the vicinity of her chest that she should not be feeling for the man that had betrayed her.

You betrayed him first.

She didn’t want to think about that, either.

“I got a job.”

“A job?” Vivi repeated, while Oak shoved some of his cereal into his mouth, and the similarity to Cardan, thankfully, vanished. “How did you do that?”

“I applied,” Jude replied. And she’d lied on her resume, and used Heather as a reference, but she wasn’t going to tell Vivi that. Heather still wasn’t talking to her, and she didn’t want to explain to her sister that sometimes, after experiencing Faerie, humans just needed to talk to someone else who had experienced it as well.

For Jude and Heather, that was each other.

The job wasn’t anything fancy. But Jude had developed a bit of a caffeine addiction since arriving on Vivi’s doorstep, and the café that had the strongest coffee in town had been hiring, and it had been kismet.

So she had lied and gotten the job, because baristas also got free coffee during their shifts, and her addiction was starting to become a bit expensive.

“So… this is a thing, then?” Vivi asked ask Jude laced her boots and grabbed her keys, and the cellphone that they had gotten for her two days ago. She’d be able to pay for it herself, now, which would be good. The thought of being entirely reliant on Vivi and her less than legal methods had grated – not because of Jude’s questionable sense of morality, but because it meant relying on anyone but herself. “You’re… really going to stay here?”

“I thought you wanted me to,” Jude replied, her hand hovering over the doorknob, as she looked back at Vivi with a frown. “I mean, how many times did you tell me that I could make a life for myself here?”

“I… I… I guess I just never thought that you’d want to,” Vivi admitted at last, running a hand over Oak’s hair. The boy was watching them with wide, curious eyes. “You were just so determined to play the games of the Faeries, that I guess I never thought you’d leave.”

I didn’t have a choice, did I?

But that was bitter, and left a foul taste on her tongue, and Vivi and Oak didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end. No, the people – the man – who her ire were target at were out of her reach. So Jude pasted on a smile that she hoped passed for almost happy, and opened the door.

“I didn’t realize how great Netflix was then. How can the High Court compare?”

The door shut behind her, with just a bit more force than Jude had intended, before Vivi could respond.

---

It had been three months – ninety days – since Jude had been exiled when there was a knock on the door.

It was evening, on a Friday, and she had the house to herself thanks to a birthday party. Vivi had drawn the short straw, and so was the one who went with Oak, to make sure that he behaved himself, and knew not to use his powers on the humans. It was his first sleepover, and everyone was a little nervous.

Vivi was going out afterwards, so Jude had decided that she would order in delivery, and eat pizza on the couch while rewatching anime and wallowing.

She didn’t allow herself to wallow much, these days. She had earned this wallow.

And now someone was interrupting her by knocking. Which was ridiculous. No one came to their house – at least no one she wanted to talk to. Heather avoided the place, and Vivi’s friends would be out with her later on. It seemed late for Girl Scouts, the one thing she might be willing to open the door for, so she decided to ignore it.

She scowled at her ring, and the way it caught the light from the tv, and sunk as far into the couch as she could. She should throw it away. Cardan had ruined it for her, and now she felt stupid when she wore it, even when she tried to claim it had been hers to begin with.

She should put it on another finger. That’s what she should do.

The sound of the front door had her leaping to her feet, reaching for a knife that wasn’t there. Vivi had made her lock them away in her bedroom, where Oak wouldn’t find them, and apparently Jude had grown complacent, because she hadn’t even thought of trying to smuggle one into the den with her, like she had for the first six weeks.

But there was a baseball bat. It was small – made for a boy Oak’s size – but it could still do some damage. And Jude held it firmly as she stepped towards the door, trying to keep her steps quiet.

A body moved, and Jude leapt at it with the baseball bat. Arms flailed up, and with a quick flick of her wrist, Jude had a light on, illuminating the intruder she held at basesball bat point.

“Hello, Wife,” Cardan said with that irritatingly attractive grin.

Jude swung the bat, and brought it into his ribs with the most satisfying thump she’d ever heard. Even more satisfying was the howl of pain he gave in response.

---

She returned to the front hall ten minutes after hitting Cardan with the bat, to see that he was no longer lying on the floor. Instead, he sat, his back to the wall, and glared at her when she stepped into his line of sight. She had a mug of hot chocolate cupped between her hands; she knew better than to drink coffee this late in the evening, although it had taken her a few rounds of mistakes before she learned the lesson.

She didn’t say a word, just watched him silently over the edge of the mug, taking sips every now and then. Slowly, his scowl faded, replaced by an unreadable expression. Jude wasn’t sure that she cared for that; it was a reminder, of how he had managed to fool her.

A reminder of how he had, somehow, managed to change so much that she had given him blind trust, when she had known better.

“What are you doing here?” he finally asked, levering himself up to his feet. Jude watched the way he moved with a contemplative expression, but while he rubbed his ribs, he seemed to be moving around easily enough. It wasn’t all that surprising; she’d pulled her hit a bit, and the bat wasn’t nearly as heavy duty as the adult version.

“I live here,” Jude replied, after a long enough pause that Cardan was looking somewhat awkward. Good. He should feel awkward. He was the bastard in this situation. “Because you exiled me. From the place where I was kidnapped to after the brutal murder of my parents. I think I’m developing issues, honestly.”

She might have read a couple of self-help books, mostly because they seemed to be everywhere – at the doctor, at job interviews. Just… everywhere. So she had picked them up, and a couple things had resonated. Admittedly, there was nothing in them about what to do if you were a murderer, but if she ignored that aspect of who she was, things resonated.

“You live here?” Cardan demanded, a layer of shock in his voice that he obviously tried to hide. It was comforting, to see that he wasn’t perfect at hiding what he was thinking. Not yet. “After everything, you’re just, what? Giving up? That isn’t you. I expected a knife at my throat weeks ago! And now you say you live here?”

The disbelief that layered his voice by the end of his little rant made Jude grit her teeth. Why was he acting as though she had personally insulted him somehow? He had exiled her. She remembered it, vividly.

It sometimes felt that the nights she didn’t dream about his lips, she dreamt about that moment, when she had been surrounded by laughter, and realized that he had played the biggest joke of all on her.

“Yes, Cardan,” Jude replied, and she loathed the way her shoulders fell, the way she suddenly felt so damn defeated. “I live here now. Congratulations, you win. I’m sure Nicasia eagerly awaits you to celebrate.”

She walked away from him, grabbing a slice from the pizza box and shoving half of it into her mouth. She clicked through the menu on the anime app she had convinced Vivi to get about a month ago, until she found the figure skating one.

She wanted comfort right now.

“I came here expecting to find a Queen. Admittedly, one that wanted my head, but still a Queen. This sad creature… who are you?”

Jude scowled up at Cardan, who loomed over where she had reclined on the couch. Apparently the bat to his ribs hadn’t done that much damage, because he didn’t seem to be struggling to move all that much now.

She should have hit him harder.

“I’m Jude Duarte, Barista,” Jude replied, forcing a smile onto her lips. The next bite she took out of her pizza was hard and vicious, and Cardan actually recoiled just a little, as though worried she’d take a bite from him next.

Cardan strolled casually around the couch, so he could knock open the pizza box, eyeing it with a raised brow. He was clearly trying to hide the way he’d reacted to her just moments before, and Jude wanted to snort in derision. Wasn’t this just like them? Always trying to pretend around each other.

Always lying to each other.

He can’t lie, whispered that insidious voice in the back of her mind.

And that was true. He couldn’t lie to her – not directly. But that hadn’t really stopped him in the end, had it? He’d still managed to fool her.

Stupid, stupid girl.

“You eat this?” he asked, having taken a piece and taken a nibble of the edge, his nose crinkling in distaste.

“Pizza is delicious. You just have no taste,” Jude replied, her voice and body language entirely surly. She still didn’t know why he was there, but she wasn’t going to ask. Instead, she tried to focus her attention around him, and watch her cartoon again, ignoring how he snooped through the contents of the coffee table, beneath the pizza box.

He froze suddenly, his fingers hovering over something, and Jude couldn’t help but look at what had gotten a reaction out of him.

Madoc’s letter, left there unopened to rot.

“What is this?” Cardan demanded, letter in hand, his eyes flashing with rage. Or maybe it was hurt.

That was stupid. Why should Cardan be hurt by anything Jude did? He’d made his opinion of her infinitely clear, hadn’t he?

“A letter from Madoc,” Jude replied shortly. Her fingers itched to wrench it from his grasp, but no. She didn’t play those games anymore. She was a citizen of the human realms; politics were no longer her area. “You can have it.”

He flipped it over, and froze again when he realized the seal was untouched. Jude could feel his gaze boring into her, as if he thought that, if he stared long enough, he’d get whatever answers he had come for.

“It’s getting late,” she said abruptly, because she wasn’t going to be able to ignore him – when had she ever been able to ignore him? So instead, she would remove the problem entirely. “I’m going to bed. Don’t worry, I’m not going to show up and upend your rule by revealing your human Queen. I’m pretty clear on what trying that gets me.”

She pushed herself off the couch, and ignored the pizza. It was a waste of money, of course, leaving it like that, but she couldn’t stay in his presence anymore. Not when there was that maelstrom of hatred and attraction that had made up most of their emotions, only multiplied by multitudes, because she hated him for what he’d done, even as it made him infinitely more attractive… because he had gotten one over on her.

He had played the games that Jude had dove into, and he had played them well, and with him right there, Jude couldn’t deny that she wished he had made the decision to play those games with her, instead of against her.

She fell onto her bed, and stared at the ceiling. It was fifteen minutes, before she heard the footsteps cross the floor downstairs, and then the quiet opening and closing of the front door. She should go down, and lock up behind him. But instead, she just curled onto her side, and buried her face into her pillow.

Damn him.

---

“Hello, what can I – you can’t be here.”

Cardan glanced around, took brief notice of the looks being shot his way, and then raised an imperial brow at her.

“Odd. It appears I am here.”

Jude looked around the tiny café, and just barely bit back a particularly vile series of curses that she’d once heard Vivi use when she had stubbed her toe. Her co-worker, Mel, was giving her the side eye as she handed a latte off to another customer.

“I need to take my break,” Jude said to her, tugging off the apron that made up her uniform.

“Okay,” Mel replied after another look between Jude and Cardan. “Fifteen minutes. The next rush will start before too long, and I’m not dealing with it alone.”

Jude gave a nod, and then tugged Cardan out the door, to sit at one of the little tables on the “patio,” which was really just a sectioned off portion of the sidewalk. She perched on her chair and motioned for him to take the one across from her. The look of distaste on his face was almost worth having to deal with him at all.

Almost.

“Shouldn’t you be back, ruling your kingdom?” she demanded, when he finally sat as well, with heavy, put upon sigh and a glare that said he blamed her for whatever insult he had decided the chair had delivered to him. “After all, isn’t that what you want now? To rule and be king without any strings attached? You won, Cardan. Stop being…”

A brat and rubbing it in, she wanted to say, except that it was entirely in character for Cardan to do exactly that – and could Jude blame him? Hadn’t she taken her own sick bit of glee, knowing that she controlled him and, by extension, the throne?

Since coming to live with Vivi, Jude had started to read the myths of various countries and cultures. When she gotten to the story of Icarus, she’d had to stop when it became clear what was going to happen. The lesson to be learned had hit far too close to home.

It was Jude’s own fault that her wings had melted, but did that mean that she had to let Cardan come and torment her with that knowledge?

“You won,” she finally said at last, refusing to look at him. She felt so, so tired. Seventeen, and she already felt as though she’d lived a hundred lives, and just wanted to be allowed to rest.

Cardan sighed again, and then she felt his fingers on her chin, turning her head so that she was looking directly into his eyes. She had looked into them when they had spoken their vows as well, the ones that tied them in a marriage that might as well not exist. At the time, she’d been… hopeful. She had decided to take that leap of faith, to trust, and she would have sworn that he had been genuine.

“I didn’t have the opportunity to give you credit, did I?” she asked, grasping his wrist and forcing his hand away from her skin. But she couldn’t bring herself to break the contact between them immediately, so she continued to look at him, and she kept her grip on him.

“Credit?” Cardan raised a brow, but he didn’t try to pull his arm away from her grip. “What for?”

“You’re a better actor than I ever realized. You fooled me.” She finally forced her fingers to separate, to move away from his skin, and then clutched her hands together in her lap, so she wouldn’t be tempted to touch him again. “I thought I had you figured out. But it was the opposite, wasn’t it? In the end, I didn’t know you at all, and you knew me entirely too well.”

“Jude…” The way he said her name sounded almost pained, and in another life, another time, she might have believed that there was genuine regret in the way he looked at her. But she wasn’t going to be a fool again – Icarus, flying too close to the sun.

“I don’t know why you’re here, what you want to get out of this… if you’re worried that I’m going to join with Madoc, don’t. You have the letter, remember? And I’m far too aware of what his price would be, for me to join him. I’m done. I’ll live out my life here, among the other humans. It’s where I belong, right?” she wondered if the smile that twisted her lips looked as bitter as it felt. “Besides – the wifi really is great.”

“Jude-”

“Jude, your fifteen minutes are up, and I need you to restock the chocolate syrup.”

Cardan’s eyes flashed at Mel’s interruption, but Jude could feel nothing but relief. He was a reminder of what she had, what she’d almost had, and what she’d ultimately lost. A reminder of her ambition and where it had led her.

And damn her, but even now, after everything, she still wanted to touch him – wanted him to touch her. She’d once compared him to the addiction she’d developed to her poisons, but she had been wrong. Because eventually the hunger for that mixture had gone away. She didn’t think this cursed desire for him ever would.

So instead of a slow break, she would excise this infection entirely. Once he was gone again, she could return to only thinking of him occasionally at night when she missed the land she’d come to think of as home. And eventually, she’d stop doing that as well, once her ties to the mortal world became stronger than her ties to Faerie had ever been.

She was still young. It would happen, given time and distance.

“I’m not giving up so easily, Jude,” Cardan said to her back. Mel had retreated back inside, and Jude paused, her fingers gripping the door tightly. “This isn’t over.”

“I don’t even know what this is,” Jude replied, her shoulders slumping as she kept her back to him. There was more to be said, but she had no idea what that more was, so instead she just retreated.

Maybe that was what she was destined to do for the rest of her life. Retreat, and retreat again, all because she had reached too high and let herself be fooled by a pretty face.

---

Cardan had waited.

For ninety long days, he had sat on that throne and played his part, and waited for Jude, with her clever mind, to pick apart his words and rejoin him. Oh, he fully expected her to come at him with claws out and a knife to his throat.

He had been anticipating it, even.

Instead, he had gotten nothing.

Nothing but listening to Nicasia blather on and try to weasel her way back into his good graces, as if he hadn’t been playing a game of manipulation with someone far better at it than she for months. As if he couldn’t see through her smiles, to the heart of her, which would always beat first for her mother, and then, perhaps, for him second. If he still held appeal.

He’d rather Jude’s sharp words and sharper blades.

But ninety days had passed, and she had remained gone, and a very real fear had begun to set in.

That she had gone to her father, and thrown herself on his mercy.

She was meant to do that, ultimately, but not in earnest. She was supposed to come for Cardan, murderous intent in her eyes, and he would explain that they needed Madoc to believe her to be open to his manipulations and then, finally working together, they would bring him down.

There had been a slight chance, that she might go to Madoc immediately, but Cardan had weighed the chances and decided it unlikely.

In none of his considerations had he ever contemplated this, however. That Jude would… give up?

Simply roll over?

Not his Shadow Queen.

Yet by all appearances, that was exactly what she had done. Retreated to her sister’s home, gotten a job amongst the mortal middle class and… forgotten him?

Attempted to, at least.

When he had appeared on her doorstep he had thought, perhaps, that Madoc hadn’t reached out at all. That the General hadn’t reacted as Cardan had predicted he would, and in doing so driven Jude back to Elfhame and his side.

But no, Madoc had served suitably predictable. It was Jude that had defied his expectations… and perhaps Cardan should have predicted that. When had she ever made this easy?

Perhaps he was to blame as well. Perhaps he should have laid it all out to her, when he had offered her a shared crown. But the realization that she had killed Balekin… it had been a sharp reminder that his Queen could lie. That she had lied – right to his face, on multiple occasions. And while he hadn’t truly blamed her, part of him had wanted her to know that same pain that he had felt, when she had helped Oak place a crown on his head.

And even more… part of him had wanted her to look at him and see a partner. To see someone as clever and capable as she was. He had wanted Jude, with her clever mind and incredible talent, to view him as an equal.

And now he sat – a king without his queen, and Jude unwilling to hear him.

He thought she might finally view him as an equal… but one she had no interest in partnering with.

“You look kind of pathetic.”

Cardan scowled as Vivi took a seat on the park bench next to him. He liked this park. It was peaceful. He never got peace, not anymore, and it left him loathe to leave this place where he’d finally found some.

He would have to, though. He couldn’t remain absent much longer, not with enemies everywhere, and Madoc actively plotting against him. If he stayed much longer, he would find that he had lost the throne entirely.

Not long ago, that wouldn’t have bothered him – he would have welcomed it, even. Now… now…

“I’m not in the mood, Vivienne,” he said, actively avoiding those cat eyes. He’d always liked Vivienne – had felt that her devil-may-care attitude was closely aligned with his own. And she had never seemed superior to him, not as Jude had seemed. But now, she wasn’t at all the sister he wanted to see. “I’m not here to bother Oak.”

“Yeah, not the sibling I’m worried about when it comes to you.” He heard her shuffle on the bench, and a quick side eyed glance showed him that she apparently had no plans to leave any time soon. “I thought you hated Jude. You tormented her enough.”

“Odd. I didn’t think you were aware of anything that happened in Elfhame. Not unless it affected you directly.”

Vivienne didn’t say anything immediately, and Cardan felt a small, smug smirk curve his lips. If she had thought he would be kind to her because they’d been somewhat friendly in the past… well, times changed. And he was the King now.

He had no need to be kind to anyone. Not if he chose otherwise.

“I’ve begun to realize that,” she said at last, and Cardan had to admit to some surprise at the sudden show of self-awareness. That had never been Vivienne’s strong suit, after all. “I’ve begun to realize a lot of things about that place, and how I acted while I was there. And about the things I didn’t notice. You loved to torment her when she was there, to try and drive her away… so why come and torment her here, too? Didn’t you get exactly what you wanted?”

“You made a valiant attempt at observing others,” Cardan said at last, trying to figure out a way to keep his own counsel that wouldn’t come too close to a lie. “But you remain terrible at it. I suppose you can continue to practice, but it will not be on me much longer. I have to return soon.”

“Cardan-”

“Leave it, Vivienne. It’s between Jude and I. Keep out of it.”

She finally stood, and he nearly let out a breath of relief. But rather than immediately walk away, she came to stand in front of him, drawing his eyes up to her own at last.

“Are you in love with my sister?” She demanded, and as if remembering right after that she had two sisters, the damn woman had to qualify, “Jude, I mean. Are you in love with Jude?”

“Why would you ever think that?” Cardan asked, with the carefully blank expression that he was becoming increasingly talented at dawning.

“That’s not a no,” Vivienne observed thoughtfully, her foot tapping at the ground lightly. “She’s human, you know.”

“I am aware.” Painfully so.

“Hmmm,” was all the response he got, and then Vivienne left, as though she hadn’t asked a question that all but left him devastated.

Because Cardan had been very careful not to label this thing, this feeling, that made him so determined to have Jude at his side. He had thought of his desire for her, his appreciation for her clever mind, and refused to delve any deeper.

And then Vivienne – careless, thoughtless Vivienne – had asked him the question so easily, as if the fact that he couldn’t say no hadn’t left his world completely shaken.

He buried his face in his hands and refused to look at the park that had lost all its peace.

---

“Why is there a bag packed in my room?”

Jude leaned against the door to the kitchen, watching as Vivi got Oak his supper. It looked like chicken fingers, and Jude hoped that she had made something else for their older, more mature tastes.

She was kind of sick of chicken fingers.

“Because, we both know you don’t want to be here,” Vivi replied, ruffling Oak’s hair with one hand, and pouring him some milk with the other. “So I figured I’d be the big sister and kick you out.”

“You can’t kick me out. I’ve started to pay half the rent.”

“My name is on the lease. I can so kick you out.”

“And where am I supposed to go?” Jude demanded, entering the kitchen to plant her hands on the island. Oak watched the two of them with wide eyes, even as he shoved a chicken finger in his mouth. It was sort of gross. They’d have to work on the concept of chewing with the mouth closed.

“Well, I figured you’d return to Elfhame. Cardan is starting to act pretty sad over the whole thing. It’s embarrassing, really.”

“In case you forgot – Cardan is the one who banished me. So screw his feelings.”

“I envy you that, you know,” Vivi said, almost wistfully as she leaned against the island across from Jude. “That ability to lie. I wish I could say screw Heather until I actually meant it. But us Faeries… we don’t have that luxury. He loves you.”

“Cardan loves pissing me off and his own misery. He’s not capable of loving another person.”

“There you go, lying again.”

Jude pressed her lips together and glared at her sister. She didn’t want to hear this, not when Cardan was still there, a ghost, haunting her every thought. Maybe in another three months she’d have forgotten how he made her feel enough to hear it.

She doubted it, but maybe.

“I’m tired,” she said at last, pushing away from the island again. “And I’m done with this conversation. If you don’t want me living here, fine. I bet Heather would help me find a place.”

The words were deliberate, and meant to hurt. The way that Vivi stiffened, her eyes widened, made Jude feel a bitter sort of glee. Then it was replaced by her own misery, because Vivi looked so sad, and wasn’t she tired of hurting the people she cared about?

“You talk to Heather?” Vivi asked, her voice small, and Jude swallowed, rubbing her arm.

“She’s not ready,” she said after a moment. “To talk to you. Not yet. But… I think she will be. When she is, you need to be ready to listen, Vivi. Really listen.” Jude looked down, and then met her sisters gaze, giving her a small smile. “She asks me about you, almost every time we talk. You don’t do that, if you don’t care.”

Vivi nodded after a moment, breaking their stare to look down at the countertop.

“You’re always welcome here,” she said at last. “You know that. But we both know you’re not happy here, Jude. And I said you could be, but I was wrong. Because I didn’t listen. I’m listening now. Maybe… maybe you should listen too?”

Jude shrugged and retreated to her room.

She didn’t sleep at all that night, Vivi’s words on constant repeat in her mind.

---

The crown felt heavier even than usual.

After the near peace of the mortal world, returning to Elfhame had been a harsh reminder that despite their inability to lie, his people were far less honest than the mortals. He would find some exhilaration in that again, but for the moment he just felt tired.

The Roach and The Bomb had given him their latest on the machinations of the court, and what they could determine of Madoc’s movements, and his time with them had been by far the best of his day, even if they’d had nothing particularly good to report.

Now, he just wanted to sleep, and let his body fall, boneless, to his bed.

He heard a soft step, and a shadow passed over him, and then something cold and sharp was pressed against his neck.

He opened his eyes, and they clashed with the brown that haunted him every time he closed his eyes. He had only been back for three days, and already the dreams had begun again. Vivienne had been right. He was pathetic.

“What will you whisper to me this time?” he asked the dream Jude. “What promises will you make me tonight, that will be broken come dawn?”

“That’s creepy,” Jude replied after a beat of silence. “I mean, that is Dateline levels of creepy.”

The Jude of his dreams had never once called him “creepy,” and Cardan had absolutely no idea what a Dateline was.

“Jude?” he asked after a moment, unable to keep his confusion from his voice.

“You seem surprised to see me, husband,” Jude replied, and now it was like one of his dreams, where she gave him a smile as sharp as her knife, and called him husband just like that. “Weren’t you the one who invited me back? I suppose it’s not an actual pardon… but since I’m the crown as much as you, I guess I can always pardon myself. That’s how you worded it, wasn’t it?”

The knife cut in a little deeper, making actual pain flare, but Cardan didn’t care at all. Because the pain, with the odd remark from earlier, all meant this was no dream.

It was Jude, in his room, in his castle - in their castle – exactly where she belonged.

“I want you to help me destroy your father,” Cardan said, the words he’d wanted to speak ever since she had left, and he’d awaited her return so they could finally get started. Jude stared at him, and then, finally, pulled the still unopened letter from Madoc out of her shirt.

“Okay,” she said at last. “I guess we should start with this.”

And that was probably when they should have begun to plot. But Cardan had given up on her, and that had, of course, been when she had appeared. And so he pulled her down, pressing his lips to hers, and he felt like a man drowning.

He would never get used to the feel of her. Or the taste. Or the way she responded so eagerly, her hungry gasp lost against his lips and tongue.

“You pulled a dirty trick on me,” she muttered in between their kisses.

“Like the one you pulled on me?” he responded, and they pulled back, staring at one another, and he wondered if his own eyes were as dark and stormy as hers.

“You’re not the spoiled idiot I assumed you were,” she admitted grudgingly, and Cardan laughed, because for the first time in… ever, he thought he might be feeling something close to joy.

“Help me destroy your father,” he said at last. “Be my partner, Jude Duarte. This place is tedious and boring with the Shadow Queen to bring it to life.”

“And when that’s done?” she demanded, her fingers grasping at his hair, giving it a sharp little tug that made him want her more than anything.

“Then be my Queen,” he replied. “Until Oak can be King. Or even longer. And once that no longer appeals, just… be mine.”

Her tongue darted out, licking her lips, and he thought he might have rendered her speechless. Wasn’t that the most surprising turn of events?

“Only if you’ll be mine,” she finally answered.

And then they didn’t speak at all. Not for a long while. Not until their lips were kiss swollen and they should have been falling asleep, both of them exhausted after long days. But sleep didn’t happen either.

The High King of Faerie and his Shadow Queen had a plot to create.

#Jurdan #Jurdan fic #The Folk of the Air #Jude Duarte #Cardan Greenbriar

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land-of-enchanted · 4 years

Text

The Wicked King By Holly Black

Right before Queen of Nothing (QON) came out, I started reading/listening to Th Wicked King by Holly Black since I had her next book on pre-order. I actually had a really good experience with the audiobook because the issue I had with the reading the physical copy of The Cruel Prince was that at a certain point It got slow for me.

I ended up giving the The Cruel Prince 4 out of 5 stars, however the The Wicked King from was a 5 out of 5 stars. I think that has to be the fact that I listen to the audiobook instead of reading. I had a friend that had the issue of It getting slow and she read the physical book

******************Spoilers Ahead **********************

While listen to the audiobook I did annotate my copy a little bit since I had It front of me for the most part.

One of my favorite quotes was from Madoc (which I never thought that would happen) and It was “We get power by taking It.”

I just thought It was such a powerful quote, because It shows how he thinks. I don’t think we get a lot how Madoc’s head works, but when we do I just think it’s really interesting.

Another thing I really enjoyed was Jude in this book. She was just a badass while she pretended Queen of the Undersea could control her and then betraying her. When she killed Balkin that was awesome.

Carden and Jude were literally everything. I have no idea how Holly is going to get them together since those two can barely be 10 minutes together without trying to either kill each other. I really hope they end up together somehow because I really liked them. Their whole relationship is really confusing. One minute I think they are going to start being together and then the next minute they hate each other. Can they seriously just pick one?

I usually don’t really like this will they or won't they be together, but Carden and Jude reasons for not being together is just as important as the reasons why they should be together. Which makes It interest.

Plot wise I enjoyed the book as well. I like how she could have control out of Carden. I found that interesting and she would be an amazing ruler. I like how she used Carden’s mother to trick Balkin to believe the things that were going on.

Jude and Carden finally kiss again in the book (They kissed in book one right? please let me know I can’t remember). I loved that scene so much. I loved how he asked her to keep telling him that she hated him. It was not a steamy sex scene like the ones I have read in A Court of Mist and Fury, however I liked It. I felt like It fix those characters better.

In that scene in chapter 15 was my favorite quote from Jude.

“...That I like him better than I’ve ever liked anyone and that of all the things he's ever done to me, making me like him so much is by far the worst.”

That quote hit me so hard. Like I was like

It’s was too relatable.

At the beginning of the book, Jude learned that someone had betrayed her and she didn’t know who. I actually predicted It would have been The Ghost. I knew It would behind from the moment I read that quote. He was always the one right next to her, and helping her. That was kind of obvious to me but I didn’t bother me that I guessed It right.

The last thing I actually liked and hated about the book was the fact that Carden and Jude are married.

I liked It because my ship becoming cannon... kind of.

However, what I didn't like was the fact that she lost the ability to control him because fo that she was unable to to stop him from exiling her from fairy land.

If you are still here to the end of this long post.

Thank you.

I’m going to be be posting more reviews and book related content. Hope you enjoy.

-H

#the wicked king #the cruel prince #the queen of nothing #holly black #jude duarte #carden greenbriar #jude x cardan #cardan x jude #The Folk of the air series #books #bookstagram #bookish #booklr

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sage-nebula · 5 years

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9 and 10 for JuMilla, 1 and 7 for Keitor :)

JuMilla:

9.) Favorite aspect of them/their relationship dynamics?

It’s been a long time, but I think it’s the way they’re inspired to just give their all for each other. Like in many ways they’ll do that anyway in just about any situation (especially Milla; she will always do The Most if she feels it must be done), but they’re truly each other’s inspiration and motivation when you get right down to it. Milla decided to sacrifice herself because she wanted to be the Maxwell that Jude loved. Jude punched Old Man Maxwell (basically a god) in the face for Milla. And not only that, but they each uphold their own duties in their own respective worlds because they want to be the person that the other one loves. (And, again, because it’s the right thing to do, but their love for each other is at the forefront.) They’re both capable of miracles, both magical and scientific, but it’s their relationship which inspires them to go the extra mile and I really like that about them.

10.) Least favorite aspect of them/their relationship dynamics? (Can be headcanon)

Probably the way they have so much trouble actually spitting out how they feel. Milla couldn’t bring herself to tell Jude that she suspected / knew that she wasn’t really Maxwell before her sacrifice because she was afraid that he’d reject her / she’d be letting him down. Jude could never bring himself to tell Milla he loved her to her face for similar reasons. They’re a bit better about this in Xillia 2, but even there they lack a true goodbye, and I think it’s because as strong as they both are, they’re terrible at confronting the things that hurt, which leads to there still being some distance between them (figuratively) despite the fact that we know they’ve at least kissed thanks to the waterfall scene.

Keitor:

1.) If you had to change the pairing’s very first meeting, how would you change it?

I mean, I don’t know that we’d even call what they had in canon as a “first meeting” considering that they never formally introduced themselves to one another, haha. This is something I was salty about for a while, but given how JDS and LM are both absolutely terrible at writing relationships, in the end I think it was a blessing. They would have just destroyed Keitor had they actually done anything with it. At least this way it remains untainted.

That said, it really depends on if we want a canon compliant universe or not. If we’re going canon compliant, then I would have had Lotor join the Blade of Marmora at the end of season four, and once there he would have sought out Keith given that Keith is half-galra, just like him and his generals. Keith would have been incredibly wary, of course (but also would have been the one most arguing to give Lotor a chance and hear him out after Lotor literally saved his life and all), but slowly a relationship would have formed between them. I’ve actually written fic of that here.

As for Paradigm Shift, their meeting there is completely different given how much of an AU it is. I don’t want to spoil too much since I want to actually write out that fic someday, but since I don’t know when I’ll actually get around to writing that fic, and since I’ve dropped plenty of references to it in other fics in the series that I have posted, I’ll just go ahead and say:

In Paradigm Shift, Keith is raised by the Blade of Marmora until he’s three years old, at which point he’s kidnapped by the Empire (assumed dead by the Blade) and taken to the planet Revender. Revender is an Empire-controlled planet near the Empire’s borders, where weapons (both physical and chemical) are manufactured for Empire use. More specifically, it’s an Empire-controlled planet where part-galra are taken / imprisoned / exiled to in order to be used as test subjects for the chemical and physical weapons manufacturing. (Though there are also slums there where part-galra live “freely,” having gone there on their own volition back when there were lies spread about Revender that it was a planet friendly to part-galra, where they could live without facing the discrimination they faced in the rest of the universe. Sort of a, “We, the Empire, don’t like you, but if you stay here on this planet you won’t be bothered.” Yeah, that was a damnable lie, but one purposefully spread to lure part-galra who couldn’t be “legally” arrested there.) Aside from the slums, there are numerous facilities on Revender where tests are carried out on part-galra in order to develop poisons, antidotes, and other scientific breakthroughs, as well as tests to make sure that new weapons are functioning as they should. Theses tests can be anything from giving a part-galra a weapon and having them try to make it through a very deadly obstacle course, to making them fight other part-galra in arenas. Either-or.

Anyway, Keith was taken there when he was three (and the trauma of how that happened wiped his memory of everything before that point). Since he was so little he was originally purely used for scientific testing (poisons, antidotes, but they also took keen interest in his ability to sense quintessence), but when he was around nine he was transferred to the weapons testing division. This is, incidentally, how he met Acxa, and he met her first. She was born and raised in the slums, but volunteered to go to the facility in place of her elderly grandmother, who had raised her after her father was taken to Revender when she was little, and the deaths of her mother and brothers. Note that Acxa didn’t really know what happened at the facilities at the time since she was only about seven herself, but she knew that her father never came back, and that her grandmother was old, and that she loved her grandma and wanted to protect and help her, so she volunteered to go in her grandma’s place instead. Anyway, two years after that Acxa and Keith were pitted against each other in the arena, and Keith got the upperhand but pulled back without killing her, so Acxa turned the tables and very nearly killed him, but spared him just as he spared her. And that set the course for their friendship / found family.

Anyway, since I came up with all of this before anything about Lotor’s backstory was revealed, in Paradigm Shift Lotor is not only around the same age as Keith and Acxa, but he himself was exiled to Revender when he was twelve for “educational purposes” (i.e. for his dayak to abuse him until he was an obedient, monstrous pawn for his father). Lotor wasn’t in one of the slums or facilities, but was instead in the only nice manor on the planet, i.e. a gilded cage. Lotor was given a tour of the facilities, though, as both a “this is how we keep the Empire well stocked with weapons” deal and a “remember that you’re a half-breed yourself, you should consider yourself lucky you’re not here, but remember you could be” type of deal. It was during one of those tours, though, that he was able to sit in on arena battles, and he saw both Keith and Acxa during these fights and was impressed by them and started to formulate a plan of escape.

One year after that (when they’re all thirteen), Lotor disguised himself, escaped his manor, and sneaked into the arena and put himself in among that day’s test subjects / combatants. He ended up going up against Keith, and though he obviously didn’t die (since Keith always tried very hard to spare his opponents), he did lose and Keith actually drew blood. Far from being upset about this, Lotor was actually exhilarated to see that he was right about his feeling about Keith before, and removed his helmet to make a speech in the arena about how, see, part-galra were just as exemplary as any, this form of subjugation was wrong and they should all work together to build a glorious future, et cetera, pretty similar to the speech he makes in his first appearance in canon. Unlike in canon, though, here reality ensued and it went terribly wrong. Far from being inspired by his speech of equality and unity, the audience were put-off, disgusted, and by and large of the opinion that even royal blood clearly couldn’t make Lotor any better than other “half-breeds.” Empire soldiers swarmed the arena and accosted Keith for daring to harm the crown prince, and very nearly executed him on the spot (while Acxa was screaming for him and restrained by other prisoners in the background) for the crime, something that Lotor only just barely managed to prevent by pulling rank through his own confusion and fear that this had all gone so terribly wrong. Keith was still detained, though, and Lotor’s dayak marched him out of the arena by his hair, a fact Keith didn’t miss despite his own predicament. Lotor’s punishment that evening was not gentle. He still has the scars all down his back.

At any rate, once Lotor healed enough to do so, he escaped his manor again one night and went to the facilities, where he located Keith and Acxa and told him that he had plans to leave the planet and start a revolution and he wanted both of them to come with him since he was so impressed by their skills in the arena. Acxa was against this, because she blamed him for Keith’s near execution and didn’t trust him one bit, thinking this had to be a trick given that he was the prince. (And since his stunt had also led to some of the other prisoners on their block being executed to send a message that his words should not inspire an uprising, keep in mind she was not the only one there with a negative opinion of him at this point.) Keith, however, argued in favor of going with him since it was a chance to get the hell out of there, and also pointed out to her that it was two against one so, if it did end up being a trick or trap, they could overpower him and then escape that way. (Note: Lotor gave them space for this conversation so he didn’t hear Keith say any of that.) Acxa made Keith promise that he meant what he said about turning on Lotor if Lotor got shady, and Keith agreed, so the two of them told Lotor they accepted his deal and ran. (Keith wanted to free the others as well, but Lotor and Acxa both pointed out that’d put the rest of the prisoners in danger if they did, so the three of them agreed to liberate Revender’s prisoners at a later date.) It was chaotic and supremely dangerous, but ultimately the three of them managed to steal a janky transport ship that Lotor had scoped out and make it off the planet. (This, by the by, is the same piece of garbage they have when they meet Zethrid for the first time, haha, the one she keeps roasting. It may be a piece of shit, but it lasts them a long time.) Obviously, the promise that Keith and Acxa made never came to fruition, and Keith himself has long since forgotten about it (though Acxa never has), but nonetheless, though they agreed to work together, it was a tenuous truce in the beginning, very much Keith & Acxa + Lotor, if that makes sense. (Though think for a moment how far they’ve come. They went from Keith and Acxa mutually agreeing to take Lotor out and bolt if he got shady, to both of them being supremely protective of him in future stories like The Ultimate Reward and Revolutionary, standing on either side of him and even stepping a bit in front, weapons drawn, when necessary. You know what that is? Growth.

Oh, and also Keith falls in love with Lotor, but you know. That’s just a bonus.)

7.) Favorite headcanon?

I have so many it’s hard to keep track, haha. Off the top of my head and in no particular order:

Keith can sense quintessence, and over time (at Lotor’s suggestion) he trains that ability of his and gets to the point where he can pinpoint specific quintessence signatures if he knows a person well enough. Lotor’s is one of the absolute easiest for him to trace given their bond.

Lotor gets cold easily, but Keith is naturally warm, so Lotor often hugs Keith to him to share some of that body heat. Keith doesn’t mind at all.

No matter the reality, Lotor always verbally confesses first (though usually without using the words “I love you”), while Keith always makes the first physical move. It’s just the way they are.

Lotor gets supremely excited by new historical finds and will often go on about them at length to Keith, who isn’t too interested in history but does love seeing Lotor so excited. Even though Keith isn’t interested in the stories themselves, he always remembers them and usually gets Lotor presents related to them somehow on holidays. The fact that Keith remembers the things Lotor told him like that means more to Lotor than the actual physical item itself does.

Lotor cannot lie to Keith, and Keith does not let Lotor lie to himself. What I mean by this is, Keith can always tell when Lotor is lying, and calls him on it. And if Lotor lies to himself (e.g. by not accepting that Haggar is, in fact, his biological mother), Keith will push the issue until Lotor accepts it because he knows that denial will only hurt Lotor more later on down the line and he refuses to let that happen. The fact that Keith can and does call Lotor on his bullshit when necessary is part of what makes him such an invaluable part of Lotor’s life, and what therefore makes Lotor love him so much (even if he sometimes gets frustrated in the moment).

#yumexhanabi #keitor #21 questions #series: paradigm shift #i feel kind of bad about spoiling so much about Keith's prequel stories but at the same time idk when i'll actually sit down to finish writ #so i might as well give the general gist so people can understand all the references to Revender in the other fics anyway #besides even if you know the general basics of how it goes down #you don't know the specifics #so it could still be enjoyable nonetheless #especially since there's a LOT i left out even with this #yume-x-hanabi

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itsgalaxy29 · 5 years

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The Wicked King Review

This book was absolutely fanomable. It exceeded my expectations and desires completely. In my opinion, the book had excellent pacing; there was never a dull moment, like some might feel there was in The Cruel Prince. The plot was intriguing, especially the political aspect. It really captured what it is like to have to adapt to a shift in power as well as alliances. Jude’s character is one of the strongest YA protagonists I’ve read in a long time. Her movitavions are completely her, as well as her many flaws. The development of all the characters and relationships was also done very well to a point I could see the dynamics change when usually I don’t notice anything at all. This was a 5/5 star read, and even though it’s only the beginning of 2019, I can tell this is going to be one of my absolute favorites of the year.

Spoilers Below

Political aspect

In the beginning of the novel, Jude is running Elfhame by herself, with no help from Cardan or the council. And Jude is perfect for that role. She is ambition and at a huge disadvantage being human. But she is power hungry to a fault. And fights every second for that power, no matter the cost.

“I am playing the High King in her little pageant” page 32.

It was so interesting to watch Jude plan and be a true ruler from the background. She negotiated, tricked, deceived. So much so that Cardan never truly believed he was king. Jude was the Queen of Elfhame all along. She truly learned that “power is much easier to acquire than it is to hold on to” (6).

But to see her be a true match for Madoc once again was so satisfying. Jude is constantly underestimated, and while that might play to her advantage, it was super frustrating to watch. When Macod found out she had been commanding Cardan all along? Perfection. He won’t underestimate her again, that’s for sure.

Plus the fact that he is now not sworn to any court scares me. He could attack at any turn.

Now the undersea is a whole different story. They are the constant threat in this book that Jude is rightly obsessing over. The entire time, Jude tries to outmaneuver and protect the throne. Is Balekin involved? How can I manipulate that connection? What do I have to do to protect Oak? “Someone you trust has already betrayed you”. The threat of the undersea is there, and will still be there in the Queen of Nothing. I look forward to seeing how it all plays out in the end.

Jude

I love Jude so much. She is one of my favorite characters because of how real she is. Yes she’s clever and ambitious and sometimes even cruel, but we see her weaknesses clearly. She is human in a faerie realm. She has a hunger for power. She is alone. She is vulnerable. It’s not like she’s unstoppable. We know her to be self-conscious in Queen of Mirth and afraid in the Undersea. For once, a character is portrayed like an actual person.

When she is in the undersea Jude knows she is “almost broken” (241). There is no one for her to talk to and she is truly isolated from everyone she knows. Despite this, she is resilient. She

Survives the undersea, and recovers. She kills Balekin, a prince of fairie, because she outwits him.

So “let’s assume [she] know[s] everything… Everything. Always” (53).

Cardan

In this book, we get to know Cardan a little bit more. Why he is so cruel and what he is truly capable of. I really appreciated seeing this other aspect to his character, as it makes him more complex than before. Throughout the whole book we are told Cardan is actually really clever, which I knew to some extent, but the ending really showed me how clever he really is. Cardan got everything he wanted by actually wanting it in the first place; by having actual desires. This is a huge development from the first book, when he had no motivation to do anything productive; only committed cruelties. But now as the High King he puts his mind to work. He gets himself unbound from Jude, accesses to all the powers of Elfhame, and manipulatives everyone in the process, something we haven’t seen him do before without violence.

I also think this book further establishes Cardan’s beliefs and own morals. He will not be a murderer. No matter what. He sees this as his one virtue, so when this virtue is inherently broken by Jude when she murdered Balekin after him specifically telling her not to not only breaks him, but turns him furious.

Jurdan

Do I even have to say anything? Everything was perfection. Everything. The Wicked King starts off with them completely at odds with each other. They both hate each other. Cardan for the betrayal of the Cruel Prince and Jude because of her feelings and also how difficult he makes it to be the crown she is saving for her brother. But as the novel progresses, their relationship develops into mutual compliance and even care. “I am shaking, I realize. The aftereffects of believing someone tried to assassinate Cardan, of realizing he could have died” (52).

He gets under her skin in ways no one else can. They match, in a twisted way. Both are extremely clever and vicious, but neither trusts easy. That’s why it’s so significant when they start to trust one another, when Cardan put Jude before his people, Cardan especially; “I trust you. I trusted you” (300).

Of course the sexual tension is off the charts. And of course it starts at the very beginning of the book with this beauty: “Kiss me again… Kiss me until I am sick of it” (57). And pages 143-146. I don’t even know what to say. It was written beautifully and encapsulated the atmosphere perfectly.

“I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you so much that sometimes I can’t think of anything else.” Remind you of anything? Jude Jude Jude Jude Jude…

And this line: “of all the things he’s ever done to me, making me like him so much is by far the worst.” This line is their relationship in 20 words. They obviously deeply care for each other, but they both hate these feelings with such intensity that it isolates them from each other.

Totally off topic, but when Jude goes to the castle for the first time after getting back from the undersea and Cardan thinks someone is trying to kill him, but immediately relaxes when he realizes it’s Jude and then pull her onto the bed on top of him?? Amazing. (264)

Taryn and Locke

Now, I hate Locke as much as anyone else does, but I also find his character so fascinating. He creates stories for his own amusement and always figures out how to make it more interesting. He is cunning and unrelenting. He has a way to make people want to be around him and do what he pleases. That’s why Jude like him and why Taryn married him. Designing the entirely of the Queen of Mirth was for his own pleasure. He wanted to see Cardan’s and Jude’s reaction because he was curious.

And for the first time in this book, we see Locke’s weaknesses. He needs to be in control of the story and he can get jealous very easily. He attacks Jude for this reason. He needs to win the control back from Jude afraid she terrified him.

Taryn on the other hand I don’t find compelling in the slightest bit. I understand her motives; Why she married locke. Why she distances herself from Jude in the Cruel Prince. Why she so desperately needs to fit in. But in spite of all this, I’m still so angry with her. She already betrayed Jude once, and then she does it again? In favor of the man who killed her mother and father and going against her twin sister. I get that she needs to adapt and fit into fairie, but if she so easily betrayed the person who she loves the most who’s to say she’s capable of loyalty at all?

The Twists/ Queen of Nothing Predictions

The ghost’s betrayal really threw me off. I loved him and I was shocked and hurt by his commitment to a dead Prince. It caused Jude suffering a month’s torment in the undersea and in the end made everything fall to pieces (at least for Jude).

The marriage. Oh my god. That came out of nowhere but I was so happy when it happened. Jude is technically the official Queen of Elfhame now. And Jurdan is married! Married!

Now the exile to the mortal realm crushed my soul. Cardan planned it out really well, I’ll give him that. He used Jude’s own ring, got himself out of the contract, and tricked Jude all in one. I’ve seen a lot of people saying that Cardan did this to protect Jude, but I don’t think that’s the case. I think he found out about Jude murdering Balekin and decided after that. The idea might have been in his head for a while; in fact we know it was because he states he needs to make his own decisions and be the actual King of faerie. But I think he decided to what extend to really do that moments before doing so.

As for how Jude will get back, I think she will use the crown Grimsen had built and find a loophole in the exile. I’m really hoping it doesn’t take her that long to do so though. I need Jude to get back to faerie and be back in her element as soon as possible. Queen of Nothing is the last book and there’s so much that needs to be told. Jude and Cardan have to development their relationship again. They have to figure out the ruling situation. They have to deal with the Undersea. So many things to do in so little time!

Overall, I loved this book so much. I cannot wait for the final installment to see how it ends.

Sidenote: Vivi needs to get her shit together. Telling Heather about faerie literally seconds before going there was not the right move. But I’m rooting for them.

#the wicked king #the wicked king spoilers #jude duarte #cardan greenbriar #jurdan #the cruel prince #the cruel prince spoilers

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beeirifulmer · 2 years

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Letters Pt.2

Warning// This contains all book spoilers. And the letters to Jude are revealed.

Prompt: if Jude DID receive the letters.

"Jude you have another one," Heather walked over to her girlfriends sister, who was watching So You Think You Can Dance.

"Cool, just set it beside the other two please." Jude responded, never taking her eyes off the TV as the girl spun in circles to the point Jude became dizzy herself. She found it fascinating how people can dance in different ways, she always danced with her father in the kitchen, but both her parents knew the Elfhame ways. She remembered Taryn dancing with her while Vivi and Oak would dance in the living room and Oriana and Madoc would sit and watch with smiles.

Back when their family was more like a family than a war.

"Who are they even from?" Heather did as Jude requested and sat beside her. Perhaps Cardan had glamoured the letters before he sent them, cause it was obvious who it was from just from the envelope.

"My.." Jude trailed off, what was she to say? "My ex-boyfriend, he kicked me out and now he's sticking with letters instead of texting." Jude lied right through her teeth. Well, she wasn't completely false. Her husband kicked her out of their land, and is resorting to letters to tease her and trick her.

"Ouch!" Heather hissed, Jude couldn't tell if it was a reaction to her situation, or because the partner almost dropped his girl on the TV. "That's gotta suck, this is why I'm gay."

Jude couldn't help but snort at the comment, perhaps Jude should go for another team. Venture out and get a girlfriend. Vivi seemed more happy with a female than Oriana seemed with Madoc, and than Jude seemed with Cardan.

"Maybe I'll switch," Jude grinned as she joked, Heather shooting a grin back as she pulled her knees to her chest, hugging them as she continued to watch the show with Jude.

Jude kept glancing at the small stack of letters, two opened one unopened. She thought about maybe reading it, but she decided against it. She was still telling herself it was all a trick. After all, why would he ask her to come back after he married then exiled her?

"Sir, someone is here to see you."

Cardan's head jolted up when a guard stoos at his door. "Did they say who they were?"

"No, but they said they were a friend and you'd know them." Cardan's heart jumped. Was it her?? Was it really her? Cardan stood up and made his way downstairs, opening the door to see her face.

It was her face.

But it was not Jude.

"Good afternoon," Taryn began, Cardan felt disappointed, holding back shutting the door in her face and walking away. "Locke said he had left some things here, would it be alright if I grabbed them?"

Taryn stood off, in all the years Cardan has known the twins, Taryn always stood tall and polite. She never shielded herself unless Cardan was going at her again, in which she convulsed to submit. But this time was different, she switched glances and such, picking at the skin of her fingers.

"You may be able to lie," Cardan started, "but you are horrible at concealing it. What are you truely here for." His eyes narrowed at her, unable to hide the fact he was staring taking in the features they did share. Their eyes, whether Jude's had a more murderous meaning behind them. Their lips, the only different thing Cardan could find was that his body did not react the same way it did whenever he saw Judes', imagining them dragging over his body and beg him to take her.

"Can I come inside, I fear people will hear me." Taryn questioned, brows furrowing softly. Another difference, Jude would have walked in not needing an invitation.

"If you must." Cardan cocked a brow at the least-interesting twin (in his opinion, at least) before he moved, letting her into the big house Cardan would rather be sharing with his wife.

The girl entered, fiddling with her fingers as Cardan closed the door and crossed his arms, awaiting for her to speak.

"Why did you exile Jude?" She finally asked, and Cardan frowned immediately.

"You came all this way from Locke's manor, just to ask me about your sister who wants nothing to do with you?" Cardan asked, the question coming out harsher than he meant. "Wait," the King stoppes before she could answer, "did she send you? Please, be honest, Taryn." Cardan stepped forward, interested in what she could say.

"What? No, I haven't heard from her in a long time. I myself am just curious. What could she have possibly done so wrong that you exiled her?"

Cardan's excitement bursted once again. She was just curious. Not even sent by Jude. Cardan went cold, "that is none of your business." Taryn looked up at him, Cardan could tell she wanted to say more, but instead she bid her goodbyes and left.

Once the door was shut, Cardan walked to his room again. His boots hit the floor with momentum as he got angrier and again more frusterated. He was sick of this, sick of her ignoring him. He was sure she was recieving them, but why was she ignoring them? Was she truely that angry?

Jude,

Here we go again.

Cardan kept it short, short and full of frusteration.

Not even responding to my missives is ridiculous and beneath you and I hate it.

Cardan

That was all he had to say that day. Hoping maybe some threats would being her back to prove she was not some coward, for she wasn't. She did not need to prove it, that's what Cardan feared she knew.

Cardan sat at his baywindow, looking up at the sky. The stars were pointing many directions, a few Cardan did not know because he rarely paid attention in class. The moon was a beautiful silver, shining down to glimmer on his pale face.

He imagined what it would be like, be like to look forward and see Jude in front of him watching the moon. Explaining the stars to him and always bringing up that 'he would know, if he paid attention' Cardan would have made a comment along the lines of 'I was too busy looking at you.' Be like to see the moon on her mortal skin, her collarbone exposed and a silk dress drapped over her body.

Cardan brought himself back to when they shared one of their kisses. A blade against his throat and her lips against his, Cardan didn't care how far the blade dug into his neck at that moment. He was kissing Jude Duarte, and that was all he thought of.

With a sigh, Cardan sat back down at the window, a paper and pen now in hand as he started yet another letter.

To the High Queen of Elfhame,

Above me is the same silvery moon that shines down on you. Looking at it makes me recall the glint of your blade pressed against my throat and other romantic moments.

I do not know what keeps you from returning to the High Court -- whether it is vexation of me, or whether, having spent time in the mortal world, you have come to believe that a life free from the Folk is better than one ruling over them.

In my most wreched hours, I believe you will never come back

Cardan did not sign this one. Blinking, he felt a tear slip again and fall onto the paper, bleeding through. Cardan sat his head back on the wall, looking at the flowers spouting on the ground outside his room. With a flick of his wrist, the flowers froze up in ice.

"Screw this," the King uttered to himself as he shoved the letter in the envelope and just tossed it to his desk, unaware of the owl that snuck into the room and continued it's job to deliver said letter.

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howellerino · 5 years

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The Wicked King

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD

SPOILERS AHEAD

FIRST OF ALL- THIS BOOK DESTROYED ME

Locke. I WANT HIM DEAD. Why has no one fucking killed him yet? HOW DARE HE EXISt.

Taryn. Kill her too. Honeslty, she is the biggest backstabber I have ever read about. You decide to trust her for a second and she breaks your heart. UNBELIEVABLE. I have ever read about a more disfunctional family.

Vivian. She pretends what Taryn does is no big deal and it frustrates the hell out of me. As an older sister- if one of them was acting like this, I'd notice and do something about it. She basically has power that she has no interest in using and I'm OVER IT.

Madoc. THIS FUCKING GUY. I find myself hating him and wanting his approval at the same time?? He is a HORRIBLE man, he killed Jude's parents but still, I find myself hoping that their relationship can be fixed. When he oficially 'declared' her an enemy, I was so... shocked. Horrible guy, great character. I see him being the antagonist for the next book. He craves power too much and my prediction is someone's gonna kill him. Maybe someone we don't expect.

The Ghost. WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT. I WAS HOPING TO SEE HIM AS MAYBE INTERESTED IN JUDE AND BAM. broke my heart a little to be honest.

Jude. J U D E. Reading about everything she had to handle regarding the kingdom, and family issues, training, spying, it EXHAUSTED ME. Like emotionally. When she's climbing up wall to reach Cardan and she just wonders and thinks about letting go, shit I FELT that. I KNEW she was making a mistake letting Cardan go, but fuck - I was blindsided. I'm still a little bit in shock. She's gonna have a hell of a lot of trouble living in the mortal lands. You know what? I HOPE she finds a good mortal guy who loves her. YOU DESERVE TO BE HAPPY. Also- it bothered and pissed me off so much that after A WHOLE YEAR of poisoning herself, when she needed it, it no longer worked???? Also THE SCENE WHERE SHE KILLS GUYS WITH AN AXE AND THEN HEALS HERSELF. I don't think I had ever reach such a bad ass scene. And i've read my fair share. I really appreciate that we get to see her evolve i to who she is. That she's not just a fighter and a survivor but smart and cunning.

Cardan. W H A T T H E F U C K. I said for the last book, we needed better character development for him and BITCH WE GOT IT. I was NOT expecting ANYTHING he did. I do hope he doesnt go around just murdering people. I respect the hell out of him priding himself in not killing. He HAS to have some sort of plan and I just hope it works out. He's risking too much. He might be liking this game of being king. Maybe he sent Jude to the mortal world to protect her? Maybe he has no intention on ever letting her return? I doubt thay because well, there IS a second book. I just hope he knows what he's doing.

Jude and Cardan. THESE TWO ARE MARRIED. And still Cardan can't decide if he fucking hates her or not. ITS NOT THAT HARD, JUST DECIDE!! When he proposed I has like 'hm okay' but then he exiles her and i was SHAKEN TO MY CORE. I don't know what he expects out of this. He asked for her trust. But everyone you trust in this book ends up breaking your heart and I can't really take it. He needs to deal with Madoc and so many other things, jesus christ.

Final thoughts. I wonder how much time would've passed between the end of this book and the start of the other. I most definitely see Cardan sending Jude a letter or Roach to tell her important things. To keep an eye on her. Maybe he crowned her to give her a false sense of security and planned on leaving her forever. Maybe he couldn't let her go just yet and bound her in a way that made her his. Madoc has some tricks up his sleeve. As a father figure, I want him to redeem himself but I know he wont. Jude is gonna do something. She's not gonna sit all day watching the telly, moping. It's JUDE, she's gonna find a way. And when she does, we're all gonna be shook.

Rating: 4.5/5 ⭐(I'm honestly just pissed Locke isn't dead)

P.S. Just someone please kill Locke and Taryn, I begg youuu

#book log #its 2:30 am.#i should be asleep #im so tired #i read this book in a couple of hours ouch

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court-of-forever-undone · 3 years

Text

My Sister’s Love | Taryn POV Chapter 2

Summary: Taryn pieces together her memories of Cardan and Jude's early interactions as she reflects on how their relationship came to be and the events of the last year. As happy as she is for them, she can't help but feel jealous of the moments they share.

Tags: Taryn’s POV of Jurdan, Jealousy, Mild Angst

Read on AO3

When Cardan showed up at Vivi’s house after Madoc took Jude, thinking she was me, the distress was clear on his face. Vivi tried to stall him at the door, while I ran to hide; my heart almost burst at the thought that Jude had been caught and he was there to arrest me.

Cardan pushed through and entered the small apartment. I could hear muffled voices from where I was hiding in the bathroom. Vivi’s voice was more clear than the others. I pushed my ear against the bathroom door to eavesdrop, until Cardan called to me by name.

“Taryn, please come out. I know you are here and you are needed as well.”

I froze. I thought of a million courses of action. I could run but I would not get far. He likely brought protection. I would be sliced down before making it out of the complex. Running, or fighting for that matter, was a Jude plan, one that I would be unlikely to succeed at.

Before I could try a futile attempt at escape, he continued, “I don’t care about what did or didn’t happen with you and Locke. I promise when this is over, you will be found not-guilty of all charges. But right now, your sister needs you.”

Impatient as ever, Vivi came to the door and led me out before I could fully dissect his words for a trick. For the first time I noticed the disheveled look of his clothes. The dark color under his eyes told me that he had not slept well in sometime. He was accompanied by a gruff-looking goblin who stood silently in the corner.

Cardan explained what had happened: He played along with the switched twin charade, but when he took Jude to his rooms so they could talk, Madoc decided to launch an attack to save “me.” Jude was knocked out and taken somewhere.

Cardan’s jaw tightened as he recalled how he tried to stop Madoc from taking her. I recognized shame on his face before he turned away from us, angrily pacing in the cramped space.

He had hoped that I would know where Jude was, but I didn’t. Madoc had not contacted me for most of Jude’s exile, likely to protect me in case a letter was intercepted by Cardan’s spies.

The conversation only lasted mere minutes, leaving me with little time to process everything Cardan had revealed. Not only had Cardan recognized Jude from the moment he saw her, he kept her identity a secret and then tried to protect her. She had broken her exile, that he imposed, and yet he was desperate to save her from Madoc.

It made me wonder who Jude considered to be a bigger threat to her, the High King or our foster father.

My sister and Cardan agreed to contact each other if either of them learned anything. I wasn’t sure what sort of news we hoped for. The only thing we could hope was for Jude to keep up the act until she could rescue herself. But she couldn’t pretend to be me for long. If her missing finger hadn’t given her away already, her attitude surely would. A court is easily fooled, Oriana and Madoc not so much.

When it was time to leave, Vivi slipped out the door behind Cardan and the goblin, who I heard Cardan refer to as “the Roach.” I crept to the window in the living room that faced the front of the apartment. From my spot I could hear her lecturing Cardan.

“I know what you both did. I know what she is to you,” Vivi said leaning back against the building. She was turned away from me, but I could hear the smirk on her face. Cardan’s face revealed nothing other than exhaustion. The king turned to walk away, when Vivi reached out and gave his arm a light squeeze. Only Vivi would dare to touch the king, in front of his bodyguard no less.

“You might want to try being more explicit about your feelings the next time you have the chance. Or at the very least, stop giving her more reasons to distrust you.”

Cardan pressed his lips into a thin line. He nodded once before quickly descending down the stairs.

The following days were a blur. We had gotten a letter from Oriana about Jude. It looked like a trap, but it was our only hope. We hired Grima Mog, which apparently Jude had beat in combat, and the three of us, plus Cardan and the Roach went to save Jude.

The Roach had insisted that Vivi and I’s presence were a liability, while he also threw a few unimpressed glances at Cardan, who expertly ignored them. Without his crown or regal attire he was almost unrecognizable, still I can understand why the Roach wouldn’t want the added risk of protecting the High King during a rescue. I imagine Cardan had already played the king card to silence any further opposition to his presence.

Vivi had asked me if I wanted to go or not to save Jude. I said yes without hesitation, but as we traveled to the camp my thoughts were riddled with conflicting feelings as I played out possible scenarios. Jude was the one who sided against Madoc, so any fury he still had towards her was from her own doing, but Jude was in Elfhame because of me. My foster parents were my family, but if it came to having to pick my sisters or them, I would pick my sisters. I had hoped it would never come to that.

When we arrived, Cardan and the Roach went ahead, insisting that the lot of us could never sneak in undetected. The minutes felt like hours as we waited, listening and watching for any sign of Jude and the others.

I chewed a hole in my cheek as the time went on. I was thinking about what I would say to Jude when I saw her again when the loud clashing of metal had us all on our feet and running.

We were still too far away when I saw Madoc plunge his sword into Jude. My scream caught in my throat, as Grima Mog barked at us to keep running. We needed to get there before he delivered the final blow. If we could intervene first, maybe we could heal her. It wasn’t until I was at her side that I saw how deep the wound was.

I can still remember the heavy metallic smell of Jude’s blood pooling on the white snow. I could see the blood seeping out of the wound on her stomach. The color was disappearing from Jude’s face as she began talking deliriously about packing her wound with the earth and being accepted as the true queen. It was alarming to see the life fading from the face identical to my own.

My head spun as Vivi confirmed Jude’s nonsense and admitted that she was in on another of Jude’s secrets; Jude had married Cardan. The High King. Making her High Queen.

Suddenly, Vivi’s words on the porch clicked.

If Jude wasn’t minutes from dying, the sting of being left out again would have hurt more. But at the time, I could only deal with the absolute shock that my sister was the High Queen of Elfhame and we were relying on a miracle that the land would save her life.

I wouldn’t allow my thoughts to wander to the idea that if Jude died that night, it would be my fault. My fault for helping Madoc get his army. My fault for asking Jude to come to the palace in my place. My fault Madoc stormed the palace and brought her back here. I didn’t want to think of it then, but I certainly have thought about it since.

I regret trusting that Madoc was looking out for us. He taught us to look at everyone as pawns to use to win at our own games. I should have realized I was also a pawn of his. A pawn that helped him get an army that answered to his command. Jude was a disposable pawn as soon as she refused to obey him.

It was one thing for Madoc to make his move against Cardan, but another to be willing to kill Jude. But after all, he is our parent’s murderer.

Jude, of course, lived. The earth saved her. Through the red stained snow, bloomed the most beautiful flowers. I watched them grow around her as the blood flow slowed from her wound. I continued my stitches, trying to keep them as neat as I could given the circumstances. Slowly, life came back into her eyes, even though she was still in critical condition.

When she flew off into the sky on the ragwort pony, my legs trembled under the weight of my emotions crashing down onto me.

Fear. Guilt. Jealousy. Anger. Sadness.

All at once.

Less than a year ago, we both had been sitting in our lessons. We both had fears we didn’t talk about, but life was good. There was trust between us, even though we didn’t always see eye to eye. We ate our lunch on our blanket and joked and teased each other. I spent my free time practicing my needlework and Jude trained to be a knight. We had our family and each other.

Then everything started to change and Jude had climbed higher than any of us could have ever imagined. The High Queen of Faerie. It still seems impossible to think about.

And after nearly dying in the snow, Jude’s only thoughts were of protecting Cardan.

When did she begin to care about him? I am not sure even Jude knew the answer.

When we finally arrived at the palace, we found Cardan next to Jude, his face paler than normal. He didn’t bother to let go of her hand as we entered. Jude’s blood was stained into his tunic.

Cardan insisted Jude stayed in the royal chambers until she woke up; moving her would have risked reopening the stitches and likely caused her pain, still it felt wrong leaving her alone in Cardan’s bed.

Although, they are married after all.

Likely anticipating Vivi’s demands, Cardan ordered the guards to let us in any time we wished so we could visit her. Vivi, Heather, and I spent most of the day watching over her and only left when it was time to sleep. We had made residence in Jude’s old chambers since they had remained untouched since she left. It didn’t seem okay to have a sleepover in the king chambers, even if Cardan was never anywhere to be found at night.

Cardan made a point to visit whenever he was in between official kingdom business. Apparently, when Cardan publicly declared Jude his queen, it had created an uproar among the advisors and the lower courts were demanding meetings. He never stayed in the room long, but a few times he took a spot in the chair next to the bed and whispered to her so quietly that I couldn’t make out his words from where I sat across the room.

I thought it was a pointless endeavor until I heard her mumbling his name a few times as she drifted in and out of consciousness. An unmistakable blush spread across the king’s cheeks. A few moments after she slipped back under, he made an excuse about being needed elsewhere.

Once he was out of the room, Heather and Vivi burst into giggles. I wanted to join them, but I couldn’t bring myself to smile. Seeing Cardan so affectionate soured my stomach. It hadn’t been very long since Jude and I had been very keen to avoid crossing his wicked path. He may love Jude, but that didn’t mean I trusted him. At least, that is what I told Vivi when she raised an eyebrow in question. The real reason was too painful to acknowledge.

Jude’s lies and bloodshed brought her love and power.

Mine left me as a pregnant widow. It hardly seemed fair.

The thought sickened me more as I thought about my sister who remained unconscious, healing from what should have been a fatal wound. Both of our choices had led us to this moment, but while Jude dreamed of serving as a knight, she became a queen who could command armies. I dreamed of marrying and having a happy home full of children, now I am alone except for my tiny bump. Cardan promised to declare my innocence in Locke's death, but what future do I have? I cannot return to live with Madoc and Oriana. I could live with Vivi, but what life could I make for me and my child in the mortal world? If I could be granted ownership of Locke’s estate, I might have hope to provide for us.

Jude will wake up with the world in her grasp, while my future is more uncertain than ever.

The night Jude finally woke up, Cardan had invited us all to dine with him. Oak blatantly refused to go anywhere that would require him to dress up, so Vivi agreed to leave him behind with Tatterfell.

Together, Vivi, Heather, and I made our way to the banquet hall where we found Cardan sitting alone at the head of a small table, built for eight instead of the typical 12 foot long tables that normally occupied the space.

Heather broke the silence first, thanking the king for the invitation and complimenting his choice of decor. Vivi joined in the conversation as the first trays of food were brought out. Heather happily entertained all of Cardan’s inquiries into mortal life. For the first time since Jude's was taken, a spark had returned to his eyes as he listened intently to Vivi’s description of human holidays.

By the time dessert had been served, I could not hold my tongue any longer.

“Why did you marry Jude?” I blurted out.

The silence was interrupted only by the sounds of Heather suddenly becoming very interested in scaping all of the pudding from her bowl.

Cardan met my gaze with a daring smirk. “Sorry, we didn’t invite you. It was a bit of a last minute thing.”

His face remained unreadable. I tried again.

“But, why did you?”

Cardan leaned back in his chair and let out a sigh as if wondering why he did give a mortal girl the status of High Queen if not simply on a whim.

“Jude learned a lot about running a kingdom as my seneschal. It only seems fair she got recognized for her work too.” Cardan said with a shrug.

“Why did you exile her?” I could feel my face growing redder with every question. Oriana would be disappointed to know that both Jude and I had seemingly forgotten all her lessons. Here I was interrogating the king. Brother-in-law or not.

I could feel the air shift in the room. Suddenly I found myself clutching tighter at the shawl covering my shoulders.

When Cardan spoke again, his words were slow and deliberate. “I am sure you heard Jude dearest killed my brother.”

I flinched as a memory of my own bloodied hands pushed into my conscience. I looked down at my half-eaten plate. My words slip out no more than a whisper, “You love her though.”

I dared to glance up enough to see Cardan go rigid. All three sets of eyes were on him, waiting for his response.

“Your sister and I seem to make a habit of misunderstanding the other’s intentions. I hope to remedy that as soon as she wakes up." After a pause, he added, "We all do questionable things now and then, as I am sure you would agree Taryn.”

At that, Cardan rose from his chair and excused himself.

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