Chapter Text
CARDAN POV
I wake up with Jude’s arm around me, and her body spooned behind me. It’s not long before Jude and I will have to rise for the day as the High King and High Queen of Elfhame. Instead of falling back asleep, I ponder of the words shared between my beautiful wife and me last night.
I am bewildered that now, even now, months after she has returned from banishment, and we have truly begun our lives together as husband and wife, she has still been harboring doubts about my true feelings towards her. And not only about me, but the fae in general. How distrusting she must be towards faeries if she believes we are not capable of love.
But then again, looking at how she’s been treated in Elfhame by the fae, including myself, since her childhood, I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised.
It seems almost miraculous that Jude ever developed any feelings for me other than utter detestation.
And yet, here she is, holding me close, vulnerable, trusting. Yes, she sleeps with a knife on her bedside table, but it isn’t for me. Well, unless we feel like reenacting our first kiss, of course.
I listen to her breathe behind me. Even in sleep she sounds powerful. I roll over to face her, Jude, my glorious mortal queen. She stirs from my movement, and begins to stretch.
“Good morning, husband,” she says opening her eyes. “Is it still morning?”
“It’s nearly noon,” I reply.
“Then we better get up.” Jude says. She rubs her eyes, but doesn’t move to get out of bed.
“We have time yet.” I tuck a lock of her messy bedhead hair behind her ear and kiss her lips softly. My fingers linger on her rounded ear. “I wondered if we could talk about something,” I say.
“About what?
“I’ve been thinking about what we talked about last night.”
“You love me,” Jude says smiling. “That’s what I remember.”
“Yes, I do,” I say. “More than I ever knew I could.”
“You haven’t changed your mind, have you?” she asks.
“No, my wife, my lover. But I wondered if you could tell me about how you fell in love with the High King of Elfhame.”
Jude’s eyes widen.
“If you don’t mind.” I urge.
“Well, I didn’t know your father very well,” Jude replies with a serious face.
Gosh, I love her.
“Not that one,” I say.
“Oh, you mean you?” She smiles teasingly. Quickly, I pounce up onto my hands and knees straddling Jude, and I begin to kiss her neck and face, tickling her sides.
“Yes, I mean me,” I say between kisses. Jude is giggling and squealing, trying to push me away. “Who else but the High King in your bed?”
“Cardan, if you want me to talk about my feelings, you’re gonna have to get off of me.”
“Must I?”
“I’m afraid so, this is entirely too distracting.”
After one last kiss on her cheek, I lie back down next to her. We are sharing a pillow.
“Very well, you may proceed,” I say.
“Oh, where to begin…” She pauses, gaining her composure after having been tickled. I rest my arm around her. She flinches at first, worried that I'll tickle her again, but proceeds with her story when I don't.
“Falling in love with you is by far the scariest thing I’ve ever done, and that’s saying something.”
Jude squints in my direction.
“I guess it all started with your face.”
“My face?”
“Yes, your incurably, beautiful, faerie face. I liked it then, and I like it now. But liking your face entirely conflicted with how I felt about the rest of you, because you were just awful.
“Then you and your awful, beautiful face had to go and tell me that you wanted me and 'thought of me often.' How could I give up the chance to mess with you with a kiss?”
She pauses for a moment, remembering.
“That was quite a kiss. I think it stuck with both of us.”
Indeed it did.
“I liked the kiss right away, but I didn’t start liking you until after that, when we went to see the encamped leaders of the Courts. I was surprised at how well we worked together, and how you gave me good advice on how to win over the different leaders. For the first time, you were more than the cruel, cruel prince that I had known all those years. You were an ally. For the first time, we weren’t at each other’s throats.
“Any comradery that might have developed between us during that time was lost forever, I feared, when I tricked you into becoming High King. Any feelings I might have felt for you had to be put behind me. I was your Seneschal and your puppet master. I couldn’t relax for a minute without fear that you would do something to squelch me.
“And yet,” Jude says thoughtfully, “I let those moments happen. I let my gaze linger, I let my thoughts wander. Despite how much you annoyed me and resisted me, I really started to like you.”
“You say 'like,' my dear, but do you mean 'love?'”
Jude shakes her head. “No. You don’t have to like who you love. You don’t have to love who you like. Last night when I was thinking restlessly about love, I realized that as much as I love my family, I don’t like them very much. They don’t really get me. I don’t particularly look forward to spending time with them. Except Oak. I like Oak. With the others, kind words and easy moments are more forced.
“As your Seneschal, more and more I looked forward to seeing you, talking to you, bossing you around, flirting with you, pretending there was nothing going on between us, when we both knew there was. Or at least I hoped there was. I liked that no matter what I did, we always were on the same page. You got me. You understood me and accepted me as I was. I like it so much, and I started liking you so much, it hurt.
“I hated seeing you bedding others. But as much as I wanted you, I knew I couldn’t have you. Giving in meant risking my power over you. Giving in meant being one of many on your list of ex-lovers. You clearly had moved on. You didn’t want me for more than what I could offer you physically, not that you ever tried anything with me. How could you, when I ordered you about day in and day out? You must have despised me.”
I move my hand from her waist to her hand.
“As much as I wanted to hate you, I couldn’t,” I say.
“And as much as I wanted you, I wouldn’t let go of my position as your task master. Any ridiculous daydream of becoming your queen or royal consort I shunned instantly. Accepting any amount of hope in regards to your affections and intentions was weakness. I wouldn’t let myself love you.”
“May I say something? You just reminded me of a very important slope on that metaphorical hill of love from last night.”
“Sure,” she says.
“That day,” I say somberly, “That day when you asked me to make love to Nicasia for information, changed everything about what I thought about you.
“Before that day, I could ignore my feelings for you well enough. But when you used your power over me to ask me to seduce not only another woman, but a woman who had broken my heart…that riled me. I realized what measures you were willing take on my behalf, to ensure your security and power.
“I realized that the only way I could get back at you for such a request was to seduce you myself first.”
“I’m sorry I did that to you,” Jude says, noticeably squirming at the memory. “It sounds awful when you put it like that. I didn’t think you would mind since you and Nicasia had already… And I didn’t know that you cared for me.”
“All is forgiven, it’s in the past now,” I say. “All it took to get her to talk was a few kisses. And if it helps, for every kiss I gave her that day, I imagined kissing you. Every kiss from anyone after that, made me think of you, and how much I wanted you.”
She looks at me for a long moment eyes shining with love and something else I can’t quite name. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?” she says.
“For the same kinds of reasons that bound your own tongue, I imagine. I didn’t want to love you. Everything I’d ever been taught or expected to believe about mortals was that they could not be trusted. As much as you fascinated me, and mortals fascinated me, I couldn’t ever stop distrusting you, else you slay me the second we were alone. Loving you could have endangered all of Elfhame! Of course, royals have had mortal lovers before, but never with anyone they wouldn’t and in my case, couldn’t compel not to harm them. As much as I dreamed of you embracing me, I could not and would not force you to do so.”
She puts her arm around me, and I reciprocate the gesture. We are holding each other, and it feels so warm.
“Enough about me,” I say. “Do you remember when it was that you knew you really loved me?”
She thinks for a moment. “The truth?”
“Honesty is the best policy,” I say.
“It’s your only policy, Snake Boy!”
I tickle her again, and she laughs.
“Stop!”
I smile and stop.
“When you married me, and I married you," Jude says, "for the briefest of moments I thought I could finally let my guard down and let myself love you.
“But then you banished me, and refused to acknowledge me as your wife in front of everyone.
“At first I was hurt. Then I was mad. Insanely mad. I hated you so much. I hated you for sending me away. I hated myself for being stupid enough to let you in and take advantage of me. I imagined every horrible thing I would do to you if I ever got my hands on you again, and believe me, they were not pretty.
“And yet, as much as I hated you, and wanted to see you suffer for the pain you caused me... I missed you. I missed you so much. I cried for you. I screamed your name. I cursed you and all your faerie ancestors. I worried about how you’d rule Elfhame without me. I worried about you and the impending war with Madoc. I shuddered at the idea of never seeing you again. I longed for the wedding night we never got to have. I mourned the love we might have shared if we had ever given it a chance, but now never would.
“I knew I loved you when I was banished in the mortal world. I knew I couldn’t have been so tortured by the thought of you unless I loved you equally as much as I hated you. I wanted you, I wanted us. But you didn’t want me back. For a while there, I did whatever I could to try to forget you, to get you out of my heart.”
I leaned in to kiss her forehead. “How did you ever forgive me for such an idiotic decision that only hurt us both?”
“I mean, your face didn’t have nothing to do with it,”
“I get it, you think I’m incredibly handsome.”
She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, but it was so much more than that. When I returned from banishment, terrified that you would have me killed for stepping on Elfhame soil again, not only did you recognize me when I was posing as Taryn, but you seemed elated, relieved even, to see me. I had never seen you like that before. Not while looking at me.
“And you were so nice to me after that! You risked your life to save me from Madoc’s camp. You gave me your cloak. You saved Roach. When I showed up at the palace looking like an assassin you called me your wife in front or everyone, and then you took care of me and let me recover in your bed.
“I still doubted your feelings for me, but I didn’t doubt that you didn’t mean me harm, and I forgave you. And soon enough, I let myself trust you with my heart again. And now… things are really good.”
I lean in and kiss her on the lips. I think of that night when I asked Jude how people like us could possibly take off our armor. It seems now, after all, we finally have.
“I love you.” I say.
“I love you back,” Jude replies. I don’t think she’s ever looked more beautiful than she does this very minute when she's looking at me.
“We should probably get up now,” I say practically. "We have meetings to attend today."
Jude reaches over me to my forgotten pillow, and hits me with it.
“A few more minutes won’t hurt anybody, will they?”
I reach for the pillow under my own head, and hit her back with it, engaging in her pillow fight.
No. They won’t.
THE END