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“Your Majesty! It’s urgent! Let me in!”
Cardan jerked erect in the chair he’s been sitting in. Reading royal documents took a toll on his energy, and by the soreness of his back, he could feel he’d been asleep for several hours.
He could tell by his voice, that the person who had so rudely awakened him was the Roach, and by the tone, it was a matter of importance. Cardan had never heard the Roach panicked before, and he found he did not like it.
“Alright, alright, come in,” Cardan droned, trying, and succeeding, to keep his nervousness out of his voice.
The Roach pushed open the doors, and ran in like a maniac, his toad-like skin was pallid, and he appeared to be breaking out in a sweat. Had he run here?
“Something’s happened with the Queen!”
Cardan blinked. He really could never get used to Jude’s codename. Being called the King himself, he was unable to hear that name without remembering what sort of relationship a Queen had with a King.
And one thought would always lead to another, and he was imagining having that sort of relationship with Jude.
Which was preposterous. He hated Jude...and besides...she was a mortal! Not a particularly pleasant mortal either! She never knew her place, and was excessively argumentative!
Yet, when the Roach said her codename in that tone of panic, his heart seemed to skip a beat, “What is it? Who did she kill this time?” He managed to keep his tone airy.
“Quickly, come with me!” The Roach beckoned Cardan with his knobby fingers, starting to run.
“You cannot expect me to run!” Cardan cried, stumbling up from his chair with far less grace than he would’ve liked.
“There’s no time!” The Roach insisted, his voice fading into the corridor.
So Cardan ran, and reminded himself he’d tell Jude off for this later. Telling Jude off was one of the only enjoyable pastimes that resulted of their arrangement, and he savored every moment he spent arguing with her.
-
The Roach had led Cardan to the spy quarters, where Jude was laying on a table, seemingly asleep.
Cardan cocked his head, more worried than he was before. She was so pale, almost as pale as he was, “What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s been poisoned,” The Ghost said this, his face deadpan, his eyes contained tiny bits of sadness in them, but aside frome that, he was devoid of emotion.
The Bomb had tears in her eyes, “It was my fault. I let her drink it! It had been offered to her by some foreign dignitary, she felt it rude to refuse. It wasn’t faery wine. I figured it would be fine.”
Cardan’s throat felt tight now, and he couldn’t move. Everything seemed so still, “Is she…” He couldn’t find it in himself to finish that sentence. Dead, gone, those were words mortals had learned to deal with since birth. Cardan was a faery, he had never learned how to deal with death.
Yes, his father had died, but he had been old, and Cardan had had barely four conversations with him in his whole life. Jude was young. He didn’t know how long mortals were supposed to live. One hundred years? Or was it two hundred? Whenever he thought of it, he liked to imagine it was two hundred. He didn’t like to think of a dead Jude. Jude, who was like a force of nature, seemed even more eternal than anything else in his life.
“No, she not dead. It’s a different sort of poison,” The Ghost said.
Relief flooded into Cardan, and he could breathe again, “Do you have the cure?”
The Bomb let out a little sob at the question, but it was the Roach who answered, “It’s a paralyzing poison. It sends the victim into a deep sleep.”
“Yes, but do you have the cure?” Cardan asked again.
“It’s not that kind of poison, your Majesty. The poison is ironic, it’s meant to...to mock mortals in positions of political power,” The Roach continued.
Cardan was beginning to get impatient, “But do you have the cure!?”
“The cure is a farce, King Cardan. It’s not real. She’s not going to wake up,” The Ghost sighed. His apathy infuriated Cardan. Why did no one seem to care about curing her?
“But for the cure to be a farce, there’d have to actually be a cure! What! Is! It!” Cardan was yelling now. He would not. Could not, believe this was the end of Jude Duarte, daughter of Madoc. She had been loved. She had sisters, a brother, a father. He didn’t particularly like any one of them, and he knew Jude didn’t like them much anyway. But Cardan had learned the difference between like and love. Cardan might be liked, but Jude was loved.
“It’s true love’s kiss!” The Bomb sputtered, “Like mortal fairy tales. True love’s kiss.”
Cardan paused. True love’s kiss. That couldn't’ be it. There had to be a plant, or a root, or, or...something!
“I don’t understand…” Cardan trailed off.
The Roach shook his head, “She’ll stay like that forever unless we kill her. You know she wouldn’t want that.”
“You won’t even look! She might have one, a true love or whatnot! Some mortal out there! She could be saved!” Cardan was grasping at this point. Jude was the one person that he… the one person that he… the one person he needed right now. He needed Jude right now. He couldn’t possibly rule without her.
“It truly is a shame, my King.” The Roach looked at him with thinly veiled pity.
Cardan took a deep breath, “Leave me alone with her. Just a second. I...I need just a second.”
The spies nodded in unison, and filed out of the room with quick precision, leaving Cardan alone with the sleeping Jude.
Cardan took a chair and set it by the table Jude was lying on. He sat down. He thought about true love. Whatever that meant.
He loved Nicasia. Mostly because it seemed to make sense. He was the son of a King, she, the daughter of a Queen. They had known each other their entire lives, and had been friends the same amount of time. He had adored her, but she had an ever shifting heart, and had left him for Locke.
He used to feel bitterness at this. Now, a hollow anger at Locke for using his oldest friend. He still loved Nicasia, but he wanted her as nothing but a friend. No, his heart had revolved around someone else for some time now.
Cardan stood up, “Now, Jude, I’m going to try something, and if it works, you must promise not to hit me. We’ve done this before I remind you. I just need to make sure… I need to make sure I’ve done everything I possibly can,” He said aloud to the sleeping girl.
He kissed her then. He leaned down, and kissed her. It was light, just a brush of lips against each other, but he closed his eyes for it. When he opened them, Jude’s eyes were open. Brown, and bright, and beautiful, and...angry?
That was when King Cardan of Faerie was hit in the face, by Jude Duarte, a mortal girl.
And King Cardan did not regret a thing.