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Jude is late.
Late—though not in the sense that she's delayed for an appointment or a meeting. Nor has she tarried from a destination or celebration for too long. No, Jude is never late.
And by Jude she means her period.
(Funny, how even in an inhuman world, contraception is still—at most—97 percent effective)
And Jude hasn't thrown up since her early attempts at mithridatism, and two years it's been since she was taken to the Undersea as prisoner and forced to miss her daily dosage. While the withdrawal had been brutal on her body, her second endeavor at immunization had been met with much success. So she could not possibly be throwing up because of it, and that which ails the Folk rarely affect humans. And symptoms for the same… conditions that both Folk and humans are privy to may manifest differently within her kind. So really, this could only mean one thing.
She is pregnant.
she is pregnant she is pregnant she is pregnant she is about to have a meltdown and oh god she is pregnant
She does not tell Cardan because of course she does not tell Cardan.
There is no point, she tells herself. They are only reigning for five more years. It is Oak who needs successors, not them. And would she really subject another person to this world? Or the better question being could this world—or any world for that matter—be ready for a child made of her and Cardan, born of murder and manipulation and strife and hatred?
(Beyond it being her exclusive power as a human, Jude is simply a professional at telling lies—)
Which leads her to this conclusion: she is not keeping the baby.
There is no point, she repeats. Cardan will not want this baby.
(—especially when she tells lies to herself)
She informs no one and so she procures a poison all on her own. She knows she could have asked the Bomb to do it, but it wasn't exactly a difficult task for Jude.
But really, she just doesn't want anyone to know.
It isn't until a week after this revelation, as she’s staring down a cup filled a quarter of the way with the crushed petals of deathsweet, is she hit with waves of wrongness in the form of a seemingly unending bout of nausea, her heart screaming—no! No, I can't I can't I will not do this!
Because it is becoming all too real—there is a living thing growing inside her. A living thing that never did her any harm. A living thing created by her and Cardan with odds of (at minimum) fifty percent it could be made of the best parts of the both of them. Because Jude may be selfish and blinded by ambition and a murderer, but contrary to popular belief… she isn't heartless.
If anything, Jude is full of heart. You have to be, to be able to love the creature who murdered your parents in cold blood. You have to at least have the capacity for such a love, and Jude is brimming with it. She is an ocean of it, an immeasurable well that overflows despite itself. She cares too damn much, and it has always been her strength weakness.
And Cardan—she remembers the day she found Eldred's jewels, and how he chose to immortalize the memory of Cardan's mother turning him away only for her to pay that little bit of attention to his cruelty. Then Jude remembers the first time she kissed him, the first time she touched him, the way he looked when she uttered her vows.
How in those moments, this King of Darkness had been filled with unfettered radiance and pure light.
That same light that now grows inside her. A part of Cardan that now lives inside her.
So can she do this to him? Could she deny him the selfless and unadulterated love that which only a child untouched by the horrors of the world could provide? Can she refuse him this, like so many—herself she, shamefully, includes—have done before?
She drops the goblet, blood red whorls cascading the length of the ground like blood, deep and thick and red. But so, so alive, that beautiful color of life.
(No, no she cannot)
She storms out of her ensuite, intent on tracking her husband down, only to discover him on her bed. He is seated calmly, blithely, head bowed and eyes averted to the ground, his feet spread on the floor, fingers steepled before him and his elbows resting on his knees—as if the intensity of her thoughts and actions conjured him before her very eyes.
“Cardan,” she breathes, his name falling from her quivering lips like both an anathema and a benediction, and she wishes she could just find a modicum of calm so she can do this properly, so she can do this ri—
“I'm pregnant,” she blurts.
ungracefully, calamitously, deploringly
He peers up at her. His stare is barren and unflinching when he says, “I know.”
She bites her lip, struggling against the surprised gasp that yearns to escape her because of course. Of course he knew. He is the High King of Elfhame. If he can raise islands from the sea, then to sense life is, no doubt, child's play to him—perhaps borderline insulting in its simplicity. Which is what makes her subterfuge all the more repugnant.
“I was going to abort it,” she murmurs, barely above a whisper, as if it would soften the blow. As if it could cushion the rough edges that line her crime.
As if she could lay down a veneer over the ugly heinousness of her sin, absolution waiting to be found in his eyes.
“I know.”
But again, all she is met with is that blank stare and that equally blank tone and that equally blank reply.
“I changed my mind, though.”
A pause, before a quiet, “I know.”
She picks at his carefully crafted inflection and fancies that if she listens hard enough, she is able to discern an emotion behind his voice besides that of the auditory demonstration of the word ‘void’.
But she is no Fae, and even if she was, she probably would not hear anyway because Cardan is just that good. He is good.
So, though she knows the answer, she asks him. She asks him because she needs him to feel something say something else.
“Are you angry?” she mutters, all warbled syllables and watery articulations. And she hates that.
She hates the tremble in her limbs and the cowardly part of her that urges her to curl herself into a protective ball—a part she thought she had long ago killed. She hates how small her voice is when the words escape her traitorous mouth. She hates the way her eyes are resolute in defying her orders by refusing to meet his stare. She is not herself, or at least, it's been an age since she was last this way.
But she no longer entirely belongs to herself, does she? However temporary this may be. She lives and she lives for another. The knowledge that she is responsible for yet another life leaves her feeling utterly vulnerable and incapable, though she knows this is irrational. She is a warrior. She is a murderer who has killed in the name of the crown, her family and herself. She is a queen, and there is power in that. She need not be afraid. But as she faces the consequences of her omission in the form of Cardan's wrath, she is still crippled by the need to know. She needs to hear him say it.
(As if the confirmation would pardon her of her guilt when it would only anchor her to the pain of her actions further, as strained and suffocating as a noose around her neck)
Cardan rises, and shadows seem to gather around him as he prowls gracefully towards her. Her heated skin meets his cold fingers, firm and austere, because it is her and it is Cardan and they are never quite as soft as they should be when it comes to each other. There is a scarcity of kindness in their partnership.
They are not gentle. No, this is her High King, demanding her attention now.
He grasps her chin so their eyes meet, a clash of mud and ink and there. There it is. There is that look in his eyes—that hungry rage, that depthless fury for which he had been branded a cruel prince… a wicked king.
Yet beneath it, that aching, turbulent despair too. Barely noticeable and easily overlooked, unless he permits you to see.
Oh, how he thirsts for her suffering. How he desires for her to see.
And she can't even rail against it, against him, because she deserves it.
By god, she deserves it.
And moreso, she hates how everything about being human betrays her—from her moiling, racing heart to the sweat now beading her back and her temples.
(Impetuously, she wonders if their baby will inherit the easy flush of her skin or will it be as pale and ethereal as its father? Will it accede her more human fallibilities or be unquestionably, indomitably Fae in supernatural abilities? Will it be as aloof and cunning as she or as charming and deceptive as he?
Or will their baby be a messy, disastrous, beautiful combination of them both?)
(Their baby, oh god)
Cardan's voice is as low and enticing as a prurient lover when he whispers, "Yes."
She nods. For once, she is resigned. Accepting. And because of it, she strives for some imitation of levity with an arch but ultimately paltry quip of, "Are you going to exile me again?"
But the High King does not laugh.
A stupid joke to begin with, for even if he does exile her, they both know she would find her way back.
(Only she could ever find a way back to him)
Instead, his grip on her chin tightens as his other hand finds her hip.
"Infuriating woman," he coos, even when his touch feels like a howling winter within his palms. "When are you going to realize that you are not alone? That you never have to do anything alone, ever again?"
And that winter penetrates her bones till she is frozen with shock and breathing out a harsh and frigid, "What?"
His hold is hard—bruising—even as his breath remains a cool mist against her ear that makes her shudder, despite herself.
"My personal Atlas," he sighs, "always the weight of the world on her shoulders."
When he pulls back, his eyes remain angry torches within the midnight darkness of the room. But a relieved breath escapes her anyway when he brings their bodies flush against each other and he is receptive to the way she locks her arms around his neck and shackles him to her.
"Make no mistake, Jude. I am angry. But not for the reasons you might think.”
He shakes his head and she is assaulted by the emotion conquering his beautiful visage, the barrage of his disappointment piercing her heart in twisting, deadly ways. Not even his anger has the ability to penetrate the protective barrier she has erected around her emotions the way his disappointment can.
(Because anger is easy. His anger is steam and easily dissipated. But his disappointment is a parasite—infecting first his mind, body and soul then hers, as it burgeons and festers)
“I’m not angry that you didn't want the child. I'm angry that once again, you chose to keep me in the dark. You chose not to trust me enough to share in this with you, that we might decide on a course of action together.”
Another sigh. Another embittered shake of his head. “I thought we were past this.”
“We are—”
“It does not appear that way,” he growls, anger momentarily rousing and taking precedence, before altogether, deflating. “Not where I'm standing.”
(But most of all she hates that too, hates that she is the reason for the anguish that paints his eyebrows into a marred frown, his eyes into a lament and his mouth in defeated angles)
So though it pains her to say it, say it she does because she does trust him. It took forever and a day but yes yes yes she trusts him.
And he needs to know it.
"I was scared," she croaks, barely holding back a sob. "I'm still scared."
Because what the hell did she know about being a mother? About being a parent? She is Madoc’s daughter, and she is every bit the monster he made her and then some. Because if there is anything she's learned from living in Faerie, it's that Monsters maketh Monsters.
So yes, she is scared. She is terrified to bring this child into the world, to bear responsibility for raising this child to not only survive but to live, the best life that she can bestow.
But she is not Atlas. She doesn't have to do this alone, nor does she want to. And... she could know better, right? No, she does know better. She did it for Vivi, and she did it for Oak and for Taryn. She did it for Cardan, and Cardan has done it for her. They are what their Masters made them, true, but their child does not have to be the same. They could forge it anew. They could mold it into something else. Something better—born of Monsters but made of goodness and kindness and effulgence.
(Because yet another thing she's learned from Faerie—has discovered within herself—is even monsters learn to love their misdeeds)
She would give this babe what her mother was unable to give her and she would provide it tenfold. Because she knows better. They know better.
And she has to believe it.
She has to believe in him, too.
“And you think I'm not?” he starts haltingly, before resolution cements his glare.
“I made you a vow, wife. You are to be my queen and my bride, in every sense of the word. Even this,” he rasps, as he lets go of her chin and shifts his touch to her stomach.
“Especially this.”
She's crying in earnest now. Not the pretty and delicate way that most of the Folk do, but a deluge of salt and snot that drowns her face.
“Anything I've ever done right, all that is good in my life… it has been because of you. You are madness personified and Leannán Sídhe incarnate.” She sucks in a sharp breath at his acrid timbre. “But,” he hums after a leaden period of silence—a susurrous proclamation that is made all the more potent for its tenderness.
“You are the rhyme and the reason, the chaos and the utopia. A symptom of my most fevered dreams and a cure from my bedeviled reality. Were I a minstrel or a bard, my every beginning, middle and end would be composed of you. And were I a fool,” and here his breath hitches, “then may I only be a fool in love with you.”
She has forgotten how to speak, at this point. She has forgotten how to breathe. She has forgotten everything—everything except for the way Cardan looks and thinks and speaks and feels. For he may have once written her name repeatedly across a piece of paper, but she's got him written extensively across her heart.
“Whatever happens, whoever this becomes,” trepid fingers mark a shaky path beneath her chemise till he is cosseting the currently imperceptible bump of her stomach, “this is not a mistake. We are not a mistake.”
(She believes in him. She believes in them. She believes, she believes, she believes)
"I am still angry.”
It is her turn to say, ruefully, “I know.”
“But I made you a vow, Jude Duarte,” he recurs in deceptively smooth intonations. “And I intend to keep it.” His stare is intent with mockery and his voice pointed and goading as he issues his challenge.
“Do you?”
She's hurt him. She knows she has.
So she doesn't take his bait. No, she rather tempers his ire by joining his hand resting lightly over her stomach with her own, the one where the ruby ring he once stole now makes a home of her ring finger, digits entwining in a physical manifestation of their matrimonial pronouncements.
“I do,” she promises, so very soft and fragile and achingly, heart-wrenchingly human. But devout and sincere and wholly free of deceit all the same. “Till the crown has passed from our hands,” she avows.
(Again and again and again, she will swear by it)
For the first time in this entire conversation, he smiles. Brittle and vascillant and crooked, too—a fragment in the perfect symmetry of his face.
But it is a smile. And there is a certain serenity to the curl of his mouth, the curve of one upturned cheek... and so she takes it. She takes the small and broken smile because it is still his smile, and it is better than anger and disappointment. It is better than nothing.
He presses his forehead to hers, breathing her in—tears, sweat, desperation and all.
“And maybe even then.”
She traces his lips before cupping his cheek. He leans into her touch like someone starved of food and drink instead of the revered monarch that he truly is, one who has yet to be denied anything.
(Not this—not affection and not love. Never again, she affirms, if only to herself this time. Because Jude is an ocean of love, an immeasurable well that overflows despite itself. Because she cares too damn much, and it has always been her weakness strength)
“And maybe even then,” she echoes, quietly hoping for maybe to mean definitely.
And so it does. Slowly, gradually. Like the constantly shifting plates beneath her feet or the everlasting revolution of the earth. But earthquakes erupt and new years come and go as the planet completes its circuit around the sun and along with it—
They prevail.
Till even then becomes nine months later and the birth of a new line of Greenbriars in the form of their first son, who is strong and healthy and beautiful and every bit the refulgent soul his parents dare hoped he would be.
Till even then turns into thirteen prosperous years of rule in what many will call "The Amber Age of Elfhame", so named for its silver king and its golden queen, and the clever and competent way they maintained peace throughout the kingdom as if it were an insect trapped in amber.
Till even then morphs into the birth of five more children, Greenbriar in name only, for unlike their ancestors, they all loved each other with a fierce passion and an unyielding loyalty that to turn on each other felt to them, like a keen death in itself.
Till even then dissolves them of their previous vows so they form new ones, vows that go beyond their desire to wed, beyond the passing of the crown, beyond life and death and everything in between.
Till even then blossoms into forevermore.