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Hollow Hall, Isle of Ismire, Elfhame
Cardan Greenbriar, Sixth son of Eldred, former Prince of Elfhame and now High King of Faerie, loved his wife very dearly.
That is why he banished her.
He could have made this their home. He would have closed the doors of this house to outsiders of court, and it could have just been the two of them secluded whenever they weren’t needed at court. Jude could have spared in the garden every waking night, and he could have watched her from the doorway with that tingling sensation running down his spine. Or no. Maybe he would’ve liked another house, built far away, without memories or trauma. Something new and beautiful. Something grand.
They could’ve made this world theirs.
Now, it is a place where the King holds his parties.
The faeries lift up their arms to the night sky and spin, spin, spin in flutters of colours and fabrics and skirts and coats. Music rings in his ears, a loop of melodies he recognizes and pays no attention to. This distraction - it is good for his court. As they dance and sing and drink and charm and flirt and eat, they are not thinking about the threat of the war that is to come. They are not questioning his ability to keep them safe.
Cardan Greenbriar holds a glass of licor to his lips. He runs his tongue along the brim, tasting the sweet bitterness, and thinks of Jude.
What do these faeries know?
What do these faeries with sweet words on the tip of their venomous lips know about love? They sing their melodies, perform their plays, exhibit their artworks, write their odes, all for his entertainment, and all speak of love.
But what do they know of such a thing? Such a thing that makes your bones feel as if they might tremble and fall apart, incomparable to anything else that might exist in this world. What do they know of a love that makes you go through every colour this life brings?
He is blue, because she is not here, sitting beside him, sharing his crown.
He sees red, because it is the anger and the frustration and the passion and the hatred all wrapped around in his heart, some of it aimed at himself.
He feels yellow on his lips, yellow like the warm sun that is about to be reborn in the skies, yellow like warmth, like her mouth on his and her body against his own.
Love lives on in colours.
Not all of them bright.
They do not know.
They do not know anything.
The High King of Elfhame loves his wife very dearly.
That is why he had to banish her.
***
The woods, Isle of Insmoor, Elfhame
He wants to be alone so he can plan a murder.
Cardan Greenbriar takes refuge in the deep woods of the smallest island, sitting atop a rocky overhang, watching everything and seeing nothing at all.
He feels the salty sea wind breathing in his face, the threat hanging over his head like a sword ready to strike. A herd of stags peer over the tall grasses, watching him without suspicion, as if the King were one of them.
He’d promised himself.
He’d promised that he would rip them apart, one by one, each and every single one of them, for taking her away from him. For making him feel incapable of helping her, when she most needed him.
He would make them pay for it.
And the King of Elfhame would not rest until he had Orlagh’s head ripped from her body and rolling over his feet.
Today, he is grey.
All dark clouds and waiting storms.
He waits, and waits and waits.
He does not see the warm bark of the tree - he sees brown curls and dark eyes.
He does not see the green of the tall grasses - he sees the colour of cunningness, the wit of her beautiful, terrible mind.
Does she know that he left a loophole for her? Does she imagine that he lies awake everyday, wishing to turn his body on the mattress and seeing her there?
Do you not know, Jude? He thinks. Do you not see it?
The High King of Elfhame loved his wife very dearly.
That’s why he had to protect her.
***
Top of the Tower of Forgetting, Isle of Insweal, Elfhame
Instead of forgetting, like he intented to, he recalls it all too well. His speech, her eyes, his hurt, her hurt, his pain, her anger.
Today, he regrets it.
There are days when he can live with what he did. Cardan Greenbriar makes himself a list: he gives himself reasons and explanations, and consoles himself with those he can find.
But he never forgets.
He does, however, quickly become a contradiction.
He thinks coming here will make him sees things clearly. Remind himself that there are far worse things in his life than losing the human girl he spent most of his life hating. It is like he wishes to find any other memory, any other person, any other feeling, to replace the pain and the ache in his chest.
But he cannot.
Not even the pain of his childhood is great enough compared to the loss that he suffered. Not even the memory of the person that was supposed to be his mother abandoning him for his own when he was barely even able to walk compare to the memory of Jude’s eyes widening as he told her to leave.
Today, he regrets it.
See? What a pretty little contradiction.
He is turning purple. Suffocating with it all. Torn between what is right - leading her to believe that the murder of his brother was enough reason to send her away and accuse of treason, just so he could have an excuse to keep her out of Orlagh’s hands - and what is wrong: wanting, desperately, to have her by his side.
Selfishness comes easy to the King.
He knows its face well.
Today, he wishes he had been selfish.
Because the High King loved his wife very dearly.
That is why he had to let her go.
***
King’s Chambers, Palace of Elfhame, Insmire, Elfhame
His sheets are damp.
Waking in the middle of the day, Cardan Greenbriar is covered in his own feverish sweat, clinging to his night-shift as if it might come to life and strangle him. There is no light in this room. He keeps the curtains dark and drawn, keeping out the sun, just so he might try and get some much needed sleep.
Once again, his luck fails him.
Sleep abandons him in cold sweats and quick heartbeats.
White is the colour of numbness.
When your heart has gone through every colour, all that is left is stare at the darkened ceiling and attempt to feel something you have not felt. Anything at all.
He wishes he could turn on the mattress and see her there.
The King closes his eyes, breathing softly, black hair clinging to his forehead. In delusional dreams, she would’ve been here, touching the side of his face and warming his soul. She would’ve nuzzled her head into his shoulder, and Cardan would’ve wrapped his arms around her, feeling her frame fit into his so perfectly it was almost impossible to call themselves anything else other than-
He starts, eyes flying open.
If he had not been imagining her, the King would’ve seen the shadow skipping across the room to him. If he hadn’t closed his eyes, he would’ve seen the slightly opened window.
She made no sound.
There was a weight on him then, and, in the same second, a knife pressed to his throat.
The King did not have time to gasp, for the next thing he knew a palm was pressed over his mouth and pinning his head to the pillow beneath him. He did not move an inch.
He did, however, wonder about the realness of this dream.
Impossible.
Against all odds, he found himself being able to murmur, “T-Taryn?”
A scoff from the shadow hovering above him. Brown eyes glinting.
“Try again,” Jude says.
The blade is cold and sharp against him. Cardan’s hands, trembling, not because of his forfeit life but because of the voice he hears, move instinctively to cup the sides of her waist. He needs to feel that she’s real.
His killer falters for a moment at that gesture. But he sees the resolution in her eyes, the pure anger. He sees that she will not balk from what she came here to do.
“Forgot your wife so soon?” Her voice is hard.
He is unable to formulate words.
“You forgot one thing,“ she leans in, and he can feel the warmth of her skin and-
Her scent.
It is still in his system, he thinks. All of it.
She tangled herself in his bones, got under his skin, and made him her home.
Their eyes meet in the darkened room.
Jude continues, “I am also the Crown. I can pardon my own damn self. And I have.”
Cardan watches her for a few minutes. His hands move up further, and he marvels at her.
He senses her apprehension, her surprise, in the way that she blinks down at him.
He murmurs, "I have not forgotten, Jude.”
“You-”
She stops.
She sits back on his thighs, something like horror crossing her face.
She snatches her blade back from his throat in such a quick movement that he hears the iron cutting through the air, as if singing a deadly song.
“You knew,“ she finally says. "You knew perfectly well what you were saying.”
“Yes,“ he says, lovingly.
Jude watches him, and he is unable to decipher her emotions. She looks down at his hands on her waist, moving up to her ribcage, and something sour covers her eyes.
“Stop touching me,” she says.
His hands drop.
“You knew,” she accuses, barely a whisper. “You wanted me to come back.“
He’d needed her to come back.
Though not so soon.
Not yet, anyways.
Cardan snaps out of his dream-like state, and suddenly it becomes blinding white. That sudden press of his chest, the sudden escape of air from his lungs. The panic finally settling in. She is here.
And she is not supposed to be here.
With one quick motion, surprising even her, Cardan flips Jude onto her back, holding her by her shoulders, pinning her to the mattress.
"Are you out of your fucking mind, Jude?”
Jude widens her eyes, her blade falling out of her hand and dropping to the floor. She eyes him up and down, surprise and confusion written on her face.
“I sent you away for a reason,” he says in her face. “You were not supposed to-“
“Then why did you leave me that clue?” She pushes dpushat his shoulders, at his chest, and he didn’t budge. Jude sgrit her teeth, a vein visible on her forehead. “Why did you marry me? You wanted me back. You wanted me back,“ she says this as if she’s realizing it only now.
He sits back on his heels, swallowing down. “I couldn’t tell you.”
“Why?”
“You wouldn’t leave any other way.”
“You didn’t even try.“
His jaw ticks. "Did you come to kill me, Jude?”
She watches him, still lying down, as if her body has frozen.
“My crown will not protect you from Orlagh,“ he says to her, ignoring the terrible beating of his heart.
“Then why, why make that deal with me?”
He stays silent.
“Because it was the only way you could betray me,“ she murmurs then, sitting up. “Because you knew it would take something I wanted to be taken away for me to-”
She does not continue.
Something I wanted.
1 month is torture.
2 months away from her is a death sentence.
Cardan does not know if it is the hour, or the emotions bubbling very close to the surface, but he says, “I left a loophole because I could not deny you completely. I figured if something happened…if this war managed to be over soon enough, that you would figure it out and come back to me then.”
Jude watches him, no expression on her face.
She says, “What if I’d never figured it out? What if I’d stayed in the human world?“
Without a heartbeat’s pause, Cardan says, “Then I would’ve lived with it.”
Something like hurt flashes in her eyes. Jude seems to grow smaller. “I wouldn’t’ve,“ she murmurs.
Silence.
“You could’ve talked to me,” she whispers.
“No, I couldn’t have.”
Jude lowers her head. She knows herself al too well to disagree. “Did it hurt you?“ She asks then.
Cardan watches her. “Yes. Everyday.”
“You wanted me to come back,” she repeats.
“Yes,” he says. “Yes, Jude.”
He couldn’t have taken it, he realizes. No, not at all. He would’ve found a way back to her if she hadn’t come to him. He’d been desperate, too laced with her to know anything else that was good and real in this world. And now that she is here…
“Apologize,“ Jude says, but it sounds not like a command, it sounds like a plea. Her eyes shine.
Cardan’s throat closes.
Then something unimaginable to him happens.
Jude crawls into his lap, her arms finding their home around his shoulders as she holds him as tight as she can.
She whispers, “Apologize,” and he hears her silent sobs.
She pushes at his chest, at his night-shift, shakes him to his core, and says, “Apologize.”
The High King loved his wife very dearly.
That is why he took her into his arms.
And allowed his kiss to be his apology.
***
The High King’s arms, Palace of Elfhame, Insmire, Elfhame
Jude Duarte, adopted daughter of Madoc, and now Queen of Elfhame tastes pale pink skies in her husband’s lips.
A rising sun, gentle summer, the sky crystal clear - is all she feels as Cardan dips her backwards and her hips touch the mattress. She had been resolute that she would scare the High King into submission - that she would make him tremble and fear her and inflict upon him half the pain that he inflicted upon her that day.
Only to find out it hadn’t been like that at all.
And for all his declarations, Cardan seems unwilling to believe that she is here, and is still intent on sending her away.
She can feel it, in the way he hesitates to undress her. In the way that his mouth hovers over her neck, not truly wanting to sink his lips into her just yet.
“I am not leaving,” she breathes.
“You need to,“ he says, but his voice falters when Jude begins to undress herself.
His eyes search her hands, following her fingers as they impatiently move over all her buttons.
“I am not leaving,” she repeats, her lungs failing her.
Cardan is all weaknesses, but then again - so is Jude.
The need to feel him close erases every other thing. It keeps her from thinking of anything else.
Cardan watches her from above her, doubt written all over his face.
Jude untucks her shirt from her trousers and pulls her shirt to the side. Before Cardan can react, and before she can feel her cheeks burn with her inexperience, Jude says, low and true, “You make one more decision for me, and I will make sure you truly regret it.”
She does not say those words with the certainty she wishes, for she is also weak, and two months is a long time, and Cardan’s eyes are sad and terrible and beautiful, and she is broken and wanting - needing - him to put her back together again.
Jude knows the moment he caves in when he lowers his head into her bare chest, and sighs. He places a small kiss on her neck, twisting her hair in his fingers. “You make me see red.“
She looks up at him.
“And blue,” he murmurs, “and yellow, and black, and white, and every colour there is.“
Jude touches his cheek, his fingers trembling slightly. Cardan notices, takes her hand, and touches his lips to her knuckles.
“The world is so colourless without you, Jude. I want to live in colour again.”
Hand reaching down to his heart, Jude allows the words to come forth, “I can hear your heart.”
“And what does it say?”
She hesitates, and he takes it as an opportunity to trace the shape of her lips with his own. Slowly, once, twice, letting the taste of her overcome him like it has happened so many times before.
“You love me, don’t you?“ She whispers.
Cardan loves her most desperately, ardently. He loves all her bright and dark colours. He loves her vividly.
That is why he takes her in his arms, intending on never letting go, and murmurs:
"Yes, Jude. I love you.”
THE END.