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"I exile Jude Duarte to the mortal world. Until and unless she is pardoned by the crown, let her not step one foot in faerie or forfeit her life."
Those words echoed in the darkness swirling around and around in her mind. She could see him in her dreams or was this a nightmare. The mockery shinning in his hauntingly beautiful onyx eyes. A slender female form with pale blue skin and hair the color of the deepest oceans sitting in his lap. A crown of shells upon her head a wicked glare pulled at her lips.
"Foolish mortal. Did you think for a second he could love you? To marry you and let filthy human trash rule?"
"Honestly Jude," he drawled, "I thought you were smarter than this," His voice, cold and cruel like a winter's night, "Apparently not," a bored sigh fell last lips, "Why would I want you? When I can have her instead?"
Both of them tilting their heads back in a fit of laughter as they merged back into the darkness. Jude's eyes flashed open, cold sweat dripping from her hairline. A suffocating tightness in her chest. Her fingers clutching her ruby ring, holding it close to her heart. Eyes were still burning and the rest did nothing. She still felt hollow inside. Like everything inside her had been violently ripped away and stolen. Every moment awake felt like torture worse than what she endured in the Undersea.
Being Queen of the Faerie, being his wife was over. It was gone before it had a chance to grow and flourish. For once, Jude let herself open to another. Jumping completely into her fears and falling. Hard and fast. Only to be struck on impact. It wasn't the banishment itself that ate away at Jude. That made each day horrendously painful to get through. No, it was that he did this to her. That Cardan, her husband, the high king himself, and her only weakness did this. He was the faerie fruit she should’ve never bitten.
Jude took a blanket winding it around her, the soft fabric draped off her shoulders. She toed around the room, heading to the hall. Barefeet toeing along the floor as she went. She crossed the threshold in four strides, moving like a ghost in the dark apartment. Fitting for how she felt. Empty. A shell of herself. Jude turned the knob of the door, stepping out onto the balcony. Cool night air ghosting her skin, the chill making her feel alive. Her gazes flicked to the starry night above.
"I know you're out there," clenching her jaw to find the right words. It didn't matter. Yet still, she needed the burden off her chest, "Probably drunk. Surrounded by faes in your bed" her voice shaking, stomach twisting in knots at the thought of someone. Especially Nicasia touching him. Jude breathed out calming herself, "And I-" her chest ached, burned. The stinging of tears forming in her eyes, "I.. I.," damn feelings, "I let myself feel for you. I was ready to fall," Jude grit her teeth, a feeble attempt to keep the agony at bay.
The cracks in her foundation began to show. One tear and then another. Hotly trickling down her face. Chapped lips trembling, "I hate you for making me think I was worth keeping. I hate you because I know whenever I find myself in Elfhame and I will. I won't want to kill you. No matter the threats I'll spin."
She knew no matter when her return will be, Cardan will have everything. The crown, the power, and most likely a marriage alliance. He would be thriving. While Jude, Jude would still be hurting.
Jude Jude Jude Jude Jude Jude Jude Jude.
In the darkness, she appeared before him. At first, she looked to him the way she did at her banishment. With hurt in her eyes, a silver lining the lids of them as she fought against the brimming wetness. Within seconds it melded and Jude was sneering at him, teeth bared and bronzed eyes brimming with hate, like a raging fire readying to burn him alive.
"I hate you. The thought of you touching me makes my skin crawl," her cruel beauty twisting into utter disgust, "You're pathetic Cardan. No wonder your mother left you," She turned walking away to a figure with hair of crisp autumn leaves the shade of crimson. Stopping to look at Cardan once more, "I burn your missives as soon as they arrive. Are you that desperate for someone to love you?"
She laughed wickedly walking into the blackness.
For the fourth, sixth, or maybe tenth time that day, Cardan awoke in a cold sweat. Running his fingers through tousled inky black hair. His stomach churning as bile threatened to rise. That rotten worm-eaten heart of his felt as if it were barely pumping. Like he had reached the end of the line in his sad life. An immortal life ending far too quickly.
Five. He had sent her five letters begging his queen to come home. Explaining the banishment was trickery on his part. Something he believed Jude understood. That she would've been proud of him. And yet she never came. Perhaps the problems did lay with himself. By now he was convinced it was. For what other reason would Jude have to not return to his side? If she didn't care deeply for him the way the did her. Cardan's mind pushed against the thought. The Jude from his dreams, his nightmares was like a poison. Invading and let that final blow strike at him once more.
Are you that desperate for someone to love you?
Cardan fell into a daze, approaching his desk and settling in the rich mahogany chair. It was like he fell into an emotionless trance, pulling out ink, quill, and parchment. Etching her name over and over and over again. Until his wrist burned in pain and he dropped the quill. Reading over the last line.
Please Jude
"Not someone. Just you," he muttered under his breath.
His palms dragged along his face, resting his elbows on the intricately designed desk. His fingers interlocked settling against his forehead. Tapping them rhythmically. She was probably living in the mortal realm. Happy to be rid of him. While he was sitting here, hurting. Suffering alone in his agony. Still having to view the same places Jude had been. Talk to folk who she talked to. Cardan still had no strength to even glance at the small room passed the dais. swallowed slowly, feeling his throat tighten and loosen. Taking in a long breath to steady his voice.
"Please Jude, please,” staring at her name he once wrote out of hate. Now writing out of despair and brokenness, “I don’t know what else to do.”
Cardan had lost track of how many times he thought the same thing over again. That he would take back the laughing, Instead standing by his Queen. What was done was done. He would live everyday with guilt and the mistake that caught him everything.