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Chapter 10
“Are you calling me out? Because then it’s my right to choose the time and the weapon,” Jude challenged, and Nicasia’s face twisted in fury. I knew then, without a doubt, she had unwittingly chosen her downfall today. Jude knew as well as I did that Nicasia was not skilled in the art of the blade, much like myself. But Jude was not as familiar as I was in how skilled Nicasia is in trickery and deceivement – I still felt the sting of her betrayal.
My stomach lurched with the realization that Nicasia’s revenge will come tenfold. And not for the first time, I realized how much trouble I was in since I stupidly agreed to Nicasia’s request to make the human girls suffer. Jude may have called for war and won the first battle with words and honor, but she was bound to lose this war with the ferocity of faeries. Unconsciously, I started moving towards Jude, though I was not sure how I could help her escape Nicasia’s wrath. My movements immediately halted as I realized the horror of helping the human who had plagued my dreams caught up to me.
Valerian shouldered Jude, but a flash of movement overhead caught my attention. I glimpsed up in time to track the seven shimmering stars racing across the sky, and Jude - like the good, overachieving student she is - turned her gaze upon it as well, rather than keeping it Valerian. With a sick horror and fascination, I watched as he shoved a faerie apple against her mouth. A silly, contrived human fairytale suddenly sprang to mind, where a fair princess who had hair as black as ebony and lips red as a rose had also met her undoing through a rotten apple.
Even as Jude spit out remnants of the forbidden fruit and reached for her salt, I knew the stars had damned her today, just as they had done to me on the day of my birth. Sure enough, Nicasia grabs Jude’s basket that contained her salt as Valerian shoved Jude forcefully to the ground. I wanted to curse the ill-timed celestial event - they never ceased to cause anything but trouble.
“Let me sweeten that sour tongue of yours,” Valerian spits out as he harshly forces the fruit into her mouth once again.
Pathetic, sprang the unbidden thought. But it was clear that he couldn't even hope to compete against her unless she was inebriated. Still I watched, the expected cruel smile gracing my lips. Jude was a mere human, and she couldn’t hope to keep fighting against us. She would be bested today and once that was over, she would no longer plague my dreams.
I reached over to grab the salt out of Jude’s basket from Nicasia, flipping it in my hands with expert ease. How fun it would be to taunt her until she gave up, useless without her silly mortal protections. But as the seconds continued passing by and Valerian was still on her, choking the fairy fruit down her mouth, I stilled with silent worry.
I glanced at Locke, who was watching the story of his doing unfold in front of him. When I looked back, I could see Jude’s eyes - those fierce, unyielding brown pits of hell - clouding over. Her hands futilely clawed at Valerian, but it was not enough. He was going to kill her.
“Do something!” Locke finally shouted, the lines perfectly scripted to seem like the hero of his own story, yet he was unwilling to lift a finger. The fury was enough to spur me to her side, as though I was her cruel knight instead of tormentor. I bent over to grab Valerian forcefully around his shoulders and shoved him away from the human, who had tears streaming down her face as she spit out the fruit. Valerian knew better to defy my wishes, but his muscles were taut as I let him go. I saw Locke silently appraise me.
“Enough,” I called out, glad that no one could hear my heart pounding so loudly that I thought it would burst through my chest. The enormity of the situation was weighing down upon me and I ground my teeth together in a failed attempt to calm myself. How the taunting transformed to this nightmare, I did not know. Jude, lo and behold, starts laughing. It was a sound I rarely heard - high pitched and almost girlish, so at odds with her fierceness – but I could hardly appreciate it under the circumstances.
Valerian pins me with an icy glare. “Ruin my fun, will you?” I stare at him for a second, unable to understand how he was going to snuff out the life of a fiery human under a redcap’s protection in front of both instructors and witnesses. Our statuses were high, but there would still be ramifications from this that he was too pigheaded to foresee or care about.
I clenched my hands into fists and remembered the salt I had. I can show no favor to the human - not that I had any for this human personification of a thorn at my side - but I would make this foolish man understand in a manner that would appeal to his senses. I tossed the salt in the air, laughing as I watched as the wind dispersed it. “What is wrong with you Valerian? If she dies,” I mused, working to keep my voice steady on the last word, “your little prank is over before it begins.”
“I’m not going to die,” Jude stated. While those were certainly words, she would say, they were lost without her usual bite. I glanced at her from the corner of my eye and saw a dopey smile gracing her face, as if she has never felt happier. It was a look I’ve never seen before and my heart stuttered.
“Prince Cardan?” Noggle cut in, “She ought to be taken home.”
Fool. I never listened to him before and have changed the entire gentry’s curriculum based on my whims. I could hardly heed him now without relinquishing my power, no matter how right I believed he was. “Everyone is so dull today,” I drawled, relying on the years spent at court to keep the tenor of my voice steady.
As I mulled over my next move, one that would remove Jude from this nightmare, Nicasia cut in. “Oh, Noggle, she doesn’t wish to go.” I wanted to snap at her and say I wished Jude gone, but I could hardly do that either without conceding my power or my guilty desire. So fragile was the power of cruelty. Nicasia stroked Jude’s cheek as she continued, “Do you, pretty thing?”
I saw red. She was touching the human, something I only allowed myself in my most wicked dreams. Jude was tempered in a manner in which I have never seen her, and it struck me that she has never looked more like Taryn than she did now. As if sensing that she was the object of my thoughts, she flashed a smile at me, bright and wide.
A pang went through my chest. That’s now how this was supposed to go. We are supposed to fight, our eyes gleaming with hatred. Not this. I do not know how to respond to her with something that was not ire. I did not smile back at her. Noggle mutters under his breath about us - specifically that my head one day will be removed from my shoulders - and has the audacity to turn away. To do nothing. At my sides, my hands curl into fists again.
I watched him go, hating him for leaving us to our cruelty. Some of the girls flop next to Jude, none of whom have ever spoken to Jude before. Flossflower says, “I’ve never seen a mortal take the fruit of Elfhame before,” to another girl, before asking “Will she remember this?”
Locke, who decides to finally participate in his unraveling story, states, “Would that someone would enchant her to do otherwise.” As traitorous Locke approaches Jude, she turns to him. And when he touches her shoulder gently, she leans into it. I inhaled and exhaled deeply as my hands continued fisting at my sides. I was not sure how long his relationship with the second sister was going on for, but I am reminded that she currently would welcome the touch of anyone.
Nicasia’s laugh interrupted my thoughts. “She wouldn’t want that. What she’d like is another bite of the apple.” I saw a hungry, hopeful look pass Jude’s eyes and I shifted on my feet as I stayed standing on the outskirts of the circle, near Locke. I should formulate a plan to get her out of here, if only to quiet my thundering heart.
“So we can ask her things?” Moragna asks. “Embarrassing things. And she’ll answer?” It was hardly as cruel as I’ve been, but I dreaded hearing these drunken confessions.
“Why would she find anything embarrassing when she’s among friends?” Nicasia asked, a calculative gleam in her eyes. I was no closer to thinking of a plan - I would have to watch this scene play out.
“Which one of us would you most like to kiss? Flossflower questioned forcefully, going closer to Jude as if she could intimate the truth out of her. Nevermind that she would hardly have the gall to do that if Jude was thinking straight, but I was secretly glad for her invasive question. My heart thumped unevenly as I waited for her to answer
“I’d like to kiss all of you,” Jude says, as she grins up to look at the sky again. At least the stars could hardly curse her any more than they already have today. The rest of the girls scream into peals of laughter, as I ignored the pang that went through my heart. At least she did not solely say Locke; his hold on her not yet secured.
“You’re wearing too many clothes,” Nicasia says, frowning while looking over her clothing. “And they’ve grown dirty. You should take them off.” The stars were certainly done punishing Jude, but they were not through with me. How would I stand being able to look at her in less clothing, something I’ve ever only ever dreamed of in my most shameful moments? But there was a horrible sense of curiosity as well, so I could better picture it in the future.
“You’re right,” Jude exclaimed, that stupid smile still on her face as her gown falls into a puddle on the ground. She steps over it easily - a sense of sureness in her own skin, even now - as silence falls.
My stone heart stopped beating. Though I knew I should look away, her undergarments were so peculiar, just like the rest of her. Rather than wearing the traditional cloth undergarments, she was wearing some kind of matching, dotted underpants and bra. Her breasts were heavier than any of the other fey girls, her curves inviting. My fingers twitched at my side.
“Am I beautiful like you are?” Jude asked Nicasia. That breaks the spell and the thumping of my heart restarts. I almost scoff out loud – Jude’s beauty was unmatched, even with her mirrored sister.
“No,” she replies. “You are nothing like us.” My lips threaten to turn upwards. We couldn’t lie, but Jude had made it so easy to sidestep the question. The princess of the sea knew that she would be unable to say that the human was not a beauty.
Nicasia went to pick up the remains of the fairy apple as Valerian pointed to the rowan necklace resting around Jude’s throat, a sharp reminder of the number of human weaknesses she possessed. Yet she never backed down.
Jude nods, an odd look on her face as she agrees with something for the first time in her life. “You’re right. I don’t need it here.”
Nicasia smiles as she holds out mashed fruit in her hand. “Come lick my hands clean. You don’t mind do you? But you have to do it on your knees.”
Adrenaline pumps through my veins as I watch Jude take a second before she starts to crawl towards her. It was difficult to keep my eyes trained on her face. “No,” I commanded, as I stepped forward into the circle. She did not beg on her knees yesterday at the tournament for me, and I would not witness this human tempest do so for Nicascia of all people. The others, recognizing my authority, scramble back. I slip off one of the leather shoes and place my foot in front of her. “Jude will come here and kiss my foot. She said she wanted to kiss us. And I am her prince, after all.”
She barked out a laugh, and I am stupidly stunned for a moment. She would crawl for the underwater princess, but still has the gall to laugh at me, to continuously undermine me. My eyes drop from her face to her chest for a moment as she laughs but meets hers as she looks up at me. As my desire and temper flares, I clench my hands into fists again, hard enough to leave angry half-crescent marks into the flesh of my palms.
“Well,” I say impatiently, as a couple of beats pass, “Be quick about. Kiss my foot and tell me how great I am. Tell me how much you admire me.”
Turn my dreams into a reality, I traitorously thought. Despite whatever I was stupidly thinking, I looked up to make direct eye contact with Locke. He was the one spinning this story of winning the twin sisters to humiliate Nicasia and I, but currently has lost the threads of it. With a taunting curve of my lips, I dared him to take back the control, to make himself the savor. Jude is as helpless to anyone’s commands as I was to Balekin’s. But unlike my eldest brother, this did not make me feel powerful. Instead, I wanted Locke to rise up to the bait and interfere - a feeling that I refused to examine too closely.
“Enough,” Locke cut in sharply, putting his hands on her shoulders and pulling her rather roughly to her feet. “I am taking her home.”
“Are you, now?” I asked, raising my eyebrows, though I am silently pleased. “Interesting timing.” I looked at him meaningfully, unable to resist the opportunity to ask him how it felt to be on the receiving end, even for a moment. I continued, “You like the savor of a little humiliation, just not too much?”
“I hate it when you get this like,” Locke muttered under his breath. This comment was not aimed towards me - oh no, this show was all for Jude, who will undoubtedly think him as her savor. This scene was playing out in his favor. Still, I hardly trusted him. I pulled a glittering acorn shaped pin out of my coat and I saw Jude’s wide eyes tracking the movement. For a second, I wondered what she thought of my actions, wondered what she assumed I was doing. Probably something cruel, which I hoped everyone would perceive this as. Taking a hold of her hand, which was warm and callused under my own, I stabbed her thumb with the pin.
“Ow,” Jude says, pulling her hand away from mine to put the injured finger in her mouth, just as I predicted she would.
“Have a nice walk home,” I tell her, hoping that Locke would bring her back to Madoc’s sprawling estate safely, though I dreaded the progress he may make in his tale. I did not bother to hide my smile when I thought about how it would hardly be a pleasant walk with the salt in Jude's blood washing away the blissful ignorance of her actions. The familiar ire in Jude's eyes would return once more.