Chapter Text
Jude was laying on her bed- no not her bed, her and Cardan’s bed.
Her husband was by her side, though he didn’t look happy, he looked terrified, his hands shaking, his clothes full of blood.
huh, she wonders if he is okay, she hopes deep down he is okay and that the blood isnt his.
"Jude are you-"
Her memories come back crashing down.
Jude
The queen of a new court in the south of elfhame had came to visit them today, with her she bought her consort, some guards and a few of her subjects, all of them were welcoming and sweet, she said wanted to show that in her court there wasn’t any animosity between fae and mortals and she even admitted later that she wanted to please Jude.
Everything was going alright, everyone was having fun, even Jude was loosing herself a little, she was wearing the lovely dress Cardan had bought for her in the mortal world, the dress was a beautiful forest green color with a low cut and a slit on her leg, she at the start had wanted to wear one of her husband’s shirts and some trousers, insisting that they had to be ready in case the queen wasn’t trustworthy and tried to do something against them to take the throne for herself.
But after some kisses and other fun methods of persuasion she agreed to wear the dress.
Turns out the queen isn’t totally immune to the king’s charms.
Plus, Cardan knew how much she actually wanted to wear that dress, and honestly, even if she didn’t like it she would probably still wear the piece of clothing anyway just because of the look her husband gave her, the look on his face when he saw her with the dress was enough for Jude, a look worthy dying for.
——
She was resting alone when it all happened.
Jude was previously dancing with her husband when she suddenly felt a strong headache, she decided to rest a little on a small room near where the revel took place, so many people together in one place was probably the reason her head was hurting so much, while she was used to participating huge revels she usually would only be sitting on her throne or having a discussion with boring old Randalin or maybe even having some fun time with Cardan, she wasn’t accustomed to dancing, laughing or having that much fun at a place full of faeries she didn’t know.
They were all treating her with kindness and respect, like she was one of them, like she was a Queen worthy of ruling over them.
Jude was laying on a couch, thinking about the passionate kisses she shared with Cardan early when suddenly three faeries entered the room.
She got up quickly and asked "What are you doing here? Those are private quarters"
They didnt reply.
The queen analyzed all of them, seeing her chances and what she was dealing with, all of them had weapons and were grinning sharply at her, one was tall, had purple skin, blue hair and butterfly wings, the other one was shorter than the previous but he was still tall compared to her, he had black and white hair, horns and a long scar on the right side of his face then finally she looked at the last one, he was the same height as the previous but his hair was golden blonde and his eyes were blood red.
He reminded her so much of him, her first kill.
Jude unconsciously touched the small scar on her neck.
”Mortals don’t deserve to be on the throne you know” the one with the white and black hair spoke, his scaly tail lashing around “all your kind does is poison the fae bloodline, taking away our power little by little” he started walking towards her.
In normal circumstances she would probably have been able to win against them, but she had drunk a lot after Cardan insisted she had some fun and stopped being a “buzz kill” (a term he learned from Vivi during one of their short trips to the mortal world) and the headache was killing her, plus, it was almost impossible to fight in that dress, it was way too tight against her skin, restricting her movements.
She was lucky she had her favorite dagger attached to her thigh.
“I'm not taking anyone’s power” she said confused, pointing the dagger at the man with butterfly wings.
“Not yet but you will, soon you will be pregnant with your little king’s child, that child will be a disgusting half fae half mortal, they will have way less power than their father, your poisoning the noble greenbriar lineage with your mortal blood” the blonde one spat, swing his sword at Jude.
She was so distracted she didn’t have time to fight back and the sword made a huge cut in her arm, her blood falling to the floor.
“She clearly has the king under a spell Raph, why do you think he would marry this mortal filth? She is not even that pretty”
Ouch.
”Then all we should do is free him from the spell” the man with blonde hair - Raph replied “I’m sure he will be thankful.”
“And how do we do that? We aren’t magicians smart ass” purple hair complained, stretching his wings.
“Isn’t it obvious Jackie? We are going to kill her, just look” the man with black and white hair laughed “she can’t even fight back! The poison was a smart idea, waiting until she was alone and tipsy from the wine was an even better idea”
“Come on, we are taking too long,” Raph complained, running rapidly to where she was giving her no opportunity to react.
Cardan
Jude wasn’t anywhere to be found, Cardan had looked everywhere and he still couldn’t find her, he asked the guests, went into their rooms calling her and nothing, not even the court of shadows had seen her.
It’s not normal of her to disappear like that without warning him, when she was seneschal that was one of her favorite things to do, not knowing how much stress and anxiety he would feel when she was gone but now, not knowing if she would ever come back, if she was okay, if she missed him.
But now, now was different, they had worked this out, she had promised she wasn’t going away without telling him first.
Many would say not to believe the words coming out of a mortal’s lying mouth but Cardan, surprisingly, trusted her, he trusted his Jude.
He then remembers Jude’s worries from the morning, worries he ignored.
Maybe she was right from the start, maybe queen Lirah had really planned something to get rid of them, and he had left her alone, possibly hurt somewhere.
He shouldn’t confront Lirah, he should make a plan, ambush her when she was alone and force her to confess her plans, but Jude is gone, he wasn’t thinking straight when he marched up to her, no plan in mind just pure anger.
She was dancing with her consort, he was almost close enough to talk to her when they stopped, her consort’s nose twitching, she had a confused look on her face.
”I smell blood.” She said, looking around the ballroom “mortal blood.” Her wolf ears went down, her eyes squinting “and it's not ours.” She looks at him.
Oh no.
Jude
She had lost.
The wine made her clumsy, the dress restricted her movements and the poison made her easily distracted.
Now she was bleeding on the ground, a huge cut on her stomach (not for the first time) and multiple small ones on her body, but to her credit, she had managed to hurt her attackers back even in her current weak state.
”Come on Zeph, what are you waiting for? Kill her already” Jackie complained, sitting on the floor, a huge cut on his leg and a tear on his wing.
”No.” he replied, the other two looked confused at him.
”The fuck do you mean ‘no’ dude. That’s literally why we came here” Raph said coming closer to Zeph “do I need to remind you that our whole objective was to get rid of the mortal filth?” He continues, coming extremely close to Zeph.
The horned beast then pushes him forcefully to the ground, making him hit his back on a chair.
”Motherfucker!”
”we should let her suffer” Zeph says after a minute of silence “soon the poison will kill her and then her king will find her, after he is freed from the spell i bet he will be grateful, he might even reward us, just imagine, a big statue of us three, the heroes who saved Elfhame from the claws of a nasty mortal” he laughed, tail lashing.
The other two agreed with him and all three left smirking.
They were right, those were probably her final moments, she was losing too much blood and wouldn’t last long, she just wished Cardan was here with her, she longed to see his face one last time, his smile, his eyes heck she even missed the feeling of his tail around her.
She missed him.
Then everything went dark, the last thing she felt was the wet nose of a big animal rubbing against her.