Work Text:
Jude kept her eyes on her husband in across from her. A revel moving all around them and normally where she would be seeing Cardan dancing and drinking to his heart’s content, that wasn’t the case now.
No. Now, she was watching him from the opposite head of the table. Seeing him sit leaned forward on the table with his elbow propped and his long fingers pinching against the bridge of his nose. His eyes were closed. A frown was pulled over his lips.
Three weeks since Elfhame fully and firmly accepted them both as King and Queen. Three weeks since she had needed to behead the serpent and Cardan had returned to her. Three weeks and the body of the snake was finally being finished eaten in tonight’s revel. Music was loud. Bodies were everywhere. Food and snake themed everything. People were laughing. Celebrating the great victory they’d seen.
They called her the Snake Queen.
Serpent Killer.
Queen of Knives.
Mortal Queen.
Cardan had insisted she rest in the wake of it. Ordering their knights to keep her to her chambers and away from work so that she could rest. He said it was because he remembered seeing her when he was cursed. Seeing how exhausted she was and how little time to rest she’d had. How it had hurt her to be doing all that she had done. He couldn’t lie but Jude had the feeling that there was more he wasn’t telling her. That he was feeling more than she truly understood.
Humans could lie. Jude was not lying when she said she was worried about her husband.
Each time she saw him recently he was growing more and more wane. His connection to the land was stronger now. Anyone with eyes could see it. Anyone with magic could tell. Each and every citizen of Elfhame could tell the shift that happened through their King. They could feel the way the land shifted to him. How it obeyed his commands and his structure.
What Cardan wanted the land would create.
It should be healing him. If he was wounded or hurt still from the curse then the land should be working to heal him. It should be taking care of all of it for him. Replenishing his body and his energy. That was the way the connection was meant to work.
But Cardan looked more tired each time she saw him through the last weeks. He was keeping a distance between them. She kmew that he wasn’t angry with her for killing him. That he was glad she had done it. He’d told her that much outright. And so even though Jude continued to have nightmares about what she’d done, she didn’t question if her husband hated her actins as much as she did. He was trying to get her to rest more. He was trying to help her.
Jude didn’t think he understood that she wanted to help him too.
She was watching him a little closer maybe than she probably should for their stations. All the eyes of the room were on them. It was better to assume that they were always being listened to and watched and searched for weaknesses. No matter what their titles would be there would always be someone looking for power or looking for a fight. Claiming they had a noble cause or something of the sort. She remembered exactly what Madoc was like when he’d been teaching her to plot and plan for a fight when she was younger.
How she had used those lessons in order to win against him three weeks ago.
She watched as another faerie came over to talk to Cardan. Leaning a little too close to his side for her comfort and asking him something that looked suspiciously like an ‘are you alright’ only for Cardan to wave him away. A smile coming up onto his face even though it didn’t reach his eyes. As he requested for wine to be brought and a chalice was placed immediately into his hand.
He went to dance. She knew the shadow following behind him was the Roach. Their friend had basically been acting as Cardan’s personal security since he was the one that he was most familiar with. It wouldn’t last forever but at least she knew she could trust the Roach to keep him safe.
She wanted to find the Bomb. To ask her friend if she could tell what was going on with Cardan and why he was acting the way he was. She had done her best to understand the connection of the King and the land but the more she saw Cardan like he was being drained of his life the more she worried she’d missed something enormous.
She had faced insurmountable before. This somehow felt worse.
Her husband vanished into the throngs of the revel. Letting himself be merry and while she wanted to join him, Jude also knew how limited her time was going to be to figure out what was going on with him.
It didn’t take her long to find her friend. The Bomb was tucked away into the shadows of the room to watch and keep an eye for any threats that may attempt to be lurking. She was good at moving between everything without being noticed and the new equipment for the shadows was only aiding.
The only reason Jude knew it was her was because she’d given them their roles to play for the night earlier.
“Bomb?”
She tried to sound confident but it still came out as a question. She could practically hear the smile her friend gave in return.
“Queen.”
The name had more meaning now that it was her actual title.
“Have you noticed anything off with Cardan recently?”
She wanted to get to the point of this. She was worried and if it was something like a poison then they needed to know sooner than later.
“He’s tired. My guess is the land fully accepting him and him accepting it back while everything else was going on. I can’t say for certain but I think that’s the most likely thing.”
Jude frowned.
“So he’s sick?”
The Bomb shook her head.
“Exhausted would be a better term for it. He’s been working hard to give you time to rest. I’m not sure that he’s actually getting sleep.”
A huffed fell from her lungs as she scanned the dance floor for her wayward husband. He’d never shown any initiative for working before. Why would he start now?
“How do you suppose we get him to sleep?”
“Sleep with him.” The Bomb’s voice was almost flat. Almost. She laughed the moment Jude turned to stare at her. “Is that not what Queens are meant to do with their Kings when they have no other lovers?”
Jude allowed herself to laugh. She wanted to be with Cardan. She wanted them to share the bed the way they had on their wedding night. She wanted to be close to him and remind herself that he was really there and that she hadn’t lost him or killed him.
He was the one that kept her in her chambers. He was the one that kept them apart.
“I’m not sure—”
The music cut with an array of gasps from the dance floor. The dancing halting immediately and people rushing together to the center of the floor to see whatever it was that had their attention. Both her and the Bomb tensed. Moving from their placed tucked and hidden in the shadows to see what was going on.
They ran. The crowd parting way for her and giving her access through. She thought she would see a scandal. That she would find some random faerie with too much to drink making a fool of themselves.
She knew it was wrong by the looks of actual concern and fear on some of the faces she passed. The infatuation of others.
Jude wasn’t sure there was anything that could have prepared her for crossing through to the center to see the Roach knelt on the ground with her husband cradled in his arms. Both her and the Bomb were at their sides in moments. They had to get Cardan out of here. Away from prying eyes who would likely do more harm than good.
“Everyone out!”
She was the High Queen. They would obey her.
They didn’t do it fast enough.
“Out! Now!”
Her knights moved then. Following to form a wall between their royals and the revelers. Forcing them out and away tro give them more room to work with.
“Send for a healer immediately.”
This was more than exhaustion. It had to be. When she looked at Cardan he looked far too small in the Roach’s arms. He was normally pale but his skin nearly matched the parchment their letters would be written on. His eyes were closed but his face was set in a grimace. He was trembling.
“What happened?”
She needed to know if this was a poison. If this was assassination. If this was—
“He was dancing. Came to get me after he shook away the couriers that were getting close. He told me he wanted to leave and to tell you he was retiring for the rest of the event. He made it two steps before he collapsed.”
“Bomb?”
She was their resident poison expert. If someone was going to know what was wrong with him, it would be her in this moment.
“His pulse is steady but it’s weaker than it should be. Majesty? Cardan, can you hear us?”
“We need to get him to his room.”
“I still think it’s exhaustion.”
“A few weeks with stressed sleeping shouldn’t get him to be like this.”
Her fear was starting to take the shape of anger instead. She had fought so hard for what? For weeks of her husband barely standing to be in the same space as her and then to lose him to something she didn’t know? She wasn’t going to stand for it. She wasn’t going to let it happen. She had broken the oddsd of this world before and Jude had no problem doing it again.
Not if Cardan was on the other side.
“The serpent poisoned the land.”
The Roach’s voice was almost too soft to hear. Still, she thought about what had happened to Elfhame while Cardan had been cursed. She couldn’t feel the land in the same way he did. She could be healed by it and it had accepted her as High Queen but she wasn’t bound in the way that Cardan was. Her life wasn’t explicitly tied to it.
If the land was poisoned by the curse and the destruction the serpent caused wasn’t repaired then—
“The land has been healing and drawing out of him to do it. He’s been pushing himself.”
The Bomb looked at her. Even though Jude couldn’t see her face she could wager a fair guess as to what expression was being leveled to her now.
“He needs rest. He needs to recover and he can’t carry on like this anymore.”
Cardan had been so focused on fixing everything around him that he had evidently forgotten that he needed to be healed and cared for as well. For all the arrogance he held, she’d noticed he was strangely protective of anything he deemed to be his.
She’d seen it when she was saved from the Undersea. She’d seen it when Madoc stole her from the palace. How he’d gotten her free. Jude had seen his protectiveness. His care. She just hadn’t thought he would do something as stupid and reckless as this.
They carried him back to his room without fare. Jude setting herself to the bed beside him to help watch over him. To guard him as he slept and make sure nothing else happened to him. That he wouldn’t stop breathing or that his heart wouldn’t stop beating. Her hand worked through tangles in his hair. She pet the tuft at the end of his tail. She watched him relax and actually, genuinely, rest.
They would recover from what happened to them.
They would do it together.