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Cardan sat on the boat in the center of the lake. Watching the ripples bob their vessel up and down as Jude moved around to reach for the cooler.
“Juice for Oak, wine for Cardan.”
His nephew sat on the bench seat beside him. Small horns poking out through his hair and the longer Cardan looked at him the more he saw his brother in him. He tried not to think of it for too long. Instead, Cardan took the bottle Jude was offering to him and gave her a grin.
“My ever caring wife, perfectly packing for us.”
Oak rolled his eyes in tandem with Jude. From the steering wheel of the boat, he heard Taryn scoff.
“Jude, you weren’t meant to pack any alcohol.”
“I only brought some for him and he will have to ration it.”
“Wine is bad for pregnant women.”
“If they drink it. Don’t drink it.”
His quip earned him a half hearted scowl from his wife’s twin. They were in the mortal world to try to help ease things for the birth of their new family member. Taryn wasn’t sure yet if she would rather have the child in Elfhame or here. Spending her time carrying the child in the human world with the majority of her family had seemed like the better option. Jude was busy with him. Ruling the nation by his side. They were targets, to be close to them was to be a target.
It wasn’t the life any of them wanted truly for the child.
Her due date was coming soon. Taryn had wanted to go to the water. Had wanted to see if that would calm some of her more issuing symptoms. It seemed mildly counterintuitive to him but he knew better than to argue. Lest he want both his wife and her twin at his throat for the next months.
Jude? Sure. He would take her at his throat at any moment. Taryn? He still remembered the way they’d found Locke’s body. Not that he was upset, he would have done it himself with permission.
Contrary to the widely popular belief, he was not a fool.
They’d come here to relax and chatter. Cardan tipped his face back toward the sun as it angled in its descent to the horizon. The warmth of it was nice. He’d expected for the smell of the water and fish to disgust him but instead he found a bit of peace in it. It was calm on the water. The rock and sway of the boat. The idle conversation of his family he was with. He had learned with Jude over the past months how to allow themselves to relax with one another.
How to breathe and be without armor. It was difficult still when there were others that were with them. It was something he was learning and trying to do now.
The nudge to his side made him open one of his eyes to peer back at the boy beside him. Oak raised an eyebrow in response.
“What?”
“Do you want to play a game?”
“A game?”
Despite who raised him as a mother, Oak never seemed to care what he said or did in the presence of the High King. Cardan supposed it was only fitting, afterall. He would have been raised as one of Elfhame’s Princes had Dain accepted him. He would have no need to fear the wrath of the crown when his father wore it.
Cardan ignored that he had feared it in the same situation. Mocked, singed, insulted, ignored. He still feared it.
“What kind of game?”
“Who can grab a fish out of the water first.”
It was Cardan’s turn to raise a brow to the boy. Turning his gaze to Jude who was watching them fondly before returning to her conversation with her sister.
“Hands only?”
He saw no harm in playing the game.
“No magic.”
Good. Oak was learning to set honest terms.
“No magic,” he agreed.
They both leaned to the edge of the boat. Looking down in the water and scanning for fish below.
“Cardan?”
He hummed. Keeping his eyes down to watch for a fish through the murk.
“Do you know how to swim?”
“It would be careless not to.”
For all the fights with the Undersea it had become a necessity. That didn’t mean he enjoyed the water. Or anything with being in it. He had too many poor experiences. Still, he leaned more to reach for the beings beneath the surface. His arms were longer than Oak’s. Even with his magic curbed by the salt of the water, he would do fine to win the game they had set.
“We watched a movie the other day.”
“And what, do tell, was it about?”
“Sleeping with the fishes.”
Cardan felt little hands against his side and back. He had only a moment to process what was happening before he was tipping over the edge and into the water. He had tried to shout but his head was under before he could. His mouth flooding with water and when his instinct demanded he cough it out he found more of it in his lungs.
A long time ago now, Nicasia had tried to show him the Undersea. Back when they were still courting and he was meant to be her consort there. She had charmed him with magic to allow him to breathe. It had failed to stave his panic then when he felt the water in his lungs.
Now, this time, there was no charm. No magic that was protecting him as his lungs filled with salt water. His magic turned dim and useless as he tumbled through the water. His body failing every single amount of instinct that should have saved him.
He knew how to swim. He knew how to kick. He couldn’t find the surface. His vision was blotting with darkness he couldn’t control. He tried to move his limbs only to find pins and needles in place of his fingers and toes.
He had fought war against the Undersea. He had faced rebellion. He had boiled the water and brought an island to the surface.
He had made his show of strength above the sea and now beneath a mortal lake he would drown.
The High King of Faerie, dying to the water of a simple fishing trip.
A hand gripped him tightly by the scruff of his shirt. Dragging him up and breaking them through the surface. He felt more hands under his arms. Dragging him up and onto the deck of their boat before releasing him to collapse.
The world around him was nothing but smears of light and dark. He couldn’t breathe with the weight in his lungs. He couldn’t speak against the pain. His eyes were burning.
Muffled thuds around him. Sounds of weeping. Voices.
He lay gaping on the deck of their boat like a fish when his lungs begged for air and had no space to draw it.
The hands from the water returned to him. He could feel the band of a ring around one of them. Turning him onto his side and a second hand striking him firmly in the center of his back.
Water surged up through his throat. Gagging him as it poured from his mouth and out onto the deck but when his body revolted and he tried to take air it moved in. His lungs fighting to rid themselves of the water he’d inhaled. Of everything he had in him regardless if it was friend or foe.
“Cardan? Can you hear me?”
He was trembling. He saw it in his hands. His heart hammering in his chest. Still, he nodded to the sound of his wife beside him.
“I’m sorry!”
He heard the wail from the boy who had pushed him.
“At school they say you should prank your friends! He said he could swim! I thought it would be fine!”
The fear in Oak’s voice was more than clear. Cardan dragged his knees beneath his chest. Gasping and choking up more water than he thought he still had in him. Watching it splatter to the ground in front of him and feeling Jude’s hand around him as a support.
“Cardan?”
He nodded again. Not trusting himself to speak and trying to get his vision to clear. The salt was grating against his eyes. The world still seemed blurred around him. Jude was soaking wet when he reached for her. Her hair hanging in drenched strands around her face and dripping with water. She was the one who had jumped in to get him. She was the one to save him.
“I didn’t mean to!” He squinted over at Oak. The boy’s face was streaked in tears. “It was meant to be a funny prank. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He waved him off. Oak was a child. He was learning the world around him. Cardan had given him no reason to believe that he would react as he did.
He was acutely aware that if it were the him from a few years ago he might have had the boy maimed for such an action. He was aware that it was Jude’s influence on him. Or perhaps simply the boy had grown on him. His heart was learning to be kind again, after all.
“Here,” in the span of time from when he’d closed his eyes to now, Taryn had retrieved them two large towels. “Dry yourselves off. You’re shivering. You’ll catch a cold.”
Jude was not shivering. The only one trembling was him. He knew it wasn’t from cold.
Taryn guided Oak away. Pulling him toward the steering well of the boat and giving as much privacy as possible to him and his wife. Jude took action to wrap a towel around his shoulders first before taking her own and drying at her hair.
“Are you alright?”
Her voice was a whisper. When he looked to her eyes he saw fear shining there. Only when she moved her grip on her towel did he see the slight tremor of her fingers. Cardan reached for her immediately. Holding her hand in his own and trying to offer her comfort.
“I’m alright.”
His voice came out course enough for both of them to wince. He could taste the water and salt on the back of his tongue. It made bile want to climb up as well. He knew why she was shaking.
“Are you?”
Jude’s nod came with damp eyes. Quickly blinked away as she pushed her heart down.
“Not a fan of water.”
His heart had been twisted while Jude had been prisoner in the Undersea. His heart had drowned with her then. He’d been glad she was alive. That she was returned to him. He’d been near murderous that she had been harmed. Near. If he would destroy his one virtue he would do it for her. Only for her.
“I’m surprised you panicked.”
He glanced at her from his view of the towel. She was watching him steadily. The question clear in her eyes.
“Was it that apparent?”
“Most likely only to me.”
He nodded. His eyes falling down to the puddle they had made for themselves to sit in. His thoughts running in on themselves with his memories. The pressure of Jude leaning against him pulled him free of it.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
She deserved to know. For everything else that had happened to them they had promised that they would not lie to one another. That there would be no secrets moving forward. He wanted to be open to her. It was one of their starting steps to remove the armor that guarded their hearts.
He recounted the tale of it to her. Watching between Jude’s expressions and the water around them. The towel wrapped around his body more like the security of a blanket and his tail coiled around his waist. The chill he felt in his core he did not believe came from the water.
“I had felt like I was drowning. Like I would be helpless. Afraid to reject it and be worthless and afraid to accept it and become even moreso. I believed, only for a moment, that it might be better to be worthless. To slip away and vanish. To learn to accept it. Make myself a man of consequence and if I could not then…”
He allowed his thoughts to trail off. Looking up to see Jude’s near wounded expression. A tight smile pulling her lips like she was forcing herself to grin.
“Neither of us are fans of the water. I think we would do well to avoid it in the future.”
It would be impossible and they both knew it. Still, for now, they could pretend.
“Fitting for the King and Queen of the land.”
Lovers made with the land. And with the land they would stay.