Work Text:
Cardan allowed himself, in the solace of his solitude, to shiver in the pain radiating through his body. The dark of the cell was not the issue. He could see just fine but sometimes, now, he wondered if human sight was stolen from them in the dark as a form of a boon. They wouldn’t see the nothingness around them. The empty box that he was trapped in. the sharp edges and flat walls that gave him nothing to look at.
Cardan left his eyes closed. It was easier to focus that way. Easier to center himself. To breathe around the burning that was lighting through his skin where he touched the cold iron beneath him.
Bearing down on him from all sides. The hatch was too far above his head. Too solid and he couldn’t tell anything beyond it. Where he was, if it was day or night, if someone was guarding his prison to know if he tried to escape. He had no furnishings. He had nothing to defend him but his clothes.
It wasn’t enough.
Cardan pretended it was enough.
When he was a boy, he would sleep in the stables and pretend he was playing a game of hide and seek. That his family was simply playing with him. That someone would come looking for him. He had tried to convince himself time and time again that he was playing a game and that he was wanted at his home. He’d learned with a single arrow that he was not.
He was a stray cat left in the dirt and wet of an alley. He was scorned and abused and despite the blood that rushed through his veins Cardan had become worthless.
He was the youngest. He was never going to have the throne. He was never going to amount to anything. No one paid him mind. He lashed out. He fought. He bit and snarled and tore wings without a second thought. He drank and he drank and he drank until he forgot how to feel. He burned and buried his own heart under so much armor he wasn’t sure he knew how to let it truly beat.
He thought he might learn, in the night when he slipped a ruby ring over a delicate mortal finger. When he found the edge of a rounded ear and a heart shaped face. When their lips met and their bodies found one another in a bed that had once been his father’s.
Cardan was meant to be nothing and had found himself King.
Cardan was meant to be the youngest of several of his line and he found himself alone.
Alone but with a family he thought he might forge. Only one blood relation remaining to him and he thought now he might never see the boy again. Because he’d made a mistake.
He’d thought he was being clever. He thought he was being smart. That Jude would be impressed with him and instead she’d seemed scorned. Angry with him and then she was gone. Vanishing from his sight.
Not one single letter returned answered. Not one single letter returned at all.
He tried to script his heart into the words he scribed to her. He tried to show her that he knew he was wrong. That he wanted her home regardless of the cost. He wanted to see her. To be shouted at. To be furious with. He wanted her to hate him if only she was at a nearer distance. The person who had begun to unlock his heart and make him feel and all he felt now was fear and regret.
He wanted to apologize. Properly. To explain to her his intent even if she would not forgive him. Even if she never changed her mind and she hated him forever. He would bear it. Because even with hate her heart meant more to him than others.
He thought of her now. Laying on cold iron in a box he thought might be beneath ground. To keep himself focused. To keep himself calm. He tried to breathe steady but the thought of Jude running over his thoughts made his breathing hitch.
She was perhaps the only one who may have come looking for him and she had left him. Furious and scheming. He had half the mind to question if she was the one who put him here.
There was treaty signed between Elfhame and the Undersea. A peace they were meant to preserve. He had been waiting for Jude to return. For her to come home to him so that they could fight and argue and he could wait on his knees and ask her to strike him if she felt that she must.
He’d nearly driven himself mad.
He’d caught sight of her. Just the edge. Her hair seemed wrong, the way that she moved. But he’d never thought Taryn to be the type to sneak around corners. To scheme. He’d followed. Wanting to know for himself which twin he was seeing. If the wish of his heart was coming true.
He didn’t remember what happened after turning the corner.
There was pain in his skull. He could feel a tackiness through his hair as blood dried in. He was sure it wasn’t a kind thing to look at but at least he had the mercy of being spared as it was on the back of his head.
His magic was useless here. The strength of the land being dulled by the edge of the iron. He could feel his energy diminish each minute longer he stayed here. The thumping of his heart in his chest.
He imagined Jude standing with him again. How close they had been. How he had allowed himself to believe for a moment that things would be fine for them. That they would be safe with one another. Able to move forward. Become something more than what the both of them were before.
He missed her. The girl that had caught his wrath. The girl that distracted him each time he believed he had a purpose. The girl that commanded him and released him. Who schemed and fought and never waivered despite odds that stacked against her. Sword skills leagues better than his own.
Cardan imagined them beside one another again. For her to be laying on the ground beside him. For him to have his chance to speak to her.
He did not know if he could be heard. He did not know if he was somehow being watched.
He spoke to her regardless.
“My dearest Jude,”
If it was her who had struck him. If it was her who had locked him in here as a form of revenge or punishment. If she was watching her want of him dead.
“I had assumed when I was young that I would die by my foolishness.”
The pain was beginning to become too much. He could feel weight in his chest with each beat of his heart. Like it was bearing down on him with the force of some great curse.
“I had not realized my foolishness would be you.”
How he had hurt her, however unintentionally. Clearly, it did not matter. It was becoming harder to convince his lungs to pull air in and out. To continue moving himself. To continue his ever stubborn life.
“If you wished me dead I wish you would have at least allowed me to see you.”
He’d caught a glimpse. He didn’t even know if it was her. If it was really her that had enraptured him into this.
“My dearest Jude,” It was harder now to keep his eyes open. “You are my sweetest punishment.”
He stopped fighting it.
“My ever cruelest salvation.”
He supposed, if he was meant to die, it would have always been alone. Abandoned by everyone he believed may care for him. A punishment to the foolishness of believing that he could be wanted. That he could be loved.
“I do not want to die.”
He heard what sounded like a fight above him. He couldn’t will himself to focus on it. The iron around him was dimming his thoughts. Dulling his senses. His skin had turned numb.
“My Jude,”
He’d seen her. She had been there. She’d been so close. She either wanted this or she was never there at all.
“I am sorry.”
It was becoming harder to speak. Light came pouring down from above him but his eyes didn’t open. He didn’t have the strength for it. There were more shouts. A clatter of metal. What sounded like someone calling his name.
Cardan didn’t move.
“King?”
There were fingers pressing to his throat. The contact startling him enough to make him look only to find the world spun to swaths of colors instead of a proper image. He tried to focus his eyes. He was so tired. Too tired to concentrate around the drumming that pulsed through his skull.
“Cardan, can you hear me?”
His tongue felt glued to the roof of his mouth. He wasn’t even sure he could muster the strength to groan if he tried in the moment.
“We’re getting you out of this. Hold on.”
He couldn’t. It didn’t seem to matter. The urgency in the voice matched the motion he felt around his body. He could make out the Roach above him. Sharp features and jagged edges as he gathered him up into his arms as if he were nothing more than a rag doll.
“Pull us up.”
“Is he alive?”
He could make out the Bomb’s voice above him.
“Weak, but yes. We need to get out of this cell.”
He tried to focus as they pulled him up and out of the iron. As his body fell against the grass of the land. As he tried to breathe and curled his fingers into the dirt. Breathing came easier now. The light seemed too bright for him now. His vision was still blurry but there was still one thing that remained.
A heart shaped face, a curve of an ear, blades and cunning eyes.
“Take the prisoners to the dungeons. The High King will handle them when he wishes.”
Cardan didn’t even realize there were more people here. A choked whimper dragging from his throat when he tried to move to hide his eyes from the light. The land was wrapping around him but nothing was seeming to help ease the exhaustion flooding his limbs.
“We’ll need to know how she got an edge on him. He’s smart enough not to follow at random to a lure. He knows how to look for traps.”
Why would he not give Jude an edge? Why would he ever tell her no when she held a blade to his heart.
It was hers to take if she wanted it.
“Jude…”
She was the only thought he could hold. The only image he could conjure to his thoughts. She was the only thing that gave him a reason to properly fight. To endure just a little while longer for.
A hand was in his hair. For a moment he thought it was there as a comfort. To card through the tangles he knew he had and bring him peace. Instead he felt a gentle prodding at the ache in the back of his skull.
“Jude isn’t here. Shapeshifting magic. We knew that was what was used but not what she’d changed to. She used Jude?”
The question was not accusatory even though he felt like it should be. All he could do was nod.
It wasn’t her. None of it was her.
“She wouldn’t break her exile.”
Cardan couldn’t hold his thought to himself.
“I want her to.”
He missed her. He longed for her. He wished for her to be here.
His eyes slipped closed despite the urging around him. A rush of panic that he could feel from the two shadows that stayed by his side. That were trying to tend to him and protect him. That hadn’t abandoned him.
He imagined Jude’s hands in his hair. Her clever grin flashing to him. Her wicked eyes observing him like he was prey to her. A challenge offered in her body and voice.
“I want her.”
The Jude in his dreams called for him. He followed her toward the dark.
He wanted to pretend for a little while longer.
And so he slept.