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Cardan laid in the royal stables. His heart a rapid patter in his chest but it wasn’t beating as strongly as he thought it should be. Not for the situation he was in. Warm, tacky, blood spilling out from his fingers and the cold metal of a blade lodged in his side. He was shaking. Each time he tried to move his hands away he was trembling.
He had only wanted to play. The youngest Prince of Faerie. Playing around the palace and being young. Being foolish and fun.
Ten years old and all Cardan had wanted was to make his mother smile. He’d wanted to play a game with her. To run rampant in their chambers as he always did when he was allowed to be there. She didn’t always want him. Saying that it was for an adult reason and that he might understand it one day when he was older.
Something had been different when she came back this time. She had been angry. She had been saying she needed a plan to keep herself relevant here. To play a ploy to keep her position secure.
She blamed him for being in this situation in the first place. That it was because of him that the High King no longer cared much for her presence. That it was because of him and the prophecy attached to him that the High King considered them outcasts. That he was unwanted by everyone.
She could not say it if it was not true.
Even at ten years old, Cardan understood that.
He’d tried to tell her he was sorry. That he could do better. That he would do better. He would do what he was asked. He had only wanted to play.
“I can remove the prophecy. If I can remove the stain then he will take me back. We can make something better than the mistake we had before.”
Cardan had heard the words.
He hadn’t understood what she meant until there was cold metal through his body. The point of it was sticking out on his back. He could feel it. He could feel his blood.
Cardan had cried. Tears in his eyes and whimpers breaking through his voice. He’d tried to reach for his mom. To cling to her like he did in the past. When he would get scared and need a scrap of her comfort.
She pushed him away. Sending him off to the stables.
“Tell them you were playing and were attacked.”
It was the truth.
“Tell them you do not know who struck you.”
“Mother—”
His true name came spilling from her lips. A wicked smile stretching them as she gave him the command again. As she stripped him of his control and forced him to walk to the stables. To avoid the eyes of the ones who may see him and help him. He’d collapsed when he made it to the hay. The most comfortable spot, he had tested them all.
The threadbare cloak he had wrapped around his shoulders hardly felt like it did anything at all. He was shivering still. His fingers were slick. He was trying to hold onto himself but each breath he took made the metal move and the pain was too much.
Until it started to turn numb. Until he started not to be able to feel anything at all.
Cardan watched the spinning wood of the stables above him. The shuffling and chuffing of animals around him. He wanted to call out for help but he wasn’t able. His eyes were feeling heavy.
The hay beneath him was wet. He couldn’t remember how long ago it had been that she sent him out here. That she had sent him away and kept him from crying out or seeking help with the use of his true name. She had given it to him. She could use it whenever he didn’t want to obey on his own.
Compliance. That was what would make him a good child.
That was what she’d told him.
“It was a good day for a hunt, I’m telling you. We could go tomorrow?”
“I have plans with our father tomorrow.”
He knew those voices. He wanted to be closer to those voices.
“Convince our father to hunt with us.”
“He’s the High King, Balekin. He’s not going to come hunt with us.”
“He could. He could….”
He couldn’t see them. He couldn’t see much of anything anymore.
“What, trying to come up with what he would do? Father isn’t— Balekin? What are you looking at?”
“Cardan.”
He sounded breathless. A rush of footsteps and hay and then a thump beside him. Hands that were ghosting over him and barely touching the blade before he gagged. The motion of it inside of him made him wish that all of it was over already.
“Cardan,” hands found his cheeks, “do you hear me?”
He tried to nod. He wasn’t sure that it worked.
“Dain, get our Father.”
“Was he attacked?”
“Clearly. You think he stabbed himself like this? He’s a child.”
There was a protectiveness in his oldest brother’s voice that he did not recognize. He craved for more of it.
“Stay awake, if you can, little brother.”
In moments he was being held against a chest. Cradled in arms that were bigger than him. He was being moved but he couldn’t tell where he was being taken. He couldn’t do much of anything other than accept it. His arm was hanging down. Bouncing as Balekin ran with him. He could hear shouted orders to knights but his hearing had turned muffled. The rush of his blood in his ears drowning everything else out.
The stuttering patter of his heart in his chest.
“I need a healer.”
There was a whirlwind of motion around him. People in every direction that he could feel but not see. His hand was being held. Compassion that he wasn’t sure he’d ever experienced before.
“Stay with me, little brother. Stay with me.”
He did not say that he would be alright. He did not promise him that he would make it. There was not one assurance that came from his brother’s mouth.
“We found him in the stables. Bleeding out. He was attacked. We should have knights scan—”
“It will be handled, Dain.”
“Father,”
“I have said enough. Stop tending him.”
The movement around him stopped. The hand holding his grew stronger.
“What do you mean stop? He will die.”
Truth. Cardan was afraid to die.
He was afraid that this would be it. That his mother would have killed him and no one would have known. That his mother would have ended his life before he truly got to live it. Calling him a monster while he wasn’t even certain what it meant. He had fought. He had played. He had been cruel and he had been kind. He had done anything he could for a moment of attention from his parents that would actually feel as if he mattered to them.
That was all he had wanted.
To matter to them. To someone.
Cardan listened to a fight around him. He listened to shouting and silence that rung through his ears for too long before there were hands touching him once again. The metal being pulled from his body but an arm laying over his chest. Shushing him and words attempting to comfort him whispered into his ear.
A presence that did not leave. That stayed to guard him. That stayed to ensure he was safe. That tried to guard him.
“When this is done I will take you to Hollow Hall. You can live with me. I will teach you to protect yourself. I will teach you to be strong. Do not fret, little brother.”
All he had wanted was to matter.
“I will teach you to make them regret the way they treat you.”
He mattered here.
“I will love you.”
He was loved here.
“So long as you stay alive, Cardan.”
In his brother’s arms.
“Just stay alive.”
In his brother’s love.
Cardan made the promise. He kept himself alive. He endured. He fought. He sharpened into something cruel. He became twisted and biting. His heart solidifying like some creature in his chest and he did not stop it. Not when he aged. Not when he learned what was truly done to him that day. Not when he met a mortal that nearly drove him mad.
Not when the number of scars on his back grew day by day. Not when he refused to kill.
When he refused to be like the ones that created him.
Cardan obeyed. He complied. He stayed with the only one who had ever believed he mattered. He stayed with the hand that hurt him because it was also the only hand that held him. Balekin struck him. Each day. Each refusal. But he never commanded him. It hurt.
And they called it love.