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To say Jude was frustrated was an understatement. In the months since the serpent and their people’s acceptance to her and Cardan on the thrones together, things had been good. Not normal, not peaceful, but they weren’t bad. She had Cardan by her side. They were ruling with relative ease compared to everything else they’d gone through and done together. It was a peace for them that she hadn’t thought they would ever get to truly experience.
She was happy with him.
Truly, she was. She was happy that Cardan had stepped into his role as High King during the time of her exile. That he was understanding how their people truly worked and that she could see the shift in him. He didn’t shy away form his duties anymore like he had in the past. He didn’t hide from what he was. He used his power and his station and it fit him.
It made him more beautiful that he’d been before. Stepping into his potential and who he truly was. The true Cardan, that she still got to keep for herself. But more people saw that he was not a complete fool. They saw that he was wicked but more times than not, he was fair. He was mercy when compared to her.
Things had been going so well. It was why she was so frustrated now that they weren’t.
She had believed that those changes would be their new normal. That she would see Cardan become more and more like a proper ruler as time went on and as he learned his ability. She thought that she would see him become something stronger and stronger each day. They slept in the same bed. They started their days together. They ended them together. They saw one another throughout in meetings or in the halls or when they simply wanted to. Cardan would engage in his revelry but not as much as when they were younger. He would drink but he wasn’t drunk. He told her he would be ready to give her his magic as a blade if she only said the word.
It had lasted only a few months.
Now, Jude was watching her husband stumble through the halls of their palace. Hearing that he was missing meetings and that he would outright fall asleep in some. That he was refusing to pay attention and no one was brave enough to attempt to argue with the High King so they brought their issues to her.
Some of them told her they believed something was wrong with him.
Jude saw the chalice in his hand when she found him. She could smell the wine. He laughed too easily. His eyes seemed distant and hazed. He barely could hold himself straight. Jude managed to hold her tongue. To watch him and see if he would catch on to the disapprovement in her gaze. She ate a meal with him. Watching him drink and lean heavily on the table. Seeing the way he pushed around his food.
This had been happening for days and she was only catching it now because people brought it to her attention. It was only just happening now while they were together.
She was forced to pick up the slack where Cardan would drop it.
Jude wanted to see if it was just something that was bothering him. If he would open up to her and say something about it. They had told one another that they would work to remove their armor one piece at a time. She figured that maybe this was simply that. That he was trying to get himself through something and was just having trouble coming to her with the problem.
She tried to help. She tried to set times so that they could talk about it. So that she could finally learn what was wrong that was driving him to drink in the way that he was. Every time she would get to him in their bedroom he would already be asleep. Sleeping longer hours and drinking nearly the moment he woke up. He would vanish for periods of time during the day. He would sleep on the throne. He would sleep on couches, at tables, anywhere he could lay comfortably.
Always never far from his drink.
Jude was angry. Frustration that grew into something more and more the longer she let it fester. She didn’t know what to do anymore. Cardan wasn’t going to stop doing this on his own and he wasn’t taking to something kind or gentle so she would have to do it by force. She supposed that her husband had always enjoyed when she would threaten him. That he had always been entertained when she held a blade to him.
She thought they’d moved part that piece of their life but she supposed she was wrong. With the way things were now and that feeling like her only option, Jude figured she was wrong.
If Cardan wanted to be the drunk he was before, wasting himself away, she would be the monster she’d been before. Ready to sharpen her blade against his bones.
She loved him. Maybe that was why she was so angry at him.
Jude was in her office. Working over the papers of things that she knew were meant to go to Cardan first but had wound up with her instead. The Bomb standing in front of her and looking only slightly uncomfortable.
“Jude, there’s more complaints.”
She sighed. Her eyes closing against the world and what she knew it meant. She had planned to hunt Cardan down later in the day. Once she had caught up with enough work that they would be left alone. She figured she would have him a mess after getting to the root of the issue and she wanted to make sure they would have time to work through it together.
“They’re saying he fell asleep on the throne. One of the knights attempted to wake him but he won’t.”
She couldn’t keep the bite from her voice.
“And how much wine has he drank today?”
Her friend was frowning at her.
“I don’t know. But he wasn’t like this before. And he wasn’t like this even during your exile. I’m worried.”
She shoved her worry down in her chest. Smothering it with anger and everything else that was much easier to deal with.
“I’ll find him.”
“And yell at him?”
She gave her friend a grin. The Bomb did not return it.
“Check on him first, please?”
The phrasing made her pause. If only for a moment before she was nodding and stepping out of the room. If Cardan was asleep on the throne it at least made it easy for her to find him. Easy to track down. She marched through the halls of her palace like she was readying to storm the place. Moving toward the throne room like it was going to hold an enemy rather than the man that she loved. People she passed moved out of her way. They could tell my the expression on her face that she wasn’t happy.
Jude appreciated their bows as she walked by them. She didn’t pay them any mind more than that. All of her intent was focused to her husband. To figuring out why he would suddenly shirk all the responsibility he had seemed ready to take. Her thoughts circling on themselves as she went. Her anger growing with each thought that came to her mind.
Each old anger at Cardan pushing everything to her. Each old belief that he would never be capable as a King. That he was going to fail in any capacity they placed him in. That he was a pawn meant to be moved, not a leader. Hurt that welled at the thought that she had believed otherwise. If this was really the true Cardan and she’d been deceived into believing he was something more.
She wanted him to be something more.
Jude stormed into the throne room as if she was going to single handedly destroy Elfhame herself. As if she was planning to do that very thing with the force she marched in. Expecting to see her husband lounged and sleeping on the throne.
She found it empty. She found his wine spilt beside the throne. A single knight was left standing there. Almost like he was waiting for her.
“Where is the High King?”
The knight looked nervous but he still knew better than to disobey his Queen.
“He left, Majesty. He requested to be left alone.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“To bed, I believe.”
She was angry. More angry than she’d been before. There were hours before they should be going to rest. He’d slept hours longer than her as well.
Jude renewed her mission. Stalking the halls of the palace like predator hunting down prey. She tried to plan what she would say to him when she found him. All the wrath and frustration that she would empty into him. All her fury that Cardan had broken her faith in him. She had thought they were improving. Thought they were getting someplace. Instead there was this.
She rounded a corner to see him walking. He was slow, stumbling over himself and her fury doubled.
“Cardan.”
He didn’t react to her call. Taking three more steps away from her.
“Cardan!”
Her hands curled into fists at her sides. She went to close the gap between them. To grab him harshly and force him to listen if he was going to pretend he couldn’t hear her.
And then Jude saw him stumble again. Swaying where he was and tipping toward the wall. Just barely catching himself with a hand and leaning himself against it.
“Cardan?”
Still no answer. Still nothing. And then she was watching him slip down toward the floor. His eyes fluttering closed.
“Cardan!”
She got to him. Catching him before he fully hit the ground and bracing him in her arms. Pushing him up against the wall and cupping his face in her hands. HIs skin was cool to the touch. His lips looked dry and cracked. There were circled under his eyes.
All he’d been doing was sleeping. It didn’t make sense.
“Cardan? Wake up.”
She patt at his cheeks. Increasing in intensity until she heard him groan. Listening to him and seeing his eyes try to open and his head shift against her. His eyes, when she caught sight of them, were glazed and distant. He didn’t look like he was seeing her.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
She had to wait until he found her. HIs eyes finally catching on hers and she saw his hand lift to reach for her before he gave up an inch off the ground.
His eyes were closing again. Her fingers found his pulse.
It was too slow.
“Cardan,” distress fell into her voice. “You need to stay awake. You need to stay with me. What’s wrong?”
His eyes opened but they looked moments from rolling. His face seemed like it had lost all of its color. Like his body was trying to shut itself down. She ran through everything she could think of. All the issues that she knew about. All the threats they had against them at the time.
“Cardan.”
His eyes opened again. He moaned against her. She had to get him up. She’d seen Cardan drunk before but he didn’t get like this. The Bomb had been right. Something was wrong with him.
“I need you to talk to me, can you do that? Can you hear me?”
She got a nod from him. Barely there but it was something more than she’d had before.
“Tell me what you’re feeling.”
“Tired…”
His voice was so weak it was barely there. A scratch that she almost missed beyond the beating of her heart.
“How much wine have you had?”
She needed to know. She needed to confirm. It could be a stronger kind of wine. It could be—
“Only a sip…I didn’t….I don’t remember more….did I have more?...”
Only a sip. He couldn’t lie. His body was leaning heavier on her again. His eyes drifting shut and she felt for his pulse again. She tried to access the land to try to help her support him. To try to save him. Whatever was wrong he wasn’t drunk. He wasn’t—
She looked at Cardan again. Letting him tip back to the wall so she could examine him. She saw the slight hue to his nails telling her he wasn’t breathing enough. The count of his pulse too slow for what he needed. The circles under his eyes. How he kept fainting.
Only a sip.
Deathsweet. Small doses. Enough not to be noticed until it built up. Small enough that it would take a build up of a while for it to impact the High King. Who would have the land to supplement him and wouldn’t know to notice the signs. Who everyone would believe was drunk. Who would die without help.
“Cardan, look at me now.”
His eyes only opened for a moment before they were falling shut again. Before he was giving her no help. HIs pulse was too weak. He was barely breathing.
“Wake up.”
He didn’t. She pushed at him. She fought with him. She wanted him there with her. She wanted him quipping that it wasn’t all that bad. She wanted to hear him talk to her and tell her how he was feeling. To be angry that she hadn’t noticed something was wrong with him before. That she had believed what their new enemy wanted her to believe. That he was drunk. That he was a fool.
That he was a failure of a King.
A failure of a husband.
“Cardan.”
She was lucky to hear him take a deeper breath. It wasn’t enough. She knew it wasn’t enough.
She needed to get him to a healer. She needed help. They had to lock the palace down. Whoever had done this was planning it and was probably still here to prepare another dose for later. She needed answers.
She needed her husband.
“Stay with me. I”m getting you help. Just stay with me.”
She didn’t want to leave him. She didn’t want him on his own. To risk dying alone. She heard footsteps from around the corner she’d rounded before. The Bomb was with them in moments after spotting them.
“He’s been poisoned. Deathsweet. The land has been giving him strength from what I can tell but he needs help.”
“I don’t know—”
“Get a healer. Have Roach and Ghost lock down the palace and make sure no one goes in or out. I’m getting him to our room.”
Where she could protect him. Where she could watch over him. Where she could make sure he actually got rest.
The Bomb nodded to her. Rushing off to follow the order and leaving Jude with the starts of a plan in her head.
“Hold on for me?”
She gathered Cardan into her arms. He was bigger than her. His arm hung down out of her grip. But she would carry him to the end of the world if she had to. If it meant that she could keep him.
The walk to their chambers was a blur. The healer arriving on the tails of the Bomb. Cardan splayed in the bed to be checked. Waiting to hear if there was any chance he would survive or if this would kill him. If he would sleep for a hundred years and she would die laying beside his sleeping body.
“Wake up.”
She whispered when they were alone. When no one knew how to tell. When no one knew if their King would wake again.
When she didn’t know if she would have her husband again to smile and hold her and kiss her and—
“Please, Cardan, wake up.”
She felt his heart. She listened to his breaths. She slept to pretend it was normal.
She woke to arms around her. To heavy limbs encasing her.
She made herself believe it had all only been a dream. Seeing him near death. The fear that she had felt. He was alive. He was here. He was holding her. She saw the evidence of the poison in him. In how he laid. In how heavily he slept. In the speed of his pulse.
Jude woke and refused to leave the bed until Cardan woke with her.
Until she was looking into dark, gold rimmed eyes and seeing the exhaustion that was there. The confusion because he didn’t remember coming to bed. He barely remembered any of the last few days.
She hated herself for missing it. For waiting as long as she did. If she had waited any longer to help him she wasn’t sure he would have survived. She would have found her husband’s corpse laying on the ground in the hall. She would have found him after he died cold and alone on the floor of a place that had always scorned him.
They spent the day in their bed together. Cardan sleeping against her. Resting himself more.
And if in the days that followed he would still struggle, she would help him.
If he would feel faint and slip away from the waking world, Jude ordered everyone out.
If he rested against her in meetings and during their meals and she counted his pulse to make sure she wouldn’t lose him.
All of that was her own concern.
Because she had missed it once and she would not do it again.
She had failed him once and she refused to fail him again. To nearly lose him again.
It was only when they were laying down to sleep together that Cardan looked at her. Eyes heavy and body weary.
“Jude?”
She hummed to him. Watching his expression as he lifted a hand to brush his knuckles over her cheek. For his long fingers to find her ear and trace the curve.
“What ever are we going to tell our people?”
She raised a brow at him. Confusion playing clear on her features. It only made to have him smile.
“From the eyes of all our people, you made me swoon.”
With all the fondness in her heart, Jude wondered if maybe she did still hate him.
“You are such a fool.”
“It is what you love about me.”
She hated him.
And she was a liar.