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He should be used to the yelling. That was what Balekin told him. That if he would be strong, it would stop. If he would be good then it would stop hurting. Cardan wanted it to stop hurting but it felt like every time he tried to do something it was always wrong. He didn’t know what to do anymore.
All he’d done was talk to one of the servants.
She seemed nice. Bringing him food when he was locked in his room because Balekin was mad at him. He said that he was too young to join the revel he was hosting. He said a nine year old would slow him down.
Cardan hadn’t wanted to be bad. She’d brought him food. He’d asked for her to stay. He’d started talking to her. Taking a listening ear where he could find one. She was human. He’d wanted to talk to her about his human books. About what others might be out there.
He’d made the mistake to laugh. He’d been too loud. Balekin heard him.
His brother had been furious.
Insulting him. Berating him. Screaming at him for fraternizing with mortals. He’d gripped him hard by the wrist. Dragging him down the stairs and through the revelry. He’d brought him to the front of Hollow Hall. Opening the door and throwing him.
Cardan had slid on the snow and ice at the foot of the stairs. The entire side of his body aching where he’d made impact. He’d heard Balekin’s angered voice as he scolded him more. As he yelled at him. As he ordered him away.
Cardan barely heard anything until the end.
He heard the order of being sent away.
Cardan knew better by now than to overstay a welcome. He knew to leave when Balekin wanted him to be gone. That it was easier and it made things hurt less when he would be welcome back. He knew that his brother loved him. Balekin couldn’t lie and he told him that he loved him all the time. He told him that he did everything he did because he loved him. Cardan knew it was love. He just wasn’t sure that he liked it very much.
It had been hours since Balekin threw him out. Hours upon hours and the night had only grown colder. It was what the folk were all meant to be used to. The night was their time to be awake and alert. And still Cardan found himself wishing for the sun right now. Wishing for the heat and the warmth that it would bring down onto him. He wanted the comfort of it. He wanted the safety of it. He wanted the protection that might come with it against the frost that he could see lining over his skin.
He’d shivered at first.
Cardan wasn’t certain he was shivering still.
His feet moved without real purpose. Lingering around the walls of Hollow Hall so that he would hear his brother when he called for him at first. He’d wanted to be ready and be prepared for what was going to come. So that Balekin wouldn’t be even more upset with him when the time would come.
But the longer things went on the more he thought about what would happen if Balekin didn’t call for him back. If his brother had thrown him out for good now. If he was wanting to be rid of him in the same way that their father ha been. In the way the rest of their family had no issue rescinding him from their family.
Cardan was a boy. He knew that. He knew that he wasn’t old enough to keep his pace with them. That they didn’t like him and they didn’t like the way he was. He would be cruel because it was the only time they would look at him. He would be sharp because they called him weak for being anything soft. He was everything he thought they wanted him to be and they only hated him more every day.
He’d only wanted a friend.
He’d only wanted someone to talk to.
He just didn’t want to be alone.
It made him think of the stables. Of sitting in the hay and hiding and pretending that he was just playing a game and not that his family had forgotten about him. Not that his mother hadn’t wanted him in their rooms so she sent him away. Not that he was alone and no one would ever miss him.
He’d been playing a game.
If he could have just pretended that he was in his room to talk about books with a friend then that would be better than the harsh reality of what happened. Cardan did not have friends. He knew that. Balekin explained that to him more times than he could count and yet he still managed to forget the lesson each and every time. He was a failure.
Balekin had taught him that too.
His brother wouldn’t be able to say it if it wasn’t true.
Cardan knew it was true.
His feet stole him away from the place that had been acting as his home since the palace had thrown him away. Little legs trudging through thick snow and ice. Biting into his skin until it was numb. The thin indoor clothes he’d been in doing absolutely nothing in the effort of protecting him.
Cardan looked at his hand in a patch of moonlight. Seeing blue and purple at the tips of his fingers instead of what he knew should be there. He’d seen faeries with paint on their nails before. He thought he might start doing that. So that no one would know when his brother would throw him out again. So that no one would know what he was doing or had done with himself.
There was ice in his lungs. Shards that cut him each time he tried to breathe. He didn’t know how to fix it. He didn’t think he was warm enough to melt it.
Cardan felt stiff. Too stiff to actually be moving and yet he kept taking his steps all the same. Motion after motion, he walked. Stumbling and listing in the force of the wind.
He barely realized it when he was stepping into a ring of light made by torches and a lantern.
Cardan felt movement in front of him. Someone grabbing him. Forcing him down into the ground hard. A boot sitting on his chest. Putting weight down to pin him and the pain almost made tears spark into his eyes. Almost. He felt a blade point to the hollow of his throat.
Cardan blinked. The stone of a building behind the shadow that blocked the light. The shadow in front of him being that of a girl.
The rounded curve of her ear gave her away as a mortal.
He knew who lived close to Hollow Hall. He knew where he must have stumbled into. He couldn’t move. Her blade was at his throat. He was caught and trapped with no way out.
“What are you doing here?”
Her voice was a demand. His brows knitting together to try to parse it together. To make it make sense in his brain what he was being asked. He couldn’t do more than just stare up at her.
Madoc’s human daughter. One of them. He couldn’t tell which. Not with the way his vision was suddenly blurring. The weight in his head now that he was laying down. He hadn’t even realized it was snowing. Not until he was staring up at the white that was fluttering and flurrying all around him. All of his back was cold and wet. He knew he wasn’t shivering now. He would have felt it. The sword would have cut him.
It would have killed him.
“Answer!”
There was a rumble somewhere not too far away. The blade moved away from his throat. Cardan watched her shape move away from on top of him as well. He tried to breathe. He tried to keep himself steady and calm. His heart was slow, relaxed. Cardan didn’t think it would beat faster even if he wanted it to right now. He wasn’t sure he had the strength left for it.
Balekin would be angry. He wanted him to be strong and all Cardan was was something weak.
“This is the Prince—”
The new voice was heavy. Strong. He knew it but his thoughts wouldn’t place it. He couldn’t see the snow anymore. All he saw was black.
“Jude, go inside. Have a warm bath prepared. Food and water as well. Medical supplies.” A moment. “Go. Now.”
There was a hand against his cheek. Something warm seeping into his skin.
“Highness? I need to bring you inside.”
He barely felt the movement when hands scooped him into arms and against a chest. The heat was the first thing he noticed. His head rolling against a shoulder and Cardan heard muttered words about being too cold.
Who was too cold? They should be the ones being carried, not him. He would walk. Balekin would tell him to walk.
The world around him changed. Warm lantern light. Fire light beside a hearth. Heat that radiated through his body. Cloth and furs and heat.
“You will be safe here, Princeling.”
There was a heavy hand on his head. Cardan tried to look up. He made out a redcap above him. The Grand General. Madoc. Looking at him not with contempt but with concern.
“You must rest. We will talk when you are ready.”
Cardan saw his daughters hovering in the doorway. One with worry and one with a scowl. He thought she wanted to kill him. She had wanted him dead. But Madoc said he was safe here. He couldn’t lie.
She could.
But for some reason, Cardan trusted them anyway.