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The bottle stayed heavy in his hand. Wine warm skin that felt uncomfortable the longer Cardan stayed still and yet he couldn’t bring himself to move. His back digging into the stone of the wall and offering him a pressure against the scars that dripped down his body.
The portrait on the opposite wall hung like a glare in his direction.
“Being dead means you should stop mocking me.”
He let the bitterness out into his voice. His anger curling around his tongue even as he lifted the bottle again and took more wine into his body. More to numb him. More to fail.
He was shaking. Cardan knew that. He hadn’t stopped shaking since he’d stepped out of his own corpse and found himself in Jude’s arms covered in his own blood. He’d been shivering in the bath when he scrubbed his skin raw and clean. He’d been trembling when he faced their people. When he made two thrones.
He hid it well, he thought he hid it well. The suffering that crawled up his throat like it was an infection. Something that he was never going to be able to move himself away from. Something he was never going to be able to brush past or accept as anything different. He was failing and he didn’t know how to stop himself.
This was his fate, he thought.
To be mocked. To be insulted. Time and time again like he was nothing but the failure that Balekin taught him he would be. He was staring at a portrait of his father and siblings and he hated it. He hated the way it hung. The way that all of them looked. How he was posed to be off to the side with Balekin’s hand being the only contact he had with the rest of them.
He remembered standing for this.
Cardan remembered Balekin guiding him and placing him. Whispering into his ear that it would be better to stand here because then he wouldn’t be risking their father’s ire. It was safer for him to be there. It was mercy for him to be there.
He couldn’t stop the curl of his lip. The anger that welled more inside of him. Pushing and rushing him until he was throwing the newly empty bottle at the portrait. Watching the glass explode as it met its target. Seeing a new dent in the canvas directly over Balekin’s painted face. Balekin. His brother. The only brother that took him in. The only brother that had fought for him. The only brother that had done anything that—
“I hate you.”
His words burned his tongue. Almost enough that he considered they may be a lie but if they were he wouldn’t have been able to speak them. The heat was something else.
“I hate that I miss you.”
The heat was guilt.
“I hate that you are all gone and that I—”
Had been drunk. He missed it. He hadn’t been there and that was likely the only reason he was still alive. He’d made his peace with that.
He thought he made his peace with that.
“You were all so consumed for power that you didn’t care for anything else.”
He was from them. He was one of them. He was no better than them and he knew it. He was worthless. He was useless. He had nothing and he was nothing and it was all that he could think of. All the wine damp thoughts in his head allowed him to process.
He could hear them. He could hear their sneers. He could hear his father’s voice. He could hear all of it. Their insults. Their voices. The things they would call him. All the ways he had failed.
“You were never meant to be King.”
“I hate that I am like you. That we share blood. That I love—”
He choked on it. He’d said it. It was true. How could it be true.
“I love you.”
He could remember Balekin’s beatings. All the times he’d told him that he was doing it because he loved him. All the times that he told him he was trying to protect him. Trying to make him strong. Trying to save him.
“I hate you.”
Both were true. Both of them were true at once and he didn’t think that could be possible.
“You’re pathetic. You don’t even know what you want.”
“The ruination of the throne and destruction of the crown. Everything has come to pass and you destroyed it all.”
He’d been cursed. He was cursed for it. For all of it. He was a serpent. He’d been destroying everything. He couldn’t think. He’d been fighting and killing and eating and he had always said that his one virtue was that he was not a killer and now he was a killer. He was—
“You’ve become something I might be proud of, Little Brother.”
Cardan’s breath hitched at the sound of Balekin’s voice. He looked up to see the portrait smiling at him. His oldest brother looking at him with what looked like pride.
It was not a look that meant kindness to him.
His father looked at him with disgust. His sisters looked like they did not recognize him. Like they were almost horrified of him. Dain looked furious. But Balekin. Balekin was—
“You only have one obstacle for full power now.”
“No.”
His hands were shaking worse. The hall felt like it was swimming around him. He couldn’t really remember the last time he’d been this drunk.
“It would be a simple kill. She is only human.”
He shook his head. He stumbled back.
“Stop talking.”
“You listened to me and now you are King. You are strong now, Cardan. You understand?”
His hands came up to cover his ears.
“Stop.”
“You couldn’t make me stop all the times before, what makes you think it would work now?”
“Shut up.”
“You need to kill her. Kiss her and snap her neck. You know I kissed her? You know I could have had my way with her?”
Cardan’s anger grew.
“Shut up.”
“You’re covering your ears from the voice you’re hearing in your own head. How pathetic must you be, brother.”
“Shut up!”
“Stab her while she sleeps. Leave her. Exile her. Abandonment runs in your blood it shouldn’t be hard.”
All the times his mother had left him. All the times his family had scorned him and shut him to the side. Every time the bottle raised him more than his parents did. Every time that he—
“Shut up!”
His voice sounded like Balekin’s. Like the voice in his head was one and the same. He felt the bile in his throat. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t—
“Unless you kill her you are worthless. You will never truly be King. You are only safe if you can control and you have never been able to control.”
His nails dug into his head. Clawing at his ears. Anything. Anything that would make the voices stop. His eyes were shut so tightly they hurt. Enough that he wanted to scream. He felt like he might cry.
“You are pathetic. You are worthless. You are nothing, Cardan.”
There was pressure in his head.
“You are not worthy of the Greenbriar line.”
Pressure in his chest.
“You will never be a real King.”
He felt glass in his hand.
“Do something right for a change and remove yourself before you destroy anything else.”
It was cutting into his skin. Slicing into his palm.
“If you won’t kill others at least kill yourself.”
He was holding his own blood. He was stepping out of the Serpent's corpse. He was in his own corpse. He was dead. Jude killed him. Jude cut off his head.
“Isn’t that what she would want?”
Cardan screamed.
“Shut up!”
His heart was pounding. A dull ringing pulsing through his ears and skull and in seconds Cardan felt faint. He was shaking too bad. He was stumbling away. Staring up at the portrait and the bottle shard that was slicing straight through Balekin’s face.
His family was not sneering. They were not mocking. They were still. They were silent. They were gone.
“Cardan?”
He could not breathe.
“Are you hurt? What’s happened?”
Tears streamed down his face. Step by trembling step until his back was hitting the opposite wall once again and he was sliding down it without a second thought. Cardan held himself. His hand hurt. It didn’t matter. His head was spinning. His thoughts were tangled.
When hands touched his shoulders he flinched away. They let him go. There wasn’t shouting. There wasn’t strikes. He wasn’t being held down and beaten. His back hurt but it wasn’t from lashes. His head hurt but it wasn’t from punches.
“Cardan? Can you hear me?”
He blinked around the hall. The empty hall. The shards of glass that were everywhere. He expected pain. He expected lecture.
Instead, he looked up to find the worried expression of his wife.
“Cardan?”
“Jude?”
Did she hear them? Did she hear the painting too? Did she know? Was it true? She could lie. He couldn’t ask her, she could lie. She would lie if she thought she had to. He should take the glass. He should listen. He should—
“You’re bleeding.”
Jude took his hand. Holding it in her own before she was reaching for her pocket and pulling out a bandage. He didn’t know why she had it. He didn’t think she carried them often.
She saw his confusion.
“When guards came to get me they said they heard broken glass. I wanted to be prepared.”
To tend whoever he hurt. To protect their people from him. To—
“Who were you yelling at?”
“Balekin. My family.”
Jude only looked at him.
“They were mocking me. Insulting me. I told them to stop and they wouldn’t stop, Jude. They wouldn’t—”
“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” She was touching him again and this time he fell into her. His tears weren’t stopping but she didn’t seem to mind. “You’re okay. It’s okay. It wasn’t real, Cardan.”
“They’re all dead and they won’t stop talking.”
Quiet. Concern.
“Do you still hear them now?”
He tried to listen. He looked at the portrait again. The dents and the cuts. The blood that had smeared from his hand down the oils that made up Balekin’s clothes. The younger version of him stared back at him like a memory he wished he would forget.
He shook his head.
“You made them quiet.”
His head tucked under hers. He felt her arms holding him tightly. He felt her worry in how she checked him.
“You’re drunk. You need to sleep. You shouldn’t be out here anymore.”
“I’m not ready yet.”
Jude had moved to get him up. She stopped the moment he spoke.
“Ready for what?”
More tears fell with each blink he gave.
“To say goodbye.”
He destroyed their portrait. He destroyed the memories of them. Of what he might have once had. At what he had never truly had.
“I don’t know how to say goodbye.”
Jude stayed. She held him. Her hand rubbed along his spine. He felt the kiss she pressed to the top of his head. The kindness inside of it. The honesty.
“Then we stay until you do.”
She didn’t say goodbye.