Chapter Text
High King Cardan Greenbriar of Elfhame, the Land below the Hill, prided himself on being an excellent monarch. Far beyond that of his father’s standards though he was not quite as vain to profess himself better than Mab. He’d yet to conquer new lands though he supposed his creation of Insear, Isle of Ash made up for it. Oftentimes, he’d pat himself on the back for his success in maintaining the upper hand with Queen Orlagh. Not that he mentioned this to anyone. Enough ballads were already written and sung about his triumph, to build upon it by boasting some more would be gauche. Beneath the average level of tact and grace he forced himself to be.
Which was a lot.
Jude would argue otherwise, insisting that his elaborately embroidered clothes and powdered cheeks was as gaudy as one could be. Though what would his darling wife know? She found it appropriate to parade through the palace corridors in the simplest of shirts and the coarsest of trousers. The only times Cardan had ever seen her dressed fit for a High Queen were the biweekly audiences they hosted in the throne room or the few revelries she ever attended. Even then, she required heavy pressure from Cardan to change out of her plain garments. Only ever caving when he pointed out that important guests would be in attendance and that maintaining optics was important.
These thoughts wander through his mind as he strolled along the palace grounds, savouring the way the wind blew through his hair, the way his dark boots sank into the soft earth. It was almost as if the power of the land surrounded him all around, saturating his veins. He was half sure the gold rimming his dark irises was aglow with raw energy, sending the few people that passed him scuttling away. Although the gentry themselves wielded incredible power, some elemental, some by way of illusions and glamours, their capabilities were but a drop off in comparison to the High King’s. (The High King being Cardan, of course.)
“Your Majesty,” a few murmured in reverence. Some smiled, others remained stone-faced though their expressions flickered to irritation. Cardan enjoyed it all the same.
His subjects loved him, attended his parties and made merriment when he demanded it. There were still a couple maintaining prejudices, still thinking Cardan to be the representative of everything that is wrong with the current state of the kingdom. ‘Everything wrong’ being nothing out of the ordinary. Or so Jude had been insisting so. Both he and Jude may attend councillor meetings and listen to when advisors brought up their grievances and worries but Jude took it upon herself to single-handedly control all of the Court of Shadows’ concerns. The more covert and less censored version of events.
Last Cardan heard, Jude and the Roach had a mission somewhere up north, responsible for attending to some deranged Unseelie with little control over their powers. There were few cases such as these, faeries did not often lose themselves to madness but Jude had shared reports of this particular fae’s prolonged grief. He’d offered to come with, for more soldiers to protect Jude or that she not go at all. It was something of little consequence anyway, there was no reason for Jude to handle the issue personally besides her insistence on doing anything on her own.
“What’s the point of being High Queen if you will not order your subjects to do things for you?” he’d asked before she left. Jude’s only answer had been a roll of her eyes, a slight smirk on her painted lips without a spoken answer.
“Garin, has the High Queen returned from her journey?” Cardan asked. Garin, his personal guard, was often found trailing a couple paces behind him. He was tasked with acquiring all updates about anything and everything. The information he wielded could be as mundane as the weather in the human lands or as grave as a recently uncovered murder plot and the condition of the perpetrators. “She is due to arrive this afternoon, if I recall properly.”
Of course Cardan recalled properly. It was the entire reason he was out here twiddling his thumbs, waiting for the sun to eventually rise to its peak. Many of the Fae had begun to return to their separate homes, eager to return to bed until dusk began and darkness would fall once more. Cardan was itching to do the same but he would not return to an empty room with a cold bed and no one to share it with.
“The stables reported the return of her toad,” Garin answered. Then lower, “The Roach reported a smooth quelling of the threat. Neither he nor Jude were injured during the process of the apprehension.” Cardan breathed a sigh of relief, she was unharmed and that was enough for him. “My King, the Roach mentioned a slight awkwardness in her gait.” So they weren’t entirely out of the woods yet, he did not know why he was surprised.
“Is she back in the rooms?”
“Indeed, Your Majesty.”
That was all the answer Cardan required, a stroke of joy now running through him, complimenting the magic still making its rounds. He’d been compiling a list of things to tell Jude since she’d left, most of it admonitions for insisting on going alone once more when Cardan could have accompanied her. And of course, there were the smaller updates too like how Lord Paynt had decided upon wearing a garish fedora from the mortal lands only to be disappointed that the High Queen was not in attendance so he may boast about it. (That did not stop the scandalised titterings of the court at the horrible display.) He wanted to tell her of the land’s conditions too, how he sensed a brewing storm and how it would nourish their grass and the faerie fruit orchards growing down south.
He mentally repeated this list as he hurried through the corridors of the palace, unlatching the brass knob, a smile already broadly painting his lips.
“Jude, my darling! You have been so dearly missed.”
But no one answered. Their room was strangely quiet despite Jude’s sword near its stand, candles already lit as if she had been here, as if she was here. The silence was unlike her, Jude never passed up an opportunity to quip at him or complain about her latest travels and the grievances and inconvenience it had brought upon her.
“Jude?” Worry had begun to seep through his words, saturating his question with fear that something was indeed awry.
Cardan stepped deeper into the room, surveying the surroundings for potential threats. Could she be lying in wait, hiding from an attacker? The coast was clear, nothing at all the problem besides… two dark splotches he did not recognise marring the carpet near his feet. He realised there were more of them too, the stains growing larger and larger until it was not the stains that brought him worry but an all too familiar person sprawled there. Startled, Cardan let out a nervous laugh. Was this a joke?
Cautiously, he shook her shoulder, hoping that perhaps the illusion would disappear, praying that it was indeed an illusion at all.
It did not.
His fingers met the smooth fabric of her tunic, damp with sweat. He realized it was coloured with the same liquid that stained the carpets. Blood, this was blood. “Jude, wake up darling, wake up.”
But Jude did not stir, her breaths shallow and her eyes still closed. “Garin!” Cardan yelled. “Call the healer, summon the Roach, alert Taryn.” The words come out in a single panicked breath as he slid his arm around Jude’s waist, a hand cradling her head as he carried her to their bed. The only response he received was a slight divot between her brow as if the movement pained her. It pained him to think he’d injured her further.
He knew nothing of injured mortals and how to nurse them back to health. A fact he dwelled upon as he searched for a wound. Had it hit her vital organs? Was it potentially fatal? He felt useless, the power that previously thrummed through him worthless if it could not heal what mattered to him most.
“Your Majesty, I must inspect her to assess the damage done,” someone said from behind him.
“No, let me stay,” Cardan argued, refusing to let go of his wife. What if she was truly in danger and this was the last time he could touch her still living body? “I can try to heal her with the land’s magic. Elfhame would not allow its queen to die so easily.”
“Your Illuminous Majesty, there are fates worse than deaths, I am sure you know that yourself.” The medic meant the few days he spent as a great serpent when he broke the Blood Crown. Jude had been the one to slice off his head, freeing him from the curse and returning him to his normal form, or at least that was what the ballads explain. He remembered nothing of his time entrapped in the curse and Jude refused to tell him about its excruciating details. “Besides, there seems to be a fae intending to speak with you.” He gestured to a hooded faerie patiently waiting nearby, standing beside Garin. Cardan did not have to scrutinise to know that it was the Roach, his expression no doubt grim.
He suddenly remembered his anger towards him. At his failure to look after the High Queen, for failing to look after Cardan’s beloved wife.
“Over here,” he tilted his head to the side, pointing towards the shadowed alcove to the side and the chaise there. It was usually where Cardan would lounge as he watched Jude write her letters to Vivi or whatever official it was she was conferring with at the moment as it offered optimum view. Now, the spot offered a perfect cover for their covert conversation, away from any prying ears.
“Explain.”
The Roach pulled down his hood, his eyes meeting Cardan’s, filled with regret. Cardan cared little for it, whatever feelings were running through the Court of Shadows member, it would not change the concrete fact that Jude was laid on their bed, clearly injured. Potentially fatally too. The medic had yet to cease his assessment of Jude, providing time for the Roach to fill Cardan in on the details of their latest expedition.
“I did not know that she was injured,” the Roach exhaled, his breath heavy.
“It matters not if you knew or were oblivious of the fact, it will not change how it already occurred. That the consequences are our reality as of right now,” Cardan seethed. He was angry, so blindingly angry he felt the emotion cloud his vision, flares of emotion practically vibrating through him. “She was confident that you carried the might of a thousand men. That no additional protection was necessary and yet…” Cardan let his words trail off, glaring pointedly down at the Roach.
“As I’ve told you already, I was not aware that the High Queen was injured. If I was, I would’ve handled things differently. I’d seen them draw blades but Jude assured me that she was alright—”
“Don’t call her that.”
“What?”
“Jude. She is not merely your friend anymore. Not just a fellow member of your court but the reigning monarch of Elfhame. She is your High Queen, she is my WIFE.”
The Roach remained silent, convinced that any words he uttered would be akin to pouring fuel to the fire. Cardan was already angry beyond rational thought, it would be stupid to argue with him further.
“The faerie who did this, where is he?” Cardan wanted to argue further, to point out how careless the Roach was, how stupid of a mistake it had been to miss an obvious wound. Surely the blade that had gone through her would’ve dripped blood onto the grass, sprouting white flowers. He cast a quick glance towards the still unconscious Jude and the medic who was now wrapping the wound with a skilled hand. Small wildflowers had begun to sprout from the mattress, small specks of the land mingling with Jude’s spilled blood.
Cardan’s hands found themselves gripping the Roach, his fingers digging into his skin in a bruising grip. He cared little for the pain he delivered as he shook the goblin, as if that would yield him any worthy answers. “Van, I swear to all the stars and my ancestor Mab if you do not tell me what exactly happened during your expedition in excruciating detail I will hang you from your entrails in place of our royal chandelier.” Cardan rarely succumbed to his various violent urges, especially if Jude were there to perform it for him and do it better.
Jude was not here now. He was at liberty to do as he liked, beginning with stringing up her favorite spy and friend for his failure in caring for his High Queen, his wife.
“It was a northern troll, one who’d gone mad from grief, beyond distraught from the loss of his wife. He’d been using his strength to uproot nearby trees, crushing surrounding cottages and huts. The troll also wielded great power, one that yellowed the ground beneath his feet and nearly all he touched.” The Roach watched Cardan carefully, searching for signs of agitation, afraid the High King would lash out with its temper once more. “The High Queen thought she could get an edge over him with her sword and I thought she’d been correct. She usually was.”
“Was she this time?”
“She subdued him by jumping off a tree in ambush and slashing at the troll in her usual vicious manner. It is a crude technique, one I would’ve disproved if she told me about it but she did not.”
“It is Jude, she does as she likes if she thinks it is the wisest course of action,” Cardan said solemnly. His words rang true, her stubborn trait was perhaps his most favorite aspect of his wife though simultaneously his most despised one.
“What’s the point of being High Queen if you will not order your subjects to do things for you?” he’d asked before she left. Cardan wished he had fought harder for her to bring along at least a dozen knights so she would not have to stoop down to jumping off a tree. Cardan wished he’d scolded and nagged and annoyed his wife enough that Jude would’ve seen reason and perhaps ask him to come along too. At least then if anyone were injured it would not have been her, it would’ve been him.
“The troll had promised to do no more harm with the clever words ‘All other dangers would not come from any actions beyond this moment’. The High Queen seemed pleased albeit slightly suspicious though she saw no reason to inquire further and I was pleased to know she was unharmed.” At Cardan’s raised brow, the Roach added, “Or at least she had appeared to be. Any shift in behaviour only appeared halfway through the Crooked Forest where she suggested we stop though she insisted all was fine. I truly did not know, not until—”
“Enough.” Cardan wanted to hear no more excuses, he needed answers to Jude’s ailment and all the Roach had for him was a pitiful sob story. “You are dismissed, you are not to be in my sight until Jude is better and asks for you herself.”
“That’s unfair. She is my friend, I promised to protect her and to do so I must remain.”
“And you did not protect her, did you? I found my wife lying on our bedroom floor in a puddle of BLOOD. Jude may be your friend but she is the rhythm in which my heart beats, the singular star guiding the skies of my mind. Jude is your mere companion and you failed at even that.” Cardan released the goblin harshly, shoving at his defeated form. “I have very little penchant for blood and violence but should my wife come out of this with even the slightest harm or not…” he could not complete the sentence, could not bring the possibility to words for fear it would truly happen. “I will hunt you down and inflict upon you every torture known to faerie, your death will not be swift, that I can promise.”
Something steeled in the Roach’s eyes as he stared up at Cardan with something akin to pity. “You blame me but at least I had been there while all you did was languish in your palace halls delighting in all its careless pleasures.”
The words landed like iron welts burning through his flesh, drawing blots across his vision. Beyond the fury and the anger for what had happened, there was deep unending guilt. A guilt for not being there for his wife as he’d accused the Roach for. Cardan was entirely a hypocrite, one that swallowed his retort and watched his friend go.
The Roach was not truly at fault for what had happened, that belonged to the northern troll and the injury he’d inflicted. And for that the Unseelie would crumble beneath his power, he would suffer the consequences of his actions, for treachery.
Cardan left the alcove, barging into his chambers where the medic still attended to his wife. At least she was not in the puddle of her own blood anymore.
“How is she?”
“I cannot give a conclusive answer.” Any words that came afterwards were swallowed by the grim torrent of Cardan’s thoughts. He had very little idea of a plan besides marching northward with a small army (half of his available troops which Jude personally trained on some days) and demanding answers from the troll. If Jude had managed to subdue it by jumping off a tree then surely anything more formal would be overkill. It did not matter, he would have his answers as to what mysterious curse afflicted her now. Then, he would find a way to cure it, a fine plan that was more than adequate.
“Leave us.”
“But Your Majesty, as I’ve mentioned, I must monitor the High Queen to jot down any changes in an effort to…” The words drawled on for longer but Cardan only shoved the physician aside. That was message enough as he hurriedly muttered apologies and hastily made his retreat.
Once the door closed behind him and he was left alone with Jude and her stunted breaths, Cardan kneeled at the side of the bed.
Reaching inward, he called upon his power. Reaching outward, Cardan called upon the Isles of Elfhame and their power. From the most ancient fiery layer that built up the land’s core to the newest sprout of a recently planted seed. He harnessed their energy and directed it towards Jude’s prone figure.
At first, it was exhilarating for he felt immensely powerful. All were at his fingertips now, the sway of the wind and the grip of every root. He felt the golden ring of his irises glow, emanating a light that competed with the flickering candle lit near the bedside table. Elfhame was at his mercy and he demanded it to heal his wife, to remove the root of her curse and heal her. She was its High Queen, worthy of their power for she too had it thrumming in her veins.
The effort was not in vain for Jude’s breaths evened, the rise and fall of her chest now synonymous with the beat of Cardan’s heart. But something was wrong, not all was as it should be. Jude had yet to awaken and it was not because of Elfhame’s shortcomings, they were because of his. The land had given all it may spare and still it was not enough, Cardan must uproot the curse’s source, he must journey northward and find the troll.
“I am sorry, my love. I wish my will had been stronger and fought yours when you told me only the Roach was enough. I am sorry for not being there instead, for any indiscretions that might have led up to your lesser trust in me. You have served Elfhame as a formidable High Queen and you will serve it some more. I know that you are tired most nights, that you often come home into my arms and cry exhaustion. But tonight my sweet nemesis, you must fight. You must ardently clash swords with this ailment with the fervour you used to fight against me. I shall journey north and configure a cure. While I do that, I must ask that you remain as hale as you may.”