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Cardan was used to pain. He was used to fighting. He was used to standing still with his life being dangled in front of him like a gift about to be ripped away. That was part of the deal with faeries. They would promise glimmering gifts and shining joys for the rest of forever and they would twist it until there was nothing there. They would lie through truth after carefully worded truth. They were cruel. He’d been told by his darling wife on more than twelve occasions that he was cruel and wicked. Cardan had learned it when he was a boy and growing in the care of his brother. He had learned from Balekin all the rules and lines of what it meant to be a Prince of Elfhame. He was taught of cruelty. He was taught to hate humans. He thought he had hated them for so long that it was hard to shake. He read their books even though he didn’t really understand them and the layers they had within them.
Human love. What it meant. How it was different from hate. Balekin told him he loved him while he struck him. His brother told him how much he adored him while he left wounds in his back that turned to silver scars he kept covered. The truth of the world was hidden and hard to find even when it was the only thing someone around him could say.
It had confused him. If love hurt then hate had to be safe. If love was what his brother did to him and what his family treated him with then Cardan wanted to treat the world with hate. the human girls in his class made him want to find how the humans hated. How to give them the correct treatment. Even when it backfired. Even when he was so nervous every time he saw her that he smiled. He tried to follow his brother’s footsteps. He tried to imagine the world his human books talked about. It had never made sense. Not until Jude was holding him with a blade to his throat and pinning him in place. Not until they were making their deals and promises and she managed to twist the terms to her benefit as he should have been doing.
She had captured his heart so surely that Cardan learned the true difference between love and hate. He loved her. He loved Jude. He would do anything for her. He trusted her irrevocably. She was his wife, his Queen, the mother of his children.
It had taken time for the both of them. Discussion after discussion where they decided what they were going to do and what they wanted for their future. Without Oak being their heir they were free to do as they wished. Jude had been frightened by the idea of it. Cardan couldn’t lie and say that he wasn’t. The both of them had faced terrors from their family and their history but they’d proven so far that they could be different. That they would be different. They could have the world the way they wanted it and they would be alright. It could be safe for them. It could be whole for them. They would only need to keep each other on track.
It worked too, for a while. The both of them teamed together to entertain their children as they were born. They laughed. They meant it.
The people of Elfhame celebrated the young royals and Cardan had allowed himself to smile not with nerves, but with joy. He would lift his little ones up onto his shoulders and carry them around on walks through the gardens. He would teach them their magic and their blood’s connection to the land. Jude showed them the stars and Cardan had watched from the shade of trees as she taught them to hold swords and keep their proper stances.
They had three so far.
Yesterday he’d waited with pacing steps until Jude called him in. Until she’d shown him the test and the lines that he knew by now meant they would have a fourth.
They were happy.
Others were not.
The fighting should have been expected. Jude and her court of shadows had expected it, he knew. They were ready far before he was appraised of what was going on. Cardan didn’t mind. Jude was the fighter between them. She was the strength of Elfhame’s military and knights. She was the one who would hold the line for what they needed to do and what everything meant for the both of them and their family. Jude had told him that there was unrest in some of the lower courts. That the fight would likely be traced back to them. it had been two months since the first signs of something turning worse. Enough time that when the first explosion rocked through the palace, Cardan couldn’t say he was surprised.
He may not have been expecting the time of it all but he was expecting it to happen eventually. Jude hadn’t been out in the fighting herself for some time. It was an agreement between them that she would care for herself with children to look up to her and follow her example. Running off to die wasn’t befitting of them. Even if it was a trait that both infuriated and infatuated him to no end.
They had been enjoying time as a family when the fighting began. They could have hidden. All of them should have hidden. The him from years ago would have run and covered himself to save his own life without even a second thought of what it was behind him. He would have been a coward and he would have been weak. But standing with Jude for so many years, raising their children together, seeing the strength of all of them and knowing their safety meant more to him than anything else. That had changed things in him. Cardan was cruel, he was wicked, he was one of the folk. But he looked at the pointed ear of his daughter as she chased after animals to hold them and pet them with a smile on her face. He looked at his son and his tail that swished through the air when he would climb trees and laugh at the feeling of the late evening sun against his skin. He looked at their youngest who smiled so brightly and laughed so loudly it made every ounce of his wickedness fade to a distant memory.
He wanted to be better for them. He wanted to be good for them. He wanted them to grow up under love and not hate that was twisted to be called that. He wanted them to know that the light they all held in their hearts could be coveted and protected. He wanted to see them grown and smiling and laughing. He wanted them to live their lives with joy instead of cruelty. Their father’s merriment, their mother’s strength, the love of them both.
He told Jude to take their children and escape. The hidden tunnels for the Court of Shadows would do its job to smuggle the royal family to safety in the moments of an attack. Jude knew how to fight if the enemy was in the walls. She would be able to fight with their little ones behind her. She would get them to safety in the dark and she could rally her shadows to make a plan to fight and save the day as she so commonly did every other time they would encounter some kind of strife.
She told him to come with them. His children cried and asked for him to follow them.
Someone needed to keep the enemy distracted.
In his years as the High King, Cardan had grown used to his abilities with the land. He had grown comfortable with calling upon it and guiding it to do what he needed it to do. He could open hallways into the ground. He could crush enemy soldiers. He could capture insurgents in vines and hold them hostage until knights came to arrest them and have them judged in front of the entirety of the High Court.
It had been a fight. Convincing Jude to take their children and run. To get them all safe so he could think and focus. So he could be the arrogant and wicked King he was meant to be. His reputation still held the same as it had always been even though his attitude at home had changed for the better between them. Jude knew the truth and she knew what he was in reality. their children knew who and what he was. They were aware that he was loving and adored them and doted on them and cared for all their needs and wants. That they were his pride and joy and that he meant it every time he laughed now. But the rest of Elfhame knew him as the monster he’d made himself be to keep himself safe from his brother. The image that he could give to the rest of the world that would make him out to be a threat and keep him safe when they wanted something to bite at and figured the youngest of the royals was the best target for them to have.
Cardan ran into the fight. He searched the halls of his own home. He found the enemies. He fought against them.
One shout that they were searching for the young royals to kill them made him hesitate. The enemies had been shouting about him the whole time until that moment. He couldn’t stop the jolt of fear that stabbed through his chest and told him that Jude had changed direction or that they’d managed to find them. That he was going to have his children and wife paraded in front of him and have to watch them be slaughtered. He couldn’t take it.
He’d survived one slaughter of his family by hiding under a table and drinking himself blind. Jude had taken him and run with him and she’d given him another chance.
If he lost her and their children he would have no table to hide under. He wouldn’t be able to drink wine enough to block the memories from his mind. He would live forever but he would think of them in every moment. Awake, he would turn the halls and see their ghosts. Asleep, he would find himself holding their hands and listening to their laughs.
He’d hesitated.
That was enough.
The burn of an arrow as it tore through his flesh and dragged him back cut off all his thoughts. His blood dropped to the ground and flowers bloomed from it immediately. Another arrow came. Cardan fell. His back hit the ground hard enough that his head bounced with the impact. He could heal but he would need to get the arrows from his body. He needed to get them out fast.
Cardan could see the archer. He watched the cloaked figure step closer and release the arrow they kept knocked. It sliced through the center of his hand as if it wasn’t even there. The arrow embedded itself into the ground with his hand skewered through it. He couldn’t stop the wounded cry that pulled from him. Anger. He needed his anger. He needed his wickedness.
He guessed the leader of the group as the one who stepped forward toward him. The shine of their sword kept his attention as they came closer and pointed it toward him.
The arrows in his body kept him pinned. He could tear them through his flesh if he needed to. The land could come to his aid but the pain and the blood already soaking into the ground was getting to be a lot. He only had so much energy and so much attention he could give to himself. His knights were nowhere to be seen. He just had to wait.
Jude should have their children safe by now. She would be with the shadows. They would be coming for him. Jude would find him. She would yell at him. She would be so angry with him. She was going to shout at him when she found him bloody and dying.
The leader laughed.
“High King,” he started. “How you’ve fallen.”
“I’d like to see you try to stand with arrows in you, yes."
He only had to bide himself some time. The Roach would come for him. The Bomb hopefully was working to keep their Queen safe. Cardan thought he saw shadows move in the rafters but he wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t his vision beginning to spot.
“Where is the rest of your heartless bunch?”
Cardan huffed a laugh. His throat felt wet with blood.
“I’m sure I don’t know who you mean.”
The sword moved closer to his neck. He felt the edge of it begin to cut a line into his skin.
“I could kill you here and now. Just like your pathetic father. I’d use your body as bait.” Even through the shadows of his hood, Cardan could see the way he paused and considered his options. “I could hold an event. I could make your people gather. Have them watch. Your family would do something and I can kill them too.”
His vision was beginning to swim. The shadows moved more than anything else. Someone had to be there.
“Such decisions.”
It was getting harder to breathe. The land was around him but Cardan wanted it to focus on Jude and their children. They would need it. Jude would need every ounce of it’s compassion she could get if she was going to try to use it to protect their little brood. He needed to send it to her. He needed her to know he just wanted to keep her safe. He wanted to keep all of them safe.
“That’s right, King.” It was said as a mock. “So tell me,” the tip of the sword tapped beneath his chin.
His position pinned to the floor was a disgrace. He saw a flash of gold in the rafters. Jude’s armor. He couldn’t see her clearly but something deep in his core told him it was her.
“Where would you rather die?”
The question nearly made him laugh. Jude was here. It was such a ridiculous notion to him that he would be killed with his wife in the room. Anyone who knew they were going to fight against Elfhame should know that the Queen was the enemy to watch for. She was more dangerous than him. She was cunning, brave, cruel in her own right. A human who could usurp every expectation one of the folk could create. She was the danger they failed to capture. She was the risk they had not accounted for. They thought she would let them live if they kept him under threat. If they used his life to bargain.
They thought they could kill her.
The tip of the blade scraped the front of his throat.
“Is this a good place to die?”
Jude would be scheming. He was almost done. He was almost to the point where he could rest. He just had to keep them distracted enough that their eyes would stay on him and not look for her.
“Is this your choice?”
“My choice of what?”
He couldn’t see the man’s features. He could only find the shadow that replaced his face by the angle of his hood. His cloak that smothered him from sight or justice or retribution from the crown. Jude would fix that. She would hunt him. She would destroy him. She would tear their enemies apart limb from limb and he would laugh while he watched her do it.
“Choose where you’re going to die.”
He watched Jude give a signal. She was nearly ready. Cardan smiled with blood stained teeth.
“I’ll choose for you.”
The man laughed. Small and bitter but full of an undeserved victory.
“You’ll die here.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
An arrow head burst through the man’s neck. Blood splattered down onto him but Cardan couldn’t move to get rid of it. The body that towered over him crumpled as if it were nothing more than a puppet with its strings cut. There were screams around him. Echoing and bouncing through his skull and Cardan tried to breathe.
It was done. The shadows were here. Their children were safe. Jude wouldn’t be here if their children weren’t safe. He didn’t have to keep fighting. Jude would take care of it. She would take care of him. She would protect him. He could rest. He could sleep.
He was tired.
“Cardan!”
Hands cupped around his face. He groaned but dragged his eyes open enough to see Jude’s face hovering over his own. He saw the pinch in her brow that gave away to her fear. The perfect roundness of her ears. The way the light caught around her hair and gave her the appearance as if she was glowing. She was perfect. She was beautiful.
“Stay with me.”
“I cannot leave.”
His attempt at humor was met with scolding he could barely hear. The world seemed to be tunneling down around him and it took Jude shaking him and pleading with him to bring it back into a kind of focus.
“You’re pinned to the floor.”
He tried to hum. The blood in his throat turned it into a gurgle.
“It’s going to be okay. I have to take the arrows out. I have to—”
“Do it.”
He needed to heal. He couldn’t let the land heal him with the arrows inside. He trusted Jude. She wouldn’t hurt him. She would make sure he was safe.
“I’m sorry.”
Humans were liars.
The look on Jude’s face told him the apology wasn’t a lie.
Cardan lacked the air to scream when she wrenched the first arrow from his chest. He could feel the magic of the land rush to him. The energy it tried to return to him. His power was nearly limitless but he would still need time to recover after this. He was sure to his ancestors he was pathetic. None of them had ever seemed to need the time to recover themselves. They’d never taken the time to heal. They used the land and the land used them. It had been ongoing for so long. Great rulers that knew what they were doing and could handle the power they were given.
He was never meant to be King. He didn’t want to hold himself above the rest of his family. He was the High King, he knew that, but he wasn’t the most important person in his family. He wasn’t the one who could truly lead and rally Elfhame together. He wasn’t the one who could give his children the world they deserved. He wasn’t the one who could change the hearts of even the most cruel and unkind of the folk. He couldn’t bring the attention of the land fully to himself. He needed it to focus on them. he needed to ensure that it would keep them safe. That it would protect them and guard them and that everything would be alright.
That they could smile another day. That they would live another day.
Cardan was used to pain. Each arrow Jude removed from his body felt less and less. He was used to it. Used to the pressure. The burning pain. The sensation of a foreign object tearing through his flesh and holding it apart despite the magic of the land trying to knit him back together.
Jude yelled above him but he couldn’t hear her well enough to make out her words. He couldn’t see her. He could only make out her voice.
“Stay with me, Cardan. Stay awake. Look at me.”
She sounded scared. She sounded desperate. Jude was never desperate for anything.
“The kids are safe. They’re alright. I just need you to look at me. I need you to stay awake so you can meet our fourth.”
He wanted that. He wanted to be there with her. To hold her hand and comfort her and compliment her on the day their little one was due to arrive. He wanted to hold them and greet them and show them to the world. He wanted to hear the first time they laughed and listen to their first words. He wanted to be a father the way his father had never been. He wanted to make sure he was there.
That his little one would know him and know him for what he was rather than the stories Elfhame would tell of him.
He wanted so much.
Cardan had rarely ever gotten what he wanted.
“Stay with me.”
Jude took his hand. The one that he could feel, that was. The other seemed almost like it wasn’t even attached to him anymore. She pushed his hand against something warm and Cardan dragged his eyes open to follow his limb to see where his hand pressed against her stomach.
“You are not allowed to die. I command you.”
There were tears in her eyes. Her voice shook.
“I command you, Cardan.”
He would always obey her commands. Their deal and promise or not. He trusted her. He loved her. He would follow her anywhere.
“Demanding….”
He heard her laugh. Wet and afraid.
“Did you fall in love with anything else?”
Cardan opened his eyes again. He couldn’t remember closing them. He strained himself until he could focus on her. Until he could see the faint glimmer of relief in the center of her eyes.
“Never.”
It didn’t hurt as much to breathe.
“Only you. Always.”
He was tired.
Jude smiled at him before bending forward and placing a kiss to his forehead.
“I love you,” she whispered.
Cardan let his eyes slip shut.
“My heart is yours.”
The words were easy. Something he’d said so many times to her that they were second nature by now. Always the truth. Always meant with every fiber of his being.
Jude’s hands pet his hair. Cardan let himself breathe. Jude was with him. She was watching over him. He was safe now. He didn’t have to fight. She was safe. Their children were safe.
So he let himself sleep.