Chapter Text
I crawled beneath the tables, just as I had done as a child, seeking refuge in the shadows. The extravagant dress that had once been a gift fit for a princess was now stained with the dirt and mud of the High Court of Elfhame. Silk that should have shimmered beneath the faerie lights clung to me in filthy, ruined folds. Suddenly, something struck me hard on the head. The world tilted, the shadows swallowed me whole, and I slipped into darkness.
I jerk awake, scrambling into a sitting position, my chest heaving as I struggle to catch my breath.
Just a nightmare.
The coronation is today. I must have drunk too much wine last night, and now I am paying for it with a particularly vicious hangover. At least, that is what I tell myself.
I press the heels of my palms into my eyes, willing the pounding in my head to subside. When I finally open them, I take stock of my surroundings.
I am lying in a bed draped in spider silk, its delicate threads shimmering faintly in the morning light. The room is unfamiliar, though unfamiliar hardly does it justice. It is enormous, furnished with such exquisite extravagance that even the royal chambers of Elfhame would struggle to rival it. A robe embroidered with gold lies carelessly abandoned on the couch opposite the bed.
And then I notice the body beside me.
Raven curls spill across the pillow, unruly and familiar. Two pointed ears peek through the dark strands.
I would recognise that hair anywhere.
No.
The word escapes me in little more than a whisper.
My gaze darts towards the vanity, then to the side table beside the bed.
Twin crowns.
Oh, no.
Cardan stirs beside me, letting out a disgruntled little hum. "What are you doing? Come back to sleep," he mumbles, his voice thick with exhaustion.
I am going to lose my mind.
I fling myself out of bed, nearly tripping over my own feet as I scramble into the slippers abandoned on the floor. Cardan lifts his head, blinking at me with bleary confusion.
I do not wait for him to speak.
I practically sprint out of the chambers, bursting through the door and straight into a pair of guards stationed outside.
"My queen," one of them says, bowing his head. "Is there something you need?"
Shit.
I stare at him, utterly bewildered. My thoughts are a tangled mess, each one leading me further into a labyrinth I cannot seem to escape.
Without answering, I turn on my heel and march straight back inside.
Only to find Cardan emerging from the bedroom.
"Jude, is everything all right?" he asks.
His face is drawn tight with worry, his golden eyes searching mine as though he might find the answers there.
I cannot take this anymore.
My fingers close around the dagger strapped to my thigh. I draw it out, gripping the hilt so tightly that my knuckles turn white.
"Prince, do not you dare take another step towards me, or I will kill you just as I killed Valerian."
I raise the dagger, ensuring he gets a good look at the blade.
Cardan arches an eyebrow.
"Prince?" His expression shifts from confusion to something dangerously close to alarm. "Jude, what is happening? Are you all right?"
"I am perfectly fine, thank you very much," I snap, the words dripping with enough venom to rival anything I have ever said in the High Court.
"When I am perfectly fine," I continue, my voice rising, "why are you being so nice to me?"
Anger bubbles beneath my skin, hot and vicious, threatening to spill over at the slightest provocation.
Cardan stares at me as though I have grown a second head.
"Jude, my darling." His voice softens, and the words sound so utterly foreign coming from his mouth that I almost recoil. "What in the name of Elfhame has happened to you?"
He reaches for my shoulder, his touch featherlight.
"Do not touch me."
I swat his hand away.
For a moment, neither of us moves.
Something flickers across his face, a fleeting shadow of hurt that settles around his golden rimmed eyes. Worry follows close behind, and for one horrible second, I almost feel guilty.
Almost.
"I am sorry," he murmurs.
Then he steps away, crossing the room towards the door. He opens it, murmurs something to the guard outside, and disappears into the adjoining room.
The moment he is gone, I finally allow myself to breathe.
I turn slowly, forcing myself to take in my surroundings properly this time.
The twin crowns sit upon the side table, gleaming like a pair of silent witnesses to my impending madness. The closet stands half open, clothes spilling out as though someone has ransacked it in a hurry. The vanity is littered with makeup, golden earrings, silver trinkets, and jewels that catch the light like captured stars.
And then I see it.
A sleek sword rests upon a stand mounted on the wall.
The hilt is a masterpiece, its intricate craftsmanship so delicate that it seems almost absurd for something designed to spill blood. I reach for it, wrapping my fingers around the handle.
It fits perfectly.
The weight settles into my palm with a familiarity that sends a shiver down my spine, as though the sword has been waiting for me all along.
A quiet chuckle sounds behind me.
I spin on my heel.
Cardan.
The very person I despise most in this miserable world.
He stands in the doorway, a small smile playing upon his lips, looking infuriatingly unbothered by the fact that his wife is currently armed and quite possibly on the verge of murdering him.
"Jude, darling, I do not have the energy for this," he says wearily. "And neither do you. Come back to bed."
I open my mouth to deliver a suitably cutting response.
Instead, a sudden wave of nausea crashes over me.
Oh, hell no.
I clap a hand over my mouth and bolt towards the bathroom, barely making it in time. My stomach twists violently, and whatever remains of last night's wine makes an unfortunate reappearance.
Cardan is beside me almost immediately.
His earlier amusement vanishes, replaced by unmistakable concern. He gathers my hair away from my face with one hand and rubs slow circles against my back with the other, holding my hand as though it is the most natural thing in the world.
I can barely bring myself to look at him.
Why in the bloody world is he being so nice to me?
Cardan Greenbriar. The youngest, cruelest, most insufferable of the royal children. The boy who had made my life a living hell for years.
Why?
"Why are you doing this?" I ask, my voice embarrassingly weak.
I hate how small it sounds. I hate how vulnerable I feel.
He looks at me as though I have asked him why the sky is blue.
"Because I am your husband?"
The words land between us.
I stare at him.
He stares back.
Wait.
What?
No. No, no, no, no.
This has to be a nightmare. Some elaborate, deeply unfunny joke. Perhaps I have finally lost what little remains of my sanity.
I recoil so abruptly that my back hits the wall. Desperate for something, anything, to prove that I am not trapped inside some twisted illusion, I pinch my arm.
It hurts.
Wonderful. Even my nightmares have apparently developed a cruel sense of realism.
Cardan watches me, his expression changing as something seems to click into place behind his eyes.
"Jude," he says slowly. "What do you remember?"
I blink at him.
"What?"
"What exactly do you remember?"
I rack my brain, grasping at the last fragments of certainty I possess.
"Dain's coronation," I say eventually.
Cardan goes still.
His expression hardens so abruptly that the warmth disappears from his face altogether.
"Well, Balekin killing everyone with Madoc," I continue, frowning as I piece together what little I know. "Which means I am guessing Balekin is king now."
"No."
The word comes out sharp and angry.
I flinch.
For one brief moment, something dark flashes across his face, an expression so unlike the man who had just held my hair back that I barely recognise him.
Then, almost as quickly as it appeared, the anger fades. His shoulders relax, and the ghost of a small smile returns to his lips.
"All right," he says, taking a breath. "First things first. I am the king."
My eyes widen.
"And you," he continues, gesturing towards me, "are the queen."
I stare at him.
He stares back.
I decide, rather sensibly, that I would prefer to be unconscious.
"Locke was married to Taryn," he continues, apparently oblivious to my rapidly deteriorating mental state. "But the Duarte she is, killed him."
"Good riddance," I mutter under my breath.
Cardan's lips twitch, as though he is fighting the urge to laugh.
"And the Ghost is a tree. Nicasia is the Queen of the Undersea. Oak is the heir to our throne, and his fiancée, Suren, is the Queen of the former Court of Teeth."
I blink at him, attempting to absorb the sheer volume of information he is throwing at me.
"You killed Balekin," he continues, "and you were kidnapped by the Undersea before I married you. And that was right after..."
His voice trails off.
For the first time since I woke up, Cardan looks uncertain.
And somehow, that frightens me more than anything else he has said.
"And you were kidnapped by the Undersea before I married you," Cardan continues, apparently deciding that the best way to deal with his wife's sudden descent into madness is to recount her entire life story. "Right after I exiled you because I wanted to keep you safe from the Undersea, since you had killed Balekin."
I stare at him.
He stares back.
Apparently, this is a perfectly reasonable conversation to have before breakfast.
"You came back after about four months," he continues, counting the events off on his fingers. "And then this whole mess started because Taryn killed Locke ."
I open my mouth.
Close it.
Open it again.
"Excuse me?"
"Yes, well,Taryn killed Locke, and then you got kidnapped by Madoc." He pauses, looking at me with an expression that suggests he is reliving the memory against his will. "And you nearly died because he accidentally stabbed you."
I blink.
Once.
Twice.
How many times had I apparently nearly died? And why was everyone in this godforsaken kingdom so determined to make it a recurring event?
Cardan, meanwhile, seems to have found his stride.
"Then you thought the Ghost was going to kill me because Madoc knew his true name. You thought Madoc had sent him to murder me, so naturally, you decided to throw yourself into the situation."
He gives me a pointed look.
I resent it immediately.
"Then you literally fell from the ceiling," he continues, his voice taking on a distinctly unimpressed quality, "and nearly died again. On the very same day. Despite promising me that you would not go after the Ghost and would come straight back to the palace."
I stare at him in utter disbelief.
"Then you fell into a coma for about a week."
I press my fingers to my temples.
A week.
A whole week.
Apparently, my life has been one long attempt to get myself killed, and I have been spectacularly unsuccessful at staying alive for any reasonable length of time.
"And then," Cardan says, looking almost wistful, "I turned into a giant serpent because of the curse on the Blood Crown."
I slowly lower my hands.
"You turned into a what?"
"A giant serpent."
He says it so casually that I briefly consider whether I have somehow wandered into a particularly absurd children's story.
"And you killed me," he adds.
Silence.
I stare at him.
He stares at me.
Somewhere in the distance, a bird chirps merrily, entirely unaware that my husband has just informed me that I murdered him while he was in the form of a giant snake.
"Well," he amends, "the serpent version of me. And then we lived happily ever after."
He smiles.
He actually smiles.
As though that sentence makes any sense whatsoever.
I decide that I must have died in my sleep and that this is the punishment reserved for particularly unfortunate souls in the afterlife.
"But, of course," Cardan continues, apparently incapable of allowing me even a moment of peace, "Oak went and got himself kidnapped by Suren."
I close my eyes.
Of course he did.
"Then he came back, and Randalin stabbed me."
My eyes snap open.
"Randalin stabbed you?"
"Yes, darling. He is a traitor. A rather predictable one, in hindsight."
"And you are still alive?"
"Obviously."
He says it with such infuriating confidence that I almost throw the nearest object at his head.
"But then you," he continues, and something in his expression softens, "my sweet nemesis , were absolutely magnificent."
I go very still.
Sweet Nemesis
The words settle somewhere beneath my ribs, in a place I would rather pretend does not exist.
Cardan Greenbriar is looking at me with an expression I have never seen directed at me before. There is affection in his eyes, warm and unguarded, as though I am something precious. Something he has spent a lifetime searching for and is still a little astonished to have found.
I hate it.
I hate it because I do not know what to do with it.
I hate it because a part of me wants to believe him.
"And then," he says, mercifully moving on, "we went to the Undersea because Nicasia called us."
"Nicasia?"
"Yes. We are friends."
He pauses.
"Well, allies, really. Friends is perhaps a generous description."
I almost laugh.
Almost.
"I remember how much she used to bully you," he adds, glancing at me with the faintest hint of amusement. "But we are on good terms now. You are, too."
Wonderful. My husband is apparently on friendly terms with the girl who used to torment me, and I am supposed to believe that this is all perfectly normal.
"She nearly died because of Jack, the horse fae," Cardan continues, his expression sobering. "She is recovering now. We only came back from the Undersea yesterday."
He studies me for a moment, his golden eyes searching my face.
"And, honestly, I think you might have hit your head while we were there. Perhaps that is why you cannot remember any of this."
He tilts his head, considering the possibility.
"Or something else happened. I do not know, Jude."
For the first time since this entire nightmare began, he looks genuinely lost.
The silence that follows is somehow worse than all the revelations that came before it.
I look at him, at the dark curls falling across his forehead, at the pointed ears I have spent years wishing I could ignore, at the face that has haunted my nightmares for reasons I cannot quite explain.
Except that I can explain them.
I remember a boy with a cruel smile and sharper words. A boy who made my life miserable simply because he could. A boy I had sworn to hate until the day I died.
And now that same boy is standing in front of me, telling me that I am his wife.
His queen.
His sweet nemesis.
As though those words have always belonged to me. I glance at the twin crowns on the table. Then at the sword in my hand. Then back at him.
"Cardan." His expression changes instantly at the sound of his name. The teasing disappears, replaced by a quiet attentiveness that makes my stomach twist for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the wine.
"Yes, my love?"
My love.
I nearly drop the sword. "Do not call me that." He blinks. Then, very slowly, the corner of his mouth lifts. "There she is." I narrow my eyes. "Who?" "My wife."
I have never wanted to murder someone more in my entire life.
And judging by the way Cardan looks at me, he knows it.
I do not think I can trust him.
And yet, some traitorous part of me seems determined to do exactly that.
My body betrays me in ways my mind cannot begin to comprehend. The tension in my shoulders eases at the sound of his voice, and something deep within me yearns to step closer to him, to let him pull me into his arms and believe, just for a moment, that everything is all right. It is ridiculous.
I do not want to trust him. I have spent years teaching myself better than that, building walls around my heart until even I can barely find my way through them.
And yet, my heart seems to have forgotten every lesson my mind has ever learned.
It recognises him when I do not. It finds comfort in him when all I can feel is suspicion. It reaches for him even as I remind myself that Cardan Greenbriar is the last person I should ever allow myself to trust.
A knock at the door interrupts my spiralling thoughts. Before either of us can say anything, Cardan turns towards it. "Come in."