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Chapter Text

There is a letter on the counter, sitting there innocently while tearing her heart open and swallowing it whole. 

Jude had thought she had been getting better. She was getting better. And then… 

‘-for Jude Duarte-Greenbriar’ the mailman had said, clearly glamoured, because there was no Jude Duarte of the mortal realm, and her husband, the Greenbriar had forsaken her mere seconds after their marriage. Six months ago.

“Jude?” Vivi’s voice calls, even at midday for humans, she has never quite gotten used to sleeping through the night entirely. Jude, however, takes to it like a duck to water. Habits she cannot shake. The darkness reminds her of a late night party and his eyes on-

Jude numbly registers Vivi padding into the kitchen, stretching her arms over her head in the dramatic fashion she does. All the while, her eyes are on the envelope. It's going to disappear if she looks too far 

“Oh,” Vivi says, and curses softly, taking in the envelope. The fancy, swooping script of her once-to-be husband. To the High Queen of Elfhame. 

Jude finally tears away from her staring at Vivi’s fingers snapping in front of her face. Her nails are too sharp and too thin. So brittle that they look ready to snap at the slightest bend.

Vivi was always too fae to be human. 

“I’m making breakfast,” she says as though she had repeated it once too many times before this, “you are joining me.” Seeing Jude finally reconnect with reality, Vivi steers her away from the sight of the envelope and to the kitchen table in the corner, a round and not quite big thing. But it works well enough for the two of them and Oak. 

Vivi cooks up the only breakfast she knows: scrambled eggs and toast. In the time of Jude’s helpless staring, she had come back from dropping off Oak at his human school.

They eat breakfast together in silence. Vivi doesn’t even attempt to talk, having learnt her lesson by now. Or, at least, Jude hopes she has. It isn’t nice to be ignored when talking and if Vivi attempts to, she wouldn’t even notice. She keeps her eyes steadily on the plate in front of her and ignores any hypothetical letters in the room for the duration of her meal.

Her mind races through thoughts anyways.  

When she finishes, she gets up immediately and places herself in front of the tv. Jude fully immerses herself in the fictional worlds of television, again, ignoring any sisters who might try to get her to try ‘healthy coping mechanisms’ or whatever. Vivi thinks she can just barely read one book and suddenly be an expert on ‘break ups’. Not that it was a  break up anyway, because without an actual relationship there can’t be one. 

She drifted asleep and woke up to pure darkness. There was only a faint moonlight coming from the window, with the lights snuffed out around her. The TV had been turned off, and the living room was a bit cleaner than it had been this morning. How long had she been asleep? Jude thought groggily, lifting a hand up to her hair and wincing at the crunches left there by drool and… she really didn’t want to know what else. 

Going into the kitchen, she fetched a glass of water to help with her stale mouth. Opening the fridge, she grabs a leaf of lettuce and a can of tuna, along with some cutlery and two slices of bread.

And… on the counter is the letter. God, the letter. It was as unmoved and untouched as she should’ve expected it to be. Some letters, when handled by someone they aren’t meant to be handled by, scorch those unmeaning people, cursing them with burns or boils or other nasty stuff. Vivi would know better than to touch it, and Oak would have been steered to do the same. 

Certainly, it would not be the cruelest trick Cardan has played with her. To the High Queen of Elfhame, it mocks. 

Jude drops what she’s holding onto the counter quickly, and reaches impulsively for the letter. To the High Queen of Elfhame, it still says. Leaning over the sink to the kitchen window. Jude opens the letter in the moonlight. Her eyes are sharp and keen for the words flowing down the page. 

Above me is the same silvery moon that shines down on you. 

Jude takes a moment before reading to watch the moon outside. She is looking with the excuse of spotting spies, but appreciates the full moon instead. So bright, so magnificent. According to a documentary she half-listened to, the moon can only shine from the sun’s reflected light bouncing off its surface. 

A relationship to its core, beneficial to the sun’s purpose of maintaining the realm: when the sun was not there, the moon would step in as its guide instead. 

Once, she had thought that it might’ve been like that with her and Cardan. That she could be the one that ruled in the shadows. (Or maybe even by his side.) But really, he was clearly managing fine without her. Only caring enough to write using a fake moniker he created for her own humiliation. 

At least, that’s what she thought until she read the letter in its entirety. 

And yet my heart is buried with you in the strange soil of the mortal world, as it was-

He loves her. He is writing to tell her that he loves her. Cardan loves her, Jude !

This is unbelievable, Jude thinks bewilderedly. Despite herself, her own heart is soaring with glee at this proclamation. But. 

Jude glances around the room yet again. She searches for spies that cannot be there, eyes that will never grow from the plants with ears she has seen passively in Elfhame. This could be a trap to get her to come back. All to chop off her head. 

To the High Queen of Elfhame. She reads again at the top of the letter. It confirms her title, written by the High King’s own hand. The letter, beckoning her to come home .

Idly as she thinks, Jude toys with the edges of it, finding the bends and creases created by Cardan’s own hand. Until relinquished by the Crown indeed. Now, if only to prove that she was the crown, that was the trouble. 

Plan brewing in her mind, Jude crept quietly down to her room, mindful of the others' sleep. She hopes she is not that kind of Queen. 

Days later, far after Jude has gone, a desperate Taryn might have shown up at Vivi’s door, beckoning to see a twin sister that will not be able to answer.

If only. 

Chapter Text

Jude sneaks through the castle, cloaked by the shadows around her. 

It wouldn’t be her first choice of entry, being a dusty old secret entrance so long and complicated that it had been overlooked in the initial map she had been given, but it was what she had. 

(When she was in her own power, she obviously had this secret entrance guarded as all the others were. No direct entrance to the King’s rooms could be overlooked of course.) 

Although judging by the sheer lack of guards she spots between the cracks of the wall on the way along, Jude would most probably walk through the front door unscathed. 

Where is everyone? Her mind hisses, thinking of all the possible traps and illusions that might have unknowingly pulled her through the moment that she stepped into Elfhame. — Which is, of course, impossible with Dain’s remaining geas. So: what the hell is going on?

Had Cardan truly failed to rule alone so much so that the whole of the palace staff would have had to flee the entire castle? Ridiculous. No one could ever be that stupid. Besides, her own spies were on staff to ensure against this, should anything really be the matter. 

Jude sighed silently, rubbing a thumb onto the hilt of the knife strapped to her belt. 

Winding down the tunnels, she thought about how Cardan pleaded in the letter for her to come back, the desperation in which he showed. 

It might seem like he loved her, or desired her— but the truth could easily be twisted. Love could be banished in the face of anger. 

Just look at the result of her wedding day. 

Slipping open the unguarded door to Cardan’s room, Jude decided she would wait inside. Maybe she would get an answer from one of her previous spies, meet Cardan, or die. 

A truly thrilling trifecta. 

“Jude?” The Bomb’s surprised voice echoed from the other side of Cardan’s ridiculously large room. Jude, who had been sitting in the darkness, lifted a hand up to wave. 

“Are you going to kill me, or answer my questions? Just let me know so I can get it over with.” Out of the other’s eye line, Jude tapped nervously onto her hilt. It wasn’t that she would kill  the Bomb for following Cardan’s order of exile, but she would be greatly hurt. Well, they both would be hurt on both ends. Some were more literal wounds than others. 

“No. I’m not going to kill you,” the Bomb’s immediate answer surprised Jude. “Without reason,” she added to the end awkwardly. 

“Oh,” Jude cleared her throat. “Can you tell me where everyone is then? I haven’t seen anyone but you in the whole castle.” 

The Bomb walked closer, lighting the candles as she went. Jude forced herself not to blink as she re-adjusted to the sudden light. “Didn’t you know?” The fae bit her lip, brows furrowing together. “The news is all over Elfhame. I thought…” she trailed off. “Okay, don’t freak out.”

“What news?” Jude demanded. 

“Cardan’s been cursed. He broke the Blood Crown in half.” 

“WHAT?!” Jude yelled, freaking the fuck out. Does Cardan actually lose all of his working brain cells when she’s not here? What the fuck? She knows for a fact that he’s smarter than this? Was this going to be her fault because she wasn’t here? (If she’s blamed for it in any shape or form, she will be murdering someone within the next hour.)

“Yes,” Bomb rubs a hand on her forehead. “I don’t know what he was thinking, but he did it. And now…” she trails off. Jude stares her down. “Now Lady Asha and Nicasia have taken over the court.” 

“Lady Asha?” She echoes. 

“Cardan’s mother.” The Bomb frowns grimly. 

“Right. What are they planning? Where is Cardan?” How do we get him back , she doesn’t ask. Cardan might not want her back at all. 

She’s already had her heart broken once. And only a fool would seek out a second time willingly. 

“Madoc has come with his army in a parlay, but he’s much more laying out terms of war. Nicasia…”

The Bomb talks on, but Jude’s mind races. She has no seat of power here, no allies to call on. If she even wanted power. No one would believe she would ever be Queen, especially not with the way Cardan had banished her. 

Not to mention the fact they have orders to kill her on sight. 

“Take me to Cardan,” she blurts out. “I can’t go to anyone, but I can go to Cardan, right?” 

The Bomb falters. “He’s a giant snake now. He’s killed several knights that tried to go in and…” 

I’m not a killer. Cardan had once said. I may have no virtues, but I have this. 

Jude’s throat tightens. 

“Take me to him.” She asks in a small tone. “I can’t– I won’t believe he’s really like this until I can see him.” 

The Bomb sighs. 

“Alright, I’ll see what I can do.” 

The snake that is now Cardan is huge , that is one thing to say about it. (She knows, if he were here, Cardan would be laughing at a crude interpretation.) 

It looms over her, slithering forward to take a good whiff of her, she imagines. 

Jude resists the urge to reach out and touch him, instead standing boldly against this movement. She focuses on the dead land he leaves behind, almost mocking— the High King’s blood is said to leave life wherever it may drop, but here and now—  just the touch of him poisons the land deeply. 

Once, she might have shared the sentiment— that the mere presence of Cardan brings the room down, now— 

All she sees is Cardan , the foolish King, who thought—

What was he thinking? Breaking the blood crown like that? How could he not know the dangers—

She closes her eyes and takes a breath. 

Her eyes closed, the snake winds up. Slithers around her. Curls, warmth emitting from it like and Jude finds herself leaning into it despite herself.  Cardan , she thinks. Breathing in, she feels her armour shedding, despite herself. The mental shields fall bit by bit in a way that she has not been relaxed, ever. In the middle of this surely deadly, poisonous snake that is her husband, she is as safe as she could ever be. 

Impervious to any weapons, Bomb had told her, no curses, no spells weaved even touch him. 

She can feel that last piece teetering, swaying on the edge of collapse — “Jude,” she hears an urgent whisper. 

Her eyes snap open. Armour magnetises. 

She is a warrior. 

The snake that is her Cardan rumbles a sound of discontent, protesting her going to fight. 

“This is for both of us,” she runs a hand down his scales. Despite how small her hand must be in comparison to the whole of him now, how insignificant, he seems to lean into the touch. “I will find a way to bring you back to me,” she promises. 

Her words mean nothing. She is mortal. She is the scum of the Earth, the scourge of Elfhame.  

She will save him. 

He betrayed her, spurned her after all she schemed and plotted to keep him alive. To keep his royal ass alive while he actively sought to do absolutely nothing in favour of his own kingdom she had puppeteered him into accepting. 

Until relinquished by the Crown. Her banishment, truly, in the scheme of things, has no meaning. 

She is the only Crown who can save them all, now.