#“don’t touch her that’s my wife”>>>>>“don’t touch her that’s the queen of elfhame” | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mmvalentine · 3 years ago

Text

What Cardan Knows | Jurdan

Canon compliant I suppose, just more post-QoN nonsense. Smut aplenty.

Cardan knows a secret about Jude.

Knows she likes to be kissed right between the shoulder blades.

Knows that if you move your lips on the vertebra that sticks out at the base of her neck, she melts like chocolate in the summer sun.

Jude has spent today, like many days, sitting on her throne like she was born there. There is something so natural in the way that she rules the fae that never came quite so easy to Cardan. He feels more comfortable next to her now than he ever thought he would. Still. He does not think he relishes the power like Jude does.

And of course Jude looks spectacular while she does it. Cardan reclines in his own throne, throwing one leg over an armrest and letting his head fall back against the back. He watches Jude, straight backed and imperious, as she hands down stern judgement for a faerie who stole a human child. She had outlawed changelings since she has been Queen, and although the folk do not like it, they abide by her word.

Cardan finds it sexy that the court is still a little afraid of Jude. Cardan finds it sexy that this sharp and unyielding ruler is his alone to unravel. Later.

Jude does not like anyone to know that she can be tender. Even now, years after she’s gained the loyalty of her court, she avoids being vulnerable. Puts on her armour every morning to meet her subjects, her advisors, and even her sisters. Oak might be an exception. And Cardan, when he knows where to fit his myriad keys.

These are not things Jude has ever told him out loud. Not even to her husband would she confess the chinks in her armour aloud. But Cardan knows anyway. Knows the secret places she keeps her softness, and delights in uncovering them when they are alone in the safety of the dark of their bedroom. Only when she is sure no one is looking does she bare her underbelly to him and let him press toothy kisses there. Cardan loves when Jude is ruthless. Cardan loves when Jude is soft.

Now Jude is sending the faerie away and the fae dislike her changing the rules. But she hands out cruelty like treats in the throne room and so they still adore her. A good public punishing is as good as trading babies. There is a hard glint in Jude’s eye as she watches him go, and then she flicks her wrist and the revelry begins once again. It’s all so simple. She looks out at the crowd with a cold boredom on her face, but Cardan knows she’s riding a high from watching her own orders executed. He also knows it turns her on like nothing else.

And so Cardan pushes himself up off his bramble throne, leans over to his wife with his back to the court, and murmurs, “take your leave my Queen, for I have business with you elsewhere.”

Jude’s lip curls when she answers, and her voice trickles like ice water over his skin. “I do not attend your bidding my Lord, I would stay to see the end of the revel.”

“Nevertheless,” Cardan says, and his fingers slide down her wrist to read her telltale pulse. “I have business with you elsewhere.”

And although Jude does delight in denying her husband, she rarely denies herself. So she rises smoothly while Cardan watches with one eyebrow raised, and allows him to take her hand and lead her into the alcove behind the throne room.

Cardan shuts the door and the noise outside suddenly chokes off. He turns and Jude is staring at him with her chin up in her regal golden gown, and she is resplendent.

“Well?” She demands. “What is it you wish to discuss so urgently?”

“First,” Cardan purrs, “I mean this to be an informal meeting, since you and I are wed and need not stand on ceremony. Let me remove your formal attire.” He walks behind her and Jude’s head turns, but she doesn’t otherwise move. Cardan’s movements are careful as he removes the heavy crown from Jude’s head; he has had his fingers bitten for this before.

But Jude does not react, so he goes for the heavy collar of gold plates she wears, unhooking the clasp and lifting it carefully from her shoulders. Next is the fastening in the back of her bodice, and even as she is undressed Jude’s spine remains as straight as the sword at her hip.

There have been times where she fucks him just like that. With steel in her eyes and Cardan’s throat between her fingers, when she holds him down with her thighs and draws his rapture from his lips like she can summon his very soul.

But today Cardan wants to pull at Jude’s threads and unspool her at his feet. So he stands behind her, and kisses her like feathers in that secret spot of hers. In between her scapulae. Traveling up toward the bones of her neck. And infinitesimally, Jude’s shoulders loosen beneath his touch.

Cardan smiles against her skin as his fingers skim the outside edge of her bare arms, and she leans her head back toward him so his lips can better reach her throat. When her eyes slide closed, Cardan pulls the tie of her skirt and it pools around her feet. He lifts her out of it and by the time her weight is in his arms, Jude is pliant against his chest.

Cardan lays Jude down on the low couch, and in the moment between kisses where his tongue lifts off her skin and his teeth touch down elsewhere, he whispers honeyed pet-names to her. "Ruthless," he calls her sweetly. He moves down her belly. "Unscrupulous. Uncompromising. Without mercy. Immovable."

At the last, he curls his tongue in the apex of her thighs, and Jude lifts her hips to his mouth with a soft cry. She is not immovable, and he knows it. His tail wraps around her ankle as her leg tries to jerk upward, and holds it in place. Cardan moves lazily, breathes steadily against the Queen and relishes in her slow undoing.

"Cardan," she whispers, and he hums with his lips on her pussy.

In fact, the real secret that Cardan knows is that Jude is not any of the things he calls her, and despite the way fae crave wickedness like opium, it is the very heart of Jude that he loves the most.

"Will you punish me, too?" Cardan asks her. His face moves up her body but one of his fingers replace his tongue inside her and Jude is not able to answer him. "If I confess my sins to you will you hand down my own judgement?"

"Did you steal any children away?" Jude manages to ask him, but her breathing is coming in short pants and her voice is strained.

"No," Cardan laments. "Although I think I would enjoy having a pet."

Jude's eyes flash, but Cardan makes one finger two and her words don't make it out.

"My sins," Cardan tells her, and then leans close to admit it in her ear while his hand speeds up between her legs. "are so numerous as to be unforgivable." He even sounds a little sad, and Jude's eyes open.

"There is always mercy," she breathes.

"Then forgive me, my saint," Cardan says, and then twists his fingers and presses down on her clit at the same time, so Jude climaxes suddenly and unexpectedly. Her lovely brown eyes widen in surprise and her lips part in bliss, and before she has come all the way down Cardan removes his fingers and slides his cock into her even as she shudders and spasms.

Cardan barely moves before Jude is coming again, and the waves of it around him are exquisitely divine. He moans his pleasure as he sinks into her again and again, and revels in the Queen laid bare. His hips kiss hers and it is in this space he finds his absolution daily. For as hard and uncaring as Jude is not, so is Cardan secretly not so unaffected or shameless as he makes out to be.

And as Jude wraps her legs around his waist, and her hands around the back of his neck pull his forehead down to hers, he wonders if this is what Jude knows, too.

Cardan moves his lips against Jude's neck and the increasingly irregular rhythm of his hips matches the erratic beating of his heart, and when Jude's teeth bite into his throat as if to suckle at his lifeblood, he comes hard buried deep inside her.

Minutes later, the King and Queen of Elfhame are still tangled together on the couch. Jude's head is on Cardan's chest and he has the sharp claw tip of a fingernail circling against her shoulder. A faint bruise is blooming on his throat, and the tip of his tail is brushing against her elbow.

"Shall we return you to the revel, my love?" Cardan asks her. Jude looks at him, then stands fluidly and holds her chin up and her arms out.

"Dress me, husband," she commands, and Cardan picks up her clothes off the floor and puts everything back on. Piece by piece, layer by layer, fingers meticulous. Pinning her hair and fastening the scabbard by her waist. Jude is still like a mannequin, and when he is done she lowers her arms and sweeps out of the room without a backward glance.

Cardan straightens his own clothes, plonks his crown back on his head and then saunters back out to the thrown room. Jude is already being offered a selection of the fattest, sweetest grapes and she spears them with a fine dagger before she puts them to her kiss-swollen lips. And when she drags the knife point back out of her mouth, he doesn't know whether he'd rather be the blade or the fruit.

Either way, he is more than content to spend the rest of the night watching Jude rule the fae with an iron fist, as his kisses fade on her skin.

****

Sorry that was so curly! When I started writing Jurdan I just thought I would write these snarly, snappy creatures but it turns out I'm just a sucker for them shedding their skins when they're alone. Also, I planned on writing hardcore smut and all that came out was... intense feels? What is happening?

MASTERLIST

TAGLIST: @asteria-of-mars @swankii-art-teacher @loosingdreams @feysand-loml @cityofbookish

*NOTE* I have two entirely separate masterlists/ taglists for my feysand and jurdan stuff!! Hope this makes it all easy to navigate!

#jurdan #jurdan fic #smut #mine

153 notes · View notes

local-redhead-bookworm · 2 years ago

Text

Annotations for The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black

P. 2 “He will be the destruction of the crown and the ruination of the throne.” Oh boy here we go

P. 3-4 “[Lady Asha] couldn’t attend balls with an infant in tow, so she found a cat whose kittens were stillborn to act as his wet nurse.” I’m gonna cry. Cardan you deserved so much better

P. 9 How am I supposed to figure out how to give him the right stuff when all I know is my own messed-up childhood? Oh thank goodness we’re actually acknowledging this

P. 33 Nope, not me, not messed up at all. Jude please go to therapy

P. 37 “Locke is dead,” she blurts out. HELL YEAH

P. 38 “He’s dead because I killed him.” DOUBLE HELL YEAH

P. 47 “I recall that your hands were on her, but her eyes were on me,” Cardan returns. OOH TEA

P. 51 Oh, Taryn

P. 64 “Jude never loved Locke…she loved someone else. He’s the one she’d want dead” and Cardan assumes that he is the one Jude wants dead. I can’t.

P. 66 “If I am undressed, he will know me.” This made me blush like a schoolgirl, not gonna lie. That’s both sexy and kinda soft.

P. 67 Him asking why she didn’t reply to his letters! 🥺

P. 76 “we got in easily enough, but the brugh outlet closed around us. Doorways cracked and shrank. Vines and roots and leaves obstructed our way, closed like vises around our necks, crushed and strangled us “ … I can’t believe it of Cardan, whom I left in his chambers, as though he was the one in need of protecting. Cardan is a certified badass

P. 97 “I honed my instincts in battle,” he says. “Sometimes those instincts are still there even when there is no more war.” Madoc, another beacon of self-awareness

P. 104 why am I immediately sympathetic to any character suffering. This is gonna get me in trouble someday

P. 105 “I offered him my protection. And my name.” GHOST YOU IDIOT! NUMBER ONE RULE OF THE FAE IS DON’T GIVE THEM YOUR NAME!!!

P. 105 “Until he ordered that I take you to the Tower of Forgetting and let the Undersea abduct you, I believed he meant mischief, never danger.” And now I’m sympathizing

P. 113 I shudder, imagining the loneliness of that life, the anger. That desire for love. We stan a perceptive woman

P. 113 “By all accounts, Prince Cardan was a disappointment from the beginning.” DON'T TALK ABOUT MY BOY THAT WAY! THAT’S IT, CARDAN, I’M YOUR MOTHER NOW

P. 120 I think of Madoc’s believing that Cardan desires to be loved. YES HE DOES WANT THAT

P. 120 But I am not so easily taken in now. If he’s here, it’s to his own purpose. JUDE HE’S HERE BECAUSE HE LOVES YOU HOW CAN YOU BE SO BLIND

P. 125 Cardan protecting her from the poison darts!!

P. 128 “Maybe it’s time for Elfhame to be ruled by a queen.” WHOO! LET’S GO!

P. 136 Baphen’s words about the High King come to me: When his blood falls, things grow. Ohhh things just got interesting. Now Jude has magic

P. 143 “well I am a mortal. And a girl, sir. We bleed every month, just like moon swells.” *spits tea*

P. 147 “Do not touch her.” I am not immune to the “Don’t touch her” trope

P. 147 “She is my wife,” Cardan says, his voice carrying over the crowd. “The rightful High Queen of Elfhame. And most definitely not in exile.” GET THE CONFETTI EVERYONE, THEY’RE BACK TOGETHER

P. 152 stealing your bf’s ridiculous puffy shirts is true romance

P. 154 Cardan is extravagant enough for the both of us. A dramatic king. I love him

P. 155 “Yeah, and the next thing we know, the High King is on our doorstep looking ready to tear down the whole apartment complex to find you.” Awww 🥺

P. 160 “I thought you’d admire me a little for it, that I could trick you.” Someone please validate this boy

P. 160 “Pardoned by the crown. Meaning by the King of Faerie. Or its Queen. You could have returned anytime you wanted.” Oh baby

P. 160 Oh. Oh. YES I LOVE THIS MOMENT

P. 161 He grabs my hand, possibly to keep me from hitting him again. I’m gonna cry

P. 161 “And I am scared of you now.” Jude, honey, are you… scared of being loved?

P. 162 “I never thought of the things I could do… as talents, no less ones that might be valuable.” Example number 1326489 why Cardan deserved better

P. 162-163 “I never minded being a minor villain, but it’s possible I might have grown into something else, a High King as monstrous as Dain. And if I did—if I fulfilled that prophecy—I ought to be stopped. And I believed that you would stop me.” Okay that’s entirely too sad

P. 166 “This is my room,” he points out, affronted. “And that’s my wife.” Cardan really said

P. 171 “Cardan was not an easy child to love, and he’s only grown worse with time. He would scream to be held, and then once picked up he would bite and king his way out of my arms. He would find a game and obsess over ur until it was conquered, then burn all the pieces.” Asha you are a horrible mother and I have nothing but contempt for you. That sounds like an anxious-avoidant attachment style, THAT YOU CAUSED BY IGNORING HIS NEEDS! Letting your child be raised by a cat. Meet me behind the Denny’s, Asha

P. 172 “and next time, I will expect your curtsy.” Ooh mic drop. Tell her, Jude.

P. 183 Cardan…draws a wicked-looking knife from inside his doublet, surprising me. That’s got to be the Roach’s influence. Babygirl that’s all you

P. 185 “Unlike Locke, I never thought Love was a game,” [Cardan] says. “You may accuse me of much, but not that.” Awww Cardan you deserve the world

P. 186 Cardan manages to persuade my sister to tell him a little bit about the mortal world. He sounds delighted at her description of slushy machines, with their violently bright colors and sugary strangeness. I need 50k of Cardan experiencing the mortal world pls

P. 186 again with the shirt stealing

P. 191 get his ass Cardan

P. 195 “come, let us charm and confound our subjects.” I love him so much

P. 199 “But to traitors and oath breakers, I offer my queen’s hospitality instead. The hospitality of knives.” Another banger from Ms. Black, everyone

P. 200 “You were very formidable tonight, my queen.” Dear goodness me that’s attractive

P. 200 “It cannot be anything other than the truth,” he says. “Or it never could have left my tongue.” This is one of the things I love so much about this fae romance.

P. 200 “You looked like a knight in a story tonight,” he says. I love him, also I’m pretty sure that if a man told me this it would be marriage at dawn

P. 201 him immediately stopping when he thinks she’s not into it. He may be a ruthless fae king but he respects Jude

P. 203 “Mock me all you like. Whatever I imagined then, now it is I who would beg and grovel for a kind word from your lips…By you, I am forever undone.” And that’s it, I’ve died, bury me

P. 203 “We have lived in our armor for so long, you and I. And now I am not sure if either of us knows how to remove it.” Okay but wow. Relatable trauma feel

P. 204 “My sweet nemesis, how glad I am that you returned.” This man is putting my standards way too high

P. 204 I think of his riddle. How do people like us take off their armor? One piece at a time. BRB I’m gonna go sob

P. 209 “It’s you I love,” he says. “I spent much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn’t have one at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten, and scabrous thing. But it is yours.” Alexa play Hello My Old Heart by The Oh Hellos

P. 210 You love him, too, I think. You’ve loved him since before you were a prisoner of the Undersea. You loved him when you agreed to marry him. Finally some self-awareness!

P. 210 Once this is over, I will find the bravery to tell him. Girl. No. Tell him now. That reasoning gets people killed!

P. 214 Being rejected by his family, how could becoming High King not feel like finally belonging? Like finally being embraced? There is no banquet too abundant for a starving man. Cardan baby I love you but no don’t do it

P. 215 NO! Cardan I love you but don’t

P. 216 “Vows should never be to a crown. They should be to a ruler. And they should be off your own free will. I am your king, and beside me stands my queen. But it is your choice whether or not to forge us. Your will shall be your own.” Okay but like, an actually wise king

P. 216 And with his bare hands, he cracks the Blood Crown in two. Oh no.

P. 217 aaand Cardan’s a giant snake now. Great

P. 219 so basically anything the serpent touches will wither?

P. 219 Oak looks up at me, his eyes wet with tears. His hands tremble on the sword, clutching it far too hard.

“You were very brave,” I tell him. “You just have to be brave a little longer.” Okay but I love that they established how much Jude loves her little brother

P. 223 There has to be a way to break the curse—a way Cardan can survive. Girl I hope so too

P. 226 Only out of his spilled blood can a great ruler rise. Oh no oh no

P. 231 “we are thought to be very wise.” “Are you?” SASS

P. 242-243 “We have a magical bridle in our possession… it will fit itself to the creature being restrained…the straps will slowly sink into his skin, and Cardan will be forever yours.” Geez Louise! Well, there’s the signature fae cruelty, I guess

P. 243 oh absolutely not! Y’all are NOT marrying little Oak to the Court of Teeth! Not when they keep their own daughter on a leash!

P. 250 “It’s not easy to help a queen,” Taryn says. “They’re not supposed to need helping.” Ooh

P. 251 So Taryn’s keeping the baby. Cool. To me, Taryn and Jude represent two different sides of the feminine. Jude is the femme fatale, and Taryn is the more stereotypically feminine. She can be annoying, but she has her strengths too. Also she murdered her abusive husband so…

P. 253 Vivi brought Cardan a snow globe with a cat inside? Their friendship is so cute

P. 257 YES!! Confession! The Bomb and Roach are such a fascinating couple, I would love a spin-off about them

P. 266 I pull out of [Madoc’s] grip, taking three strands of his hair with me. That’s gonna be plot relevant later

P. 268 “I know you won’t believe this, but Cardan and I were friends before.” Idk why but this made me sad

P. 268 “[The human servants] would go missing sometimes, and there were rumors that Cardan hurt them, but it wasn’t true. He’d return them to the mortal world.” He’s got a good heart in spite of being raised to be cruel

P. 268 “He sent you a gown. For the coronation.” That’s it, I’m deceased

Okay, big battle, blah blah blah, Jude looks great in her armor, she chops the head off the giant snake.

P. 282 Cardan’s fingers dig into my back. He’s trembling, and whether it is from ebbing magic or horror, I’m not sure. But he holds me as though I am the only solid thing in the world. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH

P. 284 “Do you like it?” he asks me, which seems a bit like asking if someone enjoys the crown of stars they conjured from the sky. Awwwww

P. 287 The problem with coming through something terrible and big is that afterward, you’re left feeling all the feelings that you shoved down and pushed away. Again with the relatable trauma feels

P. 290 “I only know how to be cruel or to laugh when I am discomposed,” he says. Oh baby

P. 291 “I love you,” I say, the words coming out in an unintelligible rush. Cardan looks taken aback… “You need not say it out of pity,” he says finally, with great deliberateness. “Or because I was under a curse. I have asked you to lie to me in the past, in this very room, but I would beg you not to lie to me now.” I’m going to sob. SomEONE PLEASE LOVE HIM

P. 291 “I have not made myself easy to love,” he says, and I hear the echo of his mother’s words in his. Cardan baby no. You have so much love in your heart, you’ve just been told that no one wants your love for too long

P. 292 “I knew little else, but I always knew you.” AAAAAAA

P. 302 “you know that [Madoc]’s going to be so bored that he’s going to try to micromanage your life,” Taryn says. “Or plan your invasion of a neighboring apartment building.” HAH

P. 305 Cardan looks at his reflection in the door of the microwave and adjusts his [paper] crown so it’s at an angle. Aww

P. 305 And Cardan looks a little shy in the face of all this happiness, as unused to it as I am. I love him, I love them both

General thoughts:

Kudos for honest depictions of trauma all around.

Cardan is officially a member of the “Red’s blorbos” group

I have got to read more by this author. Holly Black is fantastic

#the queen of nothing #the folk of the air #jude duarte #cardan greenbriar #bookblr #red’s reading list

5 notes · View notes

beeirifulmer · 3 years ago

Text

Flightless Bird Pt. 7

//Warning this contains all book spoilers

~ TRIGGER WARNINGS: This series contains slightly NSFW content, kidnapping, torturing, child endangerment, death. This series a pretty intense, so if I miss any, please let me know! ~

Cardan screamed in pain, swinging his sword and slicing the man’s throat. His head was still in an adrenaline rush. This man in front of him touched Jude, ruined her physically, and probably mentally. Cardan could only see red after he remembered the bruises on his wife’s skin, remembering the anger when he realized Jude was in the Undersea.

“You really hate me, don’t you?”

“Almost as much as you hate me.”

“Most of all, I hate you because I think of you. Often.. It’s disgusting, and I can’t stop.”

How could he be so in love yet so oblivious for years about it? Striking again, Cardan tried to stand, but his now shattered knee was no help in the fight. Dreanum was throwing as many blows as he could, clearly unaware he could crush Cardan easily.

“Tell me that you hate me, Jude.”

Everything rushed to him as he continued to fight from the floor. He needed to win, he needed to win for Jude. He had no idea where she was, but he could only hope she was safe away from this hell.

“Marry me,” Cardan remembered the look on her face like it was yesterday, and he also remembered the fear he had to even think of asking Jude such a question. “Become the Queen of Elfhame.”

To think about calling her his wife almost excited him at that moment. He tried to lie and excuse it for the sake of the crown, but he deep down wanted that and nothing more. “I, Cardan, son of Eldred, High King of Elfhame, take you, Jude Duarte, mortal ward of Madoc, to be my bride and my queen. Let us be wed until we wish for it to be otherwise and the crown has passed from our hands.”

Cardan just wanted to be in his bed, with Jude in his arms. He wished she understood his words when he exiled her, and she came back anyway. “I exile Jude Duarte to the mortal world. Until and unless she is pardoned by the crown, let her not step one foot in Faerie or forfeit her life.”

“Give me the damn sword.” Jude limped over to Locke, the Bomb handing her Nightfell and holding Locke with the Roach. “You messed with the wrong family, Locke.” Locke shook his head in fear, unable to speak and could only let out noises.

“I’m tired of seeing you alive, Taryn close your eyes.” It wasn’t long before Jude swung, Locke’s head rolling to the ground as his headless body fell limp. "Now let's go help my husband."

Cardan cursed to himself as he felt his knee tear in pain, he tried to not yell again for he was sure people outside heard. Dreanum hit Cardan with his dagger handle and he fell to his back, exposed and ready to die. Cardan almost accepted it, he really did. Closing his eyes, he heard the war cry before the pained cry and Dreanum fell to the ground dead. Taryn standing at the stairs holding a bow and arrow, Jude beside her clutching her stomach.

Jude walked down the stairs slowly and carefully until she fell to her knees beside her husband. “Jude you’re bleeding.” Cardan held his wife’s face, Jude ignored his concerns and kissed him. The kiss wasn’t like the hungry one again, this one was ‘you just saved my life, I’m in love with you’ one.

Cardan wrapped his fingers into her hair and kissed her back. Jude laid beside Cardan on the ground, none of them moving as Taryn called for the others. “Injured and can’t walk?” Jude asked, Cardan nodded and asked the same. Jude nodded. “Wanna be dramatic and make them think we died in each other’s arms.”

“That’s perfect,” Cardan laughed a little, kissing Jude again as she leaned against him. The two of them swiftly fell into an exhausted sleep, ready for the day to be over. And of course, Taryn screamed.

When Jude woke up, she found herself in somebody’s arms, but she was too comfortable to care and fell back asleep. She woke up again an hour later, this time feeling a hand stroke her hair. She looked up to find Cardan’s soft smile gazing down at her. “How did you get here? Wait, we're in bed.” Jude went to sit up when she winced and laid back down.

“Yep, we’re on bed rest. Apparently Taryn almost lost her head, sad I missed it.”

“You also missed Locke actually losing his head.” Jude smiled, Cardan returning it as he softly kissed her. “So what happened?”

“Guy shattered my knee,” Jude winced at just the thought of the pain. “You?”

“Locke stabbed me in a final attempt to kill me. The Bomb accidentally called the Roach Van, Locke made a comment like he would turn him against us, the Bomb freaked and cut out Locke’s tongue.

“Dang, and they made fun of us for being protective and violent.” Cardan commented. “I might go back to sleep.”

“Honestly, me too.” Jude chuckled and tiredly murmured as she snuggled closer to her husband. “It’s good to be home.” And there it was, Jude’s answer. Cardan smiled to himself, hearing her just barely, but enjoyed the answer he was questioning too. Cardan was her home. Jude was his flightless bird, the one special person he loved dearly. He just hoped this feeling never stopped.

And it never would.

Taglist: @fantasyfox10123 @septemberkisses (if you'd like to be tagged in my future au's and one-shots, please let me know! <3)

#cardan greenbriar #cardanandjude #jude duarte #jude greenbriar #jurdan #queen of nothing #the cruel prince #the wicked king #fota #cardan my beloved #tarynduarte #locke

21 notes · View notes

thekingdomofelfhame · 4 years ago

Text

Jurdan Fanfic: Jealousy

Summary: Jude feels that Cardan hasn’t been giving her much attention since she came back from the mortal realm after visit her sisters. She decides to play a game with him when an opportunity arises at a party...

I am not surprised to see Cardan lounging on his throne, extremely drunk, the bloodcrown resting on his brow. He wears one of his ridiculous robes, one with a massive number of black feathers stretching from his shoulders to his ankles.

How does he not trip in such extravagant clothing?

I snap out of my thoughts as I feel a hand on my shoulder, heavy yet comforting and I turn around to see my twin sister, Taryn, her hair tied up into a beautiful bun, making her hair look like a rose. She is dressed in a forest green gown that glimmers like a thousand emeralds in the moonlight, her legs showing from the slit in her dress.

“Hey”

“Hi. So what are you up to nowadays?”

“Oh. You know. Trying to correspond with the low courts, crushing small rebellions and other usual stuff. Honestly, I have not been able to find time for myself”

“And that is why I want you to meet someone”

“What are you up to?”, I ask suspiciously and she just gives me a sly smile before saying, “Come on! You are going to love him”

Before I can protest, she takes me by my hand and drags me through the crowd to a grey-haired man with blue amber-lined eyes, a tattoo partially covering his arm.

“Hey, Sky!”, Taryn says excitedly.

“Hi, Taryn. I did not know you would be here”, he says, his voice deep and smoky. His eyes shift towards me and my midnight blue dress, “this must be your twin sister. Judy? I am guessing?”, he says, extending his hand to me.

“Jude”, I snap and reach out to shake his hand, simultaneously giving my sister an exasperated look as she leaves me with him. Taryn has been dating quite a few guys since she killed Locke and each time sets up a meeting between me and her date, just so I can give my judgement and it has been worse than hell.

I skim the crowd to find Taryn, giving less attention to what Sky is saying; something about him being a wildlife photographer or something. I can’t seem to find Taryn and it makes my blood boil until I find Cardan’s black eyes upon me, not paying attention to the Fae standing beside him. That is when it hits me.

Not giving me much attention have you? Too bad. Let’s play a game

I turn back to Sky who seems to have finished his story, “So, what about you? What is your occupation?”

“Really? Taryn did not tell you”, I say, twirling my chestnut curls, “I am the seneschal”. I lie with ease as I feel Cardan’s gaze on me, sending a shiver down my spine. And yet, I continue to flirt with Sky as he continues to flirt with me and the only indication of our silent flirting was the smirk on his face and the smile on mine.

I feel as if I have flirted enough as I turn around to see Cardan, his eyes filled with fury. He jumps up from his throne and walks towards us while I pretend that I am oblivious of him, oblivious of his fury, oblivious of the fact that I was his wife and he was my husband.

“And that is how I met Taryn”, he says, waiting for me to speak.

“I wish I was there. I would have witnessed your cuteness long before my sister”

We both laugh at that but soon stop when Cardan interrupts, his hand firm on my waist.

“Please do entertain me with one of your jokes as well”, Cardan says, his voice rough.

“Oh, hey, Cardan! I almost didn’t see you there. Sky here was just telling me about himself”, I say exhilarated before turning back to Sky, “You should really tell Cardan about your time with the whale”

“I do not think that will be necessary”, Cardan interrupts, clearly exasperated.

“And why is that?”, I question him.

“Because, Jude dearest, we have to leave”

“What about--”

“Now!”

I don’t even get to say goodbye to Sky as Cardan pulls me away, his breath ragged with anger and I am certain I would have a hand-shaped bruise on my waist in the morning.

I protest all the way to our chambers while Cardan remains dead silent and does not utter a single word until we reach our chambers.

“What the hell was that?!”

“It is not necessary for you to know”, he says calmly while locking the door.

“What do you mean ‘it is not necessary for you to know’? Are you crazy? Have you lost your mind? What will Taryn’s boyfriend think of you now? Huh? For God’s sake, answer me!!!”

He does not answer for a long time, just...stares.

That is when I draw the line and rush towards the door, “Fine. If you don’t wanna answer me, don’t. I am gonna go back to the party and clear your mess”, I shout and add, “Oh, and I will be staying at Vivi’s today. You can sleep here alone tonight”

I am about to unlock the door when his hand grabs a hold of my arm, turning me around to face him.

“Jude”, his voice is apologetically soft.

“What?!”, I am sure half of Elfhame must have heard my voice, “Cardan, I do not know what is wrong with you! You are not answering me! You have been ignoring me since I came back!”

His expression changes. His face is unreadable.

He steps towards me, closing that last bit of distance between us.

“You think I have been ignoring you?”

“Aren’t you? Let’s take tonight, for example. What kind of a person leaves his wife alone in a party?!”

“Jude. You had company. What was his name? Sky, was it?”

“He is Taryn’s boyfriend! I only got stuck with him because of Taryn!”

“But you seemed to be enjoying yourself”, he looks down as his cheeks redden.

“I was only pretending for Taryn!”

Relief floods his face and his cheeks are now a striking red.

Is he blushing?

“Thank god you were only pretending because I swear he was looking at your body the whole time. I really wanted to punch him and I would have if it wasn’t for you”

“Cardan Greenbriar, are you jealous?”, I tease.

He does not answer but instead kisses my neck.

His lips are soft and warm against my skin and the way he kisses me... soft and raw.

Finally, he pulls back and says, “yes” and before I can tease him more, his lips find mine. My hands go to his silky black hair that are now damp with sweat. His lips move along my jaw finally stopping by my ear to whisper, “ Only I get to touch you this way. Oh, and by the way, I was not ignoring you. I was simply giving you space to adjust as my Queen and Elfhame’s”.

If my heart could explode, it would have.

He was so caring. Why did I have to be angry at such a beautiful and kind person?

I cannot control my emotions and, despite my attempt to blink my tears away, my eyes start bursting with them and my nose becomes runny.

Cardan must have sensed my flooding emotions for he pressed my head to his chest, one arm wrapped around my waist while the other playing with my hair. Tears trickled down my rosy red cheek that was now drenched in sweat.

“Jude”, Cardan says pressing a kiss to my forehead, “please do not punish me this way or I may go and do more than just punch that guy”. I laugh so sudden and hard that I wheeze.

“You know, no matter how upset I am, you always seem to make me laugh”

“Well, that is my job. Isn’t it, my sweet nemesis?”. With that, he kisses me again. None of us really sleep that night and the next morning I wake up with a hand-shaped bruise on my waist...

#jude x cardan #jurdan #prince cardan #cardan greenbriar #high king cardan #jude duarte #jude greenbriar

104 notes · View notes

the-chick-of-the-air · 4 years ago

Text

Hello my lovelies!!

Ok let me just start by saying- 600 followers?! Are you kidding?? Thank you all SO much! I can’t even begin to describe how grateful I am to have every single one of you interested enough in my blog to be following me! Thank you thank you thank you!!!🥰🥰

Now I’m gonna repay you by breaking your hearts!

This is my first try at anything super angsty, so if your gonna yell at me afterwards please feel free to do so in the comments or in my ask box or even just reblogging and cursing me in the tags🤣 please let me know what you think!

TW: Major character death, mentions of vomiting and allusions to body mutilation- nothing graphic just vaguely indicated but whatever you are comfortable with is up to you! If any of what I warned makes you uncomfortable please don’t read! Your mental health is more important than a work of fiction!

Update: I’m sorry- I posted this and for some reason the tag list wasn’t working but it should be now! If your username has changed please let me know so I can tag you properly down below!❤️

Summary: Someone important dies. Cardan deals with it. Grab your tissues❤️

Final Resting Place

“I’m…I’m so sorry.” The folk are not in the habit of apologizing, much less for something that is so common. It matters not, Cardan has ceased listening, has heard nothing after The Bomb uttered those damning words.

Jude is dead.

He recalls, distantly, a time when Nicasia drug him halfway to her underwater kingdom, wishing to show him its beauty and splendor. He recalls how helpless he felt, how he could breathe but it wasn’t right. How he was silenced and the pressure from the water was crushing his chest so painfully it didn’t matter if he could breathe or not.

This feels near exactly like that.

“Your Highness?” Someone is asking a question he doesn’t hear. He doesn’t even ask them to repeat themselves. All he can do is state,

“She is to be brought back here. Burned on the pyres.” A Queen’s funeral. The only funerals the folk bothered to observe.

Someone, The Roach, likely, grunts in disapproval, “She… we…are not able to bring the body back. It was…”

Cardan isn’t sure what part of that statement makes his stomach churn the worst, the fact that they just referred to his wife, their queen as a body, or the fact that there apparently isn’t too much of her body to bring back.

He tries not to think, not to guess at what death was so brutal that she doesn’t even have a body left.

And that really is it, isn’t it? She, his fierce, vibrant, deadly queen, who always looked over her shoulder, is- was always so cautious, secretly ruling over a land that was designed to kill her, the mighty Jude Duarte, slayer of the folk-

Killed by something mortal.

In the mortal lands.

Where he sent her.

It was almost laughable, Cardan did laugh. Hysteria bubbling up in his chest like bile, which it might have been because suddenly the churning in his stomach was no longer violent but imminent and he’s throwing himself into the bathing chamber.

He doesn’t hear the court of shadows, her court of shadows, retreating as he retches into the chamber pot.

~.~

Time has lost all meaning.

It’s been days, weeks, months. The days pass in a blur, marked only by those who knew what she meant to him coming to give their condolences. Like it could lessen the pain of her being gone. Lessen the pain that came with the knowledge that this was his fault.

It was so ironic it hurt. Had he not exiled her to the mortal lands for her protection, she would have still been alive, ruling where she belonged, right by his side.

And now, she would never get to rule her kingdom openly. She would never share his throne, his crown, his name, his bed again.

She was gone before he got to have her.

And it was his own damn fault.

He refused to hold any audience with Taryn. It wasn’t fair, her twin was dead and she was parading around wearing her face. He knew that should he take one look at her, he would break beyond recognition.

The only thing keeping him alive on the throne being Jude’s memory, how she would have wanted, commanded him to keep ruling, even if she wasn’t there to do it with him.

He did allow an audience with Viviane, once. She had all but demanded it and would hardly take no for an answer. She arrived, eyes puffy and bloodshot, looking as terrible as he felt which didn’t seem fair either.

He wanted to be alone in his pain, for it to be all his own, because no one could understand, could relate to how he felt for her. Why should they share in his grief? The newest plate of armor he has cast over his heart?

She wasted no time on condolences, which in itself was strangely comforting. She got straight to the point, “You missed the funeral.”

“A mortal tradition.” His voice was hoarse with disuse. Had he gone so long without speaking to anyone? That didn’t seem possible.

“Dammit Cardan! She would have wanted you there.” Her anger was refreshing, a nice change of pace compared to the complete emptiness that was left behind in the shape of a mortal footprint upon his heart.

He almost wants to disagree, but that would make no sense. The folk can’t lie, not even half-fae.

When he doesn’t respond, Vivi crosses her arms, “Will you at least come visit her? Say your goodbyes? You have to say yes, we both know you need it.”

And painful as it was, she was right. The one thing that hurt worse than Jude being dead, knowing that it was because of him, was that he didn’t get to say goodbye. That all his letters to her went unanswered. That she died without knowing how much he needed her. How much he missed her and all she was to him. How much he…

Swallowing past the lump in his throat, he silently rises and follows Vivi to his queen’s final resting place.

~.~

The mortal world is bright and loud and reeks of iron and is so alive it feels audacious. How dare anyone else continue living when someone from this place, someone so important, so above them was forced to forfeit that right?

The plot of land where she- what’s left of her- is laid to rest is small. The headstone sits, new and clean, next to two more that are dulled with age.

Justin and Eva Duarte.

Madoc had somehow procured graves for the two mortals he slaughtered, and now their youngest daughter lay beside them.

They are standing there for ten minutes before Vivi speaks, “You know, when someone visits the grave of someone they love, they usually look at it.” Her voice is monotone as she stares at the slab of stone sitting at the head of a patch of newly sprouted grass.

He’s not sure he can. If he looks, if he sees there is in fact a final stop, a final holding place for this restless mortal, then he will know it is real. That this wasn’t all some elaborate trick or punishment of her own making to get back at him for her banishment.

Foolish as it is, that was a dark hope buried deep inside him. That she was really still there, biding her time, waiting until he was just ruined enough to waltz back into his life to teach him a well deserved lesson. Perhaps on gratitude, on not taking things for granted.

It would be such a Jude thing to do.

A hand rests on his shoulder and he nearly flinches away, “I’ll give you a minute.”

Her footsteps recede, utterly fae and silent. So unlike the ones he desperately wishes to hear a final time.

It takes him maybe two minutes more for his eyes to finally find the headstone. He is shocked to find he can barely read what is inscribed upon it through tears that have filled his eyes.

Jude Duarte-Greenbriar

Beloved sister and wife

2001-2019

His tears come in earnest, then. How had he never known she took his name as well? Had cared enough to do so? Or was this something her sisters did to spite him? He pressed his lips together in an attempt to stifle any sobs trying to break free.

Cautiously, so cautious she would be proud, he runs his fingers over the inscription of her name- their name. When he knows his voice will be steady, he speaks.

“Well, wife.” He presses his eyes closed as a fresh wave of tears pushes at his senses, “I doubt either of us saw it coming to this.” Gently, he tugs something out of the satchel he brought with him.

“It was yours. For you to wear upon your return. For when you came home.” He couldn’t stop his voice from breaking as he carefully laid the crown down at the foot of the headstone, glamoured so mortals would see it as a pile of painted rocks.

“I guess in a way, I got what you thought I wanted. For you to…” He can’t even bring himself to say it. He had never wanted this. When in palace lessons, he thought that dreams plagued with her scent, her voice, her touch had been the most horrid nightmares. He was wrong, this was far worse than any dream he had of her angry face, her soft hair. This was a nightmare terrifying enough to cripple the strongest of men.

“Well. I guess it doesn’t matter now. It doesn’t matter that I wish I could take back what I said about you in our childhood. That you would return to the earth, worm food.” He shudders, recalling that he had said those things while imagining that they would have followed a long life. One filled with her aging slowly due to living in Elfhame. Secret imaginings he only allowed himself in the darkest hours of the night- ones where he was by her side and they wreaked havoc together for the rest of their long, full lives. His next words are whispered, “I never imagined it would happen so soon.”

His hand returns to the headstone, gripping the cool rock tightly.

There is nothing left to say aside from one final message. Nothing left to do other than leave this place and continue on in his immortality, letting her fade into the backs of everyone’s memory as the Last Mortal Queen.

Taking a final shaky breath, Cardan utters the truth he had spent nearly his whole life repressing, trying to lie his way around. The words he now so desperately wishes he had said to her before he cast her out of their home in hopes of preventing this very thing from happening.

With one final look upon the place his wife, his queen is forever to rest upon, he whispers,

“I love you.”

~.~

Years and years and years later, young children of the gentry sit in their history lessons amongst their mortal classmates, and learn of the beautiful, treacherous life that was led by the Last Mortal Queen, Jude Duarte-Greenbriar

And that is that! Did I make you cry? Do you want to throw crumpled tissues at my head? Let me know!❤️ (I left out details of Jude’s death on purpose, it’s up to your imagination to come up with what happened to her, sorry for pain😬)

Tag list:

As always, please let me know through the comments or my inbox or any other way you are comfortable with and let me know if you wish to be added to my list so you can be alerted to my future works!

@maleckanejnessienjurdansolangelo @woodsbeyond1 @cardan-greenbriar-tcp @thewickedkings @aneurwin @snusbandxknifewife @jurdanhell @andromeddea @dressedindustandshadows @thesirenwashere @b00kworm @hizqueen4life @unidentifiedblackthorn @iminsanenotobsessed @df3ndyr @brittneyal @aelin-queen-of-terrasen @thefolkofthefic @yafandomsdotnet @fuzzypineapples-blog @nahthanks @charrise @thefolkofthefic @theviolettulip @embersfromink @kittkatandbooboo

Till next time, loves!🥰

#cardan greenbriar #jude duarte #jurdan #the cruel prince #tcp #jude x cardan #angst #I’m so sorry #I made myself cry writing this #actually I was fine writing it #but when I reread to edit it #then I cried #if Jude is your comfort character I am SO sorry #fluff to come in the future #I promise #you guys are incredible #a test in seeing how sad I can make my writing before I can’t even write it #the folk of the air #let me know if anyone reads my tags #I think I’m so witty and I hide it in here #aaaaaaaaaangst #no fluff #trigger warning: vomit #trigger warning: major character death #trigger warning: allusions to body mutilations #I’m so sorry Jude #my home girl and I killed her off #ok I gotta stop with the tags or someone is gonna hit me with a shoe #ha! even tumblr wants to him me with a shoe: I reached the tag limit!

91 notes · View notes

roguestarsailor · 4 years ago

Text

JUST FINISHED THE QUEEN OF NOTHING AND IT IS *AMAZING*. THE WHOLE ENTIRE SERIES IS AMAZING. I HAVE MANY THOUGHTS BUT I AM FILLED WITH LOVE FROM THIS BOOK SO I CANNOT WRITE RIGHT NOW! JUDE AND CARDEN MY LOVES MY PRECIOUS PRECIOUS BABIES I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVEEEE

JUST AHHHH THE COMPLEXITIES OF EACH CHARACTER AND THEIR DECISIONS AND AHFKDSHJK ITS NOT LETS JUST MURDER PEOPLE AND IT LOVELY I LOVE THAT FOR THEM I LOVE THAT ITS DKSLJFDSFSDKLJ JUDE IS A DUMBIE IN LOVE AND THE BEST SCHEMEING BITCH EVER I LOVE HER WOWWW

STAND OUT MOMENTS INCLUDE

“Jude, you can’t really think I don’t know it’s you. I knew you from the moment you walked into the brugh.”

“He’s every bit as terrifying as any serpent.

I don’t care. I run into his arms.”

Cardan’s fingers dig into my back. He’s trembling, and whether it is from ebbing magic or horror, I am not sure. But he holds me as though I am the only solid thing in the world.”

I feel a guard’s hand close on my arm. Then Cardan’s voice comes. “Do not touch her.”

A terrible silence follows. I wait for him to pronounce judgment on me. Whatever he commands will be done. His power is absolute. I don’t even have the strength to fight back.

“She’s my wife,” Cardan says, his voice carrying over the crowd. “The rightful High Queen of Elfhame. And most definitely not in exile.”

another stand out is

“You ought to have taken what we offered,” Lord Jarel says, swinging his spear down toward me. “Your reign will be very short, mortal queen.”

Then Grima Mog is there on her stag, taking the weight of his blade. Their weapons slam together, ringing with the force of the impact. “First I’m going to kill you,” she tells him. “And then I’m going to eat you.”

IM SO SORRY BUT THIS IS WHAT I WILL BE POSTING ABOUT FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS IM SO IN LOVEEEEEEEEE

#amandabookthoughts #amandathoughts #the folk of the air #the cruel prince #the wicked king #queen of nothing #holly black #jude x cardan #im so fucken glad locke just died and we forgot about him #that was such a good move #not sure how i feel about taryn and the ghost being romantic #but whatever #anyways #mardoc on earth is gonna be funny as shit #also the complexity of his relationship with jude is so good #its like its fucked up but its like making peace w what happened #its learning about love #its learning to define love #the whole story is well done #its a bit fucked up #and jarring AS A MORTAL reading this #but it makes sense #vivi is constantly like THIS ISN'T NORMAL #and shes right #but jude makes do #i love the narration shifts #from anxiety to more like distressed and then cautious confidence #like we're growing through jude's eyes #its beautiful #good book series so far

114 notes · View notes

laequiem · 4 years ago

Text

No tricks, only treats [ONESHOT]

/ Cardan and Jude join the rest of the family to enjoy Halloween in the Mortal World.

Part of Tales from the Mortal Realm, a collection of random moments in the lives of the Queen and King of Elfhame.

"Is it strange that I find you attractive dressed as such?"

I was looking at myself in the mirror, assessing my outfit, when Cardan sneaked into the room. His training with The Ghost was paying off, he was as silent as ever.

"Strange? Yes. Surprising? No."

Read it on ao3

"Is it strange that I find you attractive dressed as such?"

I was looking at myself in the mirror, assessing my outfit, when Cardan sneaked into the room. His training with The Ghost was paying off, he was as silent as ever.

"Strange? Yes. Surprising? No."

I saw him prowl towards me through the glass. He slid his arms around my waist, staring at me through my reflection.

Today is October 31st and Oak insisted we join him in celebrating Halloween. Of course, this means we all need costumes. I decided to go as the one character I knew more than anyone else.

Cardan.

I looked through his wardrobe for my outfit. It was quite hard to find a top that was loose enough to account for my breasts, as most of his clothes were tailored to fit him perfectly. I also found a dark blue coat, its collar covered in iridescent feathers. I gave up trying to find pants in his collection, as my hips would never fit, and just wore a pair of black leggings with black combat boots.

"What do you mean, dear Jude?"

"The only thing you love more than booze is yourself."

He raised his brows, making a show of looking offended.

"Your capacity to lie to yourself will always impress me,” he said then plucked a kiss to my temple, “I love you more than I love wine."

I don’t think I will ever get over him being caring . It felt as if he was a completely different person from the boy who would disturb lessons just to get attention.

Cardan turned me to face him, then inspected my face. “Something is missing.” He took my hand and directed me to his personal vanity. He opened the drawer and pulled out some cosmetics. He lined my eyes with kohl and coated my lashes with dark mascara. I suppressed my laugh when I saw he was so concentrated that he had stuck out his tongue. Then, he took out some glittery gold powder and applied it on my cheekbones.

He took a step back to look at his handiwork and smiled.

“And the final touch,” he said as he plucked his crown off his head and put it on my head at an angle, “Voilà!”

I looked at myself in the mirror. I did not bother with any kind of wig. I put my hair up in elaborate braids, letting a few short curls hang in a few places. Yet, even without his signature dark hair, I still looked like him. I made faces at myself in the mirror, trying to get his grin right.

Finally, I got up. “Your turn now, dearest Cardan.”

When Heather learned that Cardan would be coming too, she started suggesting outfits for him. She even went as far as drawing some of them. Something about his otherworldly looks inspired her. Maybe it's the tail, since a lot of her designs included it: a devil, sexy cat man and my personal favorite, a cute puppy.

In the end, I chose my own, petty idea. I walked in the closet and pulled out the outfit I had the servants clean for the occasion.

“A King needs his Queen,” I grinned as I revealed the Queen of Mirth dress and crown.

Cardan threw his head back laughing. “You sure know how to hold a grudge.”

Thankfully, my husband was a team player, and he went with it. Even in this, he looked strikingly handsome. Or pretty, I guess. Unfair.

We landed in Maine in the early afternoon. It was strange to be awake so early, but Cardan did not seem bothered at all. We met up with Vivi, Heather, Oak, Taryn and Garrett at the entrance to FallFest, some kind of harvest festival that was held every October in the local park. It had everything from harvest contests to food stands, a section with typical carnival games, a small hay maze and even a haunted house.

I was not surprised to see my eldest sister dressed up, she went crazy for Halloween every year. Vivienne would dress up for a week straight before Halloween, even when she still lived in Elfhame. She was wearing a tight black bodysuit with a tail and claws as well as a black leather mask with cat ears. Heather dressed up as some kind of … plant lady? She had a short bodysuit made of green ivy leaves, green stockings and a long red wig. Oak was with them, wearing a reddish pink shirt with a big yellow star on it. I can only assume they went for pop-culture references I am unfamiliar with.

The real surprise was seeing my twin Taryn and her quiet lover also dressed up.

"What are you dressed as?", Cardan inquired, cocking his head to the side, "You ought to have dressed as Jude, you have already proved to be so good at it."

I snapped my head at him and slammed my foot as hard as I could on his. He was joking, of course. But the peace between me and Taryn was still fairly new. We mostly kept to ourselves and rarely talked. Garrett was back with the Court of Shadow and we were friendly, but he kept his professional and personal lives completely separated.

Cardan was hopping on one foot, scowling at me like he did not understand why I was upset. Taryn understood, though. She was sheepishly looking at the ground.

"I… I'm sorry for tricking you, Cardan."

I tried finding something to say to end the awkwardness. I wanted Cardan to apologize for what he said, but I knew he would not. Fae don't apologize.

Thankfully, Vivi broke the silence. "C'mon guys, we're here to HAVE FUN!" she complained, "What ARE you two dressed as?"

"Phantom of the Opera." Garrett replied.

"Nerds."

"Says the one dressed up as Catwoman." Garrett mocked.

The bickering continued, though less mean-spirited than Cardan’s original comment, as we walked down the main path. Our first stop was the pumpkin carving station. Each couple got their own pumpkin to carve, though Vivi and Heather’s pumpkin was mostly Oak’s handiwork and the couple making sure he did not stab himself. Taryn and Garrett made some intricate flower design on theirs, Garrett being the one doing the carving of course. As for us, well… Cardan had creative ideas, but no skills with a blade, and my skills were more of the stabbing variety. We settled on giving our pumpkin a traditional jack-o-lantern face.

After the effort of carving pumpkins, we were starving. Oak was complaining, dragging his feet on the ground so much that Vivi and Heathers were holding both of his hands to pull him along. Behind them, I saw Taryn with her arm looped around The Ghost's.

I was suddenly very aware that Cardan and I were the only ones not holding hands.

Nobody knows us here. We needn't keep the appearance of the power couple, together to rule and nothing else.

I took my hand out of the pockets of my borrowed coat and tentatively brushed my fingers against Cardan's hand. I saw him whip his head towards me, and I blushed when I witnessed the surprise in his face. Soon enough, he smiled. One of those smiles he kept for me and only me, blissful and happy. The smile he gives me when we have the time to spend hours cuddled together in bed, enjoying each other's presence.

Cardan took my hand and squeezed. I squeezed back.

We spent the rest of the afternoon eating good food, trying to guess the weight of giant pumpkins and visiting a haunted house. Cardan was fascinated by the weird human traditions and absolutely ecstatic about the food. Pumpkin-spiced flavored food will become the new trend in Elfhame, judging by his reaction.

When the sun started to go down, Taryn and Garrett left for Madoc’s, who decided to try giving out candy to the trick-or-treaters. Heather and Vivienne had initially volunteered to take Oak trick-or-treating himself, but when one of their friends invited them to a party, we offered to take him instead. Oak was excited to spend more time with me and “Uncle Cardan”.

I had not gone trick-or-treating in...10 years? Maybe 12? Since my parents died. Cardan, obviously, had never gone. So, dressed up as each other, with Oak dressed as some cartoon character, we roamed the residential streets of the city to beg for sweets.

“If it is called ‘trick-or-treat’, does that mean I can make bargains if someone refuses to give me candy?” Cardan asked as we watched Oak go up to a house.

I gave him my best ‘I’ll-strangle-you-if-you-do’ stare. “No. No turning people into cats, no curse making them hear imaginary insects buzzing around their ears.”

“Why is it called trick-or-treat, then?”

Vivienne told me they had to explain this to Oak, too, a few weeks ago. Someone at school had mentioned being excited to go trick-or-treating and my brother had been very confused.

“I don’t know.��

Cardan hmmed and smirked, “Perhaps the Folk were involved when the holiday was first established.”

I crossed my arms.

“If that’s the case, not all traditions need to be brought back.”

He laughed at that, then reached around me and pulled me closer to him.

“You win. I won’t trick anyone,” he crooned in my ear, “but I want a kiss for being well behaved.”

I rolled my eyes dramatically. “So needy.”

Once again, I had to remind myself that nobody knows us here. Nobody recognized our costumes today: in the mortal world, dressed as each other, we were only The Guy In An Ugly Dress and Fashionable Emo Boy. Nobody knew we are King and Queen of Elfhame, therefore there are no expectations to be the hedonistic king and his murderous wife.

I slid my hand behind his neck and pulled him down. I felt him smile as I captured his lips with mine.

“Ew, gross!” Oak’s voice came from the other end of the driveway, “Stop that, come here.”

Reluctantly, we pulled away from each other and looked towards the house. Oak was in front of the opened door, talking with a couple.

“Honey, look,” the tallest woman exclaimed as we walked down the driveway, “She’s dressed as High King Cardan!”

“Oh my god,” the other one replied, sounding so very human, “that sounds kind of profane. Do you think he would have her hung for this?”

As I looked at the two women, I realized that Oak had stumbled upon the house of a Fae couple. They saw through his glamour, and he saw through theirs.

“This is my sister Jude,” Oak started, “and this is my Uncle Cardan.”

Both females had gone completely still and were staring at Cardan with wide eyes. Simultaneously, they bowed deeply.

“Forgive us, Your Majesty. We weren’t expecting you.”

“We so rarely see our kind around here,” the shorter one said nervously, “we… wanted to meet who little Oak was with.”

“We have tea, if you would like.”

I dared a glance at Cardan and noticed he seemed amused. Was he delighted to make them uncomfortable?

“That won’t be necessary,” he said as he took my hand, “My wife has us on a tight schedule, we have other houses to visit. Have a nice evening.”

I caught the emphasis on wife and realized they only recognized him as royalty. ‘ Your Majesty ’, singular. I could tell from the two females’ expressions that they also understood their mistake. I felt bad for them knowing they had no ill intent, probably unaware of the situation in Faerie. Yet, I could not help the grin that crept on my face. I worked hard to become High Queen. I fought and killed my way through the ranks, almost dying. Multiple times. I made decisions that will haunt me until the day I die. I am High Queen, and the Folk must know.

“It was nice meeting you,” I say as I take Oak’s hand, “You are welcome to visit us at the palace if you wish.”

My memories from before Faerieland were to blurry, I did not remember getting so much candy. Did Taryn and I get that much? How could we possibly have eaten all of that? Cardan and I each had a smaller bag, only accompanying Oak to some of the doors, but Oak had multiple full bags. Once he went to sleep, Oriana was more than happy to give us some. She had learned how bad candy was for children’s teeth - even little Fae kids. She filled little bags for us to take back to Elfhame.

Like anyone eating candy for the first time, Cardan went a little crazy. He wanted to try everything. Faeries might be different in a lot of ways, but I now have proof that chocolate is addictive even to them.

The High King of Elfhame ate so much candy that he fell asleep on the couch, to the former General’s dismay.

#tfota #the folk of the air #cardan #cardan greenbriar #jurdan #judecardan #jude duarte #the cruel prince #the wicked king #queen of nothing #holly black #fanfic #fluff #laequiem

74 notes · View notes

aelin-queen-of-terrasen · 4 years ago

Note

Can you make a Jurdan fic wherein Jude and Cardan goes to the mortal world and Cardan gets super jealous and overprotective coz the mortal guys keep staring at Jude?

I wrote this so well the first time round, fucking Tumblr deleted it. 😭 If you'd like to check out my other works, here's the Masterlist.

foolish mortals

the high king is like a lovesick puppy when it comes to his wife

he follows her everywhere

does as she asks

he'd do anything short of murder if it made her happy

probably murder too

whenever he looks at her

it's like he's looking at some miracle he had never thought was possible till it happened

to him, she might as well be a miracle because—

in all his daydreams

he'd never imagined there would be a day he'd be the object of her affection

but it did happen

and now she's here and all hers

and sometimes he's all too aware of the pain he has caused her before and all too afraid that she'll realise it too and she'll leave

so he cherishes every moment with her as if it were the last

especially their trips to the mortal world since she won't be able to visit the mortal world for much long

he tries to make sure she enjoys it

but he's always too busy fawning over the wonders of this world

and Jude never answers most of his questions considering she knows almost as little about this world as he does

but he loves all of it

one thing he doesn't love though, the attention Jude receives here

in elfhame

everyone knows not to hit on his wife if they value their body organs

but the mortal boys have no such qualms and the sheer audacity of them to look at her as if they deserve his queen—

Cardan is no killer

but he sure feels like murdering some of those pricks

he's delighted when Vivienne makes Jude wear a too short blue sundress to the mall

less delighted when everyone stares

he waves her wedding ring in their faces subtly but no one stops looking at her

and there she goes

walking around oblivious of all the attention on her

so he randomly kisses her

slides his hand around her waist

pulls her closer

and gods

once Cardan asked her

"kiss me until I'm sick of it"

so foolish of him to assume he'd ever get sick of her kisses

for a few moments, the pesky little mortals don't matter to him, nor does the jealousy in his heart

there are no insecurities

no thoughts

only Jude and the taste of her on his mouth and her lingering touch on his cheek and he's in bliss

until he leaves to get them ice cream and comes back to see a random man talking to his queen

"back off her before I sentence you to execution"

the man gives him a strange look

and Jude only stares dumbfounded

Cardan puffs his cheeks out

pouting

like a petulant child

Jude rolls her eyes affectionately

"that was the salesman, idiot"

embarrassed as he is

Cardan doesn't look up from the floor or talk much for the rest of their visit

but he's never too far from her

always sticking to her

and he's happy to be back in Elfhame, if only for the fact that here no one would risk his wrath by so much as looking wrong in Jude's direction

Jude says he's too overbearing

but she can't help but feel that his protectiveness is so endearing

even if she wishes he'd realise she would never ever trade him for anything in the world

tags:

@courtofjurdan // @thesirenwashere // @nightbringer // @queenofgreenbriar // @jurdanhell // @sweetlyvillainous //@clockworkgraystairs // @blog-lady-vi // @the-dark-swan //@storiesandschemes // @fangirltrash74 // @augustintodarkness // @queen-of-glass // @jurdan7 // @aesthetics-11 // @mijaldraws // @hades-flame // @sensitivehighlord // @annejulianneh111 // @b00kworm // @mysweetvillain // @doingmyrainbow // @curlyredqueen06 // @chaotic-fae-queen // @thewickedkings // @thesurielships //@df3ndyr // @clouds-and-peonies // @aelinfeyreeleven945tbln // @thefolkofthefic

let me know if you'd like to be tagged.

#jude x cardan #jude duarte #the folk of the air #the cruel prince #tcp headcanons #headcanons #jurdan #cardan greenbriar #cardan x jude #jurdannet #jurdan fluff #fluff #king cardan #aelin-queen-of-terrasen

286 notes · View notes

scarletaire · 4 years ago

Text

homeland (Chapter 5)

A/N: Last chapter before the epilogue, and it is the longest one by far! To each and every single one of you reading and supporting this little fic of mine: thank you. Just – thank you. This one's for you.️

Fandom: The Folk of the Air

Genre/s: Contains Fluff, Slight Hurt/Comfort, Slight Angst, Smut

Rating: E

Tags: Post-QON, Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Protective!Cardan, Bewildered!Jude, Jude and Cardan discuss the Undersea, but they get a little Distracted

Description:

Cardan’s eyes flash open.

“Why?” he repeats, and Jude feels the power shift between them. “Don’t you remember, wife?” he croons. “It was the Undersea who stole you away from me.”

And Jude has only enough time to think, danger, before he lunges at her.

or:

Cardan and Jude work on removing their armor. Taking off this particularly stubborn piece happens in varying states of undress.

Links: Masterlist | AO3

Cardan doesn’t get very far.

Well.

She doesn’t let him.

Jude snatches her forgotten knife off the ground, not far from the couch, and throws. It flies hilt over blade, over and over, a flash of silver teeth in the moonlight, until it strikes its target: the patch of mossy wall just a hair's breadth away from the tip of Cardan’s ear.

He freezes. Inches from the door. “Did you just throw a knife at me?”

“I should’ve aimed closer.” Jude glares at his turned back. She still hasn’t quite gotten her breath back and it shows in her voice. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Back to the revel. The one you were so worried about missing.”

“The one you clearly don’t care enough about considering you led me here instead.”

He turns, finally, raising his shoulders as if to say, I guess you’re right. The smile has returned to his face. It is a mask, and it does not fit.

She wants to slice it off.

Jude stands. Or, well, attempts to, with as much dignity as possible. The thing is — she can’t feel her knees.

Cardan notices. His smile ripples, shifts. A smirk begins to flirt with the corner of his mouth.

“Don’t you dare.”

The smirk only grows.

Jude cuts her eyes to the knife embedded in the wall. “I mean it.”

“Or what? You’ll kill me?”

“Not funny. Listen,” she hisses. “I don’t have time for this. Trying to figure out what’s wrong with you. You’re distant, you’re brooding, whatever. But you don’t get to walk away from me.”

His eyes flash. “And what makes you think I’m walking away from you?”

“Because that’s what you do. Running away. Hiding under tables. Drinking wine to clear away reality.” She doesn’t know where this is coming from. There is something cold, too cold, in her blood. She let him have his way and he still turned his back on her.

Jude watches the words land, sees him rear back in response. This urge to hurt him, just a little, is familiar but wrong. Like putting on old clothes that are too small. She makes it fit. “I don’t see why it matters anyway,” she continues. “The Folk don’t care about these things. Brothers kissing the same girl. It’s what counts as fun around here.” She thinks of Locke, and of Taryn, and the taste of it is bitter in her mouth.

There is no mistaking the fury on his face now. She can’t even celebrate the loss of his mask. “Is that what you think this is about?”

“What else is there?” she says without thinking, at the end of her rope. “Are you jealous, Cardan? Do you think I liked kissing Balekin better than –”

“Shut up.”

“No.”

“Foolish human. You couldn’t possibly fathom it.”

“Exactly,” she snarls. “I can’t fathom it. I can’t understand what you’re thinking. Is that it? Is it because I’m human? So I got kidnapped and held hostage and you had to make a deal for me. Are you defending my honor? Is that how little you –”

“Tread carefully, wife.” Malice sparks in his tone.

They’re going in circles. Like a faerie dance that an enchanted mortal can’t break away from.

“I’ve made my peace with it!” She very nearly shouts it. “Why can’t you?”

Because that’s what the problem is, isn’t it? She’s made her peace with it, the whole, terrible lot of it. She was kidnapped, used, tortured in that insidious way the fae like to torture. Geases and tricks and not-truths. But she didn’t let it break her. So why is it that he’s the one that’s broken, the one shaken awake by nightmares, the one unable to meet her eyes?

Jude is — exhausted. She feels a little sick for goading him, and she despises how little she is able to control her words and her temper. This isn’t how she wants to treat him, but her head hurts. She desperately misses the way they were in the safety of their room: open, vulnerable, trusting. She wants him the way he was after his nightmare, trembling and soft and ready to tell her everything without making her guess a word.

She won’t let him see her shoulders slump, but her voice loses its edge. “Fine. You clearly don’t want to — to talk about it right now. I hate it,” and she makes sure her eyes burn her vitriol at him, “but that’s not my problem. I will not beg for your favor.” And she says it with her chin held high. “Nor do I need it.”

He’s watching her, the wariness unmistakable on his face.

“But know this, High King of Elfhame. The next time you turn your back on me will be the last time I throw a knife at you.” My blade will strike true.

Jude sweeps past him to retrieve her knife embedded in the wall. She means to leave him there, much in the same way he meant to leave her only moments before. But her hand has barely closed around the hilt of her blade before there are soft fingers encircling her wrist, gently tugging her backwards.

Cardan wraps his arms around her from behind, pulling her back against his chest. Jude wants to snap at him, to tell him that no amount of cuddling will account for the way he closed himself off to her – but then his head is dropping to her shoulder, stray curls brushing against her bare, chilled skin, and her body is melting against him because he’s warming her up all pressed close like this, and, well, isn’t this what she wanted all along?

He sighs, and it feels like a kiss against the skin behind her ear. Before she knows it, she’s leaning completely against him, until her cheek is resting against his temple and he’s supporting all of her weight. And everything feels like it could be alright, just for a little while.

Jude allows herself to chip a little. A piece of armor falling away. It wouldn’t normally be this easy, but this night has taken so much from her already. Her fingers wrap around his forearms. “Just – are you angry?”

“Yes.”

Jude swallows it, the word a lump of ice in her throat.

But Cardan is speaking again. “Not at you.”

“Oh.”

“Jude.” He sends her name into her skin. And he sounds exactly the way he did when he woke up from his nightmare. “How could you ever think it was you?”

Her fingers tighten around his forearms, digging into the black fabric of his shirt. She fixes her gaze on the ceiling, golden lanterns and constellations for a revel that suddenly seems so very far away. “I just always thought you would hate me for it. Think me weak.”

“I could never. If there was anyone weak in the face of the Undersea, it was I.”

Jude lifts her head. “What?”

“I couldn’t do anything when you were taken. Anything that mattered. I couldn’t stop them, couldn’t bring you back. Not without a king’s ransom and admitting Madoc one step closer to the crown. I hated that making the deal was the only thing I could do. But I did it anyway.”

The words he whispered in their bed ring through her ears.

I would have done anything to get you back. Anything. Everything.

She wishes she could see his face, turn around and lift his eyes to her. But his arms have become iron around her waist, and he is pressing his face into her neck as if he never means to surface from her again.

“Every day that you were gone, I stood on the cliff and gazed into the waves. As if I could bring you back by the sheer force of my longing. Never before had I loathed the feeling of being weak as much as then. All the power of Elfhame and I couldn’t bring you back.”

“But you did,” she says, because as much as she kept herself alive and refused to let them break her, he got her out. He got her out in the end. “You did.”

He doesn’t hear her. “And then now you tell me of my brother’s tricks and machinations. Taking what he can from you. Giving you no choice but to yield to him. Another tally in the long list of ways I’ve failed. Do you understand me now, Jude? I am haunted by the water.”

And Jude is thunderstruck.

Because this whole time.

This whole time, he was angry with himself.

He thinks — he thinks he failed her.

She tries to speak, to say something, anything — you didn’t fail me maybe, or I think you might have saved me even — but he’s pressing a kiss to her temple and turning her in his arms. Holding her hips and smiling a rueful smile, neither a fake nor a mask and even more disconsolate in its truthfulness.

“My Queen of Knives,” he says. “Come. We have a land grab to settle.”

–––––––––

They’re ambushed the minute they emerge.

The Courts of Elfhame are eager to stake their claim on the Isle of Ash, and it would seem the carefully crafted festivities of Cardan’s peace revel are not enough to placate them any longer.

They are met with a blur of faces and titles and allegiances and honestly, at this point, barely veiled propositions as the people of the kingdom vie for their favor. Cardan takes the lead in charming them all and maneuvering the conversation without really agreeing to anything, because they both know that’s what he’s best at. The revel continues as the politicking unfolds. The music is liquid, the air thick as syrup. And Cardan – doesn’t let go of her.

From the moment they stepped out of their secret room behind the throne, he’s made sure that he’s touching her somehow. It’s his tail twining around her elbow while a goblin with lime green skin outlines his extensive plans should Insear be bequeathed to the Court of Moths. It’s his pinky curling around hers while a pixie chatters away at them, her wings near vibrating with her enthusiasm. It’s his steadying hand on her back as he leads her away from a member of the Gentry that has clearly had too much wine.

As if he understands how much she’s pushing her body right now to keep going on. As if he understands how turning his back on her was a sting that she won't easily forget. As if maybe she isn't the only one in need of these small affections.

The King and Queen hold court with their kingdom, but neither of them are really listening, because they are also holding court with each other. The Folk watch them with bemusement.

Jude doesn’t really care at this point.

She had seen the tightness in his eyes, the clenching of his jaw. She had assumed their meaning, and oh, how wrong she had been. Now she is taking in all the things she missed the first time, wondering how she hadn’t noticed the slump to his shoulders, the unhappy tilt of his lips.

Anger is a strange thing, in that it takes root from the things that hurt the most.

Cardan steps away at one point when something far ahead catches his notice, and he presses a quick kiss to her cheek before departing. She almost chases after him, because he took all the warmth with him when he left, and she’s not sure if she could endure another round of simpering and sidling without him.

When the Bomb suddenly materializes at her side, Jude almost sighs in relief.

“Here.” The Bomb hands her a vial filled with clear, violet liquid.

Jude narrows her eyes at it. “What is that?”

“The king said you weren’t feeling well.”

“What? When?”

“Not long after we returned from Insear. He was frantic. Said you fainted into his arms.” There’s teasing in the corner of her smile, if she looked close enough.

Jude snatches the bottle from her. “I did no such thing.”

“Whatever you say, Your Worshipfulness.”

Eyeing the contents, Jude asks, “What kind of antidote is it?”

It’s the Bomb’s turn to frown. “It’s just a tonic. Why would you need an antidote?”

“I think I’ve been poisoned. But I can’t be sure. It’s not a poison I know. It’s just that the symptoms came on so fast for it to be anything else.” Jude goes over how she ruled out all the possible common fae toxins.

“Jude, you should have told someone sooner. What symptoms?” Her friend’s voice has transformed from easygoing to clinical.

“Headache. Chills. Sore muscles.” Jude thinks over the last hour, her encounter with Cardan behind the throne room. “And some kind of mood change. I’m… I’m too irritable. Volatile.” She shakes her head. “More so than usual.”

“Glad to know you’re self-aware, at least.”

Jude ignores the jab. “I’ve run out of ideas. I don’t know what it is, or how I imbibed it.” And the symptoms aren’t going away. But even in front of her friend, Jude is loath to show weakness. This conversation, asking for help, it’s already uncomfortable enough.

“Leave it to me.” The Bomb turns to go, but before she leaves, she looks back at Jude with a grin. “And here I thought you were out of sorts for a different reason.”

“What?”

She sends a look over Jude’s shoulder and melts into the shadows with one last wink. Jude turns and sees Cardan making his way back, eyes heavy on her.

His clothes are covered in glitter.

Blue, turquoise, and gold powder shimmering against all the black. Scattered on his shoulder where he threw her leg over him. Across the front of his chest where she grabbed him. Dusted across his cheekbones where he pressed his face into —

Her. His clothes are covered in her.

Has he looked like that the entire time? All the ambassadors they talked to…

“Your Majesty.” It’s Randalin. He pauses, leaning forward to peer a little closer. “Are you feeling alright? You look a little flushed.”

“Hm? Oh, I’m perfectly fine,” she lies. She’s not sure if it’s because of whatever poison is possibly in her system right now, or because she’s still not recovered from that mind-melting orgasm, but she wouldn’t mind betting that she always looks like this after a period of Cardan’s undivided attention.

“I’ve finally caught you alone, my queen. You see, I wondered if I might have a word –”

“Speak directly, Minister.” And quickly, for your sake.

Jude casts her eyes around. Where did Cardan – oh. It looks like he’s found himself caught in the clutches of the Council as well. Nihuar stands in between them, and they are locked in a conversation that clearly looks like one he doesn’t want to be having.

“The resolutions to the Insear claim have been delayed. Intentionally. Multiple times, all of them without due reason. Well, with perhaps as singular a reason as this.” He gestures at the revelry unfurling before them, and she much mislikes the disdain in his goat eyes.

Her fingers tighten on the vial in her hand. She hasn’t even had a chance to drink the damn thing. “What are you implying?”

“I come to simply say that perhaps in this matter, the king cannot be relied upon, and to prevent further damage to the kingdom, that the next course of recompense be –”

Jude sees red. The vial of tonic crashes into the floor, where it shatters and seeps like strange jeweled blood.

“How dare you,” she sneers. Rage creeps like frost under her skin. “Unreliable and incompetent are the last things Cardan will ever be. You should know. He saw right through you, didn’t he?”

And then there is actual blood on the floor, because Randalin is bleeding, a good chunk of his hob’s ear missing. She’s got her knife in her hand, and him in a chokehold, spluttering and gasping and scrambling to put pressure on his wound.

“That’s why you came to me, isn’t it? The king was too smart to play along with you, and so you thought to try your luck with the queen. Maybe you should change your title to the Fool, dear Minister of Keys.”

Finally. She finally got to sink her knife into someone who deserved it.

Her blood sings, loud in her ears.

Somebody screams.

“You will leave this matter alone,” she’s telling him. Threatening him. “You will not try to play the crown again, especially not for the sake of the Council’s useless pockets, or else the next time it won’t be your ear missing its tip.” She angles her blade towards Randalin’s horns, and he makes a little scared sound in the back of his throat.

Then there are arms, warm and strong, pulling her gently away. Unwinding her hands around Randalin’s neck and lifting her up. The bloodlust evaporates from her at his touch and suddenly, she’s dizzy and reeling.

“Take the Minister away,” Cardan says to someone she cannot see. She feels the words rumble in his chest where she’s pressed up against him.

“At once, sire. And the queen, will she need a healer’s attention?”

“No. Leave us.” The frisson of authority in his voice thrills in Jude’s blood. When he looks down at her, his eyes are pure black. “I will deal with the queen.”

–––––––––––––––

Cardan carries her all the way to the bathroom of the royal suite.

He doesn’t speak when he sets her down on the floor. He doesn’t speak when he starts to help her out of her dress, fingers masterful but not lingering as he undoes the laces, peels away her skirt, threads the feathers out of her hair. He doesn’t speak when he holds out his hand and guides her into the great, green marble bath, already steaming with fragrant, flowered water.

The scent is the first thing she notices. Pink roses and snowy jasmines float along the edges of the bath. The water swirls blue and turquoise when she sinks into it, the night’s colors washing away from her body. It’s wonderfully, blessedly hot, soothing the chill under her skin.

Jude is almost too distracted by how good the water feels to be self-conscious when he takes a seat by the side of the bath, folding his long limbs onto the floor to sit with her as she soaks.

And then, finally: “You do realize that there are other solutions to political scheming that are not attempted murder?”

Jude sinks further down into the water until it covers up to her mouth. “None quite so efficient,” she mumbles. The words come out as bubbles.

Cardan watches her as she leans back against the bathtub, expression neutral. “Liliver thinks you’ve been poisoned.”

“I think I’ve been poisoned. I told her so when she came to deliver the tonic you requested.” She raises an eyebrow at him in a silent question.

“Yes, I believe I gave her a bit of a fright after you fainted. How are you not dead?”

She doesn’t know if it’s a comfort or a concern to realize that they’ve reached the point in their monarchy where poisonings and assassination attempts are now considered topics for small talk.

“It’s either I was given the wrong dosage, or poisoning me wasn’t the intention.” She taps a lone rosebud as it floats by her on the water. “It’s not a toxin I recognize.”

“Maybe it’s not a toxin at all.”

She lifts her head to see him wrinkling his brow. “What do you mean?”

“Have you eaten anything? Drank anything?”

“Nothing you haven’t. That’s why I ruled out the food tray from earlier. The one with the honeycakes.”

“I remember.” A corner of his mouth lifts, and she thinks of the way he had pressed the honeycakes into her hands, wrapped in a king’s kerchief and a lover’s promise. “So if it wasn’t the food tray, then it must have happened at Insear. Did you… did you touch anything?”

She narrows her eyes. “Yes. Some of the flowers. Why?”

Cardan sighs. “The magic there is unfamiliar. New.” He looks down at his hands, rings shining. “I’m not entirely sure we know enough about it.”

“It’s supposed to be your magic, though, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he begins, then stops suddenly. He stares at her as if an idea has struck him. “If it was my magic that caused this, then I wonder…”

“Cardan?”

“I wonder if my magic can fix it.” Cardan is suddenly leaning forward. “Close your eyes.”

“I don’t really –”

“Trust me.”

And she does. The world goes dark behind her closed eyelids, and she is engulfed in the scent of roses and jasmines, heavy and dreamy in the air.

A stream of water trickles down her forehead and she opens her eyes in surprise to find Cardan’s cupped hand above her face.

“Trust me,” he whispers again, and his voice lulls her eyes closed once more. The next stream of water flows down her nose, and over her lips. She can almost taste the flowers. Another stream of water, this time over her eyelids, droplets catching in her lashes, and then Jude begins to feel the strangest thing. The cold is washing away. The tension, the ache behind her eyes, the soreness in her muscles, swirling off into the water. She is lighter, warmer, calmer.

Jude takes her first full breath in what feels like days.

She opens her eyes, and Cardan is smiling down at her. A real one this time, a small tilt of his lips, but real.

“There you are,” he says.

He healed her. He healed her and now he’s smiling like he’s proud and she wants to wrap her arms around his neck and drag him down into the water with her fully clothed, but instead she croaks out, “It’s my magic, too. Why didn’t I just heal myself from the beginning?”

Cardan’s smile catches. He searches her face. “Is it truly so bad to need my help, Jude?”

She looks away. “You know I hate feeling powerless.”

“I know it far too well.” A pause, and then, as if he’s speaking it through his teeth, as if he is barely leashing himself: “Balekin and the Undersea made you feel powerless.”

“Yes.”

“Is that why you killed him?”

It’s a good question. It isn’t the right one.

“A part of it.”

“And the other part?”

Jude meets his gaze, holds it. Unwavering. She lets another piece of armor fall. “You’re not the only one who’s willing to do everything.”

He doesn’t say anything. By the look on his face, it doesn’t seem like he can at the moment. Mouth parted, eyes wide. Stunned. How could he still be so surprised even now?

Clearly, she needs to do better at telling him how she feels.

Jude leans in, unrelenting. “Ask me if I liked it.”

His voice comes out a little hoarse. “What, killing him?”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“Did you like it, Jude? Did you enjoy kissing my brother?”

“No.” She’s daring him. Daring him to find the lie in her words, her face, her voice. “No. I loathed every second of it.”

“Then how –” The words come out in a hiss, as if he couldn’t stop himself from speaking them. He tries to take a steadying breath. It sounds ragged even across the bath water. “You said you made your peace with it.”

“Yes.”

Ask me. Ask me the right question.

It comes out in a whisper, as if the words themselves were something to be careful with. “Then, how, Jude? How did you survive the Undersea?”

“I thought of you,” she confesses, and there it is. “The whole time. Through the worst of it, I remembered you. Your face, your voice, the way you held me when –” She’s whispering now, and he has stilled, as if his entire being depended on the next words out of her mouth. “Sometimes I imagined you were there beside me, in my cell. And when I did, things weren’t quite as bad as they seemed.”

She seems to have shocked him into speechlessness for the second time in ten minutes, so she goes on.

“The only way I got through kissing Balekin is by pretending that it was you. That was the only way I could bear it. So you see,” she ends awkwardly, when he continues staring at her like he can’t believe she’s real, “you ended up helping me after all.”

The act of speaking this, of telling him, is somehow infinitely more intimate than sitting in a bathtub naked in front of him, or letting him put his face between her legs with hundreds of their people dancing in the next room.

“Jude,” he breathes, his voice hushed like hers. It’s as if they both realize that something sacred, something precious has passed in the air between them.

“You saved me then. And you also saved me now, tonight.” She reaches out to graze his cheek. “Not quite so feckless after all.”

It’s Cardan who moves first, curling his fingers around her hand at his cheek and pulling her forward, into him. His lashes are wet. Jude almost thinks it’s because of the bath water, but then he’s pressing his forehead against hers, his breaths coming out in little gasps, and no, it’s not the bath water.

Their lips are barely touching, suspended in this moment. She’s half out of the tub. He’s half in it.

She wants to kiss him, to lean those last few inches and close the distance. But this is just as important. This is what makes everything worth it. This is one last piece of armor crumbling between them, and suddenly it’s not quite so bad feeling vulnerable when there’s someone in the world who loves her this much. She tilts her head so that their noses brush. A silent comfort.

Somebody’s shaking. It might be her.

“You’re shivering.” His hands wrap around her shoulders. “Let’s get you dressed.”

Jude lets him pull her out of the tub. Normally, she would hate being coddled. Is this what being coddled even means? She realizes that she doesn’t really have much experience to draw from. But the soft, tender parts of her have been laid bare tonight and so she doesn’t fight it when Cardan begins to dry her with a warm cloth.

His hands. There are rings on most of his fingers, and the thought occurs to her that she should get him a wedding ring of his own. Something with rubies. Something that would match the one he gave her, the one she wears each day on the finger missing its tip. Jude tucks that idea away for another time.

She’s moving before she even knows it, palms rising to his nape and fingers sinking into his curls until she’s pulling him down, down. Until she’s brushing the hair back from his forehead and pressing her lips there. A kiss as tender as she knows it.

The air leaves him in a sharp exhale.

The cloth falls to the ground.

Cardan grabs her around the waist, and suddenly, it doesn’t feel like coddling anymore.

Anticipation curls low in her stomach.

But he doesn’t kiss her. He just stares down at her with his dark, deep eyes. Memorizing her. Drinking her in.

And Jude has waited far too long for the kiss he would have given her if they weren’t interrupted after waking up.

All her life she’s had to get what she wants herself. And what she wants right now, well, she knows exactly how to get it.

Cardan doesn’t bend down to make it easier for her when she starts to wind her arms around his neck. He makes her work for it a little. Makes her stretch her naked chest up his front. Makes her stand on her tiptoes.

She knows how this goes, this delicious war of bodies between them. She knows her weapons, and how to use them.

“Please,” she breathes against his lips.

Cardan melts into her with a groan. A sense of finality. Something important has changed between them tonight, and Jude welcomes it just as much as she welcomes the crash of his soft, lush mouth against hers.

Long, dragging, drugging kisses.

She had once told him that he was out of her system, and it was perhaps the biggest lie she has told anyone. It was definitely the grandest lie she has told herself, mithridatism be damned.

Nothing could have prepared her for the likes of kissing Cardan.

Kissing Cardan is like reaching to touch the sun.

She crowned him, cursed him, and killed him, and now — she gets his tongue in her mouth any damn time she wants. His hands pressed open on her back, her hips, his fingers spread as if to feel as much of her as he can against him.

She would have endured a thousand nights in the Undersea for this.

The journey from the bathroom to the bedroom is a blur. Cardan breaks away to lower his mouth to her breast, and oh, the way his tongue feels is obscene. Her skin is still damp and tingling from the bath and so she feels lit up everywhere when he sucks.

“Sweet,” she thinks she hears him mumble, his hands beginning a path downward, “always so sweet for me.”

“Off.” Her hands are taking a familiar path too, undoing buttons and unclasping fastenings. It’s wholly unfair that he’s still fully clothed. “Take it off –” Cardan’s cape of ebony feathers falls away from him, and she just about gets his shirt undone all the way before his fingers find her, wet and wanting between her legs, and her voice cuts off on a gasp.

His thumb presses against the bundle of nerves, driving her to the tips of her toes.

Her toes, which are slippery from the bath water.

Jude loses her balance, feels her feet slide out from under her, thinks oh, shit, before grabbing on to the nearest stable thing.

Cardan’s shoulders shake under her fingers.

“Don’t –” The order loses a bit of its ferocity because she’s choking back her own laughter. “Don’t you dare laugh –”

It’s no good. “That was the most uncoordinated I have ever seen you.”

“Shut up –”

As it turns out, kissing is the best way to shut the both of them up, but she feels the curve of his mouth against her lips, unable to hide his humor. One last chuckle escapes him before he hauls her over to the edge of their bed.

Jude looks up at him. His shirt is undone and half-way down his arms. His hair is mussed, his tail swaying from side to side. The last of the moonlight is streaming in through the windows, and it outlines the traces of laughter in his face. Jude has seen Cardan many ways, but happy just might be her favorite.

He guides her hands to the bed posts on either side of them.

“Hold on,” he tells her.

Then he’s kneeling before her for the second time that night.

It’s an encore of his performance in the ivy-filled room behind the throne, a symphony of fingers, lips, and tongue that he plays on the instrument of her body. She would have thought that it would take longer this time because he’s already made her come tonight, but no, it has only made her all the more sensitive. He works her up so fast it’s almost ridiculous, as if she’s back in her peacock skirts seconds from a climax just feet away from an entire ballroom.

Cardan runs his hands over the ugly gash along her shin. Along the multitude of cuts and scrapes that she’s accumulated over the years. “These are the scars I know you by. And these are the marks you’ll remember me for.” He mouths at the bruise he left on her inner thigh during the revel. Was that just hours ago? It feels like it’s been days.

He slips a finger inside her, then another one, when she whines. He curses at how wet she is, like he’s angry, like he can’t believe it. Then he gets her going with thick, luscious strokes and her thighs close around his head. He curls an arm around one, opening her to him again, until he can lick and lap and suck the soul out of her body and into her second orgasm of the night.

She must lose a little time because the next thing she knows, she’s opening her eyes and Cardan is completely undressed.

They stare at each other from across the bed, like two opponents waiting for the next move.

She wants him. She has him. She just doesn’t know quite what to do with him.

She thinks of honeycakes and hands helping her into her clothes and steaming baths waiting for her in the ensuite. All the things she didn’t know she needed until he gave them to her.

Moving slowly, deliberately, keeping her eyes on him the entire time, Jude releases her grip on the bed posts and turns. On her hands and knees in front of him.

She feels more than hears the strangled groan that leaves him. “Jude.” A warning. A plea.

Jude Duarte Greenbriar has always craved power. Tonight she understands that the relinquishing of her control is maybe its own special kind, the kind that she’s quickly beginning to realize is one that only she’ll ever have — the power to give her husband exactly what he needs.

“Please,” she whispers once more into the waiting night air, because even though she doesn’t know how to put it into words herself, she may have him the slightest bit figured out already.

He drops his head to kiss her, and Jude’s neck is craned over her shoulder in a way that would swiftly become uncomfortable, but she doesn’t care. The things he can do with his tongue are absolutely filthy.

“Heart of darkness, soul of mine,” he breathes into her mouth. “You ruin me.”

And only then does he press on, press in, press deep. Slowly. Opening her up. Inch by inch. Jude holds her breath, head bowing against the sheets of their bed, feeling that glorious stretch and that consuming pressure. This. She will give him this. They both groan when he bottoms out inside her, his hips flushed against her.

She cranes her neck back to look at him. Cardan’s face is vulnerable in a way she's never seen before, mouth open in stunned pleasure. He closes his eyes for a moment, as if he needs to piece himself back together.

Jude has never felt more powerful in her life.

He doesn’t move at first, letting her get used to the feeling of him in a different position. He bends his head and trails kisses along her spine, between her shoulder blades, up the nape of her neck. Each kiss is like a brand on her heated skin.

She’s bracing herself for him to take her, a little hard, a little rough in that way that she’s only seen from him once or twice before. They are perhaps two people well versed in how to find pleasure within the space of pain, and so she waits for him to fuck her with an unexplored sense of anticipation. But when he finally starts to move, it’s short, gentle rocking motions. He barely leaves her body, barely goes an inch without pushing back in again. He’s thick inside her, dragging along the front of her walls.

Jude’s back arches as that pressure gives way to pleasure.

Her body is still so sensitive from her previous orgasm just minutes before. Every stroke, every pull, she feels it like she has never felt before. Above her, around her, inside her. Cardan is everywhere, and she is surrounded without any fortification. She’s open. Raw. He could destroy her.

She is coming to terms with the fact that she might not be so afraid to let him get the better of her this way.

But instead of keeping her on her hands and knees like she thought, he’s pressing her down, his chest against her back, until she’s flat against the bedsheets and he’s holding her down with the length of his body. This is new. This she could like. It’s a different kind of forfeit altogether. And he continues to rock into her, the pace of his thrusting picking up. Jude can’t really move back against him like this, but it’s alright, he’s whispering in her ear that this is good, this is perfect, this is everything he’s ever wanted.

“Just like this,” he says. “I’ve dreamed of you just like this.”

Jude can’t quite catch her breath. It feels like all the air has been punched out of her lungs with the sheer breadth of him inside her.

She doesn’t really have any comparison, but she has thought more than once before that just a little bigger, just a little more of him pressing into her and he could easily break her into pieces. She has always managed before. Taking him, all of him, was a challenge she was determined to beat. And Jude’s always been good at winning.

Now, though, with his thighs holding hers closed and firmly together between his, with the solid weight of him bearing down on her back, her shoulders, the fit is tighter. Impossible. Almost unendurable.

He hitches his knees up a little, the bed dipping under them, and then he thrusts into her at an angle she has never felt before. And he goes in so deep, so hard, and he hits that spot inside of her that he’s only ever been able to reach with his fingers and it makes her feel —

“Oh,” she gasps, fingers scrabbling into the sheets. “What was that, what the fuck was that –”

She feels his smile curve into the nape of her neck. It’s the only warning she has before he’s pulling out and driving into her again. Jude loses her words. Her face drops into the pillows, unable to support herself any longer.

“That’s it.” His voice is rough. “I’ve got you.” And then he laces their fingers together, his palms to the back of hers, squeezing, reassuring. As if he hasn’t set out to completely devastate her with each pull of his body above her.

It takes her too long to realize that she’s just given him another weapon to use against her. Another weakness to exploit, another advantage to hold over her head. And he wields it against her so well, relentless in his pursuit of this new pleasure he has just learned he could take from her.

Cardan knows her body, knows it well. He knows the right angle to keep his hips so that every thrust hits exactly where it needs to.

She doesn’t recognize the sounds that she is making anymore.

It’s dark, with her head face-down into the pillows. She feels the skin of her forehead and cheeks shifting against the bedsheets with each thrust, but she doesn’t have it in her to move. She can’t get very far anyway. She is smothered. Tight and still and a little bit crushed. Like she almost can’t breathe.

Cardan is a voice above her, the one recognizable thing to anchor her. Without her vision, every other sense is heightened. She feels the kiss of his words as he speaks into her skin, feels it all the way down her spine. He’s whispering one more, Jude, give me another one.

“I can’t,” she sobs, and she doesn’t really know what she’s saying anymore. It’s too much. Too good. She’s going to die. “I can’t, I can’t –”

“Yes, you can. Of course you can. You can do anything, my love.” He sounds absolutely ruined, unmade above her, fucking her so sweetly and so thoroughly into the mattress. Some semblance of coherent thought forms in Jude’s brain that she would give whatever it takes to make Cardan Greenbriar sound like this all the time.

“Please.” And she’s completely lost track of how many times she’s said this tonight. It’s not a weapon she’s using against him anymore, it’s unmitigated and untempered desperation. “Please, Cardan, please –”

“I know. I know what you need. I’ll give you everything, Jude. Can you scream for me this time? The way I once promised you that you would. You were going to scream, weren’t you, in our secret room where all the revelers would have heard you.”

She tries to deny it, but he takes his sharp teeth to her neck and she is gasping and wet and writhing back against him.

“Show me.” His hand untangles from hers, finding a path against her stomach and down, down, down to her clit, which is throbbing and way more tender than she’s ever known it to be. “Show me what you can do.”

Then he begins to rub, artless circles around and over, and he doesn’t stop thrusting into her, dragging against that spot that makes her want to lose her mind — and oh, this will be her shatterpoint, this maelstrom of sensation, of pleasure, of the best thing she’s ever felt in her entire life –

– and Jude breaks.

It feels like a surrender, the way her body seizes up under him, head tilted back with an open-mouthed scream. The scream he asked her for. The scream she can’t hear because her vision goes white at the edges and there’s ringing in her ears. It feels like a surrender, but it’s also a consecration, the way she bares her heart and soul and body to him, unafraid to be caught against the sheets of their bed, letting him in and letting him take and letting him give, until she's quivering with everything he has made her feel tonight.

And then he’s coming too, with an ineloquent curse cast into the back of her neck. For the second time that night, the High King of Elfhame trembles against his queen’s pliant body. His weight crushes her for just a moment before he’s moving off to her side.

The room is cool, the bed is warm, and she holds her breath and tries to hold the moment with it. Then, one more breath in, shaky and not enough, like her lungs will never quite have the oxygen they need anymore. The air is heavy with the smell of sex and jasmine petals — and sunlight.

Jude turns her head just enough to see the beginnings of dawn breaking across their window. They’ve chased the night away completely tangled with each other in bed.

Maybe she was wrong. In the light it’s easier to see. Their bed isn’t a battlefield. It’s hallowed ground. Sanctuary.

Cardan pulls her closer against him, his arm draping around her waist. They’re moving like honey. She can’t see him behind her, but she knows that he’s there. He has her.

“I think tonight went well, all things considered.”

“I almost cut the Minister of Keys’ ear off in a poisoned haze. You think it went well?”

His tail sweeps over her hip, the top of her thigh. “Oh, yes. My heart is intact. You’re in one piece. The revel was a success, and Randalin’s in his place. See? Well.”

“You have a very strange definition of success.”

“I achieved what I set out to do. You’ll see.” There’s something smug in his voice. Is he talking about the land treaty? Because all she can remember from the negotiations is that there wasn’t much of it. “Did you like the decorations?”

“Yes, they matched my dress.”

“I wanted you to see that you belonged there. I wanted everyone to see.”

“Where I belong is my decision to make.” This bed. Soft and cozy. She belongs in this bed. Forever.

“And what is your decision?”

Jude thinks about prolonging it, making Cardan wait in suspense for her answer, and finds that she doesn’t much want to. She reaches down, fingers trailing over his forearm and then his wrist, until finally, she’s tangling her fingers in his and lifting their intertwined hands up above their heads.

“You,” she says. “I belong with you.”

The sunlight filtering through their window gilds the outline of their hands against a warm glow. There is gold on their skin, and gold in their blood.

A new day awaits them.

_______

Chapter Visuals:

Moodboard.

End Notes:

This officially closes the main arc of this little fic that could! I wanted to preserve a sense of parallelism with the very first chapter, bookending the story by finishing it exactly where they began: in bed and hopelessly tanged up in each other.

All that's left is one last chapter/epilogue of sorts to wrap everything up. Man, I'm getting a little mushy thinking about this fic ending. The update should come around the weekend of Dec 19, but feel free to check out my tumblr for accurate status updates (and other Jurdan goodies) in case anything changes.

Ooh, and if you'd like to read about Jude getting Cardan his own wedding ring, I've written about it in my oneshot, covenant mine.

I had the time of my life writing this particular chapter, and I can only hope that you enjoyed reading it, too. As always, kudos, comments and thoughts are unceasingly appreciated! ❤️

Tagging: @ireallyshouldsleeprn

* Let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future chapters/fics and it would be my absolute honor to do so!

#jude x cardan #jurdan #jude duarte #cardan greenbriar #tfota #The Folk of the Air #tfota fanfic #jurdan fic #jurdan fanfic #jurdanfanfic #the cruel prince #the wicked king #the queen of nothing #tcp #tcp fic #twk #tqon #fic: homeland #zita writes

45 notes · View notes