"It would have been nice if you had come to me first before this performance of yours," Cardan had the room emptied, much to the displeasure of several of his party-goers including Nicasia and Locke, who'd both tried to speak with Cardan before being escorted out by his guards. He'd stayed mostly silent as the rest of his courtiers were filing out of the throne room, not meeting my eyes but keeping up appearances by standing next to me with a possessive arm slung low on my hips. I tried not to pay too much attention to all the points of contact between us as we watched the room empty of Cardan's subjects. My subjects, I thought. I push the blasphemous thought from my mind, I wouldn't get too used to the idea of being queen when it was so easily taken from me before. If I were honest, I didn't even know if this was real, at the time the vows seemed so clear but as I obsessively turned them over in my head I kept seeing ways for them to be backhanded in the way all faerie dealings were. Let us be wed until we wish for it to be otherwise and the crown has passed from our hands. Did that mean we both had to not want to be married any longer or only one? And what about the crown passing from our hands? Could he just hand me the crown to get cleaned and suddenly I'm no longer queen? Thinking of every possible way our vows could be defined has my heart pounding and my head spinning.
"Jude?" I must have tuned him out, because Cardan's face is inches from my own, a picture of concern. I blink, and his dark eyes snuff out my remaining thoughts. His crown is still crooked atop his head, messy hair sticking out in a way that is effortlessly beautiful like all the fae. "I know its been a while since you've been around such devastating good looks, but you're staring" he jokes, and maybe I'm only imagining how his voice sounded just a tiny bit nervous. I clear my throat and stand up, putting space between us so I can breathe.
"I didn't know if you'd have me arrested or executed on the spot. It would have been a pity to spill blood on this dress," I gesture to my gown, remembering how hard it had been to find something to wear here in the mortal world. "Besides, why would I let you in on this? You sent me away!" my anger from the banishment flares as I whirl on Cardan. "You told me I could trust you and you sent me away from my home, away from everything i've worked for!" I don't even care that my voice cracks, don't care that there are tears in my eyes as I scream at him. Cardan stays silent, watching warily as I pace in front of him. "I trusted you," I whisper. He reaches out a arm, as if to comfort me, but I step back shaking my head. I have nothing left to say, so I go back to my old rooms.
My room has not been touched in 3 months. Clothes and boots and bits of paper litter the floor, candles burned down to the wick covered in thick layers of dust. It smells like stale air and the life I'd feared I'd never see again.
I'm woken up by Tatterfell, who apparently is still under my service.
"You've had three months to sleep in, it's time to get up" she disappears into the bathing chamber, and I hear her drawing a bath. The room is still a mess, but the clothing that was on the floor yesterday are now clean and tucked away in the wardrobe. I groan and sit up, the start of a headache pulsing at my temples. Tatterfell returns, leaning against the doorframe.
"Queen of Faerie," she whistles. "I knew you were a clever, ambitious girl, but I didn't think you were stupid." We watch each other from across the room, I'm unsure of whether or not she intended to insult me of simply make her disapproval known. After a long moment, she leaves the room without another word/ Sinking into the tub, I try not to think about the day ahead, of holding court with Cardan while he answers the Faes' questions. I hear a knock on the door, perhaps Tatterfell had forgotten something, though she'd never knocked before. You weren't Queen of Faerie before, I think.
"Just come in, Tatterfell," I sigh. The door opens and clicks shut and I hear heavy footsteps, that decidedly do not belong to Madoc's servant. "Tatterfell?" I hear a thump, like whoever is in my room bumped into something followed by a muttered curse and I'm out of the tub in a flash, wrapping a dressing gown around my naked body and fumbling for one of the many daggers I'd hidden throughout my rooms. I hear footsteps coming towards the bath and as soon as the door opens I have a knife against the intruder's throat. A wide eyed Cardan grins at me and puts his hands up in a mock surrender.
"I know you like putting sharp things against my jugular but do you think you can hold off on murdering yet another royal just yet?" I hesitate, leaving my knife against his skin for a moment longer before stepping back.
"What are you doing here? Court isn't for hours," I glare at him, trying to hide that I'm feeling so exposed in the thin layer of cloth covering my body.
"But you left in such a hurry last night and I didn't get a chance to speak. Jude," he bends down so that I need to look at him and his expression is solemn. "I had to send you away, it was the only way to keep Orlagh happy and not start a war with the Undersea,"
"Bullshit! You would have sent me away even if Orlagh hadn't demanded I be punished! I was still recovering from being down there and you used me! You let me be dropped into the mortal world like garbage" I shove him, my anger flaring. He sneers back at me, stepping closer.
"I was the one being used, Jude. You played puppet master for a year, and I could have let that vow run out and be done with you but I offered you a crown instead. I trusted you, Jude, but you never trusted me. You didn't even trust me enough to tell me that you killed Balekin even after I swore myself to you." His words are spoken with a deadly calm, his face only inches from my own as he glares down at me. The tension between us is a living thing, crackling like a fire and pushing and pulling us like the tide. The tension snaps when his dark eyes dip to my lips and he has me against the wall, his wicked mouth crushing mine, his fingers in my hair. All of my anger turns into an intense desire that has me pulling at his clothes, wrapping my legs around his waist, desperate for him to touch every inch of my body. He pulls back to look at me, dark eyes watching me, as if he's waiting for me to recoil from him, to push him away. I am too aware of how badly I want him, and how badly he wishes he didn't want me too. I think of how disgusted he was when we first kissed in the tunnels, how he'd fought his desire only to fail and give in to that blasphemous kiss. I don't know when he'd stopped fighting and let himself want me, and even more alarming I don't remember when I'd stopped denying my own feelings for him. I shouldn't let him touch me this way, I shouldn't let this go any further but when that wicked mouth of his meets my own, those thoughts go blissfully silent.