A few scenes about what was going on in Cardan's mind after Jude was injured in Queen of Nothing
He carries her to his rooms himself, ignoring the shocked cries of protesters and instead barking orders for healers. He doesn't say anything else, save her name, repeating it like some kind of litany under his breath.
He lies her down on the bed. His bed. Theirs.
The healers arrive before he can panic too much, before he can fixate on the stillness in her chest, the ghostly pallor of her skin.
Jude, Jude, Jude.
The unbreakable, the unbent. A force to be reckoned with. She lies utterly still, bleeding out on his spider silk sheets.
The healers tell him to go, but he doesn't. He holds her hand instead as they set to work, wishing he could push some of his power into her. He squeezes her fingers, thumbing the scar of her palm, and waits for her to wake.
Because she must.
She is the most solid thing in the world, and he doesn't want to think about what will happen to it if she quits the world entirely.
He will be the destruction of the crown and the ruination of the throne.
Perhaps her death will be the thing that finally breaks him, transforms him into the monster he half-was already, was always meant to become. Perhaps he'll split apart the world in fury and grief.
"Will she live?" he asks the healers, unable to discern whether he's hidden the fear in his voice.
"Probably," said one of them.
"That's not good enough!"
There is little more to be said. They continue their work until, finally, they've done what they can. A maid comes in to clean her up.
"No," he says, easing the basin from her hands, "let me."
The maid seems surprised, but she hands it over. "I'll have another room made up for you, if the sensechal is to be staying here."
"The queen," he insists. "And there is no need. I shall be remaining here beside her."
"But––"
"You may leave."
He dismisses everyone else from the room, and unbuttons his jacket. It's sticky with her blood. He discards it on a nearby chair and sets to work cleaning her hands.
He thinks her eyes flicker at some point, opening for a second, but they slide away a moment later.
He does not sleep. He stays awake, watching the evenness of her chest, unable to dislodge the fear still pulsating in his chest. It is like knowing fear for the first time.
Stroking hair from her face, he says, as steadily as he can, "You are a filthy liar, Jude Duarte. How dare you not follow us. How dare you––"
She moves under his touch, her eyes half-opening. "You sound angry," she murmurs.
His chest tightens. "I am angry." Hardly a lie, but he is so, so much more.
"Cardan," she whispers, her voice like a phantom's, "I really, really hate you, you know."
There's a softness in her words that makes them difficult to believe."
"As long as you're not dead, I'll live with that."
Her voice is even softer when she speaks again. She raises a faint hand to his cheek, tracing the curves of his face. "I'm glad you're not dead," she says, and slips back into unconsciousness.
This woman makes no sense, she is designed to torment me, I wish I could despise her. Despising her would be so much easier than––
A knock on the door. Vivi, Taryn behind her. They run in without a second word, and he bites down any bark at them. They are her sisters. If anything, Jude would prefer their presence to his.
Taryn takes one look at Jude and immediately starts blubbering, crying that this is all her fault. Cardan isn't hundred percent sure of the specifics, but he doesn't correct her. She certainly set something off, even if it was most likely Jude being Jude that got her into this mess.
He usually admires her for her recklessness, her bravery. Not today.
"Will she be all right?" asks Vivi, much more coherently.
He cannot nod. "The healers seem to think so."
"You look awful."
He narrows his eyes at her, but says nothing else. He probably does look awful.
"You should go and rest."
He fixes her with a stronger glare, as if he should know there's nowhere else he plans on being.
Taryn is still bawling. It's really quite over the top. She definitely doesn't hear Vivi when she leans over and asks him, "Out of interest, have you told Jude? How you really feel about her?"
He thinks she'd be a fool not to know by now, especially after his letters. Although she seemed confused when he mentioned them. But even if she never received them, he doesn't feel like he's been particularly secretive. Vivi certainly knows.
He does not want to answer. "Out of interest," he says instead, "did she say anything about me, when she was staying with you?"
Vivi smiles. "Yes, but you don't want to hear it."
He can imagine a few choice words. "Then why are you smiling?"
"Because I know my sister. It's not just us she lies to."
He knows how easy it is to lie to one's self, but hope that Jude does the same is a painful thing. At best, she may feel something for him other than contempt. He has not made himself easy to love. Not for anyone, and certainly not for her.
But if she wakes––when she wakes––and he explains everything, perhaps there is a shadow of a chance she might feel something better. He has ten years before she wants to pass the throne to Oak. They are technically married. She'll have to spend some time with him.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Hope is a dangerous thing.
"You seriously should go and rest," Vivi insists. "We'll look after her."
"This is my room. And that is my wife."
Taryn sniffles stop. She looks up at him with bleary eyes. "How… how did that happen, exactly?"
"It was more of a political arrangement," he explains, for her.
"Sure," says Vivi, not convinced.
Taryn is still staring at him incredulously. "But… you hate each other."
"I don't hate Jude," says Cardan, affronted. He wants to say I never have, because it feels ludicrous that he ever despised her, but it would be, in part, a lie. He did hate her, once. And he hated liking her.
Taryn blinks disbelievingly, and then looks down. "She's in your bed," she mutters dumbly.
"Because it's hers."
If she wants it. Which he hopes she will. She would not be the first queen to keep different chambers from her husband.
"This is so strange…"
Vivi squeezes Cardan's shoulder. "We've got her. Go rest. You've got kingly shit to do at some point."
He relents, but not because she tells him to. He relents because he doesn't want to sit and share Jude with her sisters, and doesn't want to face her scorn when she does come round, and he's managed to mess up Elfhame in the meantime.
One of these days, he is going to try and stop impressing her.
But it is not today.
He expects the terror to abate when she wakes up, but the minute he sees her standing in her old rooms, talking to her sisters, a queasiness comes over him. He wonders if his tail is trembling, betraying every quivering fear he's experienced in the past few days.
They finally talk. She slaps him. He guesses he deserves it.
She never got his letters.
Perhaps that's for the best, he reasons. She still probably, possibly, maybe doesn't know. Although she's a fool if she doesn't, and he's never taken her one. And if she knows, and hasn't said anything, it means she doesn't feel the same. For she is brave and daring and afraid of nothing.
But perhaps he should tell her anyway. Do it quickly, like ripping off a bandage. Perhaps the terror would finally ebb away, once he spoke those words.
Perhaps.
Or she might leave him again, for good. And wouldn't that be worse?
He loses his courage––if he had any to begin with––and she slips away to bed.
Their bed. She didn't even try to go to her old rooms.
By the time he's drunk enough to consider following her, to speak to her, to rip off the bandage or split open the wound, she's asleep.
He watches her for a moment, thinks of curling up next to her, thinks of the night they spent together after their marriage, trading kisses in the dark. The softest, most blissful sleep he'd ever known. She moulded into his arms like she was made of clay. He had no idea she could be so warm and gentle, and still, deliciously, herself.
He'd thought about telling her then, when he felt half-sure she'd say it back. It would have been a lie, but in that moment, a convincing one.
He crosses the room and sits down beside her, caressing her bare back."I love you, Jude," he says, practising the shape of the words. Perhaps they'll be less horrifying when he finally gets them out, like she's less terrifying asleep. He kisses her temple. "In case you didn't know already."
A/N: Dammit I really would tell the whole series from his POV if I could...