Before we get into the chapter, a big thank you to Lily, Daniela Marcellino and Chrissy for your reviews. Don't worry, I am definitely going to be writing all the way to the kiss scene! I wouldn't pass up the opportunity for the world... Thank you to everyone who favourited and followed too!
Seven
Cardan was barely conscious when the first shot was fired. He was lying dizzily on the floor surrounded by golden fruit and at first he thought it must be some foolish, drunk guard who'd forgotten to take the bolt out of his crossbow.
But then voices filtered into his consciousness.
Balekin. Madoc.
The High King was dead.
His father was dead.
His father who had hated him.
His father who he had hated.
And then Dain went down.
And then his sisters too.
There was blood on the dais and Cardan was overcome suddenly by too many emotions to name. He should feel satisfied. They had all abandoned him.
But he didn't.
He felt sad.
Confused.
Angry, perhaps.
Scared.
Balekin was still alive.
And through the haze of all the wine he'd drunk, Cardan knew he could be next. He was Balekin's pawn to all intents and purposes. Whoever was shooting his sisters would shoot him too—if they could find him all the way over here by the banquet table.
For a long moment he just lay in the dirt, blinking at the leafy roof of the dome.
Maybe part of him wanted to die.
Maybe part of him thought he deserved it.
But as soon as he imagined it - a bolt through the heart - his mind jolted into alertness. No one would miss him. He would die and that would be it and he wasn't ready to go yet.
Somehow, he managed to find the prescience of mind get his hands under himself. But as Cardan pushed himself weakly to his feet to get the hell out of there, he thought inexplicably of Jude. Of how she was here. Of how she was mortal. Of how she might not survive this night, tied as she was to the general who was dealing so much bloodshed and treachery.
And he felt suddenly like the last of him had been hollowed out. His family were already mostly dead, if Jude died too…
He spotted her dress as it flitted under one of the tables.
And he hurried towards her, trying to blink away his drunkenness.
Lifting the tablecloth, he tried to catch her arm, but she shifted away, drawing a dagger from sky only knew where.
She must not have realised yet that it was him. Or maybe she had realised it was him.
"You're mortal," he told her bluntly. "It's not safe for you here. Especially if you go around stabbing everyone."
I'll take you away to somewhere safe, he wanted to say. Like he should have last time with Valerian and the faerie fruit. But as his teachers always said when he sometimes handed in his homework — better late than never.
"Not safe for me?" said Jude like she was incredulous. "Get down here before you're recognised."
Cardan blinked hard. Was he imagining this? She was thinking of his safety. She was thinking of his protection. She was worried he wasn't going to survive.
His chest squeezed.
He remembered suddenly how she had been watching him at Locke's gathering. Maybe she did think about him. Maybe she did dream of them protecting each other the same way he did.
But he didn't know how to respond to that. He wasn't used to being cared about.
"Playing hide-and-seek under the table? Crouching in the dirt? Typical of your kind, but far beneath my dignity," he said, with a nervous laugh.
Jude looked up at him, frowning.
And then she punched him in the stomach.
Cardan was so out of it from all the wine that he tripped over his own feet, falling to his knees.
"Ow," he said rather stupidly. This was not how he had imagined Jude would show she cared for him, but she was trying to help him so maybe she was just overcome by the events like he was. And he wasn't always sure what being cared about was supposed to look like. Balekin always said he cared about Cardan and Balekin dealt Cardan more violence than anyone who said they did not care for him.
Perhaps Jude really had been flirting with him that time she had brandished her knife at him.
He shook his head.
He'd drunk too much.
Too merry, too stupid. The events of the evening weren't really penetrating the thick fog in his head.
"We'll get out of here without anyone noticing," said Jude. "We stay under the tables and make our way to the steps to the upper levels of the palace. And don't tell me it's beneath your dignity to crawl. You're so drunk you can barely stand anyway."
Cardan snorted, wondering if she ever imagined him crawling to her the way he imagined her crawling to him. He could believe she might like that. "If you insist," he said.
They crawled for some time. Screams and whispers sounded outside the stuffy confines of wood and table cloth. But Cardan tried to focus on Jude, on matching the paces of her hands and knees. Her dress was ruined.
The dress he'd given her.
He stopped suddenly.
What was happening? His family were dead. Everyone except Balekin and maybe Balekin was now dead too. And Cardan was crawling around in the mud like when he was a child and nobody cared to pay him any attention.
He twisted the ring on his finger. The royal seal of his father, the High King. And he, a prince who had had to crawl under tables in rags whilst his mother giggled and drank and his father and siblings pretended he didn't exist.
Jude glanced over her shoulder and seemed to notice he wasn't following.
He wouldn't blame her for abandoning him now. But she was waiting.
She was waiting for him like she had waited in his chambers for him to tell her about Balekin. But it was harder out here. It was harder to talk to her when he couldn't just choose her reactions.
But he wanted to tell her he was hurting.
He wanted her to care.
"He despised me," he said, lightly, conversationally, like he wasn't scared or weak or pathetic. Like the words didn't hurt.
He wasn't used to being vulnerable. He couldn't talk about it with the gravitas he felt.
"Balekin?" asked Jude and Cardan wondered suddenly if he was so drunk he hadn't already told Jude about the scars on his back and then forgotten about it.
No he would remember, wouldn't he?
"My father," he said instead, though he suspected Balekin despised him too. Perhaps Balekin loved Cardan, but he also despised him.
"I didn't know much of the others," Cardan continued. This felt so much like his fantasies of Jude comforting him in Hollow Hall, it was hard to remember it wasn't. "My brothers and sisters. Isn't that funny? Prince Dain — he didn't want me in the palace so he forced me out."
He looked up at her, at her brown eyes and brown hair, expecting her to crawl back towards him. Cautiously maybe. With her dagger maybe, but back towards him.
To touch him.
But she didn't move.
She didn't try to comfort him. He felt hollow again. But this was how the world worked. Nobody cared. Nobody comforted him when he was alone in his rooms at Hollow Hall.
Only Jude in his imagination.
And when he wasn't alone in his rooms, he could never ask for comfort because he wanted to seem powerful and scary and dangerous.
Strong. In control.
But in the deepest, weakest part of his heart, he just wanted someone to stroke his shoulder.
Just once.
To stroke his shoulder and tell him he meant something. That he mattered. That his heart and his feelings, wretched, dark things that they were, meant something.
At least Jude hadn't gone on without him. Maybe she cared a little. She didn't have to help him now. It was a kindness that she was staying. That she was trying to get him out.
And he was trying to get her out, wasn't he? They were protecting each other.
"And now they're all dead," continued Cardan, weakly. "Thanks to Madoc. Our honourable general. They never should have trusted him. Though your mother discovered that a long time ago, didn't she?"
Jude was still for a long moment. Cardan wanted to reach out to her now. Comfort her. Maybe if he showed her what he wanted — a brush of fingers against her shoulder — she would comfort him back the same way.
But she narrowed her eyes when he shifted his weight.
"Crawl," she said sharply.
He held her gaze. Maybe she was unused to comfort too. Or maybe she merely wanted to see him crawling on his hands and knees a little more.
"You first," he said.
And they crawled on. Their shoulders bumped sometimes. It was distracting every single time and he was glad for the distraction. Cardan thought about telling her the dress was from him, that he had gifted it to her.
And then he decided he should wait until they were inside the palace and they could talk properly.
He could take her to his old rooms. He still had the keys. They could hide until morning. They could talk properly.
He could tell her all the things he craved telling her.
He could show her all the kindness he wanted to.
Maybe he could even cry.
As they reached the last table near the palace, Cardan pushed out the table cloth and staggered unsteadily to his feet. Then he stooped to help Jude out too.
She ignored him, climbing out herself. His chest clenched. She was too recognisable out here. She was mortal. She had those horn things in her hair. And she had no mask.
Madoc's knights would know she was his daughter on sight. And perhaps some of Madoc's enemies too.
She started towards the steps, but Cardan blocked her. "Not like that," he said. "Your father's knights will recognise you."
"I'm not the one they're looking for," she said with a hint of that incredulity again.
Cardan tried to keep his thoughts straight. We need to get you out of here, he wanted to say. You're not safe. We shouldn't take any chances.
But he didn't know how to say that. He still feared she might laugh at him, even though he was beginning to hope she might not.
Not since she seemed so set on helping him.
"If they see your face, they may pay too much attention to who you're with," he said.
Jude twisted her lip and he realised he'd got through to her. Her concern for him was what was plying her in this moment, not her concern for herself.
It was a heady feeling.
It was like being doubly drunk.
"If they knew me at all, they'd know I'd never be with you," she said and Cardan thought she said it rather half-heartedly. Because she was with him. She had punched him in the stomach to get him down in the dirt with her.
To get him to stay with her and crawl with her.
To get him out of the coronation and safe from the bloodshed.
And she must agree that he had a point, because she undid her hair and puffed it around her face. Cardan blinked heavily. He should not be committing her to memory right now, but wasn't this how she would look if he kissed her properly.
If he pleased her.
"You look…" beautiful , he tried to say. But he could not form the word. Not because it was a lie, but because he was afraid of being wrong about her desire to protect him.
Afraid that she might abandon him.
Like everyone else.
Afraid that he might find himself alone again to face the horror of the evening.
He could tell her all the truths when they were safe in his old rooms in the palace. Although, perhaps he should not take her to his old rooms. That would be an obvious place to look if anyone wanted to find him. Perhaps he could take her to the eyrie instead. All the way at the top of the palace.
"Give me a second," she said, darting away whilst he was distracted by his planning and his heart lurched.
He grabbed a nearby goblet of wine to keep himself from running after her and mumbling incoherently that he was scared for her. That he didn't want her to die. That he wanted to protect her and he wanted her to protect him.
He watched her the whole time she was away from him. Watched her cut a nixie's mask. Watched her return to him in that beautiful dress.
He had to wait.
He had to wait until they were in the palace.
Until there was time and space for her to be indignant before she heard him out. He reached for another glass of wine, but Jude grabbed his hand and he lost all sense of himself.
He forgot where he was. He forgot who he was. It was mostly his drunkenness, but it was also the surreality of the situation.
She wanted to hold his hand.
Like lovers held hands.
And nearly his whole family was dead.
"Come on," she said and he followed without protest, closing his fingers through hers. They held hands almost all the way to the palace steps where they were stopped by three of Madoc's knights.
Cardan's heart leapt into his throat and he squeezed Jude's hand tighter. She squeezed his hand too, though he wasn't sure it was deliberate.
"Look elsewhere for your pleasure," said one guard. "This is the way to the palace and it is barred to common folk."
Cardan blinked, trying not to panic. Where would they go now? This was the easiest, quickest way to safety. If they didn't get out here, he didn't know how long they would remain unrecognised.
"We will do as we are bid," said Jude, showing an uncharacteristic willingness to back down.
Perhaps she was afraid of the knights.
Well, she need not be afraid when she was with him. He would make up for her fear. She could make up for his.
"You are much mistaken in us," said Cardan. "The High King Balekin is a friend of my lady's court. You may have heard of Queen Gliten in the Northwest. Balekin sent a message about the missing prince. He is waiting for an answer."
"I don't suppose you have any proof of that?" said one of the knights.
"Of course," said Cardan, sliding his royal seal from his finger and holding it out in his palm as though he had never been wearing it. "I was given this token by which you would know me."
It was brazen to present them his ring.
Only Balekin had one except him now that the rest of the family was dead and if the knights thought too hard, they might realise he could well be the missing prince.
But perhaps they had drunk too much too because they merely stepped back.
Catching Jude's arm, Cardan strode past them, his heart hammering.
"What about the mortal?" One of the knights called and Cardan froze.
Then he turned with an easy smile as though they were all friends and neither he nor Jude were in danger.
"Oh, well, you aren't entirely mistaken in me," he said. "I intended to keep some of the delights of the revel for myself."
The knights smirked. And Cardan smirked with them, long enough to be convincing, then he pulled Jude with him up the steps of the palace.
He might be holding on too tight, but Jude did not protest, so he did not adjust his hold. He was afraid if he let go, she would somehow be taken by someone else, though there was no one else around.
He took her through doors and up stairways, heading towards the eyrie. She didn't even try to take command of the situation, though he was half-expecting her to.
Perhaps she just wanted to be safe too. Perhaps she did not mind being alone with him. Perhaps she craved it.
He was going to tell her so many things. He was going to tell her about Balekin's true character and how he treated Cardan. He was going to tell her about the dress and how he threw stones at her window and how he had tried to save her from Valerian and Nicasia and Locke.
He was going to thank her for not holding his pettiness and cowardice against him. He was going to get down on his knees and kiss her toes if she let him.
They were on the topmost corridor about to turn the corner when Jude stopped him. A tug on his arm. He drew to a halt immediately, tucking them against the wall, checking the corridor ahead for danger and then he felt a lick of cold iron against his neck.
His heart faltered. "Jude?"
It was her. Her blade.
He wasn't sure why she had it against his neck. Was this how she wanted them to kiss? He didn't mind it, though he would have liked a little warning.
And then he realised something had changed in the way she was looking at him.
"Surprised?" she asked and her tone of voice had changed too. It was not concern in her voice. It was not desire. It was something altogether darker. "You shouldn't be."
He was a fool.