I could tell you how easy it was to believe that I was monstrous in your eyes and that the only thing I could have of you was what I took. But that hardly matters. I knew it was wrong, and I did it anyway. I exchanged the certainty of possession for what I most wanted—your friendship and your love.
I am going with Bex to visit my family and then return to the north. If I can no longer only take things apart, then it’s time to learn how to create. It would be cruel to hold you to a promise made in duress, a marriage proposal given to prevent bloodshed. And crueler still to make you bid me a polite farewell, when I have already taken so much from you.
Wren
The prince crumples the paper in his hands. Didn’t he make her an entire speech about how she taught him about love? About knowing and being known. After that, how could she—
Oh, right. He made that speech while she was unconscious.
He slumps down in a chair.
When Jude sends for him, he has spent the better part of the afternoon staring out a window miserably. Still, she’s the High Queen and also his sister, so he makes himself somewhat presentable and goes to the royal chambers.
Cardan is lying on the bed, bandaged and sulking, in a magnificent dressing gown. “I hate being unwell,” he says.
“You’re not sick,” Jude tells him. “You are recovering from being stabbed—or rather, throwing yourself on a knife.”
“You would have done the same for me,” he says airily.
“I would not,” Jude snaps.
“Liar,” Cardan says fondly.
Jude takes a deep breath and turns to Oak. “If you really want, you have our formal permission, as your sovereigns, to abdicate your position as our heir.”
Oak raises his brows, waiting for the caveat. He’s been telling her he didn’t want the throne for as long as he can remember having a reason to say the words. For years, she acted as though he’d eventually come around. “Why?”
“You’re a grown person. A man, even if I’d like to think of you as forever a boy. You’ve got to determine your own fate. Make your own choices. And I have to let you.”
“Thank you,” he forces out. It’s not a polite thing to say among the Folk, but Jude ought to hear it. Those words absolve him of no debt.
He’s let her down and possibly made her proud of him, too. His family cares about him in ways that are far too complex and layered for it to come from enchantment, and that is a profound relief.
“For listening to you? Don’t worry. I won’t make it a habit.” Walking to him, she puts her arms around him, bumping her chin against his chest. “You’re so annoyingly tall. I used to be able to carry you on my shoulders.”
“I could carry you,” Oak offers.
“You used to kick me with your hooves,” she tells him. “I wouldn’t mind a chance for revenge.”
“I bet.” He laughs. “Is Taryn still angry?”
“She’s sad,” Jude says. “And feels guilty. Like this is the universe punishing her for what she did to Locke.”
If that were true, so many of them deserved greater punishment.
“I didn’t want—I don’t think I wanted Garrett dead.”
“He isn’t dead,” Jude says matter-of-factly. “He’s a tree.”
He supposes it must be some comfort, to be able to visit and speak with him, even if he can’t speak in return. And perhaps someday the enchantment could be broken when the danger was past. Perhaps even the hope of that was something.
“And you had every reason to be mad. We did keep secrets from you,” Jude goes on. “Bad ones. Small ones. I should have told you what the Ghost had done. I should have told you when Madoc was captured. And—you should have told me some things, too.”
“A lot of things,” Oak agrees.
“We’ll do better,” Jude says, knocking her shoulder into his arm.
“We’ll do better,” he agrees.
“Speaking of which, I would speak with Oak for a moment,” Cardan says. “Alone.”
Jude looks surprised but then shrugs. “I’ll be outside, yelling at people.”
“Try not to enjoy it too greatly,” says Cardan as she goes out.
For a moment, they are silent. Cardan pushes himself up off the bed. Messy black curls fall over his eyes, and he ties the belt of his deep blue dressing gown more tightly.
“I am sure she doesn’t want you getting up,” Oak says, but he offers his arm. Cardan is, after all, the High King.
And if he slipped, Jude would like that even less.
Cardan leans heavily on the prince. He points toward one of the low brocade couches. “Help me get over there.”
They move slowly. Cardan winces under his breath and occasionally gives an exaggerated groan. When he finally makes it, he lounges against one of the corners, propped up with pillows. “Pour me a goblet of wine, won’t you?”
Oak rolls his eyes.
Cardan leans forward. “Or I could get it myself.”
Outmaneuvered, Oak holds his hands up in surrender. He goes to a silver tray that holds cut crystal carafes and chooses one half-full of plum-dark liquor. He pours it into a goblet and passes that over.
“I think you know what this is about,” Cardan says, taking a long slug.
Oak sits. “Lady Elaine? Randalin? The conspiracy? I can explain.”
Cardan waves his words away. “You have done enough and more than enough explaining. I think it is my turn to speak.”
“Your Majesty,” Oak acknowledges.
Cardan meets his gaze. “For someone who cannot outright lie, you twist the truth so far that I am surprised it doesn’t cry out in agony.”
Oak doesn’t even bother denying that.
“Which makes perfect sense, given your father . . . and your sister. But you’ve even managed to deceive her. Which she doesn’t like admitting—doesn’t like, period, really.”
Again, Oak says nothing.
“When did you start, with the conspiracies?”
“I don’t want—” Oak begins.
“The throne?” Cardan finishes for him. “Obviously not. Nor have you waffled on that point. And if your sisters and your parents imagined you’d change your mind, that’s for their own mad reasons. It’s the only thing on which you have remained steadfast for more than a handful of years. And, I will have you know, I thought the same thing when I was a prince.”
Oak can’t help recalling the part he had in taking that choice away from Cardan.
“No, I don’t suspect you of wanting to be High King,” Cardan says, and then smiles a wicked, little smile. “Nor did I believe you wanted me dead for some other reason. I never thought that.”
Oak opens his mouth and closes it. Isn’t that what this is about? Wasn’t that what Cardan believed? He overheard the High King tell Jude as much, back in their rooms in the palace, before he left to try to save Madoc. “I am not sure I understand.”
“When your first bodyguard tried to kill you, I ought to have asked more questions. Certainly after one or two of your lovers died. But I thought what everyone else thought—that you were too trusting and easily manipulated as a result. That you chose your friends poorly and your lovers even more poorly. But you chose both carefully and well, didn’t you?”
Oak gets up and pours himself a glass of wine. He suspects he is going to need it. “I overheard you,” he says. “In your rooms, with Jude. I overheard you talking about Madoc.”
“Yes,” Cardan says. “Belatedly, that became obvious.”
If I didn’t know better, I might think this is your brother’s fault. Oak tries to remember the exact words the High King chose. He’s more like you than you want to see. “You didn’t trust me.”
“Having spent a great deal of time playing the fool myself,” Cardan says, “I recognized your game. Not at first, but long before Jude. She didn’t want to believe me, and I am never going to tire of crowing about being right.”
“So you didn’t think I was really allied with Randalin?”
Cardan smiles. “No,” he says. “But I wasn’t certain which of your allies were actually on your side. And I was rather hoping you’d let us lock you up and protect you.”
“You could have given me some sort of hint!” Oak says.
Cardan raises a single brow.