#cardan

M for mildly Mature, read at your own risk! Jude/Cardan Drabble from the Cruel Prince by Holly Black

—

She sees him only in glimpses. A black coat striding around the corner. A distant form on a cantering stallion, stiff and tall. Long, thin fingers curled around a blood-red glass. A flash of pointed teeth.

He lounges on the throne, his boots up, as she entertains a messenger from the Unseelie. He slaps an ambassador for no reason at all, and then sits back to let Jude clean up the mess. He comes drunk to his first feast and, laughing, yanks the tablecloth. The plates and glasses shatter like ice across the marble palace floor.

He has a nixie on his lap when Jude tries to discuss trade with him. Jude ignores the sucking sounds of the nixie kissing his neck as she rattles off the benefits and negatives of possible deals, coolly looking at him as she gives him the various options.

“Do what you want,” he says, slicing the nixie’s dress off with a casual flick of his dagger.

Jude laughs drily. “I wasn’t asking your opinion. I was informing you of mine.”

His hand slips between the nixie’s thighs, and Jude doesn’t react. He says, “Tell me, have you had any contact with Madoc?”

The nixie moans, and he watches Jude, searching for a reaction. She doesn’t give one.

She tells him about her father while he fucks the nixie with his fingers until the nixie squeals and falls back. Jude watches, refusing to give in. He wants her to order him to stop, but Jude hasn’t given him an order since the coronation.

He wants her to leave, but Jude won’t give him the satisfaction of driving her away. This is her palace. For a year and a day.

When she finally leaves, the nixie is gone, and he has heard everything she has done in his name. Every ruling she has made. She leaves when she is good and ready.

—

She fights his knights in the mornings, training. They beat her most mornings, leave her with bruises and stronger muscles. Slowly, she improves. She is faster. She is more instinctual. Her muscles begin to remember battles she hasn’t yet won.

She wakes up angry one morning.

The knight is red-haired and lithe, a scar across his cheek. She doesn’t know his name. He almost knocks her to the ground, but she flips. He isn’t ready. Their swords clash, and he slips past her defenses, nicking her arm.

She gets angrier.

Her sword is a blur, parrying and sliding in, slicing his collarbone. They keep fighting. The knight overcompensates, and she slides into his space. She smashes her forehead in his nose, smashing it. Her knee comes up into his groin. He crumples. She steps on his sword hand, forcing it flat.

He gasps up at her, sputtering, as her own sword comes to rest between the knight’s watery eyes.

She looks up, sees him standing in the door. His black eyes are wide, his lips slightly parted as he stares at her. He feels a sort of fear, she can see. But there is something else in his face, something wild.

He turns away, disappears back into the castle they share.

—

He tries to provoke her. He enjoys getting under her skin. He fucks in front of her. He offers her faerie food, and then bites into it so that she watches the red juices run down his lips.

He begins inviting Taryn and Locke to the castle, partying with them. Taryn gets too drunk on faerie fruit while Locke watches.

Jude is forced to send Taryn home. She is spinning and skipping and somehow still in it enough to hurl insults. Locke follows, laughing. Jude stands at the door, to angry to show her anxiety as her sister disappears into the night.

She turns back, her mouth open, and she can see the gleam in his eyes.

He wants her to give him an order. He sees she is about to, and the smirk is already forming.

She understands, for the first time, how power makes you powerless. This time, he has nothing to lose. This time, she has the power.

And to use it would be to let him win.

To use it would mean he had power over her.

—

She is tired. Everything went wrong that day. There were a thousand problems, a thousand complaints. Everybody wants her energy, her decisions, her guidance, and nobody likes what they hear.

She needs him to sign a contract, and cannot find him in the cellars where he likes to get plastered or the parlors where he lounges and breaks things. She knocks on his door.

“Come in,” he says.

He is standing in the window, naked. There is nothing intimate about his nakedness. He is too chiseled, to perfectly, smoothly pale. Like a statue that feels no touch. He looks cold.

He is smirking by the time her eyes reach his face, satisfied with the hesitation in her step, the way she loses her train of thought.

His smirk burns her. She is too tired for these games.

“Can you sign this?” she asks.

He walks towards her, takes the contract without touching her hand and places it against the wall. He bites his thumb and slices the skin, signing his name with a swirl of his bloody thumb.

He grabs her chin harshly. “You’re a mess today.” He lets go, leaving a smear of blood. His fingers weren’t cold at all. They burn her skin. “Look at you,” he says harshly. “Worn out already. Mortals don’t have the stamina. But you wanted to rule, and rule you do.” He laughs. “Oh, what they say about you when you can’t hear. And what they say to your face.” He chuckles slightly. “This is what you asked for, Jude.”

She stiffens, and her body brushes against him. She jerks back, but he is still there, in her space.

“Pathetic, they call you. Weak.”

They don’t call her weak. They call her Kingmaker. She knows this, but in his voice, it feels true. She feels weak. She is going to order him–

“Hopeless,” he adds.

– she is going to make him obey, make him shut up, she isn’t weak, “I’m not weak. I have power over you,” and oh he gleams. To verbalize the threat was a display of weakness, and she knows it.

She will order him to be quiet, she won’t let him speak for a week. She will, she will, she opens her mouth. She orders, “Kiss me.”

His eyes are feral as he moves in, joyful and violent. His lips touch hers. She has lost.

Hiss hiss bitch

Cardan in a cardigan drinking cardamom tea. ✨

Jude and Cardan would name their daughter Alice because Alice’s adventures in wonderland is their favorite book <3

Alice Greenbriar Duarte sounds really powerful.

yep fav headcanon.

so i’ve seen this photoshoot of olivia rodrigo and she looks somehow identical to this fanart of jude duarte??? i think i love the idea of her as jude

fan art made by: @phantomrin!!

jude:*pretending to be taryn, talking about locke* i loved him.

cardan:*knows that she is actually jude* sometimes i think you did.

so no one talks about this scene where cardan DID KNOW that she was jude. he looked absorbed by his owns thoughts because he knew that locke hurted jude’s feelings, he knew that she actually loved locke too. AND IT BREAKS MY HEART.

jude:name one perfect thing in the world

cardan:me.

jude: …

vivi:you literally have a tail

cardan:your father is literally a psychopath

jude: …

vivi:well at least i don’t have a tail

jude: she right tho

jude: oh cmon, shut the fuck up

cardan: make me.

jude:…

jude: okay then *punches him*

cardan:…

cardan: wasn’t expecting that

The jude and cardan 3D models i did a while back, fully rigged and never to be touched again

“Rude boys get punished.”

(yes I did get the book today. Yes I did finish the book today. Yes I have finals)

Aslog kinkshaming Cardan is honestly the highlight of my day

Me, looking at canon art of Cardan choking the living daylights out of Locke:

I might be an idiot but…. Couldn’t Cardan just say he didn’t kill Val Moren’s boyfriend? He can’t lie so it’d be pretty easy to clear up that misunderstanding, right?

Jude & Cardan.

(“The Folk of the Air” by @hollyblack)

jude hiding from cardan and balekin at their house:

cardan: hey, jude! breathe if you like me.

cardan: jude? jude? jude stop you’re turning blue!

jude: how good am i with pets?

jude: i went out with cardan for years and he only bit me twice.