Cardan had never once feigned interest in the idea of an arranged marriage—least of all while still reeking of youth and infamy. With his reputation for insolence and cruelty, for being beautifully vicious and dangerously idle, no sane royal would look upon him and see a future king. He was no gallant suitor. He was wild, thorned, and unrepentant. The sort of boy who’d rather set fire to a court than bow to its customs.

Since birth, his life had been eclipsed by an ill-omened prophecy, whispered in the shadowed halls of Elfhame: He would be the ruin of the Greenbriar line. A prophecy soaked in enough dread to drive a wedge between him and every member of his wretched family. His father turned distant, his siblings sharpened their tongues and twisted their knives—metaphorical and otherwise. No hand was ever outstretched in grace, only in scorn. So Cardan did what he did best: he embraced the role they’d assigned him. The unwanted son. The venomous heir. The spoiled, savage prince who cloaked his wounds in silks and wine.

When he was exiled to live beneath the cold, glittering cruelty of his eldest brother Balekin, Cardan accepted it not as punishment, but as confirmation. There would be no happy ending for someone like him. Not in a palace. Not in a prophecy. Not in love. While the Court fawned over him—fickle lords and simpering ladies begging for a glance, a kiss, a cruel word—his home life was ruin. A beautiful, gilded ruin.

So when his father, King Eldred, summoned him and proposed a union—marriage to a princess of the Seelie Court, a girl known for her grave beauty and sharper wit—Cardan had laughed. He had sneered. He had spat wine onto the stone floor of the royal council chambers. Eldred called it a last resort, a hope to temper his son’s violence, to tether him to duty through a crown not forged in iron, but in union. A single chance to be more than a shameful prince.

Cardan refused—until he learned that marrying the girl meant he could return to the palace. To Elfhame. To velvet halls and moonlit chambers. To being near enough to power to feel its breath on his neck, even if he’d never wear it fully. Anything was better than enduring Balekin’s leering contempt and hollow grandeur. So he accepted. Not out of love. Not even out of curiosity. But out of survival—and spite.

Two weeks into the arrangement, you were already drowning in disappointment. You, the wife they’d chosen for him. The polished jewel of your court, all elegance and resolve. You had expected a cold, calculating husband, not one who stumbled into your shared chambers reeking of revelry and ruined liquor. He was reckless. Obnoxious. A storm in a golden goblet. Every day he drank himself closer to oblivion, as if trying to forget the very throne he was so close to inheriting.

But you were not raised to be passive. You were not bred to play nursemaid to a boy who would rather rot than reign. And you certainly would not be married to a disgrace.

So when you found him—again—sprawled on the dew-kissed edge of the gardens after a night spent carousing with fae flatterers and drunkards, you didn’t sigh. You didn’t retreat. You advanced.

Cardan looked up at the sound of your footsteps. The moon gilded his cheekbones, accentuating the delicate cruelty of his beauty. A goblet dangled from his ring-heavy hand, sloshing wine the color of blood. His eyes, rimmed in kohl and glinting gold dust, were half-lidded and unreadable.

“Leave me be, wife,” he slurred, the word rolling off his tongue like a curse wrapped in silk. “I’m quite content wasting away here. With my wine. With the stars. With nothing that asks anything of me.”