so, you want to interact with cardan greenbriar but you don't know how because you know nothing about him? here is a brief rundown of his story, spoilers included. if you are reading the series and don't want to be spoiled, ask me and i can send you a spoiler-free version. on the other hand, if you want a more detailed version, you can also ask.
cardan is the youngest son of eldred, the high king of elfhame. he has five older siblings: balekin, elowyn, dain, rhyia, and caelia. as his childred and descendants of mab, elfhame's first high queen, each of the greenbriar children has an animal characteristic to prove their bloodline. in cardan's case, he has a tail that he usually hides under his shirt or pants.
it has been long known and accepted that dain will be the next high king despite not being the eldest of eldred's children. the land of faerie is not kind to mortals, and cardan was more than happy to prove that point when he meets mortal classmates jude and taryn duarte. with his close friends locke, valerian, and nicasia, he all too happily tortures the two of them during school and torments them, all the while he hosts a crush on the louder of the two, jude.
following a series of rather extreme events that led to the slaughter of his entire family (sans his eldest brother, balekin), cardan is crowned the high king of elfhame against his will. additionally, he is bound to jude for a year and a day, forced to do whatever she commands of him. for about seven months, cardan is seen as a puppet while jude does the hard work, developing treaties and loyalties from the other kingdoms in faerie. during this time, cardan's eldest brother balekin begs cardan to come see him, to which he refuses. he ends up being freed and is made ambassador to another kingdom, the undersea. they kidnap jude, and cardan sacrifices the trust of one of his allies to save her. the trust is regained at a ball thrown by high king cardan, where, at his ball, he is poisoned by former prince balekin. he promises jude an antidote in exchange for the blood crown, the crown made for and worn by queen mab during her reign. jude is able to get the antidote, but kills balekin in the process. cardan is healed, and learns of what jude had done. he decides to marry her and exile her from faerie in the same 12 hours, a punishment of sorts for killing balekin and upsetting already high tensions with the undersea and for her dominion over him. at the same time, he made the the high queen of faerie, something that granted her extraordinary power, even more than she had before.
she'd been gone for some time when her twin sister taryn was brought in for an inquest to the high king relating to the death of her husband and cardan's long-time friend, locke. however, the person who stood before him was jude, not taryn. he tried to ask her about it, but before he could, her adoptive father madoc stole her away. with the help of jude's sisters and someone from the court of teeth, jude was freed (at great personal injury to both him and her). they'd barely reunited when madoc appeared again demanding the blood crown, which cardan proved was unnecessary to make a ruler by breaking it in half. however, moments later, he was transformed into a massive black serpent that wreaked havoc on the entirety of faerie for three days. ultimately, jude cut the head off the snake and saved cardan, and the two were heralded as the rulers of faerie a short time later.
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