Page 10 of Heart Cradle (The Melrathen Saga #1)

She shook her head. “I want to and I will, eventually.”

Silence crumpled between them again, comfortable this time .

Eiran shifted slightly, reaching into his jacket. “There’s something I need to say,” he murmured.

Maeve sat up straighter. Not tense, but not relaxed, just still, like her body had gone into standby mode, waiting to see if this was something she’d need to run from. He pulled out a small velvet pouch, deep forest green, embroidered with a twisting gold design.

Maeve stared. “Is that?”

He nodded. “The pouch the Chain was once kept in. It’s spelled to recognise its original bearer, and their kin. When I found it again, I kept it close, waiting.”

He laid it on the table carefully.

“I need to return the Chain to Melrathen,” he said. “It belongs there, it has to be there, and I think you do too.”

She looked down instinctively, at the delicate woven links still looped around her wrist. It sat against her skin like it had always been there, no weight, no pressure, just presence.

“I’ve had it on for less than six hours, but I feel…

It’s no time at all and this is absurd, but I already feel like I can’t take it off,” she admitted.

“Not because I’m afraid to. Not because of what it might do.

Just... because it feels like I’ve always had it.

Like taking it off would mean peeling away a part of myself I didn’t know was there until today. ”

She looked up at him, brows furrowed. “Is it the magic? Is that the mate thing? Is that you in my head, making me feel that way?”

Eiran’s face softened. “No,” he said. “I mean, maybe some of it. I don’t know, love. We’re linked now. So yes, I’m there, but I’m not trying to get in your head and I’m definitely not trying to manipulate you.”

She let out a shaky breath. “It just doesn’t make sense. Nothing in my life has ever felt this instant. This anchored, and I don’t know if it’s the Chain or the bond or fuck, maybe I’m losing it.”

“You’re not,” Eiran said quietly. “You’re not losing anything.”

Maeve looked away, scanning the quiet street. “I can’t just pick up and vanish into another world,” she said. “I need time. I need to breathe, and I need to stay here.”

He stayed silent, letting her speak.

“I keep thinking if I leave now, if I just run off to some other world, it’ll mean they won. That I stay afraid and I’m so…” her voice caught. “I’ m so tired of being afraid. The Chain, I want to give it to you, but I don’t think I can leave it either. I’m sorry.”

Eiran nodded, no hesitation. “Don’t be sorry. I’ll give you time, space, whatever you need. You deserve to choose this freely, not out of pressure, not because of a bond or the Chain or any ancient realm.”

She turned back to him. “Would you meet me here? Tomorrow?”

He smiled. “Here. Our café.”

A slow nod, blushing. “Our café.”

“I’ll be here at sunrise,” he said. “I’m excellent at awkward small talk in the mornings, love.”

She huffed a laugh, grateful for the way he broke the tension without shattering the moment.

?????

They stood not long after, deciding to walk the city a while longer.

Night had fallen properly now, the sky inky above them.

The warmth of the day had faded, replaced by a gentle hush that wrapped the streets in something almost anticipatory.

They walked close, not quite touching, but the tension between them was thick and promising, like the pause before a storm or the last note of a song held too long.

Every breath felt shared, every step, synced.

“Tell me about the Fae Lands.” She asked not looking at him as she tilted her face up to the night.

Eiran glanced at her from the corner of his eye, as if afraid looking full-on might shatter something fragile and blooming. “It is a continent that holds six realms. Melrathen, Eldrisil, Edhenvale, Armathen, the Storm Coasts and Avelan.” He said, tone bitter come the end.

“Avelan is lead by Vargen, the one who took your sister?” Maeve asked.

“Yes, he is their king and the head of the Pale Court who rule the realm.” Eiran looked pained and said.

“My mother is from Eldrisil. We, Melrathen, have a good relationship with the others just not Avelan. They are to the north, mostly ice bound and favour necromancy and blood magic which is taboo in civilised circles.”

“Christ.” Maeve said stopping at the beach edge.

Down by the water, the sand stretched in a soft, pearlescent arc, nearly empty now save for a few lingering couples and an enthusiastic dog flinging itself into the shallows.

The sea whispered over the shore, quiet and slow, as if respecting the mood.

Maeve stepped away first, kicked off her boots, and let her bare feet sink into the cool sand.

She exhaled, slow and deliberate, the kind of breath that tried to release something deeper, the sand clung to her toes.

Eiran didn’t speak, only watched her, the way a flame watches the thing it wishes to consume.

She turned slightly towards him, chin dipped, eyes shadowed. “Feels different at night,” she murmured, voice low.

He nodded once. “Everything does.”

For a moment, the space between them felt thinner than skin, but Maeve broke it by sinking onto the sand and Eiran sat beside her, turning slightly. “You’re a runner.”

She blinked. “Huh?”

“In training, under pressure. You run towards things, never away. That’s rare.”

She was quiet a moment. “Yeah, well. Running’s better than breaking.”

Eiran didn’t respond with pity or platitudes.

“I had to be the best,” she said eventually, kicking at the sand. “Always. Didn’t matter if I was tired, broken or hanging on by a thread. I outdid everyone. Out fought the biggest blokes in training. Proved I wasn’t just a tick-box recruit.”

Eiran’s voice was quiet. “They should’ve seen you coming.”

She snorted, bitterly. “They did and that’s why they came for me.”

The words slipped out before she could stop them, and she swore under her breath.

“You don’t have to fight like that anymore,” he said. “Not every second, certainly not with me.”

She looked at him then. The fae prince with finally wind-mussed hair and eyes that somehow knew exactly when to push and when to wait.

There was a kind of mischief resting behind his gaze, the promise of laughter and trouble, but it never pressed or intruded.

He simply was. Sitting beside her in the sand, knees bent, elbows on his thighs, like he'd been made for moonlit, midnight beaches. The sea rolled in and out before them like a breathing thing. Their shoulders almost touched and time passed without urgency. The conversation wandered, soft-edged and low. They spoke of Orilan and his love for his family, of Taelin’s stubbornness and the long, demanding shadow of command.

Eiran did impressions of his brothers that made her snort into her sleeve.

Branfil’s bemused stare, Soren’s theatrical sighs, Calen’s swagger and Fenric’s permanent state of barely contained chaos.

He was warm, she realised. Warm in a way that reached through armour, the kind she'd been building since her twenties, reinforced every day over the last six months. Eventually, she told him about her father’s dry wit.

How he used to narrate nature documentaries in ridiculous accents.

Her mother’s laugh, so full-bodied it could shake the kitchen windows.

Her voice wavered as she spoke, like a step taken on ice too thin.

“I haven’t heard either in over a decade,” she said.

“But I still remember the sound of both. It’s strange, what the mind keeps.

” She looked down, tracing invisible lines through the sand.

“I forget birthdays. I forget names, but I remember how they laughed. Isn’t that stupid? ”

“No, not at all,” Eiran said softly. “You’re remembering their love.”

His voice was quieter now. Different, no teasing, or edge of charm and flirtation.

Just the kind of gentle gravity that lets grief breathe.

She didn’t look at him, but she felt his gaze shift.

Felt him watching not just her face, but the way her body tensed, the catch in her breath, the walls she didn’t quite know how to drop.

“I think they would’ve liked you,” she said, surprising herself as the words came out too fast.

“I hope so,” he said. “But I’m glad you do.”

There was a pause then, as if the night itself was holding its breath. Maeve swallowed. She wasn’t used to being seen without being dissected, but somehow, with him, she didn’t feel like a puzzle. She was just a person, still breaking, still building, but still there.

The waves kept rolling, and for once, she didn’t feel like she was drowning.

Maeve turned the pouch over in her hands, thumb brushing the embroidered threads.

For something so small, it felt weighted, not just by magic or age, but by meaning.

Slowly, she placed the Chain inside, tied the cord, and extended it towards Eiran. “I think this belongs to you.”

Eiran didn’t move at first. Just stared at her, the moonlight casting soft shadows across his face. “Are you sure?”

She shrugged. “It’s not exactly mine, is it? ”

“You felt something,” he said, accepting it gently. “You could keep it, and half the realms would fall to their knees to follow.”

“Bit bloody dramatic, Eiran.”

“I’m fae, it’s our way.” He smirked, but his fingers curled protectively around the velvet like it held the whole of his world.

Maeve laughed. “God, you sound like a bloody villain. ‘Bow before my pouch of destiny!’”

Eiran clutched it to his chest, mock-affronted. “This pouch is sacred.”

She lay back on the sand, hands behind her head, laughing until it faded into silence. Her dress rode up slightly with the movement, and one of the long, pale scars along her thigh caught the light. She saw him glance, not out of curiosity but with something fiercer and she didn’t cover it.

“I need to tell you,” she said, voice quiet now.