Page 43 of Heart Cradle (The Melrathen Saga #1)

Solirra’s wings sliced through the morning sky, bronzed red scales catching the light like flame.

The saddle beneath Nolenne creaked as she adjusted her position, the runes stitched into the leather glowing faintly with protective magic.

The wind was cold at this height, but she barely noticed.

Her focus was on the land below, on the burnt edges creeping closer with every mile.

They had been flying for hours, crossing the gentle hills of Melrathen until the horizon darkened.

Where there should have been farmland and homes, there was ashy desolation.

The village and surrounding area of Delvain were gone.

Nolenne’s jaw tightened as they descended.

Her magic buzzed faintly beneath her skin, stirred by the realm’s pain below.

Behind her, Aeilanna steadied herself and Solirra banked low and landed in a wide clearing outside what remained of the village, a smouldering mess of blackened stone, collapsed timber, and smoke.

The silence was heavy and even Solirra stood unusually still while a small unit of soldiers approached, their armour dulled with soot. At their front were a grim-faced man and a woman in simple magical robes. “Captain Rhoen, Third Regiment,” the man introduced.

“Magicer Sylri,” the woman added. “We arrived about two hours after the attack.”

“I’m Nolenne,” she replied flatly. “This is Princess Aeilanna, the Spellweaver.”

Rhoen looked between them with a respectful nod. “We were told to give you full access. There are no survivors, no known cause, and no trace of magic.”

“No trace at all?” Nolenne asked, disbelieving.

“None we can detect,” Sylri said. “The entire site is clean. Totally cleared, but we suspect warding and high-level suppression. I think it was masked before, during, and after.”

Nolenne crouched, fingers brushing a scorched beam. The wood crumbled beneath her touch. Her earth-magic runes sensed nothing, not even the lingering pulse of life that often clung to ruined homes. “That’s not natural,” she muttered .

“It’s deliberate,” Aeilanna added, watching Solirra stalk towards the blot of screivens.

Rhoen’s jaw tightened. “You believe this was Avelan?”

Nolenne stood, brushing ash from her fingers. “It’s too clean, too clinical. That’s not Avelan’s usual style. They like to be seen, to be feared.”

“They want someone else to take the blame?” Aeilanna suggested quietly.

Sylri nodded. “That’s what we thought too. There’s nothing left to trace. No bodies. Just… scorch marks and rubble.”

“Let us search,” Nolenne said. “We might notice something different, fresh eyes and all that.”

As the soldiers moved back, Nolenne stepped into the ruins.

Her boots sank slightly into the charred ground.

She hated this part, hated the silence, the stillness and the devastation.

Villages like this reminded her of her own, after the soldiers came.

After her parents refused to give up their children.

Before her brothers were thrown into a pit and told to kill each other.

Her hands clenched unconsciously. Her surviving brother, Davmon, had won that fight, and in doing so, she’d thought he’d lost something essential.

Now he was Commander of Avelan’s forces, only below Petra in Vargen’s esteem.

His most reliable killer and she loathed him, but loved him, and that was the problem.

Aeilanna moved beside her, brushing her fingers along a seared windowsill. “Do you feel anything?”

“Not a thing,” Nolenne said. “Fuck, that’s the issue. Isn’t it? No evidence. No leads. Nothing. Bugger all.”

They picked their way through what used to be a street, now reduced to heaps of broken stone and twisted metal. Even the wells were filled with debris. No signs of struggle, no signs of life.

“You know what scares me?” Nolenne asked, pausing beside a half-collapsed wall. “That they’re testing something, trying out a new kind of magic. Seeing how well it obliterates, seeing if anyone notices.”

Aeilanna’s jaw tensed. “Well, it worked, darling.”

“This wasn’t just about Delvain.” Nolenne’s gaze drifted to the distant hills. “This was intended as a spark. They’re trying to light a fuse.”

For a moment, they stood in silence, then Aeilanna lifted her hands.

Threads of gold unfurled from her fingers, delicate and precise.

They spun slowly at first, winding into patterns only she could read.

With a breath, she whispered a word in the old tongue, and the threads bloomed, radiating outward like spider silk catching light.

A cloud of glowing runes formed above her, darting into the air like a swarm of bees, swift and seeking.

They raced through the village ruins, over collapsed roofs, under scorched beams, through broken stone.

Her spell searched not just for magic, but for memory.

For heat still clinging to the bones of the world but there was nothing, not even a hint.

Aeilanna’s brow furrowed, her hands trembling slightly as the runes dimmed and began to fall like dying fireflies.

“There’s no trace,” she murmured. “As if the land itself has forgotten they were ever here.”

They stood in silence and watched as Solirra stirred in the clearing behind them, restless and being nudged by a dozen screivens, black feathered and writhing around her. She nipped at them and they scattered, only to try again, earning a puff of smoke.

“We should speak to others from neighbouring towns and villages,” Aeilanna said. “Someone might’ve seen something before the wards went up. Movement, change, soldiers, traders, anything.”

Nolenne nodded. “We’ll send word back to the king. Quietly.”

Aeilanna gave a faint smile. “You sound like my father.”

“He’s rubbing off on me,” Nolenne said dryly.

They turned to head back to the soldiers, their steps heavy with what they now knew. This wasn’t just a village burning, it was the beginning of something worse.

A war.