Page 71 of Heart Cradle (The Melrathen Saga #1)

The next three weeks were relentless. No one in Elanthir Keep had the luxury of rest. The entirety of the Fae Lands were bracing for war, and the pace reflected it.

Every hall, courtyard, and tower buzzed with motion.

Training rotations expanded, patrols doubled and the supply chains to the northern ridges were reinforced under Aeilanna’s heavy magical warding.

What had once been an ancient seat of power had become a fully mobilised war citadel and Maeve threw herself into it completely.

She trained in the mornings with Soren, Calen and Nolenne in the outer ring, physical conditioning, bladework and hand-to-hand sparring.

Calen drilled her footwork until her calves screamed.

Soren made her repeat blocks and counters until both arms bloomed with bruises.

Nolenne never held back, and neither did she.

She learned fast and by the end of the first week, she was holding her own in full-speed combat sessions.

She beat a younger guard captain in a mock duel that ended in disarmament, and the Keep’s weapons master remarked she was “functionally combat-capable, but still sloppy under pressure.”

Afternoons were spent with magicers, Maeve rotated between the three instructors: Aelianna in elemental control and weaving, Hettae in illusion detection and rune use, and Yendel in pure intention magic.

All were stunned by her progress, especially Yendel, who speculated often about her connection to the Chain and its recent evolution.

By the second week, she could cast defensive wards and hold them under sustained strain.

Her elemental control still needed work, her fire burst wider than intended, and her ice formations came with unpredictable strength, but her focus had sharpened.

The Chain, still on her wrist, responded more and more as her confidence grew.

It pulsed when she aligned her intention well, guiding her in subtle ways, amplifying runes and enhancing her awareness.

Yendel continued to study the Chain and its effect on her magic, he said he would update the Runekeepers.

Her breakthrough came during a live combat exercise at the Brimvale outpost. She was meant to observe, not engage, but when the skeld emerged, silent, fast and lethal, Maeve stepped in.

She moved without hesitation and warded a wounded guard.

Took a defensive stance, letting it come to her.

When it reached, she met it head-on with a spell she hadn’t been taught, pure intention magic forged into a force that blasted the skeld backwards.

She killed it with a strike from her blade, reforged under Orilan’s supervision and etched with multiple runes of wind, fire, water, ice and earth.

When the skeld died, it became another boy.

No more than fourteen, another Avelan conscript.

She didn’t cry, she just stood there, and promised herself she’d remember his face.

The commander debriefed her for what felt like hours. Orilan listened in silence, then signed off on her unrestricted training access. After that, no one questioned her inclusion in war briefings again.

The threat kept rising, there were five more skeld encounters in the following weeks.

One reached the southern slope watchtower before Fenric, Rivakar, and two unpaired thunder dragons brought it down.

Another made it into the Keep’s outer gardens but was intercepted by Calen, the Skyflame Venleo, and Jeipier.

Each time, the pattern was the same, coordinated infiltration, no communication, suicide-level aggression, and always, when killed, they left behind Avelan youths.

Maeve fought in two of these incidents. She didn’t escape unscathed, during the second, a skeld forced her over a thirty-foot drop from the outer city walls.

She barely managed to slow her fall with intention magic, wrenching her shoulder out of place on impact.

Cira healed the worst of it, but the pain still lingered, she never hesitated.

She took her place beside the others, her name added to the patrol rota by Taelin’s own hand.

The commander didn’t offer praise, but he no longer offered caution, either.

Jeipier improved rapidly. His wings stretched, he was almost fully grown, and his control in the air had sharpened.

Though still young, he now trained with the thunder, flying in staggered patterns above the eastern cliffs.

The adult dragons treated him with growing respect, especially after he flew a tight protective loop around Maeve during a skeld breach drill.

Brontis had taken to personally training his son, and the two worked in remarkable tandem, their aerial formations fluid and fierce.

Xelaini still monitored him closely, but no longer hovered.

Jeipier’s flame was large but precise, and his telepathic reach had matured enough to sense skeld presences from almost a mile away.

When Maeve wasn’t training, she flew with Jeipier or rested against his warm, scaled side in the stable’s courtyard.

The bond between them deepened quietly. He was fiercely protective but playful, and increasingly sensitive to Maeve’s emotional shifts.

Once, when she returned from a field engagement bloodied and close to a now-rare panic attack, he pressed his nose to her cheek and said simply, “I’m so proud of you. ”

Other bonds grew stronger, too. Maeve and Eiran had little privacy during the day, but they carved out their evenings.

Some nights, they simply ate and collapsed into bed.

Others, they wandered the city, slipping into taverns to listen to the music, and sometimes, they made space for more, for long baths, soft touches and shared laughter in the dark.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Maeve said, voice low.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re about to ruin me again.”

A slow smile tugged at his mouth. “I am about to ruin you.”

He moved through the bath water with lazy grace, kneeling between her legs.

His hands slid up her thighs, gripping just beneath the waterline as he leaned in to kiss her, slow, deep and unhurried.

The kiss melted her, she clung to his shoulders as he pressed her back against the warm stone, lifting her legs.

His cock nudged against her, already thick and hard under the water.

She rolled her hips in invitation, breath catching at the delicious pressure.

Eiran broke the kiss to drag his mouth along her jaw, her throat, her collarbone. “You looked like war incarnate today,” he murmured. “And now you’re mine to worship.”

He guided himself to her entrance and pushed slowly, inch by inch, until he filled her completely.

Maeve gasped, clutching at his back. Water rippled around them as he began to move, each thrust drawing a moan from her throat.

She tilted her hips to meet him, chasing the friction, the pressure, the sharp edge of release.

Eiran wrapped an arm around her waist, holding her close, his mouth never far from her skin.

“You feel like fucking heaven,” he growled.

She tightened around him in response, biting her lip to stifle a cry.

“Let me hear you,” he said, voice rough, breath hot against her ear. “Let them all hear who you belong to.”

Her nails raked down his back. “Yours…” she cried. “Always.”

They moved together, water sloshing and steam rising in curling tendrils. Every glide of his cock inside her made her nerves spark, every deep, deliberate thrust stoked the fire building in her core. He pressed his forehead to hers, breath ragged. “Come with me, love.”

Maeve did, shuddering, legs trembling around him, body spasming in wave after wave of sharp, exquisite release.

Eiran followed with a groan, sinking into her as he spilled inside, holding her through it.

Kissing her like the world had narrowed to this single, sacred moment.

For a long while, they simply stayed there, entangled in enchanted warmth, water curling around their bodies like silk, Maeve reeling from the thought of the ceremony that they rarely spoke of, but its presence lingered between them like a promise.

?????

Fenric and Laren spent more time together, sometimes spotted on the upper walkways mid-tryst, sometimes vanishing for hours and returning flushed and rumpled. No one commented after Calen joked about it once and was nearly stabbed.

One evening, they joined Eiran and Maeve at a tavern tucked beneath the ivy-wrapped arches of the merchant square. The place was already rowdy, full of off-duty guards, spell runners, and a few foreign emissaries nursing spiced mead.

Laren was nearly thrown out after climbing onto a table during a bard’s set and performing what could generously be called a dance.

When the tavern keeper stormed over, she pointed at a towering Fayean horn-strider in the corner, easily eight feet tall, with spiral antlers and luminous tattooed skin, and declared, “I was just trying to make eye contact, that big bastard’s been dodging me all night. ”

Fenric looked at her like she’d invented trouble. “That’s my girl,” he said to no one in particular.

The horn-strider bought the next round and Laren won the drinking game.

He introduced himself with a sweeping bow as Ghaul of the Glimmerhold, and ended up staying at their table most of the night.

He was charming in a slightly menacing way, light blue skin, jewel-dusted horns, and a laugh like splintering wood.

He flirted shamelessly with everyone, especially Fenric, who only grinned and looped an arm around Laren’s shoulders like a man daring the gods.

“Are all Velthamar females this feral?” Ghaul asked at one point, watching Laren flip a dagger into a beam above their table and catch it without blinking.

“No,” Eiran replied dryly, “just the interesting ones.”