Page 89 of Heart Cradle (The Melrathen Saga #1)

Maeve looked down at the changing horizon.

The Avelan camp stretched wide beneath them, tucked into a crooked curve of hills and patchy woodland.

Tents clustered in tight rows and armoured wagons ringed the outer edge.

Crude barracks stood near central fire pits coughing up lazy columns of smoke.

Figures moved between posts. Unhurried fae on patrol.

The wards had held and Avelan were blind.

They had no idea what was coming. Maeve felt the Chain shift against her wrist. Subtle at first, then stronger.

The runes along its edge began to flicker, bright pulses of gold that crawled up her forearm.

It wasn’t just reacting, it was anticipating, reading the field and she felt as if were reading her.

“There are no skeld in the area. I can’t sense them.” Xelaini’s voice crackled across the thread, sharp and gleaming, full of restrained bloodlust. “ Ready to ruin their morning?”

“ Always, Stormheart,” Brontis answered, his growl deep and slow, like a blade being drawn across stone.

Taelin’s voice followed a heartbeat later, cutting through the thread with precision. “Hit fast, strike hard and leave no survivors. We are to burn and to shield!”

It wasn’t a suggestion and with a cry, Aeilanna dropped the veils, and the sky erupted.

No warning for Avelan, just the sudden, brutal clarity of magic giving way.

The illusion shattered like glass, and every dragon, every rider and every warbeast above the trees came into view at once.

They descended with speed, with purpose, with terrifying unity.

Maeve had never seen anything like it. The thunder didn’t move like individuals, they weren’t scattered units.

They were a single weapon, a living, writhing strike.

A mass of dragons flying in perfect alignment, claws tucked, wings arched, tails straight and minds locked together.

Every wingbeat hit like drumfire, every shift in flight synced with the next.

The air shuddered with the pressure of it, this was what war looked like when Melrathen led it.

Magic thrummed under their skin, power desperately waiting to be unleashed as the first wave dropped lower, diving into clean lines.

Jeipier shifted beside Xelaini, matching her pace, his excitement pulsed through Maeve.

He was in his element, riding the air like he was born for war.

He kept tight to Eiran’s left flank, adjusting to Xelaini’s every move with surprising grace for a dragon so young.

Maeve could feel his thudding heartbeat through the saddle straps, but he remained focused.

Below them, the Avelan camp didn’t even look up.

The wind peeled back layers of cloud, revealing more of the full sky. There were no other dragons, only Melrathen flew with living flame in their bones, but the other realms flew with their own great flying beasts.

Armathen rode winged geomantic striders, creatures carved of living rock and root, their wings like jagged obsidian sheets veined with pulsing light.

Each beat of their wings cracked the air like thunder on stone.

Their riders wore armour that shimmered with earthen runes and wielded polearms tipped in enchanted steel.

Eldrisil’s veiled drakes flew low and fast, cloaked in illusion, silver-scaled and long-winged, with trailing tails that left streaks of mist. Their riders were silent spellcasters, clad in woven glimmersilk, casting emotion-based magic and binding the minds of their enemies.

Edhenvale’s stormwings soared at impossible heights, vanishing between cloud banks like spirits of the air.

Feathered and sleek, with wings that shimmered green and pink in sunlight, they moved with eerie silence, guided by windrunners, fae cloaked in leaf-dyed leathers and weather runes.

Their magic called down lightning, bent gusts to their will, and struck from above with the suddenness of falling stars.

From the south came Storm Coast tidebeasts, sleek and scaled with wings webbed like sails, their bodies streaked with bioluminescent current lines, built for flight and swimming.

Their cries sounded like waves crashing on boulders.

Their riders bore long coral-tipped spears and rode in harnesses fitted for agile dive attacks and sharp, vicious turns.

Maeve turned slightly in the saddle to look down. The land forces were converging. Barrack transport stones sent legions of warriors and landbound war beasts. They stepped forwards, battle formations already primed, weapons drawn. Casters and infantry. Blade-runners and geomancers.

Cloaked Edhenvale illusionists lined the tree edges, already laying veil wards.

Storm Coast’s war-chariots rumbled into place behind shield lines and Armathen’s heavy cavalry marched like an avalanche.

Thundering in from the eastern rise came the Fayean horn-striders, hooves shaking the earth, their war-chant rising to the sky.

Ghaul ran at the front, his jewel-dusted horns gleaming, laughter sharp as steel in the wind .

Taelin had landed and now barked orders from the centre line on horseback, his voice still amplified, his precision turned chaos into choreography.

“Line B to the trees, spread cover! Eldrisil veils forwards! Storm Coasts, keep your riders high until the signal! Ghaul, move you fucking oaf!”

He was born for this role, crafted to lead, to always fight from the front. No hesitation or confusion, just movement, so deadly and clean.

Jeipier’s wings shifted as he caught a gust. Beside them, Xelaini loomed, silent now and her attention absolute. Brontis growled low, sparks flaring from his throat. Maeve could feel the pulse of magic building behind them.

Tension.

Purpose.

Rage.

The Avelan camp lay beneath them. Close now, tent rows, crude towers and armoured wagons still unmanned. Fires smouldering low, the enemy still hadn’t stirred. They had no idea.

“Strike fast. Strike clean,” Taelin’s voice again. “No signal left standing.”

“Chain bearer,” Orilan’s voice came through the thread, calm and unshakable. “Light the sky.”

Maeve’s throat tightened as the Chain at her wrist flickered.

They had discussed this, but it wasn’t rehearsed.

She moved with instinct, raising her hand and the rune she summoned wasn’t just light, it was unerring, illuminated truth.

Golden lines spun into the air above the thunder, an ancient glyph of strike-born magic, one of Melrathen’s oldest battle sigils.

It burned, then detonated. The illusions truly dissolved now like silk banners tearing in the wind, and all the sky finally screamed.

Dragons dove in coordinated waves, their roars shaking the clouds.

Jeipier braced his wings with an excited yelp as he followed Xelaini into the first strike.

Below, tidebeasts shrieked as they banked hard from the south.

The veiled drakes of Eldrisil flickered into view mid-dive, illusions dropping just as their riders released threads of binding magic.

Flame struck first, hot and exact, Brontis bathed the front tower in searing black fire, stone and steel melting in moments.

Hervour’s violet flame swept across the barracks wall, igniting enchantments and shattering defence wards.

Jeipier let out a high, spiralling jet of fire that set the nearest armoury tent ablaze.

The screams began, panic spread through the Avelan camp like blood spilled in water. Wards flickered and failed, alarm bells sounded far too late. The enemy scrambled for weapons, for armour, for direction, but Melrathen had already landed.

Eiran and Xelaini hit the central circle like a divine swath of iron and malice. He leapt from the saddle mid-hover, landing in the mud, Avelan’s casters tried to rally around him, they didn’t last ten seconds.

Behind him, Fenric’s dragon Rivakar landed hard, sending a shockwave through the ground. Laren dropped beside him, already loosing arrows towards the northern command wagons.

Maeve and Jeipier struck next, she jumped from the saddle just as he unleashed another blast of fire into the side of a siege wagon. The flames curled around her like a cloak as she landed, blade in hand, the Chain pulsing at her wrist.

Avelan soldiers surged forwards, well-trained, heavily armoured, but they were already a step behind and flailing.

“Jeipier, dive left!” she shouted through the mind-link. He obeyed immediately, smashing into a tower support beam with his shoulder, it crumbled, trapping half a dozen archers beneath the rubble.

“Maeve!” Eiran’s amplified voice over the noise of battle. “North ridge, casters regrouping!”

“I see them!”

Maeve barely had time to think, she let the Chain answer as it moved first, her wrist jerked upward, blade following the pull, no conscious command, just knowing.

A golden rune flared into the sky again, then cracked open like a flare.

Soundless and immediate, enveloping the Avelan casters on the ridge, who dropped mid-step, blinded by pure, divine magic, their senses overthrown by light and command.

It wasn’t just a strike, it was judgment.

She didn’t have to ask the Chain for help, it had acted on its own, and then it moved. Not just a flicker this time, not just a pull or a whisper of guidance.

It uncoiled, the woven links along her wrist unfurled with sudden, impossible fluidity, spilling outward in ribbons of molten gold, racing up her arms, her shoulders, her chest, across her ribs, back and legs.

A moment later, she wasn’t wearing the Chain on her wrist, armour of golden light wrapped her from throat to toe.

It was layered and etched with runes, sigils and writing older than any known language, gleaming with the pulse of her magic, of Melrathen’s magic.

The air around her vibrated with it, humming like a blade fresh from the forge.