Page 90 of Heart Cradle (The Melrathen Saga #1)

Her boots struck the earth with new weight, but she felt ethereal, she raised her blade, and the light responded, brightening at the edges like it recognised itself.

A soldier hesitated, just for a heartbeat.

It was enough, Maeve surged forwards, golden runes sparking as she moved, and cut him down in a single, fluid strike.

Her vision sharpened, her limbs moved faster than thought.

She didn’t even need to look, her body knew where the next blow was coming from, the armour wasn’t just protecting her.

It was leading her. She was being guided there, by something ancient and absolute.

The Chain.

A sword clanged against her shoulder. The golden plating flared, absorbed the blow, and held with not even a scratch.

The soldier stared and Maeve drove her blade straight through his chest, spun, and hurled a flare of intention magic at a warded cluster by the barricade.

It ignited mid-air, flinging four Avelan guards backwards in a burst of radiant heat, the armour flared brighter, runes spinning across her like a living script.

She heard Jeipier’s awed voice, “ Maeve you’re… glowing .”

She didn’t answer, for the first time since this war had begun, she didn’t feel like someone caught in it.

She felt like someone made for it, she was no longer fighting with instinct, she was fighting with ancient direction and control.

The armour urged Maeve with bearing, every strike was bolstered by some deeper knowledge she couldn’t name.

When she ducked a blow, she hadn’t seen coming, she realised it wasn’t reflex.

“Jeipier!” she called, but even he had already moved, diving on a cluster of Avelan warlocks setting up a rune battery near the southern barricades. He roared, fire spilling like a second sunrise, and scattered them with a wingbeat and a blast.

Maeve realised, he feels it too.

The Chain was not commanding, just shaping and aiding, guiding them both. She saw an opening at the centre ridge where Avelan captains were gathering. Their guard was rising, reinforcements were forming ranks, their magic was coalescing.

Maeve didn’t wait, her feet hit the earth in a sprint, the Chain already lighting her way.

Light circled her blade mid-run, blazing with battle intent, and when she slashed forwards, it didn’t just cut, it severed.

Three captains fell with one arcing strike, not because she aimed for them, but because the Chain did.

Aeilanna rode Solirra in wide, commanding sweeps, her arms outstretched as strands of spellweaving laced the sky around her.

Light threaded between her fingers like spun stars, complex and terrible in its beauty.

An entire cohort of Avelan infantry advanced towards Soren, he stood cutting them down, but their shields locked and formation tight, chanting curses beneath iron helms. Aeilanna drew the weave closed.

A moment of stillness, then the air cracked.

Light surged, quiet and blinding, and the formation dissolved into nothing.

No screams, no wreckage, just dust and silence where a hundred soldiers had once stood.

To the southeast, Fenric and Laren had split off on foot, releasing chaos as they moved, blade flashing, arrows rapid and laughter sharp.

Tidebeasts surged through the rear lines, tearing trenches in the earth, while illusion-woven fog spilled across the northern ridge.

The veiled drakes swept in and out of sight, vast, scale-armoured shapes cloaked in glamour, their wings leaving wakes of disorientation in the enemy lines.

They vanished mid-air and reappeared in bursts of flame and claw, sowing panic before the true strike ever landed.

When the Fayeans hit, they crashed into the enemy ranks like a storm breaking, eight-foot titans of antler and ink, luminous skin streaked in blood and warpaint.

Their poleaxes swept wide, cleaving through shields and bodies alike.

Some charged on all fours, horns lowered, goring anything in their path.

Others fought upright, weapons flashing with magic, raw, humming power that left scorched sigils hanging in the air.

They didn’t shout commands, they sang a guttural, ancient harmony that pulsed through the battlefield like a second heartbeat.

It was wild and dreadful and Ghaul moved among them as the conductor, smiling as he fought, his twin blades dancing in time with the music of ruin.

The Chain’s gifted armour pulled. Maeve raised her hand without knowing why, and a shield rune ignited around a group of Melrathen infantry just as an enemy ward exploded above them.

Not her spell, not her idea, but the Chain’s, and it had saved them.

She was panting now, chest heaving, blade bloody and hair slicked to her brow and neck.

Eiran screeched to a halt beside her in a whirl of light and smoke, his eyes wide. He pulled her into a quick, fierce kiss, no time, no words, just contact. When he drew back, his gaze swept over her. “Golden armour.”

“I’m not doing it, the Chain is the armour.” she said, breathless. “It wove around me .

His eyes flicked to the gleaming light across her chest and shoulders, then back to hers. “Fuck, good. That’s good,” he said, already turning towards the next wave of soldiers. “Let it.”

Then, over his shoulder, half laughing, he said, “my mate, the wicked seductress of gold and leather, now armoured by the Chain. Gods help us all.”

?????

High above the smoke and chaos, Aeilanna was continuing to paint with terror.

She sat steady in Solirra’s saddle, one hand gripping the carved pommel, the other raised and glowing with threads of gold, blue, and violet, each strand alive and writhing with motion.

Her eyes blazed with rune light, and her voice was steady as she cast. “Line. Burn. Scatter.”

The spell unfurled like a fan, elegant, vicious, beautiful and below, three full rows of enemy tents exploded in unison, not with fire, but with unmaking, fabrics dissolving into powder, structures collapsing in on themselves, magic and matter stripped at the root.

The Avelan troops inside screamed only for a second, then returned to the land as beads of blood and shards of bone.

Hervour soared beside them, her wings cutting shadows across the camp. Upon her sat Nolenne, knives strapped across her thighs and gaze locked on Aeilanna, looking as if she’d fly into the hells themselves if she asked.

“More to the west, A!” Nolenne shouted over the thread. “Casters forming backup units behind the cart line!”

“I see them ,” Aeilanna replied calmly. “ Solirra, bend south. Give me angle, sweet girl. ”

“As you command,” Solirra answered, voice smooth and warm as smoke on water.

The coppered dragon dipped, wings curving with elegant precision. Aeilanna didn’t flinch, as a spellweaver she sat balanced, the wind whipped her long hair behind her, threads of magic dancing between her fingers like living serpents.

“Veilstrip. Arc. Scatterbolt.”

Three spells loosed in rapid sequence, one peeled the protective illusions from the enemy unit, the second struck their casting focus, and the third unravelled every single Avelan in a ten-yard radius.

“ Fucking gods,” Fenric murmured over the thread, somewhere near the southern flank. “ Aeilanna, I want your magic.”

“ Get in line,” Nolenne said flatly.

Aeilanna smiled, just a little. “ Two cart clusters remain. One near the ridge, one beneath the hill.”

Nolenne’s eyes flared. “ The ridge is ours .”

Hervour surged ahead. Aeilanna raised both arms this time, casting two spells at once, one from each hand, mirrored like wings.

She drew a full ring of woven light around them, then snapped it closed like a vice.

The enemy’s defensive runes shattered beneath her magic, their final shield didn’t just break, it wept.

The force of the spell cracked stone, set trees ablaze, and sent several dozen soldiers hurtling backwards like the wind throwing leaves.

“That’s it,” Solirra whispered through the link. “Show them who we are.”

Nolenne didn’t wait for an invitation as Hervour dove low, sweeping through the smoke and fire-choked air like a shadow made of wind.

They didn’t need to speak, the intent was clear.

Their target burned in Nolenne’s mind like a brand, the main command tent.

Centre of the camp, the brain of the rot, it was then that Nolenne spotted it through the chaos, black canvas, crimson stripes, the Avelan war-crest flapping over it like a sneer.

“ Drop me,” she ordered.

“Now?” Hervour’s tone was dry. “You want dramatic or direct?”

“Very fucking direct.”

Hervour twisted in a tight, vicious curve and flared her wings.

Nolenne unstrapped mid-turn and dropped, boots hitting the packed earth with a heavy thud, which sent shocks of pain up her calves, she didn’t baulk, but she didn’t run to the entrance either.

She strode to the tent and her blade slashed a jagged line through the wall, canvas flapping as she shoved her way inside.

Smoke billowed in behind her, and time seemed to snap around the edges of the space.

He stood at the centre table. Short and scarred, his cold eyes gleaming like oil in lanternlight.

His armour was Avelan-black, etched in red runes.

She knew that face, dreamt of that voice.

She had heard it order executions, training beatings, and send child soldiers into lit pyres.

She heard him laugh as they killed her parents, she saw him drop Davmon and Varen in the fighting pit .

“Jenveld,” she said, voice low and thick with old fury.

“The traitorous bitch returns.” He cried, while leaping towards her. “All is not forgiven!”

She barely dodged the first strike, he was fast as he came at her with a shining obsidian sword, swinging with brutal efficiency.

She ducked low, slicing at his neck, but he pivoted and backhanded her so hard she saw stars.

She hit the ground and rolled, already up on one knee. He advanced, no words now.

They fought blade to blade. Fist to fist. He was stronger and older.

He knew her style, he’d taught her, long ago, in that hellhole of a childhood, and now he used it against her.

She grunted as he landed a punch square to her ribs, another to her cheek, blood in her mouth.

She spat at him and smiled. “You always were too slow on the backswing,” she snarled.

He growled and lunged, but she caught his arm mid-strike, twisted, slammed her elbow into his throat.

He staggered, but not far. Grabbed her by the collar and threw her back into a pillar.

Wood cracked and pain flared in her chest again, but she rose, not because of Aeilanna, or because she had technique left, not because of discipline, because she was fucking done.

She launched herself at him, tackled him back, teeth bared.

Both blades gone now, she fought with fists, elbows and knees, fuelled by blistering, unending rage.

They crashed into the war table, splintering it beneath them.

He tried to throw her off, but she sat astride him, knees tight around his ribs, and brought her fist down into his face, again and again.

“You took everything,” she hissed, sobbing now, blood, tears and fury mixing. “My brothers, my parents, my fucking name. Me!”

He tried to reach for a dagger, but she grabbed it first and rammed it straight into his throat. He gasped, trying to speak as she twisted the blade.

“I’m not yours anymore, never again!”