Page 145 of Heart Cradle
“No,” she said honestly. “Shitting myself.”
Eiran smiled, faint and fierce. “Then you’re ready enough, love.”
Branfil mounted Tharein with the ease of a seasoned flier, issuing quiet orders to a nearby relay team. Fenric tossed Laren a satchel of disruption runes, and she caught them without looking. Aeilanna and Nolenne mounted in perfect sync, Solirra and Hervour standing shoulder to shoulder like twin demons ready to pounce.
Calen’s absence was a weight none of them spoke aloud, they all felt it, Soren in particular. Who walked silently towards Brontis, his axe slung across his back, eyes unreadable.
Maeve climbed into Jeipier’s saddle, fingers tightening on the leather straps. He shifted beneath her, trembling, not from fear, but from sheer readiness.
“We’re really doing this,”he whispered into her mind.
“Yes Jei,”she replied, her voice steadier than she felt. “We are and it will be fine.”
Taelin stood at the front of the launch ridge, armour glinting like polished onyx flecked with golden etchings. He raised one arm, and the wind stilled.
“Melrathen,” he called, his voice like cracked stone, amplified by intention, “and all who stand beside her, this is the moment. The Avelan legions gather beneath us like rotting fruit, ordered to cause destruction by Vargen and his Pale Court. We will strike before the light hits their tents. To burn and to shield!”
The second horn blew, and the sky came alive.
Dragons leapt from every perch, wings exploding outward in arcs of power. The wind howled as the entirety of the thunder took to the air, hundreds upon hundreds of dragons in synchronised ascent. Riders clung tight, weapons drawn and magic primed. Jeipier launched with a shout of joy and a jolt of wind beneath Maeve’s boots. They soared into formation, Eiran just ahead on Xelaini, Fenric and Laren, both on Rivakar to her right, Nolenne and Aeilanna flanking left. Behind them came the second wave, screivens carrying heavier units and support casters, and behind them, the storm-breakers, sea riders, archmages and highflame units.
Within thirty minutes they would meet their fate, and they all prayed the gods were with them.
Chapter Sixty-Seven – Wrought in Gold
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. Hekept 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!”
