Page 147 of Heart Cradle
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. Threecaptains 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.
