Page 26 of Heart Cradle
Taelin’s fists curled. “She is fucking human, she is not one of us!”
“I’ll remind you that your mother was once a human,” came the quiet, terrible voice of Orilan. “I loved her, as I have loved no other. And you, Taelin, are proof of what our worlds can create together. All five of them will go.”
One by one, Eiran, Branfil, Soren, Calen, and Fenric stepped forwards and dropped to one knee. “To Burn and To Sheild,” they said in unison.
Eiran bowed his head last, but his second vow was silent, and blood-deep.
I will find you, Maeve, even if it kills me.
Chapter Twelve – Glade Stalker
The pain of the separation had become unbearable. It wasn’t just a dull ache anymore, it was fire beneath her skin, crawling up her spine and into her head. During brief snatches of sleep, Maeve would wake choking on grief she couldn’t name, her body thrashing before she could stop herself. It had gotten worse, the sky above was black with no stars. Just the muffled weight of mist pressing into the earth. Maeve curled into herself, trying to ride it out, but the pressure in her chest grew until she thought she might shatter. Aeilanna was there almost instantly. She knelt beside her, pressing cool hands to Maeve’s face, murmuring words in a language Maeve didn’t know, but knew it was not for the body, but for the soul.
“You are safe,” she whispered, again and again. “You are not alone.”
It helped, not instantly, not completely, but enough. Enough to stop Maeve from splintering apart and they sat there for a long time, Maeve breathing raggedly, her head resting against Aeilanna’s shoulder. Finally, hoarse, she rasped, “You and Nolenne...?”
Aeilanna gave a slow, sad kind of smile as she pulled her cloak tighter around them both. “I was alone in that cell for many years,” she said. “They pulled me out every few days, sometimes every few hours. For punishment, for torture, for magic extraction.”
Maeve’s gut twisted.
“They tried to rip the magic out of me. Piece by piece. I thought I would die that way, grasping to it. I thought I would die forgotten.” Her breathe shuddered. “Then they assigned Nolenne to my cell.”
Maeve blinked. “Assigned?”
Aeilanna gave a quiet, almost soundless laugh. “I suspect they thought a woman would make me weaker, easier to break through a false sense of sisterhood. Someone who might betray me if I tried to resist.”
“But she didn’t?” Maeve asked.
“No,” Aeilanna said quietly. “At first, we barely spoke. But I noticed the changes before the words came, the beatings almost totally stopped. The guards pulled me out less and I started getting food that wasn’t entirely spoiled and water that didn’t taste of rust.”
Her hand drifted through Maeve’s hair, so gentle it almost hurt. “One evening, after she brought the bread and turned to leave, I stopped her and thanked her.”
“And that was it?” Maeve asked.
“No, it took months. Small things, a few whispered words in the dark. Mostly warnings, shared memories, regrets and lots of dreams.” Her smile returned, far away now. “We became each other’s lifeline.”
Maeve swallowed hard. “And then?”
Aeilanna’s eyes softened further. “One day, after more than a hundred years, she asked me to become her bound.”
Maeve stiffened slightly. “A mate bond?”
Aeilanna shook her head. “No, not like the bond you carry. Mate bonds are rare. Blessed by gods and rooted in soul, magic and blood. A bound relationship is more like what your people call a marriage.”
Maeve nodded slowly.
“We didn’t need ceremony, didn’t need witnesses. We already knew that she was mine and I was hers. Not because of the prison, not because we had no other choice, but because, even if we had been free, if the whole world had lain open before us… we would still have chosen each other.”
Maeve blinked hard, trying to hide the sting in her eyes.
“She saved me,” Aeilanna said, voice thick. “In every way a person can be saved.”
Footsteps crunched quietly behind them. Maeve looked up to see Nolenne returning from the trees, four full canteens swinging at her side. She paused when she saw them, Maeve resting against Aeilanna’s shoulder, the quiet warmth in Aeilanna’s smile and Nolenne crouched beside them, one strong hand settling lightly on Aeilanna’s knee. “She saved me too.” Nolenne said, voice rough.
The three of them stayed like that for a while. Huddled against the cold, the forest breathing slow and steady around them. They were a unit and not long after, that fragile unity would be tested.
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