Page 119 of Heart Cradle
Laren snorted. “This is us behaving.”
Soren lifted his goblet again. “We’re glad you didn’t run, you know.”
Maeve blinked. “Run? You thought I almost did?”
“Well,” Soren said, shrugging with a grin, “you’ve got a habit of charging headlong into danger and panicking in palace corridors. It was a toss-up.”
“Oh, fuck off!” Maeve said, laughing. “You’re just mad I beat your record in wards last week.”
“She did,” Branfil confirmed, not looking up from his plate. “Two full seconds faster.”
Soren blinked. “This is a fucking ambush.”
“Welcome to being outclassed!” Eiran murmured.
Laren raised a brow. “A toast to Maeve, realm-shaker, ward-breaker, and the only woman who’s ever made Eiran visibly nervous.”
Eiran deadpanned, “I’m never nervous.”
“You were definitely sweating in Lisbon,” Maeve muttered, sipping her wine.
Fenric coughed loudly. “I need to hear about Lisbon. Was he tragically poetic? Did he quote fae rhyme and stare at the moon?”
“Sounds more like you,” Soren said to Fenric, eyebrows raised.
“No,” Maeve said, eyes dancing. “He wore a tight white shirt and tried to smoulder at me.”
“I did smoulder,” Eiran objected. “You just obviously didn’t appreciate it.”
“Oh, that’s romantic,” Aeilanna added.
The group laughed, truly, deeply, and the tension that had quietly buzzed beneath the surface seemed to lift, if only for a little while.
Plates were passed, wine was poured, and the hall came alive with warm noise. Branfil and Taelin resumed their debate over defence corridors. Aeilanna leaned back against Nolenne’s shoulder, eyes half-lidded with wine and affection. Laren fed Fenric something from her plate, and he bit her fingers in return and Calen and Soren nearly knocked over a wine jug trying to arm-wrestle across the table. Hayvalaine swatted them both on the head with her napkin.
Amid it all, Maeve looked around the hall, at this strange, powerful, chaotic circle of people who had, somehow, become hers and felt as if she were home.
Chapter Fifty-Four – The Binding
The bells of the high temple tolled at dawn, resonant across the sleeping stone of Moraveth. Their sound carried, drifting over terracotta rooftops and mismatched buildings, slipping through window arches and blooming balconies, brushing rose-vined terraces and crooked chimneys, ringing down garden stairways and painted courtyards. Moraveth was old, but not uniform, grown over time like a song rewritten by generations. Pale stone domes sat beside colourful towers, ivy tangled with roses and gold runes and sigils gleamed faintly from tiled mosaics.
By mid-morning, the temple was full. Inside, over a thousand fae had gathered, nobles, warriors, realm leaders, and allies. Thousands more waited outside, shoulder to shoulder in the plaza, dressed in ceremonial colours, plum, gold and forest green. Flowers were woven into hair and gleaming charms pinned to cloaks.
The air pulsed with quiet magic and expectation.
The temple itself was vast and open to the sky. Its sweeping arches reached like spines towards the heavens, carved from pale stone veined with silver that caught the sunlight in long, delicate streaks. Floating golden runes drifted in slow spirals above the altar, living words of old unions, still whispering their oaths to the magic that made the place sacred and from the upper balconies, music cascaded with harps, flutes, and a single, tender voice.
Eiran stood at the centre, framed in sunlit gold. Branfil, Soren, Calen, and Fenric flanked him in ceremonial garb. Melrathen colours embroidered with golden thread, curling spellwork, constellations and battle sigils. The brothers formed a silent wall of devotion behind him, but Eiran stood alone. His posture was proud, but his hands clasped behind his back, flexed now and then with barely concealed nerves.
The Arkhavari stood opposite him, draped in robes of layered white and gold. Their presence carried the gravity of centuries, eyes faintly aglow with sigils that shimmered across the surface like ripples on still water.
The great doors opened, and a hush fell over the crowd. Maeve stepped into the light, she wore a trailing gown of deep forest green, stitched from layered gossamer that shifted like mist when she moved, light as breath, yet threaded with power. Fine golden embroidery climbed the sheer outer layers in curling vines and starlit constellations, catching the light with spellthread. The fabric shimmered faintly with magic, as though dusk andstarlight had been woven directly into the seams. Around her wrist, the Chain shifted and shimmered, pulsing in time with her, but not just her breath, her intention and certainty. The closer she walked to the centre, the more it responded. Threads of light flickering faintly along its links, as though it were tasting the magic in the air and answering.
In her hands, she carried a bouquet of Velira blooms, Ashvine stalks, and Gleamroot, a blend of moonlit silver, magical gold, and violet glow, chosen for protection, clarity, and truth, but even they seemed dim beside the Chain. Yendel walked beside her, his magicer’s robes bore the black and silver sigil of his craft, but his expression was gentle, almost fatherly. He gave her arm a final squeeze as they reached the stairs.
Behind them came Aeilanna, Nolenne, Hettae, and Laren, regal in deep violet gowns trimmed in gold, carrying bouquets that echoed Maeve’s. They walked like queens and warriors both, each of them radiant.
Maeve only had eyes for Eiran and he looked like he’d forgotten how to breathe. She ascended alone, her steps silent on the stone, and took Eiran’s hand without hesitation, golden runes flared softly above them. The Arkhavari raised their hands. Their voice was calm, but it filled the temple like light. “Today we speak what is already true. A bond formed by soul, forged by trial and chosen by will. Not a requirement. Not a rite of passage. A blessing. A gods-marked joining of two who were never meant to walk apart.”
