Page 124 of Heart Cradle
“Shut up Fen!” Shouted Soren.
But Laren blinked at Fenric, genuinely thrown for half a second. “You say the sweetest shit when you’re drunk.”
“I’m not drunk, I’m just utterly… enchanted.” Fenric said with a smirk.
“Repulsive!” Chimed in Calen.
Then Branfil, always stoic, sensible and strategy-first picked up a bread roll and launched it across the table, nailing Calen in the chest with perfect aim.
“You did not, you big bastard!” Calen whispered.
Branfil shrugged. “You talk too much too.”
Calen stood dramatically. “That girl from the stables... Gwin?”
Branfil’s cheeks reddened. “Don’t.”
“She told me how friendly you both were. Naughty Bran, not putting his full concentration into this war,” Calen teased with overexaggerated tutting.
Orilan and Taelin exchanged gleeful looks, shoulders shaking with barely contained laughter as Soren made exaggerated kissing noises.
“You little shits!” Branfil roared, and then all hell broke loose.
Bread rolls flew and Branfil got Calen in a headlock while Soren jumped on his back. They wrestled him down, then began making ridiculous high-pitched noises, pretending to be Gwin. Branfil rose like a great oak ripping from its roots, dragging both brothers up with him. “Wankers!” he shouted, half laughing, half furious.
Calen and Soren wrestled him right back, play-fighting in full force.
“FOR THE STABLES!” Soren howled, jumping onto a bench.
“FOR GWIN!” Calen bellowed, throwing a cup.
Branfil was laughing now, full-throated and red-faced, hurling crackers like throwing stars.
Aeilanna leaned towards Hayvalaine, deadpan. “We should never have given them wine.”
Hayvalaine, smiling like a woman reborn, replied, “We should give them more.”
Maeve sat back beside Eiran, his arm resting over her chair, his eyes soft and bright with amusement.
“You saved a realm today, love,” he murmured, gaze on her. “And still managed to look good doing it. You in those bloody leathers.”
Maeve smirked. “You’re not bad yourself, dragon-boy.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven – Yours, Still
After more skeld conversation Maeve had left the hall wanting a bath and time alone. She now sat curled in a high-backed chair on the balcony, knees drawn up beneath a thick blanket. Her hair clung to her skin in loose, drying waves. She wore nothing beneath the blanket, the bath had washed the battle from her skin, but not from her mind.
The bells had been tolling since dusk, not in alarm, not in celebration. These were softer, slower, a rhythm of remembrance, echoing gently across the darkened rooftops of Moraveth, a city breathing again after holding itself still. Lanterns of faelights flickered along the narrow streets, casting long shadows. Dragons and screivens passed overhead in slow patrols, silent sentries gliding through the crushed sky.
From this height, the breach in the wall was visible, raw and jagged, a wound the city would carry for years. Maeve watched it, unmoving. Her hands were warm beneath the blanket, but her chest felt cold. She thought of London, of her tiny flat, the corner shop downstairs and the way the kettle would click off just before the boil. Her life, gone now. All of it… finished.
She’d resigned from the Met and Rhodes wrote, telling her he was sad to see her go, but understood. Said he hoped she’d found something quieter, something more stable, perhaps a little community job. She’d smiled at that because Rhodes didn’t understand at all. She hadn’t moved away, she hadn’t bottled policing. She was a princess in a different universe now, with a dragon, a mate, a chain of ancient power, and a body count that would make her old team shudder. She wasn’t logging evidence anymore, she was killing skeld. She was fighting atop war beasts, wielding intention magic, and binding herself to a fae prince before the eyes of gods.
Still, she didn’t feel like she’d escaped anything, just transformed. She could still feel the moment the Chain had found her. She thought of Yendel’s words and how it created a pit in her stomach. She thought of the way the Chain had burned bright and guided her blade, the way she had followed, unquestioning.
They were skeld. Twisted, corrupted and beyond saving, but they had been fae once. Some were city guards not ten minutes before.
“I kept telling myself they were already gone, that it wasn’t really them anymore.” She whispered to the dark, her fingers tightened on theblanket. “But I saw their faces. I heard them scream when they died. I felt them die.”
