Page 150 of Heart Cradle
Maeve froze. The blood on her blade hadn’t yet dried. The world was still burning around her, but everything inside her went quiet. Not silent just still, like the hush before something breaks.
Taelin was gone.
Her breath caught, too sharp, too fast, her chest tightened. She recognised the signs, the old rhythm. Panic always started like this, sudden, cruel, inescapable, but it didn’t come. No spiral, just the ache of something torn and the raw, stunned air around it.
“Why can’t I feel it? Why am I not falling apart?”Maeve asked desperately.
“You are stronger now,”Jeipier said gently.“You’re not alone in it anymore.”
Maeve’s throat locked.“Eiran. I need to be with him. Where is he?”
“With Mother. He’s coming. I can feel them.”
“Is he…?”
“He’s fine, just burning everything in his path to get back to you.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. The battlefield kept moving around her, the scent of blood and magic thick in the air. “I don’t know what to do without Taelin guiding us,”she whispered.
“We fight,”Jeipier said simply. “The way he taught us. Hold fast until Eiran reaches you, he will need you.”
Maeve let out a shaking breath and nodded once, spotting the others arriving. Aeilanna’s eyes were still lit with threads of magic as she guided Solirra down. Nolenne followed, dried blood on her jaw, a long gash across one bicep. Branfil strode through the haze like a tower of stone, rallying Soren to his side. Fenric and Laren emerged from the far ridge, breathing hard, hands still stained with the remains of the final magicers. Eiran walked towards her, smoke drifting from his shoulders like a warning. His armour and leathers were scorched, his mouth was tight, but his eyes were alive.
“You alright?” he asked quietly, voice scraping like gravel.
“No,” Maeve said. “You?”
He gave a bitter smile. “Has anyone heard news of Father?”
They shook their heads, then Fenric swallowed and said, voice hoarse, “Draeven’s blocked the Thunder.”
Eiran turned sharply at that.
“No one can reach him,” Fenric went on. “Not through mind-talk. Not even Virekhal. He’s shut everything down, no one knows where the fuck they are.”
Soren’s voice broke through the tension, slow and ruined. “Brontis thinks he’s taken him to...”
Maeve’s breath caught and Laren looked away, jaw trembling. Aeilanna let out a loud sob, without seeming to realise she had.
“He’s burning him,” Soren said. “So the Pale Court can’t take what’s left.”
“No,” Fenric whispered. “No, not without, without...”
“He would,” Eiran said, hollow. “If he thought it was right.”
Branfil staggered back a step, then another. “He took me in,” he choked. “He made me his son. I was an orphan, and he called me son. He was my father.”
The words split him, and he dropped to his knees, hands covering his face, and sobbed without shame.
Nolenne’s voice cracked. “Hayvalaine. Calen. They’ll be waiting. They don’t know.”
“I’ll tell them,” Aeilanna said quietly, through tears.
Soren sat down beside Branfil, not to speak, just to be there. Fenric crumpled forwards, hands on thighs, shoulders shaking as he wretched from shock. Laren moved his hair and held onto his elbow like it was the only thing left keeping him upright.
Maeve leaned into Eiran. He pulled her close and held her, arms tight and trembling. None of them were ready for the truth that had arrived. The Commander, their father was gone.
From the skies above, Virekhal let out a low, resonant call, a war cry no longer, but a toll. The kind sounded not for battle, but for the dead, and for the living who must carry them. Across the battlefield, horns echoed it in response. The thunder peeled away from combat positions. Screiven riders dismounted, and war beasts lowered their heads. The signal was clear, stand down.
