Page 50 of Heart Cradle
Her throat burned, she couldn’t look at him. Only at the photograph, at the girl she used to be, the parents she’d once belonged to. The ache in her chest expanded until it felt like it might swallow her, but he didn’t push.
Then, finally, she looked up, eyes shimmering. “Thank you.” She looked back down at the photograph, tracing the corner gently. “I’ll have to go back at some point and clear out the flat, close it all up.”
Eiran shook his head gently. “You won’t have to, if you don’t want to go back, I’ll organise it. Everything can be brought here, or wherever you want it.”
She hesitated for only a second, then nodded. “Thank you,” she said again, softer this time. “I don’t want to go back.”
“Then you don’t have to, love. Come on, the view’s much better outside.” Eiran said walking out the another balcony.
She let him lead her through the side arch. Wine glasses now magically in hand, the wind brushing over them, the air was cooler now, the sky was an endless stretch of midnight velvet, stars spilled like shattered diamonds. Below them, Moraveth glittered in gentle layers of golds, oranges, greens and blues, its light dancing in the valley like fireflies. Eiran passed her the wine and leaned on the railing beside her. “Moraveth, Heart Cradle, from above, the capital of Melrathen.”
The night had settled deep and quiet. Below, the city shimmered, faelight in a thousand windows, winding streets of light and shadow, and beyond, the distant hills that cradled the valley.
“Is that it?” she asked softly, tipping her chin towards the glowing heart of the city. “Moraveth?”
He nodded. “The capital. The oldest city in Melrathen.”
“It looks… enchanted.”
“It is,” he said. “And cursed and sacred, usually all at once.”
Maeve glanced at him sidelong. “That sounds about right for your realm.”
“Our realm.” A faint smile touched his lips. “She’s been rebuilt more times than I can count. Burned in three wars. Sank once, maybe twice, depending on whose scrolls you believe, but she always rises again, always finds a way to overcome.”
Maeve took another sip of wine, it was bold and rich, dark as smoky quartz and just as dense on the tongue. “And Elanthir Keep? That’s here?” she asked, nodding towards the towering structure beneath them.
Eiran turned slightly, gesturing beyond the balcony edge to the northwest ridge. “Built into the mountains, yes. The Keep is the spine of the realm, it watches everything.”
She tilted her head, curious. “So… why is Melrathen called the Heart Cradle?”
He glanced at her, then out towards the city again, quiet for a moment. “Moraveth translates as Heart Cradle in the old language. But there’s a legend,” he began, voice lower now, roughened by the wind and wine. “Old as the stars, they say. That before the Fae Lands divided into the six realms, before the wars and the politics and the blood, the gods wept when they shaped this land.”
“Wept?” Maeve echoed, brow furrowed, already exasperated at the theatrics.
He nodded. “Not in sorrow, but in awe. They carved valleys and mountains, rivers and forests, but when they reached this place, this exact stretch of land they fell still. Their tears sank into the earth, softened the stone, warmed the soil, and from it grew magic so pure, it couldn’t be corrupted. It beats, like a heart, living. Thrumming.”
Maeve stared out over the sparkling capital, her chest tight with something she couldn’t name.
“The cradle,” he said, gesturing wide with one hand. “The mountains curve like arms and the valley lies like an offering. All life in Melrathen either begins here or returns to it.”
She swallowed slowly. “That’s… beautiful.”
“We protect it fiercely. It’s why we fight, even when the rest of the world thinks us arrogant or cruel.” Eiran gave a half-smile, almost wistful. “The realm’s motto is ‘To Burn and To Sheild’ and we always will, we were taught that if the heart dies… so does everything else.”
Maeve leaned into the stone railing, closer to his warmth. “And if the heart is still beating?”
Eiran turned to her then, expression unreadable in the warm shadows. “Then there’s still hope.”
Maeve turned the wine glass slowly in her hands, the deep red catching the moonlight like spilled velvet. Her fingers drifted to the Chain on her wrist, gold, intricately woven and set with small black stones and flecks of coloured glass that glinted like captured starlight. It hummed faintly now, a presence more than a thing, familiar and alive. “I know it has something to do with this place,” she murmured. “With the magic and I’ve felt it since the moment I put it on.”
Eiran’s gaze followed hers. “It does.”
She turned towards him, searching his face. “I don’t understand it and I know I didn’t choose it, not really. It felt more like… it found me.”
“It did I think, but it’s never happened before, love.” he said quietly, stepping closer. “This isn’t a trinket or a charm. The Chain is one of the oldest artefacts born from Melrathen’s breath. It was forged in the heart of the basin, when the land still pulsed wild and unshaped. Each thread of gold carries memory. Each stone holds a different fibre of its magic, earth, shadow, flame and air.”
Maeve looked down at it again, brushing her fingers over a deep blue gem nestled between two black stones, her lips parted in surprise.
