Page 61 of Heart Cradle
He turned back to her, leaned down, and kissed her cold forehead. He stayed there, forehead pressed to hers, a King without a Queen, a male without a future. Just a father, undone.
“I don’t know how to do this without you. I don’t want to.” His next words fell from his lips like shattered glass.
He drew in a sharp breath, sat up straighter. He reached for her hand, and for a moment, he only held it. Then he laid it gently over her heart, and covered it with his own. The scene shimmered, beginning to dissolve, Maeve caught one last look at Orilan as he stood and turned towards the cradle. His eyes were red-rimmed, his jaw set like iron.
She felt as if she was falling, for so long, just falling.
London.
The flat. The hall light was too bright and her hand shook as she turned the key. She felt the dread before it happened. Her body remembered what her mind tried to forget. The sound of footsteps, the smiles. The breath. The laughing. The pain.
She curled inward, folding like a bird made of parchment soaked through.
Then, Eiran. Not a vision, no he was a flicker. A tether. His presence wasn’t a memory, it was weight. A warmth in the haze. He wassolid and his voice wound through the chaos. “I’m here, love. You’re not alone. You’ll never be alone again.”
His scent, earth, salt, cedar, storm and safety, laced through everything. In some memories, he was distant, a tenderness in the corner of her mind. Other times, he pressed close, his hand steady on her spine, his voice whispering through the fear.
A new memory, but not hers. Fenric, laughing with a woman Maeve didn’t recognise at first, lean and athletic, her bronze skin glowing in the low light, light brown curls bouncing as she moved. She had the kind of beauty that was effortless and sharp around the edges. Maeve watched as the woman grinned and walked away, her stride easy and confident. Fenric’s smile lingered, but it didn’t reach his eyes and it turned brittle as he watched her leave.
Maeve coughed at smoke swirling around her face, batting it until she saw Hayvalaine at a desk, eyes wet and her hands shaking as she whispered, “My Anna… my girl.”
Then, not a whisper turned into a roar and she stood so fast her chair toppled backwards, crashing to the marble floor.
“How dare he,” she hissed, voice shaking the walls of the vision. “He promised… he promised me she would be safe and then he throws her to the bloody wolves. Vargen, Petra, Davmon? They’ll kill her!”
The room was bright with magic, curtains snapping against the windows though no wind stirred outside.
“He thought arranging a marriage fixes anything? He thought tying her to that man undoes what was done to her?” Her voice cracked. “She was mine. My Anna. She wasn’t ready… she wasn’t ready!”
“Mother.” Soren’s voice was kind and steady. He stood just behind her, broad hands raised slightly, like he might reach out but wasn’t sure he’d survive it. “He did what he thought was right.”
“He did what he always does,” she spat. “He decided, he ordered, he didn’t bloody ask.”
Calen sat nearby, elbows on his knees, eyes full of stunned aching. “She wanted it, mother. She told me, she chose him.”
Hayvalaine’s breath hitched, like the words pierced something she’d been trying not to face. Maeve could feel the grief between them like gravity, a shared wound, impossible to heal.
Maeve didn’t want to see the heartache, she didn’t want to invade on other’s misery. She closed her eyes and felt herself move once again.
Orilan and Taelin playing knives-and-apples in a shaded glade. “You’ll miss,” Taelin said.
“I never miss,” Orilan shot back, grinning.
Her parents.
She cried and she bellowed, when she saw them as they were before she left for university. A picnic in some park. Her mother in a yellow sundress, laughing with her whole body. Her father, squinting at the sun, nose scrunched, holding up a bottle of lemonade like it was treasure. She was in the centre, cheeks full and grinning wide. She looked alive, she felt wanted. She reached for them, but they faded.
She still floated, she just couldn’t catch a thread long enough to stay. Although, sometimes she caught voices and words from beyond. She heard of Avelan, Vargen’s name spoken in warning tones. Talk of aggression and tension. Shouts of dead fae found near the northern border.
Jeipier’s name floated past, she grabbed it with both hands. She felt his warmth first, a gentle weight, like sun-warmed stone pressed to her side. Then the fluff of his tail, soft as dandelion seeds, brushing her nose, her cheek, her brow. A sound, a huff, low and content, rippled through the haze.“You smell like sunberries.”he murmured sleepily, his voice brushing her thoughts like velvet over glass.
Maeve smiled before she even realised she had. She saw him now, clearer than memory and brighter than dream. Scales the colour of autumn leaves and molten copper, brushed with faint streaks of plum near the joints. He was still growing, still slightly too leggy and uncertain in his own body, but beautiful, so undeniably beautiful. His wings folded close in sleep, his sides rising and falling with slow, even breaths the same as hers. His amber eyes blinked open, catching her with a look so full of affection it made her breath hitch. She felt the weight of his head in her lap and the way he nudged at her hand for touch. His presence never asked for permission, only offered comfort. The Chain stirred, not violently or to claim, it simply shimmered golden in the light, trailing from her wrist like liquid metal and then it reached. A length of it unfurled, light as air, and coiled gently around Jeipier’s foreleg. Not restraining, just being, embracing him. Jeipier looked down at it sleepily, then lifted his head and gave a quiet trill of pleasure.
“I like it,”he said simply. The warmth in his voice wasn’t just approval, it was faith.“It’s strong and kind. We can trust it, we must.”
Maeve felt the Chain pulse in agreement. A thud, slow and warm, like a second heartbeat beneath her skin.
Not a weapon.
