Page 69 of Heart Cradle
Orilan laughed, but the emotion was still there under it, a tremor in his voice. “She’d be furious with me now. ‘Old fool,’ she’d say. ‘Still playing bloody politics instead of protecting your people properly.’”
“She wouldn’t say that. That is not what you are doing,” Hayvalaine said gently.
“Oh, she would,” Orilan said, eyes bright with unshed tears. “But then she’d hold my face and kiss my forehead and say, ‘At least you’re trying, silly bugger.’”
Eiran reached over and placed a hand on the king’s shoulder, silent but steady. Maeve looked away, throat tight, letting them have the moment. Orilan cleared his throat and wiped beneath one eye. “Right, well. Enough weeping, I’m supposed to be terrifying, not sentimental. Don’t tell Taelin or he’ll start planning my funeral.”
Hayvalaine grinned. “Your secret’s safe with us.”
Maeve took a deep breath. “You mentioned Delvain,” she said, glancing between Eiran and Orilan. “That it was burned, that people were missing.”
Eiran nodded, shifting slightly in his seat. “Still no full count. The scouts found charred remains, but no signs of who did it. No sigils, no traces of Avelan steel. Just ruin.”
Orilan’s mouth thinned. “The work was thorough. Almost... too clean.”
“Like I said, I think I saw it. When I was unconscious. In the visions. There was a village, hazy, but I remember the smell of smoke. Ashfloating in the air. Bodies, but no blood.” Maeve’s brow furrowed. “It didn’t feel like a raid. It felt like a message.”
Orilan leaned forwards, elbows on the table now. “Message to whom?”
“To you,” Maeve said. “To Melrathen. I don’t know.”
“Or they’re testing us,” Eiran muttered. “Seeing how we respond. How quickly we move. Who we send.”
“Then they’re watching our skies for the thunder and the hell beasts, as they call them,” Orilan said, pride making his eyebrows and mouth twitch.
Maeve sat back, eyes narrowing as her detective mind spun into motion. “You said no markings, no steel. What about scent? Soil residue? Fae leave trails, like humans. They touch things they don’t mean to.”
Orilan looked at her with a spark of appreciation. “A detective’s mind.”
Maeve nodded once. “If I were back on Earth, I’d say someone scrubbed the scene. But they never get everything… not really. You just need to know where to look.”
Orilan tapped his fingers on the table. “I’ll have the scouts sweep again. This time with a trained magicer. Nolenne has gone with Aeilanna to search too, I’m hoping she spots something we’ve missed.”
“Let me see any drawings or accounts from those who went,” Maeve said. “I can try to cross-reference them with what I saw.”
“You’re still recovering,” Eiran said, without heat.
“I can sit and read,” she replied, already straightening in her chair, almost exasperated. “I’m not suggesting I take off on fucking dragon-back, Eiran.”
“Yet,” Orilan muttered under his breath.
Maeve smirked. “Give me until tomorrow.”
Orilan stood. “You may just prove more useful than half the Council’s High Table, Maeve, and considerably better company.” He started walking off but turned back. “Oh, and finish those pastries. They cost a bloody fortune.”
Maeve laughed softly as Hayvalaine followed him. She narrowed her eyes at Jeipier, who was currently rolling onto his back in the grass, all four legs in the air like a cat that had grown far too big and far too smug.
“How exactly am I meant to ride him when he still acts like that?”
Eiran snorted. “He’s figuring it out.”
“He tripped over his own wing earlier, Eiran.”
Jeipier made a low grumbling noise and flopped dramatically onto his side, as if offended.
“Oh, don’t start,” Maeve said, pointing at him. “You’re supposed to be a mighty dragon, not a clumsy toddler with scales and a tail.”
Jeipier let out a huff and tossed a tuft of grass at her with his tail.
