Page 71 of Heart Cradle
He stared at her.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I wasn’t truthful. But I love you, Eiran. Even if I don’t understand it, I know how I feel.”
His lips trembled faintly before he brushed them against hers in a kiss so soft it undid her. Filled with emotion and ache and everything they hadn’t said until now.
“I swear,” he murmured against her mouth, “if this is some sleep-deprived hallucination, I’m going to be fucking unbearable when I come around.”
She laughed, breathless. “Oh, shut up and kiss me again.”
He did and the fire was the only witness as clothes were peeled away, not in haste with magic, but in ceremony. Every inch of skin revealed was touched, kissed and cherished. Eiran moved with the patience of someone who knew what he held in his hands. Maeve gave herself with the trust of someone who finally knew she wouldn’t be broken for it. When he settled between her thighs, they paused, foreheads pressed together, breath mingling.
“I love you,” he whispered.
“I love you too,” she answered.
He entered her with reverence, a slow joining that felt less like passion and more like devotion. They moved together as though they had always known how, bodies knowing each other’s rhythm, heartbeats falling into sync. She gasped softly when she rolled her hips to meet his. Her hands gripping his back, her mouth catching against his neck. Eiran’s lips found her shoulder, her collarbone, her cheek, leaving kisses like confessions, wishes and promises. There were no words left, only touch, only breath.
Only love.
Chapter Thirty-Two – Clean Burn
Solirra’s wings sliced through the morning sky, bronzed red scales catching the light like flame. The saddle beneath Nolenne creaked as she adjusted her position, the runes stitched into the leather glowing faintly with protective magic. The wind was cold at this height, but she barely noticed. Her focus was on the land below, on the burnt edges creeping closer with every mile. They had been flying for hours, crossing the gentle hills of Melrathen until the horizon darkened. Where there should have been farmland and homes, there was ashy desolation. The village and surrounding area of Delvain were gone.
Nolenne’s jaw tightened as they descended. Her magic buzzed faintly beneath her skin, stirred by the realm’s pain below. Behind her, Aeilanna steadied herself and Solirra banked low and landed in a wide clearing outside what remained of the village, a smouldering mess of blackened stone, collapsed timber, and smoke.
The silence was heavy and even Solirra stood unusually still while a small unit of soldiers approached, their armour dulled with soot. At their front were a grim-faced man and a woman in simple magical robes. “Captain Rhoen, Third Regiment,” the man introduced.
“Magicer Sylri,” the woman added. “We arrived about two hours after the attack.”
“I’m Nolenne,” she replied flatly. “This is Princess Aeilanna, the Spellweaver.”
Rhoen looked between them with a respectful nod. “We were told to give you full access. There are no survivors, no known cause, and no trace of magic.”
“No trace at all?” Nolenne asked, disbelieving.
“None we can detect,” Sylri said. “The entire site is clean. Totally cleared, but we suspect warding and high-level suppression. I think it was masked before, during, and after.”
Nolenne crouched, fingers brushing a scorched beam. The wood crumbled beneath her touch. Her earth-magic runes sensed nothing, not even the lingering pulse of life that often clung to ruined homes. “That’s not natural,” she muttered.
“It’s deliberate,” Aeilanna added, watching Solirra stalk towards the blot of screivens.
Rhoen’s jaw tightened. “You believe this was Avelan?”
Nolenne stood, brushing ash from her fingers. “It’s too clean, too clinical. That’s not Avelan’s usual style. They like to be seen, to be feared.”
“They want someone else to take the blame?” Aeilanna suggested quietly.
Sylri nodded. “That’s what we thought too. There’s nothing left to trace. No bodies. Just… scorch marks and rubble.”
“Let us search,” Nolenne said. “We might notice something different, fresh eyes and all that.”
As the soldiers moved back, Nolenne stepped into the ruins. Her boots sank slightly into the charred ground. She hated this part, hated the silence, the stillness and the devastation. Villages like this reminded her of her own, after the soldiers came. After her parents refused to give up their children. Before her brothers were thrown into a pit and told to kill each other. Her hands clenched unconsciously. Her surviving brother, Davmon, had won that fight, and in doing so, she’d thought he’d lost something essential. Now he was Commander of Avelan’s forces, only below Petra in Vargen’s esteem. His most reliable killer and she loathed him, but loved him, and that was the problem.
Aeilanna moved beside her, brushing her fingers along a seared windowsill. “Do you feel anything?”
“Not a thing,” Nolenne said. “Fuck, that’s the issue. Isn’t it? No evidence. No leads. Nothing. Bugger all.”
They picked their way through what used to be a street, now reduced to heaps of broken stone and twisted metal. Even the wells were filled with debris. No signs of struggle, no signs of life.
