Cradle Novels & Stories

I’ll have to use my charm, then. I adjusted my cuffs for the third time…and angled my chair so the river light hit me properly. I was not showing off. I was contextualizing. “So,” I said, leaning back with practiced ease, “Aiden and I built this place from the ground up. Northbridge wasn’t handed to us… It was mostly my idea by the way. We scaled the logistics network across three regions before the Group formally folded it under the umbrella. Most people don’t realize how much proprietary tracking infrastructure sits under a company like this.”

(Clarice) Twelve years ago… ‘No! Tell me you’re lying, Mommy! Daddy can’t be dead! He promised he’ll come back! He even promised he’d bring me to the Zoo tomorrow!’ Mommy was shaking when she took me in her arms. ‘How I wish this is all a lie, too, because I don’t know how to live without your dad, Clarice. Just thinking about it makes me want to die right now. I can’t do it. I can’t live without him!’

She positions me right in the middle of the clearing and gestures her hands so that the candles that are illuminating the circles, decrease their intensity, making the only light that stood out, be that of the moon. “With the powers and knowledge entrusted to me, I ask that the goddess of the moon bless this child who today becomes complete, through me, Luara, the daughter of the red eyes.” With this, everyone hands over and begins to pray in the name of the Moon Goddess. The moon itself, I begin to grow and its light becomes stronger and more intense, overshadowing the candles.

James dragged Kiel far from me and I watch them but later on check out the car, and when I hold the hood of the car my head hurt a little and I close my eyes and a memory appear… not really a memory but rather a sound of the car in full speed and me screaming with enthusiasms. “What the hell was that?” “Is there something wrong?” James asked that made me look at him. I bite my lips and told them about the memory and they both look at each other while nodding. “We should eat our lunch together.” James suggested and before I knew it I get inside the car and felt the familiar feeling once again and I just smile through it. “Cradle to grave.” James suddenly said t

He was a pincushion of small nicks when he finally made his way through. Breathing heavy he climber over the root ball of a particularly ancient Oak, he wiped his brow and thought, At least it had not been as bad as stepping through the path of scorched earth. Lifting his head, he scanned what was before him: a huge circle of an area, full of trenches and craters from where trees had been uprooted, in the distance a small glade, the center of the eruption, and the dilapidated fashioning’s of a small cottage. The air above the glade was not proper, it shimmered, danced almost as if light spooled from to.

“Where… are we?” Kael looked ahead. The horizon was jagged, filled with the shapes of colossal spires rising out of the earth, not buildings, but something older. Bones. Towering, fossilized ribs of creatures so ancient they could’ve been gods. Between them ran rivers of black glass, winding and glimmering faintly under the dead light. “The Cradle,” he said quietly. “This is where the Warden was born.” Lira swallowed. “Born from what exactly?” He hesitated. The words felt heavy even in his mouth. “From the same power that made the Crown. From the first mark.”

There is nothing more maddening than to be desired carefully when you are desperate to be ruined. —A Lover’s Journal, 19th c. CAMELLIA Was it too soon to be this happy? “This is Camellia. She carries my child. She is my mate, and soon to be your Luna. You will honor her. You will tend to her. You will defend her as if she were the Moon herself coming down among us. That is not a request. Fail me, and I will show you just how quietly and completely I can destroy a life.”

"We're just passing through." *"Liar,"* the alpha snaps. *"You seek the *Cradle of Storms.*"* My pulse spikes. The Cradle was a myth-a primal storm said to birthed the First Wolves. "It's real?" The ghostwolf's muzzle wrinkles. *"It is death. But you...*" It sniffs me. *"You are death's echo. Come."* --- **The Cradle** The cave narrows to a tunnel, the air thickening with ozone. The ghostwolves howl as we descend, their cries mournful.

Elowen walked until she stood at the edge of the dais’s inner circle. Daire stopped one pace back and to her right—close enough that she could feel his warmth, far enough that he didn’t stand between her and the stone. She took another breath as the next contraction whispered on its way, not yet peaking. “Crowe,” she said. “Stop pretending this is legal.” Murmurs rose from the ridge; wolves pressed closer to hear, drawn as much by the old magic as by the spectacle. Crowe smiled thinly. “It is unfortunate,” he said, “that you continue to view necessary procedures as personal affronts. This device—” he tapped the Cradle’s casing lightly “—is designed to ensure t

That, and the gentle, impossibly soft breaths of our daughter, a tiny symphony of new life. Lyra lay nestled in a small, exquisitely carved cradle beside our grand bed, a delicate masterpiece of dark wood and soft, organic cotton. Her tiny chest rose and fell with each peaceful breath, a perfect rhythm that seemed to orchestrate the entire room. Her little fingers, miniature and perfect, twitched in her sleep, curled instinctively around the edge of a pale blanket, hand-stitched with intricate patterns of golden thread that shimmered faintly in the dim light.