Page 101 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame

The Steward. He was her goal.

Destroy!

She charged, great-hammer spinning, her body and weapon a symphony of vengeance, her path ahead clear. The Steward would fall.

Cahra swung her hammer with Netherworld strength, vaulting into the air to tackle Steward Atriposte, his mouth ajar as she ripped him from his snowy horse.

His arrogance had no place in the face of her unworldly power.

Rising to her feet, Cahra seized him by the throat, dangling Atriposte in the air as she gradually clamped the vice of her grip shut until his breath faltered, his life force failing, squandered as the man flailed within her deathly grasp. Her lips contorted into a sinister grin.

DESTROY!

The Nether’s siren song called, and its melody was mesmerising.

But before she could choose death, an elderly voice choked out her name.

‘Cahra!’

She knew that voice. Had heard it every day for years. Every morning, as the old man attempted to rouse her from deepest sleep, and every night, as he wished her pleasant dreams, knowing how much her nightmares haunted her; as well as on and off all day, each day, with every word of encouragement, of praise, for her growth as a burgeoning smith in a kingdom that hated low-borns having a smidgeon of pride, of worth.

Lumsden.

The sight of him, here, alive and on the battlefield, sent her reeling to another time. Their first meeting in Kolyath’s dungeons…

Cahra had stabbed Atriposte, ruler of the Kingdom of Kolyath, in the neck, and fled.

But not before grabbing the man’s dungeon keys. Careening to the end of the room, she flung herself at the gate to the stairwell, shoving key after key into the stubborn lock.PLEASE!It was no use. The Steward’s wrath-filled stomps were approaching.

I missed the killing spot, she thought. It was little comfort as the Steward wrenched her shoulder back, hurling her small frame against the freezing ground. A strangled cry escaped her as her ribs cracked against the floor’s stones, her eyes watering as she looked at the man. The anger in his eyes, however, vanished as quickly as it came.

‘That was foolish,’ the Steward murmured, regaining his composure. ‘Your sentence was lenient; six years for petty larceny. Such a trifle, compared with the attempted murder of a sovereign of the realm.’ His amber eyes bored into her, flat and unfeeling, as he pressed a pocket square to his bloody neck. ‘That is high treason. The penalty is death.’

The air froze in Cahra’s lungs. But before the Steward could bellow for his guards, her sharp hearing sensed hushed footsteps – a moment before the handle of a weapon struck the back of Atriposte’s head, and his eyes rolled up as he crumpled to the floor.

She looked up, speechless, as an old man appeared, holding a blacksmith’s hammer. He extended a wrinkled hand. The beggar’s credo rattled through her: Hael won’t help us.

But another low-born might.

Lumsden. Kolyath’s master blacksmith, her mentor. He was here.

Cahra turned, time slowing to something she couldn’t comprehend.

Lumsden is here, she thought, and her heart swelled as the old man smiled at her, his eyes of smoky quartz and amethyst shining. The ring of wispy silver hair around his head ruffled in the dead breeze of the desert, his leather apron smudged with coal and pockmarked by singes like it always was, and a wave of comfort, of nostalgia, surged through Cahra.Lumsden is here and he is okay.

Then, a split-second later…

He wasn’t.

Cahra screamed, the noise louder than anything she’d ever heard, dropping Atriposte to the sands as she leapt for Lumsden, the old man’s body collapsing to the earth, his blood spilling, spurting from his chest, Cahra only dimly noting the blood dribbling from her own ears at her Netherworldly scream.

Lumsden.

She couldn’t connect the words inside her, couldn’t think them, but she knew.

He was dead.

The realisation punched the air from Cahra’s lungs and she bent over the old man, horror-stricken and grappling for him as she fought to breathe, her eyes burning with tears as the light in his went out, his body still. Slowly, she raised her head to the one responsible.