Page 12 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame

Cahra snaked across the main road thronging with people to Lord Terryl, head down, a smile caked on her face. She took his elbow and moved him off the street into an alleyway.

Terryl looked pleased to see her, if not puzzled. ‘Cahra—’

She fixed the smile but lowered her voice. ‘I’m sorry.’ Her eyes flickered to his. ‘Look like nothing’s wrong,’ she said, and to his credit, he did so.

When Terryl spoke, his voice was humourless. ‘What is this?’

They were standing in the alley behind the road, in front of someone’s ramshackle garden.

Cahra gazed at the vines strangling a wilting spray of ugly yellow buds, pretending they were the subject of her and Terryl’s conversation. The alley was secluded, but she knew all too well nowhere was safe from the Kingdom Guards.

She wanted to crawl inside herself and wish this moment away, but there was no time for anything but the truth.

‘Terryl, your sword, the pommel I designed – the Commander thinks it’s something it’s not. I’m sorry, but I think I’ve gotten you into trouble…’

She looked at the messy garden, then noticed the yellow buds were mugwort, said to be used for warding off evil – and for divination, the practice the Steward’s ancestors had banned for its association with the Seers. Seers who, he claimed, were responsible for the death of the last King of Kolyath centuries ago. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on her: the Steward’s belief in the prophecy yet his hatred for scrying magick, existing side by side. She quickly ground the mugwort herb under her boot. The last thing she needed was to get arrested for anything else to do with Seers. Low-borns weren’t permitted to speak of them, and the punishment… Well, it wouldn’t bode well for her situation.

‘My longsword? What does the Commander think it is?’ The lord asked, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. She unwrapped the blade, the young lord’s eyes flashing to the handle. Terryl stared from Cahra to the pommel and back, his face an impasse, betraying nothing.

Out of nowhere, he began to murmur in his smooth, melodious voice, words strung together in an odd rhythm, like a poem Cahra didn’t know:

‘For when the Seers reappear,

When the Key has been bestowed,

When the mark walks the path to enter the Nether inlife,

Then shall Hael rise again.’

It was her turn to stare at the lord now.

Terryl shook his head, searching her face. ‘Where did you get this sigil,’ he asked her. It didn’t seem to be a question.

Cahra threw up her hands. ‘I don’t know! It just came to me when I was sketching. Every weapon is geometry, shapes and angles. I used a circle for the pommel, a triangle, then added an oval…’ She took a shaky breath.

Terryl’s voice softened. ‘It is the Sigil of the Seers,’ he said, pointing to the oval. ‘And this is the Eye of the All-seeing.’ The young lord paused, and she followed his finger as it traced a triangle. ‘The tri-kingdoms of Luminaux, Kolyath and Ozumbre. They are all here, bound by the Hael’stromian realm and the ring of endless time.’

Cahra’s head flew up.

‘And this.’ He touched the lone blue goldstone. ‘This jewel signifies the capital, the birthplace of the ultimate weapon.’ The young lord looked up, meeting Cahra’s anxious gaze. ‘The first omen of the prophecy is that the Seers reappear, and the pommel you created bears their sigil – in Kolyath, a sigil only ever seen in the throne room of the castle’s keep. The Seers, it seems, have indeed reappeared.’

It was all there: the eye, the kingdoms, the capital.

‘I didn’t know,’ she said miserably, as trepidation crawled inside her, burrowing deeply at what she’d apparently unleashed.

Suddenly, Terryl jolted back to life, as if awakening. His eyes flickered to her. ‘Commander Jarett knows the sword is mine.’

Guilt skewered her at the gravity of his words.

She nodded. ‘Lumsden told me to run.’ She shifted her satchel to her other shoulder. ‘The Kingdom Guards are after us. Lumsden said I was at the fishmonger’s, to give me time. But they’ll return to the smithy again soon.’ Cahra was deathly afraid for the old man, but she couldn’t think about that now. She’d fled to save him. Now she had to save herself.

And the lord she’d dragged into this mess.

‘I see.’ Terryl watched her. ‘You are risking your life by warning me.’

She fidgeted under his astute gaze, scanning left to right for Jarett, the guards, any sign of danger. But the young lord was right. She hadn’t hesitated to warn him. Why?

‘I saw you across the street. You would’ve walked into a trap.’