Page 97 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame

Her eyes locked on Hael’stromia’s gate once more. The price of failure was too high. She needed insurance. And she knew that Hael could give it to her.

Sliding a trembling hand from the reins, she brushed against the bump of Lumsden’s little gold dagger as she slipped her hand into her trouser pocket, gently closing her eyes. Cahra summoned every ounce of her own bravery, willing her breathing to slow.

Please, please work.Then her fingers brushed the Key and she braced herself against the impending void, ready to confront the darkness as it rushed her.

But this time, Cahra didn’t fall.

CHAPTER 38

‘Cahra.’

Hael stood, still as time in his shrine, then moved for Cahra so quickly, all she saw was a burst of black. And suddenly he was towering before her, the inverted triangles of his flaming eyes scrutinising her every inch, as if seeking out injury.

‘How do you fare?’

‘I’m fine,’ Cahra said softly, his gaze burning into her. ‘Are you?’

Could he sense her trepidation? She’d courted death before, but never like this. Staring into Hael’s flames, she felt a knot tighten in the middle of her chest.

‘I could not call to you. I found it… troubling.’ Hael tilted his head and paused. ‘That is not why you have come.’

‘No,’ she confessed, swallowing. Cahra had never lived an ordinary life, but she wondered if this would ever feel normal, with Hael. Or if her insides would stop feeling like they were staging an uprising of their own, never mind Kolyath and Ozumbre’s. She inhaled. ‘I’m outside Luminaux’s gate to Hael’stromia and—’

‘I know,’ Hael said. ‘I can sense you.’

‘You can?’ she asked, bewildered.

He nodded once, the hard planes of his face softening. ‘You are on the cusp of the capital’s sands, my abode. The gates, the Key – a formality. Yet the closer you came today, the more I could feel you, your presence.’

‘Oh,’ Cahra said in a small voice. ‘Do you know why I’m here?’

‘The tri-kingdoms have convened.’ Hael’s flaming eyes, which had brightened to a bold ruby, darkened again. ‘Why?’

‘Kolyath and Ozumbre captured a Luminaux royal and are blocking that gate to Hael’stromia. I proposed a trade—’ She broke off as Hael’s eyes blazed a bottomless black, the guttural sound that ripped from him cleaving the darkness.

His tomb shuddered.

‘A trade,’ she rushed, ‘so they would take me to the pyramid and I could free you.’ She smiled, trying to project an air of confidence.

For a moment, Hael said nothing. Then Cahra wrinkled her nose, the air thickening, itching her nostrils, as she inhaled its acrid scent.The smell of burning. Glancing down, she watched smoke rise above the age-old dust.

‘An exchange, with the two most callous kingdoms in the modern era?’ Hael rasped, desperation in his voice. ‘Cahra, you are in mortal danger!’

She shut her eyes, exhaustion weighing her to the ground. ‘I know. It’s risky.’ Opening them, she saw Hael was watching her with barely checked alarm. ‘It’ll be okay. Once you’re out, everything will be okay. But we need to do the abreption now.’

‘A safeguard,’ he said, comprehending. The idea seemed to placate him.

She nodded. ‘I couldn’t let them keep the Prince. At least this way, once you’re out, you can do your Scion-champion thing.’

At her words, Hael rose in stature, then paused. ‘ThePrince?’ There was something to his tone, a coldness. The smoke that was pooling at her feet began to eddy faster, like a whirlpool gaining strength. She was barefoot in their vision again, she realised.

‘Yes,’ Cahra said, rubbing one foot with the toes of the other. The floor was freezing. ‘The one who helped me escape Kolyath. I couldn’t let him suffer in my stead, not when what they want is the Scion and the Key.’

‘Precisely why I am perturbed,’ Hael argued. ‘For if it is you who suffers…’

‘I won’t,’ she smiled faintly. ‘Because you’ll be free, to find me.’

They gazed at one another. Finally, Hael nodded, but he looked as if he wanted to strangle someone, and slowly. Before she knew what she was doing, Cahra grabbed his hand.