Page 10 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame (Fated for Hael #1)

Cahra perched inside Terryl’s cramped wagon, her back straight against the aged hardwood.

She tried to chase away the quiet and ease her racing mind, counting each inhale and exhale of musty air.

Cahra couldn’t see much in the dimness of the hidden compartment, but listening for trouble was second nature to her, the grating creak of the wagon’s wheels the only sound.

Unfortunately, the noise just intensified the familiar unease tightening inside her.

She didn’t know how Terryl’s people were going to get through Kolyath’s gatehouse, she realised.

The realmwide war made every kingdom, including hers, a stronghold against spies and insurgents, so breaching its security should be impossible.

And yet here she was, drawing ever-shallower breaths in the secret compartment of some high-born’s wagon of wares, a man she’d met three times, trying to flee the only home she’d ever known and its evil ruler.

All because she’d unwittingly set a few gems into some kind of ancient sigil.

How had she done it? Cahra sighed, folding her arms. The whole thing made no sense.

She was a low-born, she knew so little of the prophecy or the omens that foretold the rise of Hael’stromia.

She hadn’t even known what those omens were.

Which was exactly the point – she didn’t know anything!

Now things were so crazed she was running from the Steward, a feat she’d never in her wildest dreams considered, let alone attempted.

If Terryl’s carriages even made it to the kingdom’s gate.

Doing her best to calm down, she tried to inhale the illusion of security the little compartment gave her, stashed away inside.

But Cahra was in more trouble than ever before, and she had no idea what came next for her whether Terryl’s people escaped Kolyath or not.

What if by some miracle, she really did break free?

Then what?

She’d be surviving day to day, moment to moment, always on the lookout for someone ready to stab her in the back. Her old life as a beggar, all over again.

Cahra peeled the damp strands of hair from the nape of her neck, fanning her face with both hands as she sat and waited in the dark.

She felt too hot, and sweat-slick from running, though she should have been cooling down by now.

Pulling at her itching collar, she stripped her shirt and coat off down to her smithing vest, then leaned forward and pressed her clammy palms against the holed knees of her trousers.

She felt strange again, like she had outside the tavern. Like she had when she’d awoken this morning. Only, it was worse.

Cahra swallowed, her tongue odd, prickly in her mouth.

The wagon’s compartment loomed before her, small and dark.

A wooden cell she couldn’t escape. Her vision skewed, the sweat from her brow painting hot slashes, and she threw her hands out to the wagon’s sides.

Gulping stale air, she squeezed her eyes shut, and from behind her eyelids, white dots danced as she battled to get breath into her lungs, her old self’s instinct to hold her breath and hide barrelling through her.

Cahra clenched her teeth, biting down on a strangled sob that clawed its way from the back of her throat. She would not give herself away.

Her eyes snapped open, spying splinters of light seeping in near the ceiling, and she stared and stared at those cracks, willing the rays to fill her vision and ease the dizziness, the high-pitched ringing invading her ears, her mind.

Breathe. Don’t think about the dungeons. Think about gems. The survivor’s voice inside her head appeared at last. Kolyath’s gate wouldn’t be far now.

But it wasn’t working. She shook her head in frustration, dropping her hands to the bench, gripping it. No matter how she tried to wrench control of her anxiety, it wasn’t enough. Cahra slid from the seat to the ground, curling into a ball.

She grimaced, hugging her knees as she lay on the floor of Terryl’s darkened wagon, bile pooling in her stomach and inching up her windpipe.

The panic was dragging her under, drowning her, and all she could do was ride the ebb and flow of weakness that wracked her, trapped in this coffin.

The dots of light circled like wolves in her periphery.

Then she froze, her vision whirling, nausea crashing, as the dots behind her eyelids… vanished. The specks swaying in her vision had faded, into what? Squinting in the haze, the air now stagnant, she hacked a cough into her clenched fists.

The rusty tang of blood spilled from her mouth into her hand.

Cahra sat up as her eyes made out a tall crack of vertical white light, large as a spire. She leaned her arms back, palms to the floor, and recoiled at the sting of freezing stone. Yelping and leaping to her feet, she braced herself against the impending wave of dizziness, but none came.

Frowning and peering again at the feeble light source, Cahra realised – they were doors, climbing like zealous ivy to reach a ceiling she couldn’t see. How tall was this room, that ceiling?

Wait. Where was she?

Staring into the darkness enveloping her, it felt immense, a senseless void of space. She backed away, stumbling, spinning when her boots hit something that skittered with a hollow thud behind her. She angled her face towards the floor…

A skull. She’d kicked a skull. And beyond it, bones, bones everywhere, littering the ground in monstrous, mountainous piles.

She turned back to those unfathomable doors, and then it was there, stealing into her nostrils and stabbing her with its scent.

The sickly odour of molten ore, and scorching meat, and coals so hot they glowed bright white—

Just like in her dreams. Of burning.

She had no breath left to gasp. The pressure in her chest, the sickness in her gut; it was like her every nerve was on fire, and all were spearing for her heart.

In the darkness, twin flames ignited, bathing her vicinity in a sea of blood-red fire.

Cahra opened her mouth to scream – and her eyes flew wide open. Instinct kicked in and she clamped her mouth shut with both hands before making a sound. She was bolt upright in Terryl’s goods wagon, safely stowed, its wheels creaking to a halt.

Slumped against a wall, Cahra peered at where she knew Terryl’s coach sat latched to her wagon’s end, heart pounding with every moment. And thought:

What in Hael was THAT?!

But before she could brood on her hallucination, it hit her. The wagon had stopped. They must be at the kingdom’s gatehouse. Cahra turned an ear towards a crack in the ceiling and a newly familiar voice, now dripping with high-born affectation. Raiden?

‘My good sir, Lord Theudoric is travelling to the far reaches of the Wilds, in order to inspect his north-eastern operations. He shall return with spoils for our esteemed Steward.’ She couldn’t make out the response, but the disdain hedging Raiden’s next words was clear.

‘Sir, as you should know, and you plainly do not, my lord’s reserves fund Kolyath’s armoury.

Shall we call for the Steward, so you can explain why you are delaying his express wishes?

’ He was definitely sneering. ‘Then I suggest that you not waste any more time.’

Gutsy move. Also, Terryl had a fake name? And a fake story too, Cahra hoped. Because if the lord was arming the Steward in the war…

She shuddered, praying she wasn’t hiding in another tyrant’s wagon. She knew so little about Terryl, but her desperation had left her with no options but to trust him, balancing that fear against their new alliance.

Cahra pulled back and spied a hole in the wagon’s side large enough to see through. Proceeding with caution, she pressed her eye to the peephole.

Her vision was consumed by one of the round grey towers of the gatehouse and the Kolyath guards and soldiers on watch in its shadow, thoroughly unfazed by Raiden and his haughtiness.

An official gripping paperwork looked more ruffled.

Cahra knew the arch of the gatehouse loomed above them, and the archers’ battlements above that.

She swallowed, stealing a step backwards.

Being wartime, the Steward had decreed all passage to and from the kingdom required his court’s executive approval, but Terryl had been adamant his people could deliver them to safety. Would it work?

The horses jerked into a slow walk.

Cahra held her breath as she peered into the peephole again. There, standing stark against the daylight, was the dark gate of Kolyath – the kingdom’s infamous ‘gate to Hael’.

She stared at the metal, transfixed. The gate was thirty feet tall, the matte black metal of its Haellium bars thick as stonemasons’ arms, each bar edged with barbs and topped with lances.

She’d never seen the gate this close-up before.

Apparently, Hael’stromia had three: one entrance for Kolyath, Luminaux and Ozumbre, the kingdoms that hated each other so much they’d gone to war over the capital itself.

The wagon was moving through Kolyath’s gate now.

Cahra kept a wise distance from the peephole, but she couldn’t resist a peek beyond the kingdom’s gate. What she saw were lush, straw-coloured hills of sweeping grasses, met by winding trunks and dense green foliage where Kolyath ended and the Wilds seemed to begin, shadows gathering at its edges.

A slender trunk with serrated leaves caught her attention and she fixated on the tree, the realisation sneaking up on her.

A horse chestnut, the emblem of her blacksmith’s trade.

She’d always loved the complexity of it, with its short base but bright, broad branches that utterly refused to accept it was a smaller tree, making its foliage conspicuously top-heavy.

Thick and strong, she supposed. Like a blacksmith.

A hard lump rose in her throat as she thought of Lumsden and the smithy. How could she have just left him and her home, and all that she was, behind?

Blinking back tears she refused to let fall, Cahra kept watch at the tiny peephole as Kolyath slipped from view and, with it, everything she’d ever known. Her heart burned with the guilt of abandoning Lumsden and fear surrounding her next steps.

No home, no way to make coin, no prospects. Seers, what am I going to do now?

Her past was in Kolyath, her future out here somewhere. Meanwhile, she was caged in the now with nothing but her thoughts and feelings for company.

The way she felt about herself, she didn’t want either of them.

The time-worn wheels of the wagon rocked as Terryl’s carriage pulled it along.

Thud . A bump, then another, bigger this time.

The wagon jolted, flinging Cahra to one side, her head cracking against the low wooden ceiling.

She instantly sat, a dull pain spreading at the top of her skull, and threw her hands out to steady herself.

A loud thwack sounded that didn’t come from the wheels rolling beneath her.

She glanced nervously towards the peephole, confusion swirling with her thoughts – as an arrow buried itself above the tiny hole.

Cahra leapt back, gaping at the razor-sharp head.

Had she been looking into that peephole, she’d now be the proud owner of an arrow to the brain.

Shouting was coming from behind her, where Terryl’s carriage connected to the wagon, and she strained to snatch any words but the speakers were too muffled.

She knew she’d be safest with her back to Terryl if archers were firing from the walls, but a few scant panels separated her from them and it fed her panic as the wagon raced with the gait of Terryl’s horses.

He was making a break for the Wilds.

More and more arrows came raining down. With each bone-rattling impact, Cahra gripped anything stable as she slouched, ducking to keep her head clear of the wagon’s roof.

Arrowheads burst through its wood with cacophonous cracks, lashing like the whips of the guards in Kolyath’s Red Square.

She shook the thought away and focused on her enclosure, sighting six arrows in the hidden compartment alone, never mind the rest of Terryl’s wagon.

Cahra lowered herself to the ground and wedged her body under the seat, knees whacking the floor as the coach and its cargo thundered urgently along.

With the war raging, would Kolyath dare follow them into the Wilds?

Gurgling cries pierced the air. She knew the sound of awful, human death throes. More cracks; wood splintering. Cahra’s heart railed against her ribs. Was Terryl’s carriage faring under the attack? Her stomach turned at what it might mean for their escape.

Listening intently, she found herself closing her eyes, concentrating even harder to hear, to sense.

The thuds of arrows were slowing, Cahra noting the terrain was getting less rocky beneath the wagon’s thin wheels.

When she hadn’t heard the sound of an arrow hitting its mark for a full few minutes, she stood gingerly, pausing near the peephole.

Another ten seconds, and it was like something swallowed up the light.

She felt the horses pulling Terryl’s transport slow to their previous walk. The ground seemed even again. Cahra dared to place her eye upon the peephole.

Outside, it was as dark as twilight, the Wilds’ majestic trees blocking the sun’s rays, though she could see fleeting specks of blue as she angled her gaze to the foliage’s ceiling.

Yet shadows clung to every dark leaf, an unfathomably heavy air in the earthy-scented woodlands.

Nature whispered between towering trunks, and she could almost feel it beckoning to her, this wild place untouched by ugly, selfish kingdoms. A place where maybe even she could survive.

Cahra continued gazing out the peephole until, finally, the wagon’s wheels stopped. The carriage doors slammed, and she threw on her shirt and coat, hurrying through the false panel to the wagon’s exit, anxious to learn her fate.

Had they made it? Were they safe?

The sparkle in Terryl’s blue goldstone eyes and the bright smile on his face reassured her as he opened the wagon’s double doors, and with a deep breath, she took her first step into a free but unknown future.

‘Welcome to the Wilds, Cahra.’