Page 18 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame (Fated for Hael #1)

When the coach pulled off the road again – Raiden’s people clearing a screen of brambles, only to carefully replace them once the caravan had passed through – it was close to sunset.

In the Wilds, Cahra felt the same edge, the same crispness to the air, as Kolyath at twilight, the sun’s beams cooling as they cascaded from the sky that faded to a cornflower blue.

Cahra tumbled out of the coach with her satchel.

Would she ever get used to travelling like this, squished into a tiny movable box?

Oh well, she thought drily, it wasn’t like she’d get the chance again once they arrived in Luminaux.

This journey was funded by Terryl’s coin, and a lordly high-born she was not.

She turned, and two hills rose like horns behind her, the coaches, wagons and horses of the caravan tucked into the valley they formed.

The air was a song of mist and soil with the evening’s arrival, and Cahra inhaled it deeply, her eyes on the lord’s people as they lugged items from the wagons to the mouth of a cave.

Terryl joined her, graceful hands clasped neatly at his back. ‘My apologies,’ he said. ‘I had every intention of delivering us to an inn, but after this afternoon, Raiden believed it safer to make camp at a secure location than chance being seen.’

Cahra stretched, her muscles aching. ‘It’s okay,’ she told Terryl. ‘I’ve had worse.’ Her stomach dropped. It was getting harder to hide her past, and it didn’t help that she was painfully aware of being the only low-born. No one else here was ex-beggar material.

Raiden arrived before she could dwell on it. ‘Supper is on the way,’ he told them as she watched Queran, Siarl and a few others scale the steep hills above the cave.

She turned to Terryl. ‘What can I do to help?’ Hours of sitting had left her eager to move.

‘Nothing,’ he cut in, the lord’s gaze falling to her knee. ‘Simply rest.’

Giving him a flat look, she pointed to Raiden. ‘What about him?’

‘Excellent point.’ Terryl called out, ‘Raiden!’ The Captain looked up, handing off a stack of plates to Piet. ‘Mind your stitches. Leave the setting up for us tonight.’ He smiled. ‘My orders,’ he added, strolling off before the man could argue.

Raiden exhaled, eyeing Cahra. ‘I suppose I have you to thank for that?’

‘I didn’t expect him to actually do it,’ she said, surprised.

Raiden turned to her, saying slowly, ‘Indeed,’ then moved for the cave.

Cahra scanned their surroundings. ‘How safe are we here?’

Despite Raiden’s injuries, his attention was on his lord.

‘As safe as we can be in the Wilds. This is one of our securest camps, regularly checked by locals, people we can trust. If there was trouble, they would leave a signal for us.’ Cahra and Raiden passed the threshold, the entrance smaller than a door and edged in porous-looking rock that scraped her knuckles.

Cahra was relieved at the idea of resting properly.

Her body had been on high alert since they’d fled, and she could feel the bone-tiredness starting to creep in.

She’d sleep soundly knowing Raiden’s people were on watch.

If she’d been in Kolyath, on its cobbled streets, well, any rest would’ve been fitful, one ear cocked for danger, a sharp rock or stick cradled to her chest as a weapon—

She could feel her shoulders tensing at the thought so she cut it off, asking Raiden, ‘Since Terryl’s deemed us the lame horses, now what?’

Raiden’s mouth twitched, amusement in his eyes. She’d nearly made him laugh. ‘Assuming I’m fit to start a fire, perhaps that?’ The others were heaping wood and kindling by the entrance, so Raiden went to fetch some.

Cahra didn’t know what to do next. She wondered if anyone had a pencil and paper, in case she was struck by the urge to sketch.

Would a Luminaux smithy even take a Kolyath apprentice?

She watched in amusement as Raiden crouched over the firewood, striking rocks and growing increasingly frustrated. Finally, he sat back, brow furrowed, and scratched his head.

‘What?’ he muttered, glancing at her sharply.

Kneeling, Cahra laughed. ‘You have all these camps but you can’t start a fire?’

‘I’m not usually the one to do this,’ he groused.

She reached into her satchel. ‘Try quartz.’ Grinning, she pulled a rough stone from her bag and held out her other hand.

Raiden looked at it, confused. ‘Your knife,’ she told him, then sighed and rolled her eyes at him.

‘Afraid I’m going to stick you in your other side?

’ Raiden’s face darkened, but he handed it to her.

Cahra whittled a stick into little shavings, arranging the tinder in a small circle on the pile of wood.

She selected a piece, pressed it to the quartz and tilted Raiden’s knife, winking.

And remembered something, rummaging through her pack.

‘Oh! I almost forgot.’ Cahra withdrew a lump of tenebrite for Veil’s Eve, the final night of the Festival of Shadows. She pushed it deep within the wood pile. ‘To keep the fire burning,’ she told him.

She hit the quartz with the knife. It sparked for her on the first go.

‘How did you do that?’ Raiden asked as he uncrossed his arms to warm his hands.

‘Blacksmith, remember? Fire is my friend.’ Even before she’d been one, she thought, when she’d lived on Kolyath’s streets.

Her and Terryl’s eyes met, and the story of her past, her growing up a homeless, kinless urchin, was on her tongue again. She swallowed, ridding herself of the words.

Despite all he’d said and done, she couldn’t tell him. He was a lord, and she was—

A beggar . Always a lowly beggar, no matter the esteem she earned.

She stood and ambled farther into the cave. Someone had lit torches and placed them around its edges, which was wise as she could feel a cool breeze gliding past to the entrance. Cahra raised her palms to a flaming torch, the heat radiating like it would thaw her soul.

‘You never told me,’ Terryl said quietly from behind her.

She’d barely heard his footsteps, she’d been so deep in thought. ‘Told you what?’

‘The things about you that I do not yet know.’ He echoed her words from his garden, right before they’d fled Kolyath in his coach.

Cahra’s chest hurt the more she looked at him. But it wasn’t Terryl’s fault, it wasn’t anyone’s. Life just happened, like it always did to her. Her childhood, the dungeons.

But unlike then, now she was free . So why did she feel so lost?

Cahra tried to smile. But her sadness was so close to the surface, too close, and all it would take was to think of something dreadful happening to Lumsden—

She took a shuddering breath. Then Terryl’s hand was on her shoulder, his warmth permeating her skin, melting her numbness in a way the fire couldn’t.

The cave was dim where they now stood, Terryl’s dark hair gleaming beneath the torch, but she could still make out his blue goldstone eyes.

He didn’t say a word, he just stood by her. And saw her pain.

In the darkness of the cave, Cahra found the courage to let go, and finally wept.

When she was done, Cahra and Terryl sat by the soft light of the torch under a blanket, hot mugs of cider in their hands as they waited for Langera to roast the wild pheasants Queran and the others had caught.

‘I feel like a child,’ Cahra said, wiping away the last of her tears. ‘I never cry.’

‘Perhaps you needed to. You are grieving, in a way. Your life will not be the same.’ Terryl gazed into her eyes. ‘It will be better.’

Will it? Taking a sip of the mulled alcohol, she said, ‘If you say so.’

Terryl flashed a playful smile, saying, ‘The Oracles best heed my will.’

‘I never believed,’ Cahra said after a moment, staring into the torch’s flames. The carefree flicker of its fire was comforting, the way the orange light whipped and twirled, dancing towards the ceiling. He gave her a questioning look. ‘The Seers. The prophecy.’

‘Ah.’ Terryl raised his mug and drank, then lowered it to his lap again.

‘Cahra… Regardless of what Jarett, Atriposte or any one person thinks – prophecy or no prophecy – I must thank you. For stopping me and warning me. For giving my people a chance to escape. We are all here tonight because of you. I am deeply grateful.’

Cahra opened her mouth, but she didn’t know what to say. Eventually she managed, ‘No, thank you . For getting me out of the kingdom. I didn’t dare to hope for an answer, and then you stepped in. I’m thankful too,’ she told him. She really was grateful for him.

Her cheeks felt hot. It wasn’t just the cider warming her insides.

Cahra downed the revelation with a gulp of her drink, grimacing as she straightened her legs to cross them at the ankles.

Terryl asked her, ‘How is your knee?’

‘It’s fine. Better than last time.’ She lifted the rogue joint, testing it.

Terryl cocked his head. ‘What do you mean?’

It would never end, these conversations circling back to her past. It would never stop. Until she made it.

She took a deep breath, locking it in her lungs until they ached, then slowly let it out. ‘When I was younger, in Kolyath,’ Cahra began, ‘I was homeless. Lumsden took me in when I was a child. Before that, I lived on the streets. It’s what I wanted to tell you in the garden.’

Well… One of the things.

She thumbed the handle of the mug, waiting for the judgement, the rejection.

But it never came. Terryl just watched her with those thoughtful gemstone eyes of his. ‘I suspected that it was perhaps something like that.’

Her mouth fell open. This time, she really didn’t know what to say.