Page 35 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame (Fated for Hael #1)

But she’d also wanted to kiss Thierre too. And she’d let it happen, let him talk to her, let him touch her face…

Maybe his royal status had finally spooked her. Or the fact that whatever was between them, it could never go anywhere. Not while he was engaged, and even if he wasn’t. But in that moment, when Thierre had kissed her, she’d forgotten who and what he was.

So why had she fled?

Burrowing out of the covers to squint at the clock, Cahra groaned.

It was half-past five in the morning. She’d hardly slept.

Rubbing her face, she sat up, looking around the lavish room.

Its shadows were receding as dawn broke, the furniture lit with glorious gold.

Like the grand wardrobe, dressing table and console weren’t extravagant enough, she grumbled.

Cahra sighed. There was no point idling if she couldn’t sleep.

And having learned from the sheer embarrassment of Hael seeing her in her underthings, this time she’d left her clothes on before going to bed.

She flushed at the idea of his red-hot flames roving over her bare skin. Seers, will he ever forget?

Crossing the room, Cahra shoved her feet into a pair of shoes and then stopped.

Where did she think she was going? It was barely sunrise.

She unlocked the door and strained to listen, one ear angled down the hall.

Nothing. Everyone was asleep. She stood by the door, wondering whether she should stay or go.

Glancing at the tapestries and vases, the outrageous chandelier that hung, as big as she was, before the mirrored walls and boundless bed, she shook herself into action and shut the door behind her.

Fumbling her way through the palace on hushed feet, Cahra somehow managed to locate the entrance, nodding to the guards as she slipped through the gilt doors and out into the glittering royal courtyard.

It was a cool dawn and she wished she’d grabbed her jacket.

But the scent of Luminaux’s jasmine sat heavy in the humid air and the sky was brightening to an optimistic shade of blue. She’d warm as she walked.

Cahra didn’t know where she was going, but as she watched Luminaux’s banners rippling overhead, she realised she had some quiet time to think now.

Hael. His name was there, on her tongue, before she’d taken her next breath.

And the thought of him… Not just the mad thing she’d done by letting him steal away her sadness, or even the mad things he’d told her of the Seers, but the sheer shock of watching him go from a nightmare made flesh to – to what he truly was, an enthralling, powerfully built warrior…

And that grin! As if he’d known how her body heated when he’d kissed her hand—

Cahra sucked in a breath. The sister kingdoms didn’t worship gods. But if they did? She had the feeling they would’ve looked a lot like Hael.

And this time, she remembered their conversation clearly. Was it the abreption? Had Hael’s new-found vigour helped her memory? She didn’t know, but he’d given her answers. Of course, all they’d done was raise more questions.

She ducked beneath a tree dripping with clusters of magenta flowers, the abundant blooms like feathery fingers reaching for her as she passed.

She’d been surprised to learn the Seers were Hael’stromian, like him.

When Cahra asked Hael what had happened to them, his face had darkened, saying the scrying order had fled the city when its defences activated, locking him inside.

The Seers had promised to free him, only the High Oracles had received a vision as Hael’stromia fell and shared it.

The last they would see until the new era.

Hael had seen the vision, and its truths: the age of the Oracles would end and Hael’stromia would fall, until the rise of a new leader, a new Emperor, who would usher the kingdoms into the future. One of peace.

She’d laughed at Hael’s words. None of the rulers seemed up to the task, not even Thierre’s father, King Royce. She didn’t know of Ozumbre’s King, but she’d heard things. Things that made the Steward seem merciful.

Cahra blew out a breath, frustrated at Hael for not answering all of her questions, apparently best left for Wyldaern’s Oracle.

She didn’t know what to expect from the visit, or the Oracle herself.

Another disciple of Hael’stromia’s Seers, like Wyldaern, she supposed.

Even Hael had been cagey about it, saying Cahra would see him again soon, in another vision.

One where she was actually dressed, she thought with a blush.

Cahra glanced up, finding she’d made it down the hill into the city’s flat streets, and the pearl-white of tall, tidy shops, and ornate chairs and tables under blue striped awnings.

Then it came to her, subtly at first, a hint of a mouthwatering scent on the gentle breeze.

Bread! Bread, sweet and sour and heady with yeast, the aroma so strong she could almost taste the crunch of its outer crust, the fluffy warmth of dough inside.

Cahra searched for the source of the irresistible smell, surely the kingdom’s bread or pastry house.

But then a sound snatched her attention away.

A hammer on metal.

She was in Luminaux’s Artisanal Emporium!

All thoughts of food emptied from her head as she bolted for the blacksmith’s, following the telltale clangs.

Cahra rounded a corner and there it was: big and dark and lit by fire, the sun’s rays yet to bless the shop with daylight.

She could see not one but two forges in the back, two anvils in the middle and a counter just like the smithy in Kolyath, only it extended half-way across the shop, the rest an open door.

She gazed at the miraculous find, squinting to see what the city’s master blacksmith was making as pure happiness flooded her chest.

The blacksmith glanced up, seeing Cahra. He looked a hardy man, as most smiths did, younger than Lumsden but older than her. His whiskers were greying, unlike his hair, cut close to the scalp as was typical. One less thing for sparks to set alight.

He dipped his head to her. ‘Morning! You’re up and about early, woken by the smell of Fabiel’s rye, were you?’

Cahra smiled. ‘I like this time of day.’

‘As do I.’ The man smiled back. ‘I am Quillon. What can I do for you this morn?’

‘I’m Cahra,’ she told him, then nodded to the forge. ‘What are you smithing? A blade?’

Quillon laughed, a deep, warm sound. ‘Nothing so grand, just a few nails. But my boy’s fetching water and won’t be back for a half hour.

’ As he leaned heavily on the counter, she noticed his left leg ended in a metal prosthetic.

Smithing was physically demanding work, yet here was another who knew its joy and wouldn’t give it up. She grinned.

‘Nails are a two-person job,’ she said. ‘Want a hand?’ Quillon noted her own build, and her clean shirt and trousers. She looked at herself and laughed, rolling up her sleeves, the shirt tight around her biceps as she told him, ‘Honestly, these could do with a little soot.’

‘Suit yourself,’ he chuckled again, gesturing in welcome as she entered the workshop, the joy hitting her like a hammer as she drank in the sharp, smoky scent of coals burning in the fiery forge-light. She wanted to stand in Luminaux’s smithy and stay like that forever. But there was work to do.

‘Right, the nails,’ Cahra said.

Quillon pulled a rod from the forge’s coals, its tapered tip glowing yellow, and placed it on the anvil. ‘Hold the rod steady,’ he said, then picked up a chisel and struck the metal. Once the nail was quickly cleaved off, Quillon set to work splitting the next.

After they’d worked through a handful of nails, Cahra gathered the courage to ask, ‘Can I try?’

He smiled. ‘Don’t be disheartened if it takes more than one go.’

Cahra sunk onto her thighs, feeling the familiar weight of a hammer in her hand as her palm hooked around the handle, an extension of her arm, the chisel light in her opposite fist. She watched Quillon move the rod closer, and the moment it was motionless on the anvil, Cahra began.

One strike, and the nail was split clean from the rod.

Quillon’s eyebrows flew up, as Cahra said, ‘Quick, the header.’ He scooped the nail and dropped it onto the header tool, hammering the nail’s head flat.

He tipped the finished nail onto the anvil, peering first at it, then at Cahra with respect. ‘So, you’re not only a striker, you’re a trained smith. Where did you learn to do that? How have I not seen you around before?’

‘I’m not from Luminaux,’ she told him.

Quillon scratched his chin thoughtfully. ‘Well, if you decide the Wilds aren’t for you, we could use your skills.’ He offered Cahra a broad smile. ‘Think it over, will you?’

She nodded, the lump in her throat wishing she could, as she wished that him thinking she was a Wildswoman were true.

Quillon’s apprentice returned then, humming and carrying two wooden pails. The boy leaned over the nail to see what all the fuss was about.

‘Seers, that’s a clean break!’ He whistled, looking at Cahra as Quillon frowned at the boy’s cursing. Cahra hid her smile, the scene reminding her of Lumsden. ‘I’m Leon.’ The boy grinned. ‘Who are you?’

Cahra introduced herself, then stayed and chatted with them as they started their morning’s work. They moved around the smithy, and her eyes were drawn to the intricate designs etched onto various pieces of metalwork, including Quillon’s polished foot.

‘You’ve got such a talent for detail,’ she said, her tone appreciative.

Quillon patted the metal of his leg lightly, a proud smile on his face. ‘Designed, forged and engraved. Some of my proudest work.’

‘I’ll say! It’s impressive,’ she told him.

For a brief moment, Cahra found herself transported back to the smithy in Kolyath, seeing Lumsden, his balding head bent over his ledger full of notes.

But the image faded into the memory of a high-born with blue goldstone eyes clearing his throat, opening his mouth and upending her whole world. She exhaled.

Cahra knew, though. Where she was, and where she wasn’t. What had happened after that lord, that Prince, had entered her life. It was time to accept the way things were.

Lumsden was gone. And she could never return to Kolyath.

She was alone, again.

Only here, in this smithy, there was no lord to clear his throat behind her. Cahra opened her eyes, squared her shoulders and turned to the hill that would take her back to Luminaux’s palace, and the next fateful leg of her journey.

And found a young woman with dark, gleaming hair and peridot eyes smiling at her. ‘I thought you might be here,’ Wyldaern said.