Page 39 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame (Fated for Hael #1)

The lush, towering trees of the evergreen Wilds were silent, like Cahra, as Wyldaern led the way to the Oracle.

In the time of old Hael’stromia, three roads forked from Luminaux: to the west, the road that retraced their steps to Kolyath; to the south-west, the road to the capital; and to the south, a third route that once led to Ozumbre.

That road was destroyed centuries ago, Piet had said, as Cahra eyed it from outside Luminaux’s black gate, the cobbles ripped up and hurled to the wind, the ancient path overgrown.

Like so many people in their realm, the road had retreated into the anonymity of the Wilds.

Safety and security in hiding. Cahra understood all too well, yearning for both as her uneasy legs carried her into the unknown.

Piet had asked if she or Wyldaern wanted to ride the palomino mare saddled with everyone’s bags, but both preferred to walk; the Seer, because she was used to it, and Cahra because, without the distraction of forcing one boot in front of the other, she feared she might do something stupid. Like go running back to Luminaux.

What is Thierre doing right now?

She tried to leave the thought behind her.

Instead, she gently patted the tan mare’s powder-white mane.

Cahra had a feeling the horse was more than just a pack-mule for the journey; should they be attacked, the palomino would be the fastest way for them to flee.

Ahead, she watched Wyldaern and Piet chat quietly, Queran roaming somewhere at the rear of their party.

Siarl had slipped into the underbrush shortly after they’d set out, her impressive silver daggers unsheathed, her long braids swept into a high knot atop her head.

Cahra wondered why Queran hadn’t left and taken to the trees, as he so often did to leverage his marksmanship.

Unless it was on purpose, she considered – to lull any who might ambush them into thinking she and Wyldaern’s guards were as they seemed, no one lurking as a countermeasure beyond the pastel blooms speckling the forest floor.

No wonder Thierre thought so highly of his Royal Guards.

Yet the idea of more trouble… Wyldaern turned to laugh at something Piet had said, the Seer seemingly unfazed, and Cahra envied the way the woman had about her, that ever-present calm. No matter what was going on around her, Wyldaern always appeared unperturbed.

Cahra, however, was only growing more anxious as the hours passed. Their path was getting dimmer the deeper they waded into the Wilds. Colder, too, and she shivered, buttoning her new coat, the chill in the air unnervingly like Kolyath’s.

Was it just the cold that had her shaking?

The Seer must have noticed the apprehension on her face, Wyldaern explaining to her, ‘The cave systems we are nearing are beneath mountains, hence the cooler turn of weather.’ She nodded to Cahra’s outfit. ‘The fur lining of your coat is fortuitous.’

The clothing Thierre had gifted Cahra was fortuitous indeed.

It was so comfortable, from the premium-grain leather of her skin-hugging vest and trousers, to her coat and boots.

She just hoped she wouldn’t regret wearing in new shoes for the first time on a day-long hike.

Maybe she should have taken Piet up on riding the horse.

It didn’t matter, because soon Wyldaern was pointing a slender arm towards the rocky tor that dipped and then ascended into staggering peaks, their icy ridges dark and dizzying.

Staring intently at the precipitous terrain, there was a lightness, a peacefulness to the Seer’s face that Cahra had only caught in glimpses before.

Piet left the horse grazing in a small clearing a short distance away, stripping it of its saddle to disguise it as a wild mountain mare, as Siarl emerged from the wilderness to join Queran.

‘We have reached the caves,’ Wyldaern told them.

She pushed through tangled thickets and layer upon layer of viny overhang to reveal a portal into blackness that, in spite of her eye for detail, Cahra somehow hadn’t noticed.

Placing the saddle inside the cave, Piet then Wyldaern ventured into the dark.

Cahra rolled her shoulders, willing herself to tap into that old state of resting alertness she’d once worn like a second skin.

She wasn’t surprised to see Siarl and Queran armed and battle-ready, Siarl swapping one of her long blades for the shorter, throwing kind, her bowman companion aiming an arrow back at the cave’s entrance.

Ahead of the group, Piet lit a fiery torch.

‘It’s cold as Kolyath in here,’ Cahra muttered as she walked. She could feel her nerves morphing from mild tension in her neck and shoulders into something else as the cave path began to climb, the dark all-encompassing.

‘You seem to carry little affection for the kingdom.’ Wyldaern’s voice drifted to her.

Cahra snorted loudly. ‘There’s not much joy to be found in that Hael-forsaken place. There’s a reason I left, you know.’

‘The kingdom was not always like that,’ Wyldaern said softly.

‘That’s not been my experience.’ She folded her arms, continuing on.

‘Cahra,’ Wyldaern said, slowing to fall into step beside her in the narrow tunnel. ‘Consider why you call the man the “Steward”. Atriposte is not Kolyath’s rightful monarch. He simply minds a place, the kingdom’s keeper in the absence of its ruler,’ the Seer said.

‘I suppose,’ Cahra admitted. Only Atriposte wasn’t some figurehead. He’d been in power her whole life. Stories of blue-blooded high-borns didn’t matter in places like Kolyath. Not when power could be stolen and used to suppress an entire people. ‘Why is that?’

Wyldaern stared straight ahead. ‘The royal family was assassinated, centuries ago. Atriposte’s forebears seized their chance then.’

Cahra watched as Piet’s torch cast fingers of spindly flame into the darkness, feeling something like trepidation materialise with them. She swallowed, trying to find a way to abate the growing disquiet inside her. She opted for distraction.

‘I can’t believe it takes you so long to get to the Oracle,’ Cahra said.

‘It is a journey,’ she confessed. ‘A pilgrimage that I endeavour to make once a month, if I can. The rest of the time, I wander, practicing what She has taught me and calling on the Wildspeople and any villages that I find, should they require aid.’

The Seer’s answer reminded Cahra of Thierre. She swallowed the lump in her throat and asked, ‘What kind of aid?’

Wyldaern’s gaze grew thoughtful in the flickering torchlight. ‘Whatever people need. Helping their healers with herbs and elixirs, scrying for guidance on sowing and harvesting. Sometimes, tending the fields is help enough,’ she said warmly, her voice light and lyrical.

‘But not the weather?’ Cahra joked, fighting to steady her nerves.

‘Alas, no,’ she said with a hint of amusement. ‘That, I cannot control.’

‘Shame,’ Cahra said glibly with a shrug. She would’ve liked more than a torch in this freezing cave. Rubbing her arms, she asked, ‘And you’ve been coming here for how long?’

The Seer tilted her head, thinking. ‘Almost a decade now, I suppose.’

She squinted at Wyldaern in the dark. When they’d met, the Seer hadn’t seemed that much older than Cahra. Maybe she’d been wrong.

Or maybe, the Oracle had helped Wyldaern when the woman was younger, just like Lumsden had helped her, she thought.

Spying a pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel, it should have filled her with relief. But all Cahra suddenly felt was a nameless dread.

‘What is the Oracle like?’

‘She is the last of the three Oracles in existence,’ Wyldaern explained. ‘The lessons She has taught, the knowledge She has shared… I would never have known such otherwise. She will enlighten you, too.’ Wyldaern smiled. ‘Would you like to meet Her?’

Slowly, Cahra nodded, and strode on until the dot of light became a gateway into a new world.

The cave tunnel opened into a long meadow, walled on all sides by sawtooth cliffs.

Turning in a slow circle, she had the crazed notion they were nestled in a lopped peak of one of the ice-capped mountains she’d seen outside the caves.

At the end of a pebbled walkway through wild dandelions, creeping juniper and the fierce magenta blooms of fireweed, Cahra could just make out a high-roofed cottage, wooden panels basking in the late afternoon light.

One moment, she’d been inside the cave’s winding maze. The next, she found herself in a rustic garden in full bloom. It should have taken them hours to walk to such a place.

‘It is a veiling,’ Wyldaern explained to her. ‘The ancient Oracles did not just “see” things.’

Cahra frowned, wondering what other magicks awaited them. Thierre’s people stopped, cautiously raising their weapons.

‘Please, there is no need,’ Wyldaern said, beckoning Cahra toward the winding path.

Exhaling uneasily, Cahra and the others followed.

They passed through a central ring-shaped garden brimming with verdant ferns, then crossed a bridge, the sound of running water echoing against the grounds’ rock-faced walls.

The Oracle’s dwelling grew as the group neared, a small cabin with a thatched roof, lived in yet sturdy, soft pillows of smoke puffing from the chimney to the cyan sky.

And then they were standing at the Oracle’s front door. The last of her conduit kind, the banished, the ‘heretics’. Hael’stromia’s ancient Seers. Cahra’s body went rigid.

Wyldaern didn’t knock. She stood, Cahra beside her, at the lacewood door and waited.

Thierre’s people exchanged glances, Siarl looking uncomfortable as she shifted, hands itching for the comfort of her blades.

Not a minute later, the door opened. A middle-aged woman appeared before the group, peering out at them.

Cahra clamped her mouth shut. She hadn’t known what to expect, but she definitely hadn’t expected the Oracle to not be a crone.