Page 40 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame (Fated for Hael #1)

The woman couldn’t have been much over five feet tall.

Even Cahra rose above her, despite being of average height herself.

The Oracle’s garments, like her mountain dwelling, were humble, homespun and not the faded black of Wyldaern’s robes but something more like what Cahra would have seen walking the Traders’ Quadrant in Kolyath or even Luminaux – modest, functional peasant-wear.

Yet one thing stood out as striking to Cahra, besides the woman’s dark complexion and tight curls.

It was her eyes: a prismatic shade of lavender, like amethyst, that made Cahra blink.

She’d seen that crystalline colour before.

The Oracle’s gaze locked onto Cahra and she somehow wondered if the woman had heard her ‘crone’ thought. Did All-seeing mean mind-reading?

But the Oracle just turned to Wyldaern, a smile breezing across her wizened features. She surveyed their company, holding the front door open. ‘I am Thelaema. Tea?’

It was then Cahra remembered where she’d seen amethyst in someone’s eyes before, and saw it again as Wyldaern passed her, the Seer’s irises edged in the same hue.

Cahra joined Siarl, Piet and Queran in a shared look as they crossed the threshold and trailed Wyldaern into the Oracle’s home, shutting the mottled door behind them.

Scanning left to right in the deceptively spacious cottage, Cahra wandered into a curious pocket of the house.

Instead of walls, this room was made almost entirely of windows, the curved glass panes doming high overhead, like she was standing in a giant bubble.

It had a generous view of the scenic gardens and could have been a sitting room, except for the peculiar items Thelaema had left on display: an obsidian mirror; an etched bowl of brass, filled with water; and an immense crystal ball.

Cahra bent over, peering suspiciously as though she might glimpse a miniature of herself inside it.

Piet motioned to Siarl and Queran, already inspecting the house for access points other than the one they’d entered through.

‘So many windows,’ Queran murmured.

‘Do you not find my home sufficiently secure, Queran Head-splitter?’ Thelaema spoke without looking at him, arranging six bone-white teacups around a large teapot on an occasion table between two large sofas.

Queran’s eyebrows were a fox-red line. ‘ Arrowhead -splitter,’ he corrected, adding, ‘Madam Oracle.’

‘Ah, but arrowheads were not your first victims, were they, son of war?’

Piet turned at the remark, Wyldaern placing a hand between the blond warrior and Thelaema.

‘Be still, Piet, kin of Klaas, Luminaux’s Gavel of Justice.

I could level such truths at any, nay, all of your Prince’s merry band.

Or any of the tri-kingdom armies.’ The Oracle’s gaze was fierce despite its pastel tint.

‘Besides, you are not why we are gathered.’ She looked at Cahra.

‘But you are safe. A perk, if you will, from the days and ways of old.’

Piet stationed himself outside the room with the curved windows, Siarl peeling off to patrol the house. Queran trailed after her, frowning, an arrow slack in his hand.

‘The ways of old?’ Cahra repeated. Thelaema gingerly lowered herself into her seat, a rickety chair at the head of the walnut table, and nodded.

Cahra sat on the sofa by the door, Wyldaern opposite, pouring them cups of herbal tea. It made her think of Queen Avenais in Luminaux.

‘I don’t understand,’ Cahra told the Oracle. ‘Luminaux welcomed Wyldaern and nature magick, and herbs aren’t forbidden like in Kolyath. Why are you living all the way out here?’ She glanced between the Seers.

Thelaema pinned her with a look. ‘As I believe that you know, once trust is broken, it is toilsome to repair in full. Seers may have lost the kingdoms’ trust, but so did they ours.

And so we have remained, as recluses in our Wilds.

However,’ the Oracle said, ‘that is not your true question.’ Thelaema leaned into a sun-bleached cushion and sighed, a grateful smile forming on her lips.

She opened her eyes, peering at Cahra, seeking something.

‘And you are Cahra. You took great pains to come here, and I am thankful. For while I am fond of visits from my favoured pupil,’ she said, patting Wyldaern’s hand, the Seer handing the woman a teacup, ‘it is you and I that were to meet.’ Thelaema straightened, as if anticipating Cahra’s question.

‘I am High Oraculine Thelaema, last of the Order of Descry, the Seers of Hael’stromia and Keepers of the Reliquus. ’

Cahra latched onto what she knew. ‘The Reliquus. You mean Hael?’

Thelaema smiled. ‘As Keepers of the Reliquus, we three Oracles were charged with being responsible for Hael’stromia’s, indeed the realm’s, most valued gift. We were wardens of the Netherworld’s supreme achievement. The power of creation and destruction. The—’

‘The weapon,’ Cahra breathed.

Thelaema’s pale eyes flashed. ‘Yes.’ She paused.

‘Your questions are many, as they should be,’ the Oracle said, reaching out to Cahra, who jumped at the unexpected contact.

‘However, the answers…’ Thelaema and Wyldaern exchanged a look, as if speaking silently.

‘The information will be new to you, what it means. I know that there will be consequences. What I can tell you is that we are here. The Descry, as ever, serve Hael’stromia. ’

Cahra’s brow creased. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Cahra.’ Thelaema commanded her attention kindly. ‘You were orphaned as an infant. How do you know your name?’

‘I don’t know.’ Her earliest memories were of living as a beggar on the streets. ‘Maybe I named myself.’ She shrugged, leaning back.

Thelaema studied her. ‘And you can recall no earlier?’

She lowered her head, hair falling in a shroud around her. What was there to recall? She’d been a child of death and destitution. ‘No.’

Thelaema nodded. ‘So, you do not remember your life in the Wilds?’

Cahra looked up. She wasn’t of Kolyath?

‘Your birthplace,’ Thelaema began, ‘was a village between Kolyath and Luminaux. Closer to Luminaux, as they were more tolerant, of the special, the magickally minded.’

‘Wait.’ Cahra shook her head, trying to get her bearings. ‘Are you saying I’m some kind of Seer from Luminaux?’

‘No, child,’ Thelaema chortled, then grew serious. ‘However, the reason that your family was in hiding in the Wilds—’

Her family?

‘—is that your kin necessitated concealment. For centuries, your family lived peacefully, without incident, outside Kolyath.’ Thelaema stilled, the air pressing upon Cahra.

‘Once your parents, friends and village were destroyed, the decision was made: to secrete you within your ancestral lands. So, you were placed in Kolyath, close to Seer sympathisers, to monitor you and ensure that you did not fall into the wrong hands.’

Somewhere around the mention of her family, her parents, she shut her eyes. With everything that followed, she didn’t dare open them again. But at ‘the wrong hands’…

Her palms were clammy, shaking on her leather knee guards.

‘But I did fall into the wrong hands,’ Cahra said, fighting to keep her voice steady as the hurt, the anger, flooded her body.

She stood, even as her legs threatened to give way, taking a step backwards, then another, retreating from Thelaema’s ridiculous words, until she was bracing herself against the Oracle’s shelf of curiosities.

Wyldaern stood, but Thelaema raised a hand as Cahra went on.

‘I was a child, living in the wreckage of a tyrant’s reign,’ she said, her voice strangled, heart hammering.

Cahra could feel the pins, the needles in her arms and chest. Stabbing her.

‘Some weeks, I didn’t eat, drink, for days on end – none of us did, the homeless kids.

And when I did manage to scavenge any food, it was rotting on the streets.

I was sentenced to years in the Steward’s dungeons, all from stealing to survive, and it was only because of Lumsden that I didn’t—’ The thought of the old man was too much.

Cahra inhaled, snarling. ‘Before Lumsden saved me from it all. And you’re telling me this was someone’s decision?

On purpose? To sentence a kid to such cruelty, even after the death of my parents and village, my greatest sin being I was too young to remember it?

What kind of person would do that?’ The hilt of an athame was in her hand now; she must have picked it from the Oracle’s shelf.

‘Tell me who gave the word, and I WILL kill them!’

Silence. There was fear in Wyldaern’s eyes.

Thelaema raised her amethyst orbs to Cahra. ‘It was I.’

Cahra stumbled, nearly falling – then whirled on Wyldaern, the dagger still in hand. ‘I trusted you! Why did you bring me here?’

Wyldaern raised her palms in a stricken plea. ‘Cahra—’

‘And you,’ Cahra choked out, fury blazing in her eyes as she held Thelaema’s gaze.

‘You cast me into this nightmare without a second thought. To live in poverty, and for what? You don’t even know me!

WHY?! ’ She screamed the word, Siarl, Piet and Queran charging from all corners of the house.

Thierre’s guards stood, bewildered, weapons drawn as they searched for the source of Cahra’s turmoil.

Then Thelaema stood and tranquillity swept the room, the tension that had been there, electrifyingly hot, seeming to suffocate and die. Cahra panted in the sudden hush of stillness.

‘Kolyath is the reason,’ the Oracle proclaimed. ‘Your destiny was written in Hael’stromia. Cahra, you are more than you know. You are the rightful heir to the sister kingdom of Kolyath. And your true name is Princess Cahraelia.’

Cahra blinked, dumbfounded. Then, as Thelaema’s words sank in, it was like someone flipped a switch and her shock gave way to a tidal swell of laughter. She doubled over, howls escaping her in uncontrollable waves.

Princess! It was completely, utterly ludicrous.

Wyldaern’s eyes pleaded with Thelaema. The Oracle’s face was an impasse. A mask.