Page 41 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame (Fated for Hael #1)

Cahra remembered Hael’s words. It seemed it wasn’t just the tri-kingdoms who were seasoned players.

‘You were no longer safe,’ Thelaema tried to explain.

Cahra laughed even harder, an edge of mania racking her gasps. Her stomach ached as she doubled over the sofa, wheezing. ‘Safe? When have I ever been safe? ’

‘In Kolyath, as an urchin, you were hidden in plain sight. There you would see, learn. Experience Atriposte’s rule and grow to hate it, to defy it.

So that when the time was right…’ Thelaema broke off as Cahra’s laughter turned to salty tears.

‘You would be ready to fight. And so that, one day, you would meet the Oracle. And I would give you this,’ Thelaema said.

She opened a wooden chest on the table and picked up a metal object.

Cahra could barely comprehend anything by now, but she recognised the black swirls and spikes of Haellium, engineered to wind around a central mechanism, an indentation at its elaborate eye. The ornate device was roughly the size of Cahra’s palm.

‘This is the Key,’ Thelaema said quietly as she pushed the dark relic towards Cahra. ‘The Key to Hael’stromia, and all that it entails.’

‘ For when the Seers reappear, when the Key has been bestowed, when the mark walks the path to enter the Nether in life, then shall Hael rise again ,’ Wyldaern murmured.

‘We the Seers, Oracle and apprentice, are here. The kin of the hammer holds the Key. The journey to Hael’stromia is all that remains, where the Reliquus may be freed after 399 years of awaiting the prophecy’s fulfilment.

Only the weapon’s blood master, the Scion, can activate the Key and access the capital.

Your time approaches, Cahraelia of Kolyath. ’

Cahra just stared. At the Key, at Thelaema, and at her supposed friend, Wyldaern.

‘Why.’ Her voice was alien to her own ears. She could feel the old numbness pushing back, like it used to, as a child. In a world she’d cruelly been tossed into.

‘Because it seems, Cahraelia, that you were fated to call upon the Seers to complete our final task. It was your sword, was it not, that signified the first of the omens?’

‘How?’ Cahra mumbled.

Thelaema smiled tightly. ‘You are the last of Kolyath’s bloodline, a sister kingdom of old that Hael’stromia held sovereignty over. Our sigil would have been present at your birth,’ the Oracle said, as if that explained anything at all.

Cahra stared into empty space. ‘I don’t even know how old I am.’

‘You are eighteen years old,’ Thelaema said gently. ‘Your birthday was the day that you gave Prince Thierre the sword. The day that you both fled Kolyath.’

A sob escaped Cahra’s lips, as she whispered, ‘How can you possibly know that?’

Thelaema gazed into Cahra’s eyes then, the woman’s glistening with regret. ‘I saw. Because I am the conduit, the final theomancer.’ She exhaled. ‘And my duty here is done.’

Finally, Cahra looked, truly looked, at the Oracle’s strangely coloured eyes, and saw: Thelaema wasn’t of middle years. She was as ancient as the Oracles of old.

Because she was one , Cahra realised, jaw dropping, and she knew it to be the truth.

Thelaema was the last Oracle to exist, to meet the Scion and bestow the Key, as told by the prophecy she’d helped divine.

Like Hael, she’d survived for longer than anyone deserved.

And that life had required strength and resilience honed from years of seeing, knowing. Waiting. All this time, for Cahra.

Her eyes flashed to Thelaema’s. It was as if the thought had been sown, then grown in her own mind. The Oracle nodded.

Then Thelaema put a hand to her head, Wyldaern immediately at the woman’s side.

‘Are you all right?’ The Seer asked her mentor.

‘Yes, yes,’ Thelaema said, batting her apprentice away. She turned to Cahra. ‘Please, do not blame Wyldaern for the glimpses she saw without knowing your entire story. The All-seeing works in more onerous ways than mysterious ones, I am afraid.’

Cahra glanced at the contraption – the Key – that rested on Thelaema’s low table. She had no idea how to make sense of any of this mess.

Thelaema paused, sensing her agitation. ‘Cahra. There is more to learn.’

‘What more could there be?’ she managed, voice strained.

Wyldaern replied, ‘Why your village was attacked. Why a Steward sits on your throne. What must occur now that you have the Key.’ She glanced to the Oracle.

As if in answer, Thelaema pushed it closer. ‘Take it. It is yours.’

She longed to yell she didn’t want it, to pick it up and hurl it through the room’s glossy windows, shattering the glass.

But she didn’t. She could feel the metal calling to her, urging her to take the Key from the table.

Cahra looked at it uneasily, ready to recoil her fingers that crept towards the occult oddity, yet she didn’t stop them.

Instead, staring intently, she cupped it in her hands, tracing a finger over the dip at the Key’s centre.

Suddenly, the world spun and darkness encroached, dragging Cahra under.