Page 47 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame (Fated for Hael #1)

This time, striding into the caves, Cahra went first. Piet, Siarl and Queran tried not to gawk as the amber glow of Cahra’s eyes faded to the dimness of a faraway star.

‘What happened to you?’ The question popped from Queran’s mouth, seemingly before the archer could stop it.

Cahra tossed over her shoulder, ‘Depends, how much do you know?’ She could feel Piet eyeballing the hammer Thelaema had gifted her.

‘You’re Kolyath’s heir,’ Piet murmured. ‘Kin of the hammer.’

Siarl admitted, ‘And, well, the rest.’ She bowed, adding, ‘Empress.’

Cahra nodded, unsure if they could see the gesture in the dark. She cleared her throat.

‘A few things have changed,’ she said, Queran chuckling behind her. She supposed her eyes were glowing. Luminaux’s fighters followed as Cahra set a brisk pace.

Queran asked, ‘So, you’re our torch now?’

Cahra almost laughed herself. ‘Apparently,’ she said, as they stole furtively through the extensive tunnels. ‘And our guide. It turns out I can see in the dark.’

One of the unexpected perks of being bound to Hael’stromia’s weapon.

She could see every nook and chink in the striated walls of the cave system, the limestone of its floor smooth as marble, barring the occasional chunks of rock.

But she couldn’t think about what gems she might find in these ancient caves. Her focus was finding Raiden and his guards. Alive, she prayed.

They’d been plunging through the darkness for what felt like over an hour when Cahra’s ears twigged to something up ahead.

‘We’re close,’ she whispered.

Queran raised his bow, arrow nocked. ‘You can hear them?’

Cahra nodded, guessing he couldn’t. ‘It’s muffled. Wait, that was metal. Weapons. They’re fighting.’ She exhaled. ‘That’s a good sign, right? Fighting, not silence?’

Piet’s voice intoned from behind, ‘Let us hope so.’ Dual flashes of silver told Cahra that Siarl and her daggers were ready.

They charged.

Within a minute, Cahra, Piet, Siarl and Queran were upon the scene of the battle.

Before the second omen’s rite, it would have been impossible for Cahra to make out much. Hastily tossed torches cast flickers across the grappling soldiers, the glints and clangs of swords disorienting in the dark, echoing caves. But now with Hael’s enhanced senses…

Cahra watched as Piet struck first, swinging his hammer into a Kolyath soldier’s ribs with a devastating crack, the enemy flying sideways into the wall.

Siarl hurled one of her throwing daggers past Piet and into the eye of a soldier ahead, swooping to thrust then yank the bloody knife from the man’s skull before springing into action, every inch the warrior silently doling out death.

Between them, Piet and Siarl cleared a path forward as Queran’s arrowheads sailed to impale his targets one by one, Kolyath and Ozumbre’s forces falling to the Prince of Luminaux’s elite Royal Guards.

Cahra spotted Raiden at the same time as Piet, who started battling his way towards his Captain, the sound of metal meeting metal everywhere around them as weapons clashed.

Eyes darting between the fighting men, Cahra turned the great-hammer in her hands, until her gaze chanced upon a uniform she didn’t recognise.

But she knew that pin.

Ozumbre .

Something snapped inside her at the thought, into place or out of it, she couldn’t tell. The forces of Ozumbre, standing right before her…

She’d fantasised about destroying Atriposte’s stranglehold over Kolyath for years. But Ozumbre was the kingdom that had caused it all.

They murdered my parents. My village. THEY’RE the ones who did this.

Everything she’d suffered – not just this night, but every miserable day of her life – every wrong, every hurt she’d limped through. It was Ozumbre’s fault. Now, here they were. Cahra glanced down to see the great-hammer glinting in her hands.

Justice was finally within her grasp.

She didn’t have time to dwell on the emotions that drowned her in that moment: pain, the blistering rage that overrode her fear. She raised her hammer, eyes narrowed, snarling as she remembered Thelaema’s words.

That she’d been raised to be strong. And that she had Hael’s powers.

Put them to good use.

‘Enough,’ Cahra uttered in a voice so harsh, so unfamiliar, that she didn’t recognise it.

It should have scared her. But tearing forward, she grabbed the plate shoulder of an Ozumbre soldier and yanked him back so hard he crashed into one of his comrades.

Before he could right himself, her hammer found its mark, colliding with the soldier’s breastplate to buckle the armour completely.

The man’s comrade bellowed and, seized by a giddy surge of raw, wild power, Cahra didn’t hesitate as she blocked the man’s sword with her hammer’s head before heaving the blade back at him to gore his own neck.

Arcing her weapon in an overhead strike, she sealed the soldier’s fate, dust shuddering from the cave ceiling on impact.

A single word rose like a bubble from her darkest depths.

Destroy .

Cahra didn’t stop.

There was no time to wipe the carnage from her weapon as someone else attacked.

Even in the din and dark, she could sense the enemies at her back and she dived then rolled as the cut of a blade missed her by a thread.

Laughing, Cahra spun, swinging her hammer to hook the swordsman’s ankle and send him sprawling to his back.

She vaulted atop the soldier, and seeing he was from Ozumbre, dropped her hammer and began pummelling the man into the ground with her blacksmith’s fists, bearing down again and again, the sickening crunch of his nose just one of countless blows to succumb to her unforgiving pain and rage.

Destroy!

Her body thrummed with exhilaration, the Nether-magicks writhing.

Cahra didn’t stop.

For the first time in her life, she felt powerful , darkness shooting to spiderweb across her body, through her veins, electrifying her being.

Like Thelaema’s cabin, her vision was a haze of red and she was vaguely aware of her eyes glowing, her fists still smashing into the soldier’s skull with a primal energy.

By the time the crack of bones had turned to squelches, dust kicking up at the brute impact, Cahra was a breathless mess.

As was the blood-soaked body pinned beneath her.

‘Cahra!’ Wyldaern shouted.

With effort, Cahra glanced up at the Seer’s voice, and it was then that she realised the fighting had died around her.

Their support had turned the battle. She stared back down at the Ozumbre soldier, slack and unrecognisable; a black, barbarous fire burning somewhere deep beneath her surface, a place she hadn’t even known existed. Until now.

‘Please,’ Wyldaern begged her, nearing step by cautious step. ‘This is not you, Cahra. It is the Reliquus’ powers. They are consuming you.’ The Seer attempted to reason with her, but there was a waver in Wyldaern’s gentle voice.

How would you know? After all that I have endured, everything that I have learned? How would you know anything about me, anything at all?!

Throwing her hands over her ears, Cahra recoiled at the voice screeching in her head.

But it was right, she thought, shaking. Wyldaern didn’t truly know what she was capable of, that she had come so close to killing Atriposte that night, in the dungeons all those years ago. And that she’d only been a child.

A child acting out of self-defence , she argued numbly.

The voice roared, This time, you have a choice. Take your vengeance!

Eyes shut, she furiously shook her head. Vengeance IS a choice! This was all a choice!

‘No, no, no!’ she cried out, voice louder every time, ricocheting roughly through the caves. All she’d needed was to knock the soldier out. Instead, she’d beaten the man to a bloody pulp, with such deadly, terrifying ease. Was he even breathing? The blood on her hands…

By the Seers. Nausea roiled from Cahra’s stomach to crest in the back of her throat and she dry-retched as her thoughts spiralled, off their axis and into the noxious realisation that Hael’s magicks had caused this violence. Her violence.

‘Cahra?’ Wyldaern called softly, faltering as her name hung in the air.

She hurled herself backwards, scrambling off the Ozumbre soldier, breaths ragged, as she thought frantically: What is happening to me?!

It all took place in an instant.

Locking eyes with Wyldaern, pleading for help, Cahra was panic-stricken as the soldier at her feet wrenched a dagger from his belt to stab her.

Yet she could feel it happening, even though she was staring at Wyldaern; could sense it as if watching the two events unfold in concert.

Cahra saw Wyldaern’s lips tear open as the Seer made to scream her name.

But before she could make a sound, Cahra had hefted one foot, booted the knife from the soldier, then lifted her other boot – leaping into a kick—

‘ Cahra, NO! ’ Thelaema’s voice thundered, the caves trembling.

And though Cahra shouldn’t have been able to, her instincts were responsive enough that she halted in mid-air, landing effortlessly, two boots in perfect silence.

The silence of death.

Because Thelaema had sent the soldier flying with a look .

And the result was as though Cahra had kicked the man after all – kicked him with the full force of her strength and Hael’s unholy powers.

Thelaema’s magick had obliterated the man’s chest. And blown a gaping hole in the dripstone wall of the caves.

Cahra may have nearly killed the man, but she’d been possessed by Hael’s magicks – the Nether’s bloodlust. But the Oracle…

Cahra swallowed.

Thelaema cut that man down like it was nothing.

Her eyes floated to Wyldaern’s as the weight of Thelaema’s actions struck them both. The young women stared at one another, dust flaking from the ceiling like fresh snow.

Paralysed by her horror, sinking further into herself with each breath, Cahra stood – until finally Raiden rushed to her, glanced past, looking for someone, then went rigid.

‘Cahra,’ Raiden managed to choke out, shaking her. ‘ Where is Thierre? ’