Page 60 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame (Fated for Hael #1)

Descending through the pyramid, down ramp upon ramp, they finally neared the conclusion of a twisting passage. And at its end…

Twin hulking doors, forged from the same eerie metal of the gates, towered before her, vanishing into the blackness above. Cahra raised her head, sweat beading along her hairline after the gruelling trek, her face and leathers streaked with the dust of centuries past.

She touched one of the door’s handles, the coiled ring icy against her skin, and stilled. Slowly, Cahra brought an ear, then an eye, to where the doors met, not knowing what she’d find but feebly hoping all the same. She listened. Waited. And felt – a breeze.

There’s a crack between the doors, like in my visions of Hael’s tomb .

Stomach leaping to her chest, she hurriedly pulled back, an eye on that slender crack. A sliver of red flickered in the minuscule gap.

Cahra cried out, throwing both hands against the enormous doors, the flush of relief overwhelming her, as she realised finally – finally – she had made it. She was here, this was Hael’s tomb. And she was moments away from freeing him. Her plan had worked!

Joy swelled inside her and she turned, unable to hide the elation on her face.

A sudden sharpness stole Cahra’s breath, a blade piercing her flesh without warning.

She blinked and staggered back in surprise, a searing-hot blaze of pain contorting her face as Atriposte pulled his rapier free.

The world tilted on its axis, her vision blurring as her wound threatened to topple her.

‘You idiot.’ Cahra panted, gripping her abdomen with both hands, as if that would stymie the blood pouring from her stomach; the Steward had managed to stab her below the mail of her plate vest. ‘I must walk the path to enter the Nether alive .’ She croaked the words through gritted teeth and stumbled back against the doors to Hael’s tomb.

The Steward pressed the Key into her bloody hand and rammed it into the lock-like seal nestled in the metalwork of the doors. The mechanics of gears began whirring.

‘Oh, I am keenly aware,’ Atriposte replied. ‘Carry on, then. I shall wait right here.’ He glanced at his pocket watch. ‘You may wish to hurry along, though. With that injury – well, you shall not have very long.’ The Steward squared his shoulders, patiently waiting to claim the weapon himself.

Could it happen? If Cahra died, could another ruler control Hael?

Groaning, she sunk to the tiles, straining to unbuckle her belt so she could strap it around her mid-section. The doors were unsealing slowly, too slowly, and she didn’t know if Hael could do anything for her now, but at least he would finally be free.

There was only one thing left to do.

Cahra bent awkwardly where she was bleeding to prise off her boots and socks, fumbling as the puddle of blood grew beneath her. Raising her head, she looked at Atriposte.

The Steward, the ruler of Kolyath.

Last time, she’d had a shiv in her hand, and she’d failed. Cahra wouldn’t fail again. ‘You don’t recognise me, do you?’

The Steward’s amber eyes regarded her with amusement. ‘That I do, girl blacksmith.’ He looked her up and down with disdain. ‘Jarett always said you were a bitter thorn.’

Shockingly, the man’s words didn’t touch her.

‘No, you really don’t,’ she murmured. ‘I always wondered how, why. The hair, the dirt, maybe? I guess it doesn’t matter any more.

We’re here now.’ Cahra writhed, grimacing.

It wasn’t hard to use the pain of her wound to colour her features, her movements.

She shifted the placement of her hands, as though she sought better pressure.

‘And I will remind you of exactly who I am.’

She coughed, shivering. The man was right. She didn’t have long at all.

Cahra let one hand tumble limply beside her, on the opposite side of her breastplate, where Thierre’s people had reinforced her old smithing vest and added stitching for pockets. Or rather, for concealed weapons. She would miss Thierre, his people of Luminaux.

But she wouldn’t miss the Steward. Not this time.

Cahra thumbed Lumsden’s gold dagger from its sheath, the handle’s metalwork and raised details pressed against her clammy skin. She prayed that the old man had found peace.

That she might find it too.

Guide me, Hael…

Cahra exhaled and, in one fluid movement, raised her hand and threw, the dagger slicing through the air, a streak of gold in the dark.

Time seemed to slow as the blade spun, and she watched it, her heart gradually flagging as the blade plunged into Atriposte’s throat with a sickening thud, the shock clear in his wide, disbelieving eyes.

‘My name is Cahra. I am the girl who tried to kill you in the dungeons ten years ago for being the monster you are. For sending children to war. For low-borns dying on your streets while your court laughed, drinking wine and eating cakes. For torturing and killing your own, in public, all for fun.’ She sighed, the air in her lungs feeling thinner, emptier, and watched Atriposte’s blood flee him in a scarlet torrent, his Kingdom Guards rooted to the ground as they stood uncertain, weapons half-raised. Should they fight or flee?

Their indecision spurred her on. ‘I never died. But I’ve watched plenty of others die. Because of you .’ She clambered to sit up, her agony and exhaustion fighting for dominance. Her vision was getting hazier and, in the quiet, she heard footsteps in the distance.

King Decimus was coming, his Royal Guards with him.

It had to be now. Now! A voice, Cahra’s own voice inside her, cried.

With her last ounce of Hael’s powers, she pushed , rushing Atriposte to grab the handle of Lumsden’s dagger, feeling a jolt of savage satisfaction as she plunged the knife in to the hilt.

Recalling Atriposte’s words to her child self.

‘ The penalty is death ,’ Cahra echoed back to him, her last dregs of energy spent, her eyes burning. Not with Hael’s Nether-magicks, but from a decade of uncried tears.

Then she wheezed, locking eyes with Jarett, the whites of his own bulging with fear.

‘You’re next,’ she whispered to him. For Lumsden.

The words had barely left her lips when a wave of dizziness struck so hard it sent her sprawling sideways to the unforgiving ground.

The footsteps had arrived.

‘What trickery is this?’ King Decimus said, glaring between her and Atriposte’s body. Grauwynn followed, something silver flashing in his hand before vanishing, like the smirk on the High Oracle’s wrinkled face. Precious moments passed.

Had Grauwynn seen where to arrive, after the Steward had been slain?

Decimus sighed. ‘Well, since the killing has begun.’ He unsheathed his sword, advancing on Kolyath’s Commander.

‘Sister kingdom sire…’ Jarett backed a step, eyes whipping to the Steward’s guards. ‘What are you doing? Seize him!’

‘Alliances run counter to my disposition,’ Decimus said, swinging his bastard sword. ‘Blood oaths, however…’ The Ozumbre King smiled, then signalled to his own men.

Kolyath and Ozumbre’s guards brandished their weapons at each other.

Cahra tried and failed to lift her head from the floor. She felt so cold—

How long would it take Hael to get free? Could he even break free if she had no physical hope of walking the path that would allow her to somehow enter his shrine alive?

‘We had an agreement!’ Jarett cried, sword clattering as he blocked Decimus’ cut.

The King’s grin was sharp as an assassin’s blade as he looked at the Steward’s corpse. ‘It has since expired.’ Then, in a graceful arc, he slashed Jarett’s throat.

The Commander fell.

Cahra glanced around, her vision clouding, narrowing, her desperation growing, when she noticed her puddle of blood, a well of it running beneath the double doors to Hael’s tomb. She squinted as that pool slowly began to drain.

As the final turn of cogs on gears sounded and the great doors of the weapon’s shrine slowly cracked to yawn apart.

As the seething silence was broken by a cavernous growl from the depths of the room Cahra had unlocked.

‘What is that?’ Decimus snapped, whirling on Grauwynn.

‘Didn’t tell?’ Cahra tried to laugh. Blood spattered onto her leathers. ‘Bad Oracle.’ Her eyes rolled to the King of Ozumbre. ‘Meet… the weapon…’

Only then did she see Grauwynn’s face, the High Oracle looking upon her with a cold disdain that jarred so much against Thelaema’s warmth.

You will die, and Hael will return to me, Grauwynn’s voice boomed into her mind.

Then the Oracularus vanished – one second there, the next, gone as if he never had been, the only evidence a blinding, fading light.

A tempest of ash and smoke burst from between Hael’s shrine doors, lashing through the gap in a black tornado of cosmic particles before materialising at Cahra’s feet to absorb the ghastly sight of her dying body on the floor.

The Reliquus rose to face King Decimus and his speechless assembly of enemy guards.

Then he roared , the passage quaking with the wrath of a vengeful god.

Hael gathered Cahra into his arms and stood her on two feet at his room’s entrance, before retreating with her into the darkness.

Hael. The thought burbled up from somewhere, hopeful, grateful. But she couldn’t feel his arms around her any more, she realised.

And she wasn’t in Hael’s shrine.

She could see Lumsden’s smiling face, lined with years of untold stories, before her.

Lumsden, the old man who’d taken her in and saved her from a short life and a quick death at the hands of the Steward and his dungeons.

Lumsden, who’d taught her how to craft a sword, then any other weapon, giving her the freedom to explore her gifts.

Lumsden, who’d tried to teach her to control her emotions, so she’d be equipped to live in Kolyath’s unjust kingdom.

Lumsden, who fed the Quadrant’s strays. Lumsden, who forged belt buckles, sewing needles, kitchen knives, for people who had nothing, and never asked for more.

Lumsden, Kolyath’s master blacksmith. A good, kind man. A father figure to her.

He was dead. Gone. It should have undone her.

And yet.

All her life, Cahra had feared the dark, because it had been her cell. But as she floated, after all her time with Hael in the darkness of his shrine, Cahra understood.

She could let it go, if she wanted. And she did want to, to surrender and pass beyond the veil and into death’s void, as Lumsden had.

Except…

She knew that voice. That sweet, unearthly voice, rising with unfettered panic.

‘ Cahra! ’

She wasn’t ready to let go of him, that voice that kept her tethered. She’d never be ready to say goodbye.

So Cahra held on, clinging to Hael. His darkness would bring her home.