Page 68 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame (Fated for Hael #1)

Cahra and Wyldaern raced back through Hael’stromia’s raised gate and onto the battlefield.

Its sands were cracked, the crevices filled with rapidly cooling molten rock and the smell of liquid ore and charred meat saturated the air.

The bodies of Kolyath and Ozumbre soldiers were broken, flung and laid to waste – hundreds dead – the splintered plain eerily silent, except for the sound of someone weeping.

Cahra kept running, past Kolyath’s army and to—

A devastating sight met her eyes. Thierre was kneeling on the ground, with his father, King Royce of Luminaux, dead in his arms.

And standing before them was Hael, one arm raised as his Nether-magicks suspended Commander Diabolus of Ozumbre high in mid-air.

The Reliquus extended his other arm and wind lashed at the battleground, the clouds darkening, the heavens looking ready to rip open.

A monstrous pack of skeletal dog-like creatures, positioned defensively around Hael, howled.

‘No soul will harm a sister kingdom’s ruler and live to tell of the deed,’ he boomed, his eyes walls of jet flame. ‘Not while I defend the capital.’

The tri-kingdom armies stared, frozen in awe and horror, as Hael flicked his wrist and unleashed a fireball, striking Diabolus true, the Commander’s body bursting into flames.

The inferno writhed, a swirling firestorm climbing to the sky with a deafening roar that sent a sweltering shockwave across the land, the force knocking Cahra and Wyldaern from their feet.

Around them, the ground trembled, as though the very realm was quaking with sheer terror.

Then as quickly as it had come, the storm ceased, the sky clearing as clouds scattered to the corners of the realm. Only singed ashes drifted to the sands.

Ozumbre’s army Commander was no more.

Wyldaern’s eyes widened as she stilled to witness Hael’s merciless precision. ‘The Reliquus. He really is…’ Her voice was a whisper.

…the ultimate weapon. Cahra swallowed.

How had she ever thought she could control Hael’s magicks?

Death inhabited his every step as Hael prowled away. But then his gaze found Cahra and Hael’s fires sparked back to life, his features softening. He pointed.

Cahra followed his line of sight until she settled on the subject of his attention, Kolyath’s army Commander Sullian, kneeling, blood-spattered, on the ground.

She spun to Hael. He simply raised his face to the morning sun, basking in its glow.

He’d left Kolyath’s Commander alive, for her.

Cahra stalked to Sullian and stood, scrutinising the Steward’s military Commander, apprehended and glowering at her.

She’d been so afraid of Kolyath’s soldiers catching her and her friends as they journeyed through the Wilds.

Looking at the leader of Kolyath’s army, she felt sad and angry for those like Ellian dragged into this endless war.

‘It was never Atriposte, or Jarett, or even you,’ she said to Sullian.

‘It was all of you, Kolyath’s high-borns, who never gave a damn who lived or died outside the castle keep.

’ Cahra stilled to find her hand was itching for Lumsden’s gold dagger again.

She exhaled, grinding her teeth as she shook free of the impulse, then let her arm fall by her side.

A tiny tendril of her abreption’s old peace unwound inside her.

Sullian opened his thin, high-born mouth to insult her with some disparaging remark. Cahra shook her head at him.

‘No,’ she said. ‘No more.’ She turned her back on the man. ‘Hael,’ she asked, ‘does Hael’stromia have a dungeon?’

‘Three,’ Hael replied. He angled his chin from the sun’s warm rays and surveyed her. ‘Is that truly what you want?’

Cahra looked out at Kolyath and Ozumbre’s forces, rudderless and powerless against the arrival of the ultimate weapon. She gazed up at Hael.

‘For now.’ Then she remembered her own dungeon escape. ‘The securest one we’ve got,’ she told him quickly.

Hael nodded. Then, dropping into a deep bow, he moved faster than her eyes could follow to render Sullian unconscious, before descending into the Nether’s smoke with the former Commander of her kingdom’s forces.

But before he did, she caught the look in Sullian’s eyes… The entitlement. The rage. Cahra knew it well.

Just as she knew the old ways in Kolyath, the Steward’s ways, wouldn’t go quietly. There would be a period of adjustment, and she would need to meet it head-on.

She sighed. There was a lot to do, it seemed.

In Hael’s brief absence, Cahra looked to Thierre. The Prince was clearly lost to grief. Her gaze shifted to Raiden, to Sylvie, both wounded but standing.

‘So, that’s the weapon?’ The General arched a sleek brow. ‘If your Reliquus can’t end the war between the sister kingdoms, I dare not think who or what will.’

‘The fighting does seem to have stopped,’ Cahra admitted, pausing before telling her, ‘I am sorry for your loss.’ She glanced at Thierre, the Prince unmoving, unhearing.

Sylvie’s blue eyes misted. ‘Thank you for your words. And for securing my brother.’ She wiped her face, sighing. ‘What is expected of the kingdoms now?’

Hael returned from wherever the dungeons were – and with Cahra’s great-hammer – moving to tower behind her. With a solemn grace, he held the magnificent weapon out. The air seemed to thrum with otherworldly energy as he presented Cahra with her Haellium hammer.

‘Surrender,’ Hael said, a remnant of the Nether’s rattle in his voice. ‘As I instructed them.’ Drily, he added, ‘Twice.’

Cahra resisted the urge to raise a brow. So he had attempted diplomacy? Maybe she and Hael were changing, she thought.

She hissed to him, ‘What do I do now?’

He looked upon her calmly. ‘Permit me,’ Hael said. She nodded and he straightened, rising above the tallest soldiers as Cahra noticed for the first time his monumental height. From their visions, she’d assumed he was only tall compared to her.

‘ Sister kingdoms of the realm! ’ Hael began, launching his voice across the battlefield.

‘I am Hael, the Reliquus – the weapon of prophecy – and Vassal Champion to the Scion. The prophecy has now come to pass, and the capital will open to you in but a short time… However, only if you surrender.’ He paused, indicating Cahra. ‘And pledge your fealty.’

Cahra froze, panicked. Now?! She didn’t exactly look the part of an Empress with her dishevelled leathers, marred in her own blood.

She turned to Wyldaern and saw the Oracle was watching Sylvie and Raiden sadly. They were waiting for Thierre to say something.

Cahra’s heart ached for Thierre, reeling from the magnitude of King Royce’s death. She wondered if Sylvie and Raiden waited for nothing. But just when she thought reaching the Prince was a lost cause, he laid his father down gently. Then he spoke.

‘Luminaux recognises the sovereignty of Cahra of Kolyath as Empress to the realm, Hael’stromia and the three sister kingdoms.’ Thierre thrust his longsword into the ground, the sword Cahra had forged for him. The sword that had started it all.

‘So says King Thierre of Luminaux. All hail! ’ His words rang in Luminaux’s ranks, Tyne, Sylvie, Raiden and their people all clasping their fists to their chests.

‘ ALL HAIL! ’

The call reverberated as Cahra stood, frozen, taken aback by Thierre’s endorsement. How was the man standing, speaking so steadily with such royal poise, when his body was bruised and bloody and broken, and his father was lying dead at his feet? She blinked, unable to comprehend it.

And thought, how could she possibly compare to a ruler like Thierre?

This was why she had exchanged herself for him. Because no matter their history, their differences, Thierre was a leader and the King his people needed even when their hearts were burdened with such grief.

Maybe she could learn something from the Prince, now King.

‘You have Luminaux’s support,’ Raiden said softly.

Cahra exhaled, remembering their conversation before the battle.

‘The question is, does Cahra have theirs?’ Sylvie stared at the remaining sister kingdoms.

‘She will,’ Hael said. It was hard to miss the warning in those words.

He faced them. ‘Kolyath, Ozumbre. Do you accept the terms of your surrender, and pledge your allegiance to your prophecy’s Scion, the Omen-bringer, and your new supreme sovereign of the realm – Empress Cahraelia of Kolyath, now of Hael’stromia? ’

Ugh, that name again. Cahra tried not to wince.

But she couldn’t hold onto the thought, not when the ringing in her ears, the buzzing in her head was blotting everything else out.

Empress. She was Empress of the realm. How had she gotten here?

And, worse still, how would she live up to everything that title meant?

A ruler, a leader, when in her head, she was still the same poor smith from Kolyath.

How could she possibly be responsible for an entire realm, and its three kingdoms containing more people than she could count?

Suddenly, an ocean of faces gazed at her: Kolyath’s soldiers, Ellian and the other children, the traders and apprentices of Kolyath, the aged veterans past their warring prime.

Her view widened to Ozumbre’s army, Cahra watching their faces cloud with suspicion and fear.

Both kingdoms knew only tyrants for rulers, who wielded their sovereignty with cruelty and death.

Who was she to ask anything of these people?

They had no love for self-imposed rulers.

Cahra’s mind raced as an idea began to take shape.

Glancing at Hael, she stepped forward. Three pairs of the shadowy hounds he had summoned moved with her, their muscular forms slipping through the space between people like spectres.

The hounds’ flaming eyes scanned the crowd as vigilantly as Hael did, before they sat on their skeletal haunches, still as death.