Page 7 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame (Fated for Hael #1)

Cahra snaked across the main road thronging with people to Lord Terryl, head down, a smile caked on her face. She took his elbow and moved him off the street into an alleyway.

Terryl looked pleased to see her, if not puzzled. ‘Cahra—’

She fixed the smile but lowered her voice. ‘I’m sorry.’ Her eyes flickered to his. ‘Look like nothing’s wrong,’ she said, and to his credit, he did so.

When Terryl spoke, his voice was humourless. ‘What is this?’

They were standing in the alley behind the road, in front of someone’s ramshackle garden.

Cahra gazed at the vines strangling a wilting spray of ugly yellow buds, pretending they were the subject of her and Terryl’s conversation. The alley was secluded, but she knew all too well nowhere was safe from the Kingdom Guards.

She wanted to crawl inside herself and wish this moment away, but there was no time for anything but the truth.

‘Terryl, your sword, the pommel I designed – the Commander thinks it’s something it’s not. I’m sorry, but I think I’ve gotten you into trouble…’

She looked at the messy garden, then noticed the yellow buds were mugwort, said to be used for warding off evil – and for divination, the practice the Steward’s ancestors had banned for its association with the Seers.

Seers who, he claimed, were responsible for the death of the last King of Kolyath centuries ago.

The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on her: the Steward’s belief in the prophecy yet his hatred for scrying magick, existing side by side.

She quickly ground the mugwort herb under her boot.

The last thing she needed was to get arrested for anything else to do with Seers.

Low-borns weren’t permitted to speak of them, and the punishment…

Well, it wouldn’t bode well for her situation.

‘My longsword? What does the Commander think it is?’ The lord asked, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. She unwrapped the blade, the young lord’s eyes flashing to the handle. Terryl stared from Cahra to the pommel and back, his face an impasse, betraying nothing.

Out of nowhere, he began to murmur in his smooth, melodious voice, words strung together in an odd rhythm, like a poem Cahra didn’t know:

‘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.’

It was her turn to stare at the lord now.

Terryl shook his head, searching her face. ‘Where did you get this sigil,’ he asked her. It didn’t seem to be a question.

Cahra threw up her hands. ‘I don’t know! It just came to me when I was sketching. Every weapon is geometry, shapes and angles. I used a circle for the pommel, a triangle, then added an oval…’ She took a shaky breath.

Terryl’s voice softened. ‘It is the Sigil of the Seers,’ he said, pointing to the oval.

‘And this is the Eye of the All-seeing.’ The young lord paused, and she followed his finger as it traced a triangle.

‘The tri-kingdoms of Luminaux, Kolyath and Ozumbre. They are all here, bound by the Hael’stromian realm and the ring of endless time. ’

Cahra’s head flew up.

‘And this.’ He touched the lone blue goldstone.

‘This jewel signifies the capital, the birthplace of the ultimate weapon.’ The young lord looked up, meeting Cahra’s anxious gaze.

‘The first omen of the prophecy is that the Seers reappear, and the pommel you created bears their sigil – in Kolyath, a sigil only ever seen in the throne room of the castle’s keep.

The Seers, it seems, have indeed reappeared. ’

It was all there: the eye, the kingdoms, the capital.

‘I didn’t know,’ she said miserably, as trepidation crawled inside her, burrowing deeply at what she’d apparently unleashed.

Suddenly, Terryl jolted back to life, as if awakening. His eyes flickered to her. ‘Commander Jarett knows the sword is mine.’

Guilt skewered her at the gravity of his words.

She nodded. ‘Lumsden told me to run.’ She shifted her satchel to her other shoulder.

‘The Kingdom Guards are after us. Lumsden said I was at the fishmonger’s, to give me time.

But they’ll return to the smithy again soon.

’ Cahra was deathly afraid for the old man, but she couldn’t think about that now.

She’d fled to save him. Now she had to save herself.

And the lord she’d dragged into this mess.

‘I see.’ Terryl watched her. ‘You are risking your life by warning me.’

She fidgeted under his astute gaze, scanning left to right for Jarett, the guards, any sign of danger. But the young lord was right. She hadn’t hesitated to warn him. Why?

‘I saw you across the street. You would’ve walked into a trap.’

A trap that’s all my fault. Her self-reproach bubbled up, a scream of frustration threatening to burst out from inside her.

Terryl studied Cahra before placing a hand on her shoulder. ‘Then we run. And leave the kingdom of Kolyath far behind us.’ He glanced about, the alleyway around them empty. ‘The fastest way to the gate is through the city.’

Cahra gasped at the young lord. ‘You’ll help me? How? Why? ’

‘My trade in the Wilds,’ he said. ‘I have authorisation to leave Kolyath.’

She fought to understand. ‘But milord…’

He shook his head at her. ‘Please, Cahra, you and I are beyond such formalities, now. We must get to my residence,’ Terryl told her with conviction.

‘My people will need to be assured that I am safe. Then, we shall need their help to withdraw safely from the kingdom.’ He paused, meeting her eyes with grave concern. ‘It is not without risk.’

Cahra, still in shock, nodded. ‘All right.’ What other option was there?

Terryl gave her an assuring nod. ‘Then let us be off.’

Cahra hid her face behind her upturned collar, her length of hair still tucked away, the sword and satchel tight against her body. Terryl had ditched his fancy coat, ruffled his shirt and dirtied his face, trousers and boots; she admitted, she was impressed by his swift thinking.

They walked jauntily along, looking like a merry pair late for an appointment.

Meanwhile, Cahra was moving on instinct, alert for any peak of noise or flash of motion – anything that might signal the Kingdom Guards.

Then she realised where she was, her breath catching as they neared the place every low-born feared. The Red Square.

While the guards were nowhere to be seen, their presence was everywhere as Cahra and Terryl approached the execution centre.

In the shadow of the Steward’s castle dwelled Kolyath’s open-air theatre of pain, the timbers of its platform stained a violent rust-red from countless slaughters.

It dominated the expanse of public space, vacant nooses swaying in the frigid wind, and she shivered as the guillotine’s blade glinted at her with deadly promise.

Nearby, iron cages displayed the gruesome bodies of those tortured for scrying magick, their remains left out to rot.

Despite the horror clinging to the leaden air, the other low-borns she passed still cast fearful glances at the square, unable to look away.

As Cahra hurried away, every plea for mercy she’d heard over the years haunted her, as if buried in the bedrock.

Terryl gently urged her on, the square a spectre on the fringe of her awareness.

Relief washed over Cahra as the kingdom’s Red Square faded into the background, only to be replaced by a very different scene: the stately mansion Terryl called his home.

She stared at the three-storey building, its facade adorned with hand-carved wooden shutters and plant pots brimming with blooms in vibrant marmalade hues.

She’d never been close to anywhere so obviously for high-borns before, let alone permitted inside.

It may as well have been the Steward’s keep.

She couldn’t believe Terryl had come home to this every night, then gone to collect his longsword at the smithy where she’d slept in the corner of a giant shed.

But as the young lord confidently strode through his grand front door, any remaining doubts about her presence had to be cast aside. With a hesitant step, Cahra followed.

Walking inside Lord Terryl’s home, it was like someone flipped a lever. One moment, there was silence. The next, it was absolute chaos.

Three people descended on them: a man, clothed in finery like Terryl’s but simpler, with a face as hard as the marble bust she swerved to avoid knocking over.

He was then joined by another man, taller than the first and dressed in hardy leathers, and a woman.

The woman’s skin was dark as midnight with a glow that Cahra envied, her hair tied back in long, black braids, while the second man’s complexion was pale, with ash-blond hair that was paler still.

Cahra peered at their jerkins, not dissimilar to her vest, except…

There. Stitching for pockets. Or rather, for concealed weapons.

Terryl employed his own personal guards?

‘Sir—’ The first man said, halting as Cahra stepped from behind Terryl. The young man’s hair was a lighter brown than the lord’s and short, his angular jaw tensing as he spoke. ‘We’ve been looking for you.’ He couldn’t have been much older than Terryl, she thought.

‘I see.’ He exhaled. ‘Am I correct in assuming that the time has come?’

The man nodded sharply, his eyes – grey like iron, and just as uncompromising – scrutinising Cahra. ‘The blacksmith?’

‘Cahra, this is Raiden,’ Terryl said, by way of introduction. He went on before she could ask how this man knew who she was. ‘Cahra will be accompanying us.’

‘Moving you is going to be mission enough,’ Raiden warned him, ‘without adding Commander Jarett’s next-most-wanted to the list.’ The man tossed Cahra a cool glance.

She swallowed her fear, eyes hardening in defiance. Who is this jerk of a high-born?