Page 71 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame (Fated for Hael #1)

Hael and Cahra stood, side by side, in the dominating dark.

‘You are not required to do this.’

The Empress’ two-toned eyes of brown and green slid to his. ‘I know.’

Hael nodded. Then he stalked down the murky passage.

He had scridoned them to the entrance of Hael’stromia’s most intolerable dungeon.

The dungeon masters of old had forged many peculiar keys and locks that only existed in locations of extreme security so as to lower the chances of lock-pickers becoming familiar with any of their inner workings, the door to the hall beyond covered in such mechanisms. Hael nodded to two of his hand-picked Imperial Guards.

The men saluted, bearing a ring of what would look to any human like strange keys.

‘I’m assuming you’ve got a reason for not scridoning us inside?’ Cahra murmured, spying the nine different types of locks secured to the Haellium dungeon door ahead of them. She patiently waited as a guard worked his way through opening each one.

Hael had hesitated to bring her here, a vision in her brocade gown with its threads of black, red, silver and gold, her hair shining like a copper coin.

Especially after he had seen through their abreption what she had endured in one of Kolyath’s dungeon cells.

Atriposte was lucky that Cahra had already ended his life, for Hael would not have curbed his violence.

He was still tempted to journey to the Netherworld and butcher the wretch all over again.

Looking upon his Empress, he smiled grimly. ‘An attention-grasping way to arrive.’

‘Ah,’ she said, brow knit in thought.

Another minute, and they entered, the door swinging closed with a piercing screech. He walked first, Cahra close behind.

‘Seal it,’ Hael ordered the guard. The heavy door shut, a clamour of locks and keys fastening outside.

Hael raised a hand, sprightly fire sparking to life in his palm as a makeshift torch for Cahra’s benefit.

His nocturnal vision was impeccable in the dungeon’s blackness, though said blackness was deepening the farther they moved into the moist, bracing air.

With time, the temperature underground would thaw to an arid desert heat, but until that day, the glacial chill was useful, particularly given their current guest.

The stone path they followed, carved from the bedrock itself, snaked downwards, eventually met by an enormous metal door, his metal, sealed with two locks and several bolts. Cahra stepped up, her head brushing Hael’s shoulder, and frowned.

‘The guards have the keys,’ she murmured, glancing at him.

‘They do,’ Hael said. ‘Fortunately, I have others.’ His eyes flickered in her direction. ‘You may wish to look away.’

Cahra’s frown gave way to confusion. ‘Why?’

Hael put two fingers from his unutilised right hand into his mouth and bit down – then tore with his fangs, ripping the tops of them off. Cahra gasped, gripping Hael’s elbow as he spat his severed fingers onto the tiles, his own blood dripping from his mouth.

Only half of two of his fingers remained, Hael slipping one, then the other, into the keyways with a definitive twist. Both locks clicked open.

‘Hael! By the Seers…’ Cahra exclaimed, staring from him to his bloody finger bones, the ancient keys to this wing’s locks. She rushed to wrap his fingers in her skirts, squeezing as though to staunch the flow of his rusty ichor. ‘Doesn’t that hurt? ’

Something in his chest constricted as he watched her try to help him, unaware that his self-inflicted injury would heal by the morrow.

‘It takes much to hurt me,’ he said gently. ‘But if I did feel the physicality of pain… well, your care would certainly be soothing.’

Only magicks, like that of the night that he had been reborn the Reliquus, gave him cause to reconsider his beliefs about true agony.

Hael watched Cahra’s shoulders loosen at the softness of his words.

She eyed him, giving him a look that was undone by the tug of her full, flushed lips into a smile, as she said, ‘Locksmith, tomorrow. I’m not having this ,’ she stressed, waving an arm at him bleeding onto her fine gown, ‘be a regular occurrence for you.’ Cahra shook her head and sighed.

‘Honestly! What horrible excuse for an Emperor would let you—’

With his marred hand, he squeezed the two of hers that clasped him, bending to look into Cahra’s eyes.

‘I heed you,’ he conceded, unwittingly staring at her in the dark.

She was so beautiful, he thought, the green of her eyes dancing in his palm’s firelight as she gazed back, seemingly forgetting his wound. His neck curved to hers; they were near, so near that he could see, hear, the delicate hummingbird’s pulse of her life, below her jaw.

Hael leaned in, at once struck by the overwhelming urge to press his mouth to where his breath ghosted along her skin.

Cahra watched him, chest rising and falling with shallow breaths, and parted her lips to exhale a quavering rush of air. His hand was still bunched in her skirts, he thought absently, their mouths but a whisper apart as he burned to close the space between them.

Then, the realisation of their proximity seemed to strike like the force of his powers and Hael stiffened, nodding at the door.

His voice was hoarse. ‘Would you mind? The bolts.’ The flames in his other palm rippled. ‘I am reluctant to douse your only light source.’

‘Of course.’ Cahra blinked. Then she hesitated, more worried about his exposed bones than any torch. But she gingerly unwrapped his hand and sprung to unlatch the door’s bolts.

In the silence, Hael stood rooted to the ground, wrestling with the untamed yearning to kiss her, to allow Cahra’s touch to spiral into what could never be. His fantasy, of a life, a future – without the two of them as Master and Vassal.

Of course, his wish was farcical. Who was Hael without his calling, his Nether-magicks?

And should it bother him, he thought, as she yanked free the final bolt.

Should it bother him that he had no answer… None at all?

Hael’s torso tensed as he suppressed the human urge to sigh, then led them onward.

Their moment, like everything in his protracted life, had passed.

He and Cahra entered his blackest dungeon. Indeed, his hand would heal; until then, the blood dribbling down his chin, his jaw, his fingerless hand, would serve as a reminder to the evil caged ahead, of what Hael truly was.

Supreme destruction. Even if it was his own.

‘Prepare yourself,’ Hael told Cahra, whom he knew had seen worse in her short years. Still, every cell beheld its horrors. This was no exception.

As they accessed the hall, the flames licking Hael’s palm burned brighter, lighting his gruesome face and fangs, his footsteps thundering against the walls.

He wanted his prisoner to hear, fear, that someone approached.

He lowered his chin, the fires of his eyes burning black, knowing how the vision of his looming, gore-soaked figure lit a torch to mortal men’s fears.

And, oh – how he would make Kolyath’s Commander Sullian fear him.

When their interrogation was over, Hael and Cahra left, her hand laced through his. All prisoners eventually spilled their secrets to the Reliquus; their secrets, and their blood. Commander Sullian had been no different.

Or so the pair had thought.

Sullian was barely clinging to consciousness, head hanging over the metal back of the chair on which he sat, its frigid spikes stabbing into every point of contact with his flesh.

Shackled to the torturous iron chair, he knew not how long that heathen monster Hael would incarcerate him here.

But he assumed that he was intended to die in this foul-smelling place, this putrid prison of dank rot, the stench of death carried on stagnant air.

With the grievous injuries the weapon had inflicted, and the state of his black cell, Sullian presumed such an end would not take long.

This is where I die . After his life of service beside his Steward, oblivion would be perhaps a respite, the best that he could hope for. If, indeed, that was his destination.

‘So be it,’ Sullian snarled to the darkness, with what little energy he possessed. He could feel his body withering with each tenuous breath.

He would die, at blessed last. He would be glad of it, he thought.

That is, until he felt… a wind. Rushing, rising, whisking the detritus from the dirt.

With monumental effort, Sullian battled to raise his head, his skull heavy as a stone. A light flared, blazing white in the dungeon’s gloom. A portal opened.

And a figure stepped through.

The man was garbed in a robe, off-white like Grauwynn’s, the High Oracularus of Descry; pristine and clearly tailored, by the look of the spotless cuffs and hems. He removed his cowl, studying Sullian, who drooped, bathed as he was in his own blood.

A moment later, a brilliant light, pure like the sun, lit in the man’s outstretched palm.

Sullian bolted upright, pain searing across his body.

‘Who are you?’ He spoke slowly, jaw throbbing from where Hael had struck him.

‘Commander.’ The man in white circled him like prey, not answering his question. ‘Your brother, Jarrett. He is dead?’

Sullian ignored the ache inside his chest at the stranger’s words. Sullian had hated Jarett in life, hated their rivalry for Atriposte’s favour. His admiration.

Yet, he had loved his cretin brother, also. Head sinking, he nodded.

‘And Atriposte? The Ozumbre twins, King and Commander?’

‘The same,’ Sullian rasped, his voice likewise raw from Hael’s blows to his throat.

In the light of the man’s interior sun, Sullian could see hair of brown, tinged with the russet of desert earth, and discerning slate-grey eyes. The man smiled.

‘You are the last, then,’ the man mused, quiet pleasure in his voice, as he turned to light the walls of Sullian’s decrepit cell.

Sullian supposed he was, but the last of what? A people who had rejected Cahra’s rule, this horrid, heretic peasant Empress? And the Seers, their foul magicks – plus the malignant, daemonic magicks of their ultimate weapon, Hael?

If this was the future of the realm, then Sullian wanted no part in it, he bristled.

The man burst into laughter. ‘Oh, my dear Commander,’ he sighed, then straightened.

‘How entertaining you shall be. Well met – I am Nektro. And this is no place for you to die. I offer you an opportunity. Now,’ Nektro said, gesturing to the portal shimmering behind him.

‘Shall we leave Hael’stromia to its downfall? ’