Page 16 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame

‘You could say that.’ Cahra peered around the door frame at the four guards, weathered paint flaking onto her shoulder. ‘We need to get into the markets. Got a distraction?’

‘Maybe,’ the boy said. ‘How big?’

She pulled a gold coin from her satchel. ‘This big.’

‘Oughta do it,’ he said matter-of-factly, closing his fist around the coin.

Terryl eyed them both warily. ‘Do what?’

The boy picked up a rock, poked his head around the corner, then hurled it at a window diagonally opposite them. Glass shattered and people shrieked. Passers-by moved for the commotion, as did the guards.

‘Buy my help,’ the boy said, grinning. He turned to Cahra. ‘I would’ve helped you anyway.’

‘I know.’ She smiled. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Ellian,’ he said shyly.

‘Well, Ellian, I’m Cahra.’ She crouched next to the boy. ‘And you’ve done your job. Now I need you to stay low for a few days, okay?’ His little fist looked like a rock itself as she gazed into his soulful blue eyes. ‘Be careful.’ He turned to go. ‘Hey, one more thing… In a week’s time, go to the Traders’ Quadrant and find the master blacksmith named Lumsden. Tell him a friend said he’d have some work for you.’ Lumsden would need a new apprentice, someone he could trust. Cahra swallowed.

He nodded, then stilled, casting her a final glance. ‘Bye,’ he said softly.

Then Ellian was gone again, flitting from doorway to doorway away from them, yelling at the guards, ‘I see them! Two grown-ups, running away. Hurry!’

Cahra watched the guards charge to Ellian. She took a steadying breath as the boy held the men’s attention, pointing away and down the street, before beaming back at her.

With any luck, Lumsden would be able to give the kid a home, a trade, a future. A life. Like the old man had done for her so long ago. Before she’d gone and screwed everything up.

Shakily, she exhaled. ‘Let’s go,’ she said to Terryl.

Cahra could feel the lord’s eyes on her as they entered the marketplace, the guards still searching the alley with the broken window. Once Cahra and Terryl reached the trail of stalls and carts brimming with smoked meats, hard cheeses and root vegetables, old parts of her clicked into place like oiled keys amid the shouts of vendors. Snaking her arm to brush against a sheet of brown linen, the flick of her wrist was nearly imperceptible. She swung to Terryl’s far side a few strides later and wrapped the sheet around her head and neck as a scarf. A similar trick and she’d swiped a hat for him.

From beneath the safety of her disguise, she slowed a little, gazing at the market’s Festival of Shadows decorations and the small, dark stalls selling rough chunks of tenebrite, a crimson substance mined from the craggy, snow-capped mountains north of Kolyath’s walls. Tenebrite, known as the fire-keeper’s stone, radiated cosy warmth for an extremely long time, and was central to Veil’s Eve as it kept the fires in people’s homes burning during the vigil. The mineral was a symbol of resilience in the kingdom and used for various things other than just warmth; the ink of Cahra’s Guild tattoo, for one. Her thumb found the flame behind the hammer on her wrist, the red dotted with crushed tenebrite.

As they neared the end of the marketplace, Terryl whisked Cahra to one side and pressed her sidelong to his shoulder, their heads together. She swallowed, waiting for a gaggle of washerwomen to pass.

‘We are close,’ Terryl said. ‘This is where it becomes perilous.’

Like it hadn’t been already, she thought, holding back a snort.

Terryl continued, ‘Two carriages await. One plain, the other – mine – adorned with blue. I must board it as if nothing is the matter.’ Cahra tried to ignore the warmth of Terryl’s breath on her neck as he surveilled the road. ‘The goods wagon coupled to my carriage is your goal – enter via the rear doors, keep moving and you’ll come to a false back with space to hide where the wagon and carriage meet. Once you are inside, you will be safe.’

Despite the danger, Cahra raised a brow. ‘Do this often, do you?’

Terryl chuckled in response. ‘There are many things that you do not know about me.’ He grew serious. ‘We have but a few streets left.’ He turned from the women that had passed, pausing to look at her. ‘That boy could have turned us in, you know.’

Cahra shook her head. ‘He won’t.’

‘How do you know?’

She met his gaze. ‘I just do.’

Terryl’s eyes searched hers, the young lord nodding eventually. ‘All right. I trust you.’ Something in the way he said it stirred a soothing warmth in her.

They resumed their previous ruse, trying to look as unlike themselves as possible. Terryl laughed, as if Cahra had just said something incredibly funny, before murmuring to her, ‘The next street.’ He drew her to a farmer’s horse-drawn cart stacked with bales of hay, a few shops from what was clearly Terryl’s carriage. Evidently, his favourite colour really was blue, large swirls and tinier flourishes skittering over the cab’s polished hardwood.High-borns.

Cahra’s eyes darted from Terryl to the simple goods wagon, wondering if the lack of decoration was deliberate and a ploy to draw attention from the wagon to the stylish carriage. The goods wagon looked like a big wooden box, with doors at the rear that faced the frontage of a shut shop, and it was right out in the open. Cahra peered up at the surrounding buildings, eyeing the narrow gaps between the shop and those nestled on either side of it. Maybe there was a less direct, less obvious approach.

Turning back, a slow smile spread across her face. ‘I’ve got an idea.’

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