Page 76 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame

Was this her life now? Judging who was least false, instead of most trustworthy? She remembered what she thought after finding Thierre’s gift.

If I choose myself, I’ll never be betrayed.

‘I need air,’ she said, tossing off the bedcovers.

‘Cahra.’ Wyldaern’s face was drawn, the Seer sitting wearily in her small armchair. ‘Please do not go far. We are safe on these grounds, but…’ Wyldaern’s peridot eyes fell. ‘Cahra, I truly am sorry.’

Something in Cahra softened. Then she turned and walked away.

Throwing the front door open, Cahra exhaled a lungful of air, breath misting, and stepped from the Oracle’s mountain cabin into the midst of the chill starry night, late as it was. She remembered her vision. And thanks to Hael and their abreption, her pain and anger didn’t overwhelm her. She didn’t suffer. But she felt disappointed, in so many people she shouldn’t. And while she still felt disconnected from it all emotionally, rational in a way she rarely was, and she saw what the Oracle had tried to do, and why… Cahra would never have subjected a child to her poverty-stricken upbringing in Kolyath.

Yet Thelaema had got what she wanted. Cahra was a survivor, the trait scribed into her very blood. She’d never be a courtly high-born; where others used artfulness for gain, her talents were brute force, resilience, weaponry. Now she had the most deadly weapon of all.

And his powers were coursing through her.

Cahra could feel everything Hael had spoken of – his stamina, speed, strength, agility. She’d moved from the cottage to the central garden in what felt like a few quick strides. Even senses like her sight, she thought, peering at the purple clusters of night blooms that bordered the Oracle’s long garden. Under nothing but pure starlight, details leapt out at her: the snowy sprig that housed the flowers’ pollen, dotted and ridged like a minuscule tree trunk. She could hear the squalls and wingbeats of owls she couldn’t see and taste the icy winds of faraway rain on her tongue, which she couldn’t begin to fathom, for there were no clouds in the late-night sky. Cahra spun in circles, delighting in the exquisite sensations.

Is this what it’s like to be Hael?

She heard Thelaema’s footsteps before the Oracle had reached her own front door, despite Cahra being half-way down the grounds. But she didn’t turn. Instead, she sat on a bench overlooking the garden’s pond, bright orange fish darting and swirling beneath a sky mirrored in their pristine waters. Cahra stared at the small ripples the fish made, their fins rocking and rowing to churn the glassy surface.

‘Did you conclude the second omen’s rite?’ Thelaema was puffing. It wasn’t exactly a short stroll to where she was.

Cahra turned to face the Oracle. ‘You mean the one you didn’t tell me about, forcing Hael to enlighten me instead, along with his other grand revelation?’ Glaring at the woman, she felt another shard of anger seep back from someplace. ‘YourEmpresssays yes.’

Thelaema was indifferent in the face of Cahra’s scorn. ‘I would have informed you, had he not. Your actions necessitated an interlude.’

‘Myactions?’ Cahra stormed. ‘You doomed me to a life of suffering!’

Thelaema’s eyes were as cold as the night air. ‘Ozumbre doomed your parents, not I. Your village was razed. You were not safe there.’

Cahra twitched, desperate to hold onto the abreption’s simple ease, her self-control.

‘And I was in Kolyath? Why not bring me here, to this spelled, magickal safe haven, where you’ve apparently dwelled for centuries?’ she shot back.

‘Because I am no proxy for that which you required: a hard education.’

‘The hardest,’ Cahra said, grinding her teeth. ‘It’s a good thing I didn’t end up here, with you, if it meant becoming such a heartless crone.’

Thelaema’s flinch at her words would have been imperceptible, if Cahra had been without Hael’s preternatural sight.

‘You will learn, Cahraelia of Kolyath, that difficult decisions care not for your emotions, only for the end’s results,’ the Oracle muttered.

‘My name isCahra.’ She was on her feet now, squaring her shoulders as she hurled: ‘And what are your emotions telling you about this particular result?’ The abreption, and the peace she’d felt with Hael, was completely gone.

And something else was burning in its place…

‘That the vision instructing my actions did not allude to a capricious adolescent!’ Thelaema snapped back, then froze, staring at Cahra. Right into her eyes.

Cahra looked down, catching a glimpse of her reflection in the pond, waves of heat rippling in the air above her curled fingers.

Her eyes wereglowing.

She gasped, hands flying to her face. ‘What’s happening?’

‘It is the omen’s rite,’ Thelaema warned her. ‘Your tether with the Reliquus runs taut. You will reap the powers that he has granted you, which shall fade before your next vision. That is, until you free the weapon in Hael’stromia.’

‘And when Hael’s out?’ Cahra said, still staring at the water.

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