Page 70 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame

Cahra looked up. She wasn’t of Kolyath?

‘Your birthplace,’ Thelaema began, ‘was a village between Kolyath and Luminaux. Closer to Luminaux, as they were more tolerant, of the special, the magickally minded.’

‘Wait.’ Cahra shook her head, trying to get her bearings. ‘Are you saying I’m some kind of Seer from Luminaux?’

‘No, child,’ Thelaema chortled, then grew serious. ‘However, the reason that your family was in hiding in the Wilds—’

Herfamily?

‘—is that your kin necessitated concealment. For centuries, your family lived peacefully, without incident, outside Kolyath.’ Thelaema stilled, the air pressing upon Cahra. ‘Once your parents, friends and village were destroyed, the decision was made: to secrete you within your ancestral lands. So, you were placed in Kolyath, close to Seer sympathisers, to monitor you and ensure that you did not fall into the wrong hands.’

Somewhere around the mention of her family, her parents, she shut her eyes. With everything that followed, she didn’t dare open them again. But at ‘the wrong hands’…

Her palms were clammy, shaking on her leather knee guards.

‘But I did fall into the wrong hands,’ Cahra said, fighting to keep her voice steady as the hurt, the anger, flooded her body. She stood, even as her legs threatened to give way, taking a step backwards, then another, retreating from Thelaema’s ridiculous words, until she was bracing herself against the Oracle’s shelf of curiosities.

Wyldaern stood, but Thelaema raised a hand as Cahra went on.

‘I was a child, living in the wreckage of a tyrant’s reign,’ she said, her voice strangled, heart hammering. Cahra could feel the pins, the needles in her arms and chest. Stabbing her. ‘Some weeks, I didn’t eat, drink, for days on end – none of us did, the homeless kids. And when I did manage to scavenge any food, it was rotting on the streets. I was sentenced to years in the Steward’s dungeons, all from stealing to survive, and it was only because of Lumsden that I didn’t—’ The thought of the old man was too much. Cahra inhaled, snarling. ‘Before Lumsden saved me from it all. And you’re telling me this was someone’s decision? On purpose? To sentence a kid to such cruelty, even after the death of my parents and village, my greatest sin being I was too young to remember it? What kind of person woulddothat?’ The hilt of an athame was in her hand now; she must have picked it from the Oracle’s shelf. ‘Tell me who gave the word, and IWILLkill them!’

Silence. There was fear in Wyldaern’s eyes.

Thelaema raised her amethyst orbs to Cahra. ‘It was I.’

Cahra stumbled, nearly falling – then whirled on Wyldaern, the dagger still in hand. ‘Itrustedyou! Why did you bring me here?’

Wyldaern raised her palms in a stricken plea. ‘Cahra—’

‘And you,’ Cahra choked out, fury blazing in her eyes as she held Thelaema’s gaze. ‘You cast me into this nightmare without a second thought. To live in poverty, and for what? You don’t even know me!WHY?!’ She screamed the word, Siarl, Piet and Queran charging from all corners of the house. Thierre’s guards stood, bewildered, weapons drawn as they searched for the source of Cahra’s turmoil.

Then Thelaema stood and tranquillity swept the room, the tension that had been there, electrifyingly hot, seeming to suffocate and die. Cahra panted in the sudden hush of stillness.

‘Kolyath is the reason,’ the Oracle proclaimed. ‘Your destiny was written in Hael’stromia. Cahra, you are more than you know.Youare the rightful heir to the sister kingdom of Kolyath. And your true name is Princess Cahraelia.’

Cahra blinked, dumbfounded. Then, as Thelaema’s words sank in, it was like someone flipped a switch and her shock gave way to a tidal swell of laughter. She doubled over, howls escaping her in uncontrollable waves.

Princess!It was completely, utterly ludicrous.

Wyldaern’s eyes pleaded with Thelaema. The Oracle’s face was an impasse.A mask.

Cahra remembered Hael’s words. It seemed it wasn’t just the tri-kingdoms who were seasoned players.

‘You were no longer safe,’ Thelaema tried to explain.

Cahra laughed even harder, an edge of mania racking her gasps. Her stomach ached as she doubled over the sofa, wheezing. ‘Safe? When have I ever beensafe?’

‘In Kolyath, as an urchin, you were hidden in plain sight. There you would see, learn. Experience Atriposte’s rule and grow to hate it, to defy it. So that when the time was right…’ Thelaema broke off as Cahra’s laughter turned to salty tears. ‘You would be ready to fight. And so that, one day, you would meet the Oracle. And I would give you this,’ Thelaema said. She opened a wooden chest on the table and picked up a metal object.

Cahra could barely comprehend anything by now, but she recognised the black swirls and spikes of Haellium, engineered to wind around a central mechanism, an indentation at its elaborate eye. The ornate device was roughly the size of Cahra’s palm.

‘This is the Key,’ Thelaema said quietly as she pushed the dark relic towards Cahra. ‘The Key to Hael’stromia, and all that it entails.’

‘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,’ Wyldaern murmured.

‘We the Seers, Oracle and apprentice, are here. The kin of the hammer holds the Key. The journey to Hael’stromia is all that remains, where the Reliquus may be freed after 399 years of awaiting the prophecy’s fulfilment. Only the weapon’s blood master, the Scion, can activate the Key and access the capital. Your time approaches, Cahraelia of Kolyath.’

Cahra just stared. At the Key, at Thelaema, and at her supposed friend, Wyldaern.

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