Page 74 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame

‘Cahraelia of Kolyath,’ Hael stated, gazing at her intently. ‘Do you accept your birthright as Scion, and Empress of Hael’stromia?’

She hadn’t anticipated that. Cahra felt frozen for a minute, the familiar urge to run clawing at her chest, the instinct nurtured by a childhood spent living in fear and uncertainty. But that fear clashed with something else: the desire for knowledge. A week on the run and where had it gotten her? And this wasn’t like running from Kolyath’s guards as a child, tearing down alleyways and over rooftops. She didn’t want to call it destiny, like Thelaema. But no matter how her instincts screamed at her to flee, Cahra found herself looking to Hael. If she could free him from Hael’stromia, for the first time, she’d have real choices in her life.

She’d have power, the power to forge her own path and figure out what everything meant on her terms. She would never be anyone’s pawn again.

Not to mention she’d have Hael’s magicks on her side. At Thelaema’s, Cahra had wanted to shatter the windows in that glass ball of a room. Here with him, she could see the possibilities.

Cahra squared her shoulders. ‘Okay. I mean, yes,’ she said.

‘Very well.’ Hael moved to their space on the tiled ground and sat cross-legged again. Cahra followed and sat opposite, willing her leathers to heat her, her anxiety rising in short, shallow breaths. Still robeless, even the distraction of Hael’s sculpted chest wasn’t enough. She stared at the muted crack of light in the doors sealing his tomb, then shut her eyes tight.

‘Cahra.’ The soft, rasping sound of Hael’s voice had her squinting one eye open. ‘There is nothing to fear. You have done this before. All will be well.’ He took her hands then, lifting them gently so she and Hael were palm to palm, his satiny skin warm, soothing even. ‘As before, close your eyes. Inhale. Slowly, deeply. Then exhale.’

She sucked a breath in and relaxed, Hael’s words hypnotic as they vibrated on the air. Then, pressure, in her hand. Was he squeezing it? No, she realised, it was that slicing pain, the pull of the abreption through her palm, though not anywhere near as agonising as last time.

She exhaled through her teeth, still not getting how this worked.

All of a sudden, Cahra’s keen senses noticed something new. A heat, a tingling, in her left palm. If the sting in her right hand was pain, the pull in her left was – what, pleasure? She shivered, the sensation certainly reminiscent of the handful of times she’d—

Wait, from his suffering?!The thought hit her like a brick, and she could feel herself resisting the idea. But the more she did, the more it seemed to block the flow between them. She tried to breathe into it, to let it go, but…

Cahra couldn’t help herself. She opened her eyes and looked into Hael’s, his fiery, supernatural eyes that had ensnared Cahra since the first moment that she’d laid eyes on him. She watched as his dark flames undulated, like they were dancing beneath the moonless sky, her breaths mirroring their gentle ebb and flow.

And shesaw.

A series of images, flashing as raw emotions flowed between them.

Hael – young, human Hael – training with a great-hammer, bare feet fast and fluid, in the sunlit throne room at the apex of Hael’stromia’s pyramid.Happy. Free.

Then Hael, chained to his tomb’s altar, writhing and screaming in excruciating pain as magicks from the blackness of the earth, the Netherworld, purged him of his life.

Cowed, caged. An abomination.

Cahra saw as Hael spilled his first blood as the realm’s weapon, his powers blistering, as he was ordered to slay an Emperor’s rival for a consort, knowing that it would destabilise one of the sister kingdoms.

She saw as Hael disintegrated into smoke to enter one foe via the air and explode him from the inside out, blood and gore spattering the Wilds as the enemy ran for his life.

She saw as Hael stared down an army marching outside the gates to Hael’stromia, then rained black fire upon the thousand-strong host, their death wails expiring on the wind.

She saw as Hael was forced to endure, to submit, time and time again, to the whims of petty, egocentric rulers of the realm, men who didn’t care for their people or their lands, only for themselves and what they could gain. As it had been for 600 years before the fall.

This was the legacy of the Reliquus, Hael’stromia’s ‘ultimate weapon’.

And hehatedit, she thought, shock gripping her as the realisation took hold.

The countless Scions Hael had witnessed rise and fall, bloom and wither, an endless succession of human overlords. It had almost broken him. Until the death of the last, the Emperor before Cahra, also hailing from Kolyath. All because Hael hadn’t been there to protect the man. And then Hael’stromia had fallen.

That was when Hael had finally surrendered to the darkness, lying dormant as he waited for the prophecy. For her. With the anguished hope that somehow, this time, his next Master might be different.

She couldn’t breathe.I should’ve said no! Because this birthright—

Then, abruptly, the onslaught ended, leaving Cahra with the same disconcerting sense of peace she’d felt the first time they had performed the abreption. She shook her head, trying to feel more present in her body, although her eyes were open, fixated as they were on Hael. The way he returned her gaze made it clear he felt the same sense of peace, which calmed her. He’d been through so much, she thought.

Too much.

Cahra leaned forward, grasping his hands as she looked into his fiery, boundless eyes. ‘Hael, I will never, ever be like those men, I promise you.’

His mouth fell open in surprise. ‘How—’

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