Page 81 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame

That she’d been raised to be strong. And that she had Hael’s powers.

Put them to good use.

‘Enough,’ Cahra uttered in a voice so harsh, so unfamiliar, that she didn’t recognise it. It should have scared her. But tearing forward, she grabbed the plate shoulder of an Ozumbre soldier and yanked him back so hard he crashed into one of his comrades. Before he could right himself, her hammer found its mark, colliding with the soldier’s breastplate to buckle the armour completely. The man’s comrade bellowed and, seized by a giddy surge of raw, wild power, Cahra didn’t hesitate as she blocked the man’s sword with her hammer’s head before heaving the blade back at him to gore his own neck. Arcing her weapon in an overhead strike, she sealed the soldier’s fate, dust shuddering from the cave ceiling on impact.

A single word rose like a bubble from her darkest depths.

Destroy.

Cahra didn’t stop.

There was no time to wipe the carnage from her weapon as someone else attacked. Even in the din and dark, she could sense the enemies at her back and she dived then rolled as the cut of a blade missed her by a thread. Laughing, Cahra spun, swinging her hammer to hook the swordsman’s ankle and send him sprawling to his back. She vaulted atop the soldier, and seeing he was from Ozumbre, dropped her hammer and began pummelling the man into the ground with her blacksmith’s fists, bearing down again and again, the sickening crunch of his nose just one of countless blows to succumb to her unforgiving pain and rage.

Destroy!

Her body thrummed with exhilaration, the Nether-magicks writhing.

Cahra didn’t stop.

For the first time in her life, she feltpowerful, darkness shooting to spiderweb across her body, through her veins, electrifying her being. Like Thelaema’s cabin, her vision was a haze of red and she was vaguely aware of her eyes glowing, her fists still smashing into the soldier’s skull with a primal energy. By the time the crack of bones had turned to squelches, dust kicking up at the brute impact, Cahra was a breathless mess.

As was the blood-soaked body pinned beneath her.

‘Cahra!’ Wyldaern shouted.

With effort, Cahra glanced up at the Seer’s voice, and it was then that she realised the fighting had died around her. Their support had turned the battle. She stared back down at the Ozumbre soldier, slack and unrecognisable; a black, barbarous fire burning somewhere deep beneath her surface, a place she hadn’t even known existed. Until now.

‘Please,’ Wyldaern begged her, nearing step by cautious step. ‘This is not you, Cahra. It is the Reliquus’ powers. They are consuming you.’ The Seer attempted to reason with her, but there was a waver in Wyldaern’s gentle voice.

How would you know? After all that I have endured, everything that I have learned? How would you know anything about me, anything at all?!

Throwing her hands over her ears, Cahra recoiled at the voice screeching in her head. But it was right, she thought, shaking. Wyldaern didn’t truly know what she was capable of, that she had come so close to killing Atriposte that night, in the dungeons all those years ago. And that she’d only been a child.

A child acting out of self-defence, she argued numbly.

The voice roared,This time, you have a choice. Take your vengeance!

Eyes shut, she furiously shook her head.Vengeance IS a choice! This was all a choice!

‘No, no, no!’ she cried out, voice louder every time, ricocheting roughly through the caves. All she’d needed was to knock the soldier out. Instead, she’d beaten the man to a bloody pulp, with such deadly, terrifying ease. Was he even breathing? The blood on her hands…

By the Seers.Nausea roiled from Cahra’s stomach to crest in the back of her throat and she dry-retched as her thoughts spiralled, off their axis and into the noxious realisation that Hael’s magicks had caused this violence.Herviolence.

‘Cahra?’ Wyldaern called softly, faltering as her name hung in the air.

She hurled herself backwards, scrambling off the Ozumbre soldier, breaths ragged, as she thought frantically:What is happening to me?!

It all took place in an instant.

Locking eyes with Wyldaern, pleading for help, Cahra was panic-stricken as the soldier at her feet wrenched a dagger from his belt to stab her. Yet she could feel it happening, even though she was staring at Wyldaern; could sense it as if watching the two events unfold in concert. Cahra saw Wyldaern’s lips tear open as the Seer made to scream her name. But before she could make a sound, Cahra had hefted one foot, booted the knife from the soldier, then lifted her other boot – leaping into a kick—

‘Cahra, NO!’ Thelaema’s voice thundered, the caves trembling.

And though Cahra shouldn’t have been able to, her instincts were responsive enough that she halted in mid-air, landing effortlessly, two boots in perfect silence.

The silence of death.

Because Thelaema had sent the soldier flying with alook. And the result was as though Cahra had kicked the man after all – kicked him with the full force of her strength and Hael’s unholy powers. Thelaema’s magick had obliterated the man’s chest. And blown a gaping hole in the dripstone wall of the caves.

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