Page 108 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame

CHAPTER 41

Through a haze of pain and anguish, Thierre watched his people battle fiercely on all sides. His father had dismounted his horse, arming sword and shield glinting under the early morning’s rays, Commander Tyne, the King’s previous Captain of the Royal Guards, expertly defending him. To their right, Thierre’s sister was a brutal, whirling blade, the General letting a foe’s cut trap her sword before arcing her buckler behind the man’s head and knocking him to the ground, then goring him, off and swinging to deflect the next attack. Those attacks kept on coming, Hael’stromia’s sands lightening from their black to the earthy brown of the Wilds with each blood-spattered step Luminaux conceded.

Thierre’s people, fighting, bleeding. Dying. Helpless amidst the battle’s carnage, he could only bear witness to their struggle.

Through a cough wracked with pain, he dragged an abandoned shield over his head, barely protecting himself from another volley of arrows raining from the forces at the gate. How long could Luminaux hold out against the might of not one, but two skilled armies? Thierre grimaced, hastening to wipe the copper taste of blood from his mouth.

‘Thierre!’ Raiden’s wild cry pierced the air, the Captain’s gaze darting frantically in search of his Prince – finally spotting the battered body that was Thierre’s current state. Thierre’s own Captain had not drifted far, but it was clearly enough to leave Raiden and his guards feeling anxious. With a weak gesture, Thierre signalled to Raiden that he was alive and well. In truth, his condition was in grim contrast to that reassurance.

Cahra. She had exchanged places with Thierre and gone in his stead to face Atriposte, alone. And his father, Luminaux’s King – and Tyne, Raiden, Sylvie, the Seers, all of them – had let it happen. Thierre had no energy to be enraged, but he fumed, anger teeming inside as he recalled the look on Cahra’s face as she departed, the fatalistic surety in her features. That this, her sacrifice, was required of her. It made him want to scream.

He had. But all his people had done was drag him away.

Thierre’s despair was enough to push him face down into the dirt and keep him there. He clenched his teeth, the crushing pain in his mangled body throbbing with every pulse of his blood. And yet…

Grauwynn. He knew the High Oracle’s name, now, for all the good that it did. If only there was time for Thierre to prise something of relevance from his fuddled memory. Torture did so little to motivate lucid recall.

Did he see Grauwynn during his painful stumble towards his father? He could not say.

Exhausted and motionless, Thierre’s attention was drawn to the momentary lull, the absence of arrows rattling against his shield, and he turned in time to mark the reason why. Commander Diabolus, the head of Ozumbre’s Royal Army and King Decimus’ twin brother, had entered the battlefield and was strolling arrogantly toward them, sword raised.

Towards his father, Thierre realised. Towards the King of Luminaux.

Thierre strained to stand, to haul himself to his feet, but he struggled under the weight of his heavy shield. It tumbled from his grasp as he groaned, reeling, then tripped and fell onto a pile of butchered bodies. His kingdom’s soldiers.

Finding the handle of the shield again, he looped his hand beneath it and pulled, hard. After days without food and water, with more wounds than he could count, Thierre was spent. Defeat welled in him, blurring his only seeing eye with tears.

I cannot help Father.

I cannot help. Not him, nor Cahra. I cannot help anyone.

One more volley and he was done for, Thierre knew, sprawled on the ground, exposed. He only hoped that Ozumbre would not rain death upon their own Commander. But he also knew better than to assume anything with them.

So, Thierre resigned himself to where he had fallen, like Hael’stromia before him, and waited for his Royal Guards as his single working eye drooped closed. In the cold grip of guilt and helplessness, a part of him questioned whether he deserved to live.

But when shaking hands roused him, it was not Raiden’s face that swam into view.

Wyldaern. ‘Thierre,’ the Seer said, her voice frantic. ‘I cannot find Thelaema!’

He raised his head. And that was when Thierre saw his father.

CHAPTER 42

‘Cahra!’

Fear permeated Hael’s voice, a panic Cahra had never heard in him before. Her head lolled as she strained to look up at him, breaths shallow.

‘Hael.’ Cahra’s vision dimmed again, but she struggled to sit up from the floor.

‘No,’ he said, cradling her head as he stroked her hair. ‘You must rest.’

‘I mustlive,’ Cahra retorted, wincing as she peeled her hand from her stomach, her fingers slick with blood. She looked into Hael’s eyes – his real, flaming eyes before her, as his steadfast, warrior’s arms held her tight. Had she done it? Was he finally free?

‘You will.’ Slowly, Hael lifted the chain mail below her breastplate.

She gasped at the pain. Atriposte had thrust his sword under the metal links to stab her, then Ozumbre’s King had claimed her revenge, and Lumsden’s, by killing Commander Jarett. But there was a problem. Cahra knew what stomach wounds did. How they ended.

By the tight look to Hael’s face, so did he. ‘Healing. Now,’ was all he ground out.

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