Page 123 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame

Hael and Cahra stood, side by side, in the dominating dark.

‘You are not required to do this.’

The Empress’ two-toned eyes of brown and green slid to his. ‘I know.’

Hael nodded. Then he stalked down the murky passage.

He had scridoned them to the entrance of Hael’stromia’s most intolerable dungeon. The dungeon masters of old had forged many peculiar keys and locks that only existed in locations of extreme security so as to lower the chances of lock-pickers becoming familiar with any of their inner workings, the door to the hall beyond covered in such mechanisms. Hael nodded to two of his hand-picked Imperial Guards. The men saluted, bearing a ring of what would look to any human like strange keys.

‘I’m assuming you’ve got a reason for not scridoning us inside?’ Cahra murmured, spying the nine different types of locks secured to the Haellium dungeon door ahead of them. She patiently waited as a guard worked his way through opening each one.

Hael had hesitated to bring her here, a vision in her brocade gown with its threads of black, red, silver and gold, her hair shining like a copper coin. Especially after he had seen through their abreption what she had endured in one of Kolyath’s dungeon cells. Atriposte was lucky that Cahra had already ended his life, for Hael would not have curbed his violence. He was still tempted to journey to the Netherworld and butcher the wretch all over again.

Looking upon his Empress, he smiled grimly. ‘An attention-grasping way to arrive.’

‘Ah,’ she said, brow knit in thought.

Another minute, and they entered, the door swinging closed with a piercing screech. He walked first, Cahra close behind.

‘Seal it,’ Hael ordered the guard. The heavy door shut, a clamour of locks and keys fastening outside.

Hael raised a hand, sprightly fire sparking to life in his palm as a makeshift torch for Cahra’s benefit. His nocturnal vision was impeccable in the dungeon’s blackness, though said blackness was deepening the farther they moved into the moist, bracing air. With time, the temperature underground would thaw to an arid desert heat, but until that day, the glacial chill was useful, particularly given their current guest.

The stone path they followed, carved from the bedrock itself, snaked downwards, eventually met by an enormous metal door, his metal, sealed with two locks and several bolts. Cahra stepped up, her head brushing Hael’s shoulder, and frowned.

‘The guards have the keys,’ she murmured, glancing at him.

‘They do,’ Hael said. ‘Fortunately, I have others.’ His eyes flickered in her direction. ‘You may wish to look away.’

Cahra’s frown gave way to confusion. ‘Why?’

Hael put two fingers from his unutilised right hand into his mouth and bit down – then tore with his fangs, ripping the tops of them off. Cahra gasped, gripping Hael’s elbow as he spat his severed fingers onto the tiles, his own blood dripping from his mouth.

Only half of two of his fingers remained, Hael slipping one, then the other, into the keyways with a definitive twist. Both locks clicked open.

‘Hael! By the Seers…’ Cahra exclaimed, staring from him to his bloody finger bones, the ancient keys to this wing’s locks. She rushed to wrap his fingers in her skirts, squeezing as though to staunch the flow of his rusty ichor. ‘Doesn’t thathurt?’

Something in his chest constricted as he watched her try to help him, unaware that his self-inflicted injury would heal by the morrow.

‘It takes much to hurt me,’ he said gently. ‘But if I did feel the physicality of pain… well, your care would certainly be soothing.’

Only magicks, like that of the night that he had been reborn the Reliquus, gave him cause to reconsider his beliefs about true agony.

Hael watched Cahra’s shoulders loosen at the softness of his words.

She eyed him, giving him a look that was undone by the tug of her full, flushed lips into a smile, as she said, ‘Locksmith, tomorrow. I’m not havingthis,’ she stressed, waving an arm at him bleeding onto her fine gown, ‘be a regular occurrence for you.’ Cahra shook her head and sighed. ‘Honestly! What horrible excuse for an Emperor would let you—’

With his marred hand, he squeezed the two of hers that clasped him, bending to look into Cahra’s eyes.

‘I heed you,’ he conceded, unwittingly staring at her in the dark.

She was so beautiful, he thought, the green of her eyes dancing in his palm’s firelight as she gazed back, seemingly forgetting his wound. His neck curved to hers; they were near, so near that he could see, hear, the delicate hummingbird’s pulse of her life, below her jaw.

Hael leaned in, at once struck by the overwhelming urge to press his mouth to where his breath ghosted along her skin.

Cahra watched him, chest rising and falling with shallow breaths, and parted her lips to exhale a quavering rush of air. His hand was still bunched in her skirts, he thought absently, their mouths but a whisper apart as he burned to close the space between them.

Then, the realisation of their proximity seemed to strike like the force of his powers and Hael stiffened, nodding at the door.

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