Page 4 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame

But in four centuries, nothing had come to pass. Certainly no Scion.

Nothing but war between the three kingdoms it was his duty to protect.

His core burned with anticipation. How much longer must he endure?

Retreating to his resting place, he settled into the comforting embrace of cool stone in the blackness of his cage. Awaiting the first omen of the prophecy, Hael was at time’s mercy, as he had been for the past 400 years. His undying watch had been one of isolation.

Fortuitously, as the weapon, he was well acquainted with isolation. Perhaps too well.

All of a sudden, a slender beam of radiant white light cleaved the shadows, emanating from beyond the sealed doors of his shrine, vibrant and alive.

Could it be—

The light dissipated and Hael’s stomach lurched as his supernatural eyes saw a vision: not a man, as was customary, but a woman, her eyes as fierce as a battle-hardened warrior’s. She held a drawing of an olden sigil that he recognised immediately. Hael’s desiccated heart, bound as it was to service, stirred with a profound curiosity.

And, strangely, the longing for earthly company. The feeling took him by surprise, anticipation igniting in his chest.

Who was she?

Was this mystery human female the one, his future Scion master? How – and why?

Had the Oracles foretold this young woman, a divergence to shatter centuries of convention? Could she be the harbinger of revolution he had awaited for so long?

With a sizzle and a spark, the fires of Hael’s eyes roared into a soaring onyx inferno. Power blazed through him, the room’s air crackling, his thousand-year-old body erupting as an occult flame wreathed his form.This is it.Hael could not see the woman’s face, and he did not know her name. But he would, he vowed. He would solve the riddle of the human woman who had roused him from his slumber. He parted his lips and a word rumbled through the void, sacred and resonant. A promise whispered to the enveloping darkness.

A promise that the foul regimes of the past, the present, were drawing to a close.

‘Scion…’

The new era, a new Scion, beckoned. And as destiny whispered throughout the veil, Hael knew, with a surge of escalating darkness, that it would soon be time to rise.

The prophecy had finally begun.

CHAPTER 3

Smithing is like magick, Cahra thought, hoisting her hammer above the fire-forged blade – creation, something from nothing, from base materials. The way she’d forged herself.

She swung her hammer in the sweltering heat, the rhythmic clang of metal ringing among the motley assortment of chisels, tongs and punches, each practised strike a pounding heartbeat in the Traders’ Quadrant. Cahra leaned her elbows on the anvil, inspecting the blade of Lord Terryl’s longsword in the forge’s light. She’d shaped the metal with care, drawing out every bump and imperfection. It would be easy to sharpen, heat-treat and finish off by hand. With a satisfied smile, she called to Lumsden.

‘I’m off!’ Cahra dumped her leather apron on the workbench that edged the path to the rear of the smithy, wiping the sweat from her forehead and surveying herself, sighing. Her trousers were ripped at both knees, her boots holed, the evidence of her fireside labouring. This was the reality of life as a blacksmith, toiling from sunrise to sunset with no time or coin to waste on clothes. She adjusted her leather vest, the only woman’s garment she owned, and rubbed the soot from her face. As far as decorum went, her appearance would have to do.

The sun dipped behind a row of squat grey shacks, barnacles that clung together, as Cahra returned from the jeweller’s, the gemstones for Lord Terryl’s longsword sagging in her pocket. The precious gems, bartered for by Lumsden, would form the centrepiece of the sword’s hilt, the insert for the pommel – the shapes she’d sketched and hadn’t been able to stop thinking about. She exhaled softly, eyes drifting over the opalescent orange sky fading into dusk, the coming winter a raw whisper against her skin.

Past the markets, pockets of slums marked the Traders’ Quadrant, their narrow alleys snaking like saltwater through Kolyath’s crevices. A mismatched cluster of eroded granite and ratty tents, the dwellings always looked set to buckle under the weight of the harsh climate. Yet they endured, pinched, packed, but persevering. And once a year, their people celebrated.

Cahra gazed at the decorations for the annual Festival of Shadows and its highlight, Veil’s Eve, dotting windows on the dim streets with paper cut-outs depicting eerie silhouettes. Absently, she wondered what Lord Terryl might be doing for Veil’s Eve, if high-borns even mingled with the masses in the streets. As she would, after finishing his blade.

Lost in thoughts of the lord and his sword, Cahra barely noticed the candles flickering behind window decorations as she passed.

Nor did she notice the weapon at her back, until it was upon her.

‘Gimme the coin,’ a male voice growled from behind. Stilling, Cahra scolded herself. She should have known better, traipsing the backstreets at night with a pocketful of jewels. What in Hael was she thinking? All she’d wanted was to get back to Lord Terryl’s sword. But the time for daydreaming was done. She inhaled, restraining the breath in her chest before letting it out, slowly. Deliberately. It was funny how it always felt so close, the side of her she hid like a crude relic, beastly and buried. Her old life, her old instincts.

Her old self.

Cahra pushed ever so slightly against the weapon at her back and felt no pain. Her lips quirked to one side as she spun and elbowed a blade from her attacker, her opposite fist hooking a clean punch to the jaw, arms snapping up beside her head again. A brutal dance she’d learned on Kolyath’s cutthroat streets, where survival depended on raw instinct.

‘No one in this part of the Quadrant can afford to sharpen their knives,’ she snapped. ‘Now what—’ Then Cahra saw.

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