Page 50 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame

‘Cahra,’ Wyldaern whispered, rallying her, ‘You will endure. We both will. We shall speak to Luminaux’s King and Queen, and we will rest. Then we will travel to the Oracle, where you shall learn your fate.’ She glared at Thierre. ‘And be free of this one’s falsehoods.’

Wyldaern stepped in front of Cahra, staring coldly at Thierre, and said quietly, ‘One more deception, Prince, and we depart. I do not care for your heedless reasons, nor your kingdom’s hospitality.’ Her tone was scathing. ‘Let us speak and be done with this.’

Then Wyldaern strode for the palace steps, head high.

Cahra didn’t know how to move her legs. But moment by moment, her limbs thawed, as she focused on each of Wyldaern’s footsteps. Eventually, Cahra managed to follow her, Thierre looking on.

Betrothed. Beloved. Thierre is to be married.

Cahra shut her eyes, letting the soothing numbness be her guide, her footsteps leaden.

Delicia’s jade-tinged gaze marked every one.

CHAPTER 22

All eyes were on Cahra as she stilled to speak, perched on a leather chair that dwarfed her – a feat given her solid blacksmith’s frame – in a room of Luminaux’s palace that could only be described as a den of war. Its walls were hunter’s green and adorned with an armoury of weapons carrying the scent of oil and steel: pairs of poleaxes, morningstars, halberds, even great-hammers, all with handles crossed like ‘X’s marking danger. A sprawling map of the realm was unfurled in the centre of a mahogany table, Hael’stromia’s black pyramid flanked by blue, red and grey hand-carved pieces for Luminaux, Kolyath and Ozumbre’s armies, doing battle on the table as they were in life. But Cahra’s gaze was on that map, eyes drawn to the painted black pyramid at its heart depicting Hael’stromia.Hael.

The memory of his fiery eyes that burned with their own light filled her.

Eventually, Cahra glanced up from the map to the Luminaux royals awaiting her tale. Thierre’s longsword lay on the table, tormenting her. As did everything about this place.

At least Lady Delicia had been dismissed, potential talk of the war too much for her high-born sensibilities.

Looking anywhere but at Thierre, Cahra caught Wyldaern’s peridot eyes, the Seer nodding in encouragement. Cahra could almost hear the words inside her head, the words that had roused her outside the palace.

You will endure.

One night. She could endure one night. Then she’d be free of Thierre forever.

Longing for nightfall, Cahra began.

Luminaux’s royals were in differing degrees of shock by the end of Cahra’s story. King Royce moved to peer at the longsword she’d forged for his son, glancing quizzically between Cahra and the sigil on the pommel. Commander Tyne, arms braced on the table, glowered at the red and grey pieces on the map, the furrow etched between his eyebrows clearly a product of fierce and frequent thought. When Cahra spoke about Lumsden revealing ‘Lord Terryl’ as the sword’s owner and her finding Thierre before the Kingdom Guards did, Queen Avenais gasped. And Thierre himself stressed that not only had Cahra saved Raiden during the first attack, but she and Wyldaern had found Kolyath and Ozumbre’s pins on the soldiers in the second one. Gracious of him, to assert she wasn’t a foreign foe.

But that didn’t make Thierre a friend.

All the while, Princess Sylvanir, Thierre’s sister and General under the Commander, leaned against a floor-to-ceiling bookcase. A booted ankle crooked behind her armoured leg, she stared from Thierre to Cahra and back again.

As with Delicia, Cahra didn’t flinch under the young woman’s piercing gaze, but not from resentment or defensiveness. There was something Cahra respected about her and the idea of a woman leading a kingdom’s army. Cahra wasn’t a soldier, but she’d known the looks and comments that went along with existing in a man’s field. She wondered if Luminaux’s General had experienced them too.

Wyldaern spoke next, her Sigil of the Seers on display, to the delight of the Queen, which surprised Cahra. All she’d ever heard of the Seers from the Steward’s proclamations was ‘heretic this, heathen that’, despite the prophecy providing for his precious war. Wyldaern explained she’d been travelling to her teacher, stopping to forage for food when the allied patrol had attacked. As with Cahra’s, the Seer’s tale ended with the pins.

And it was those enemy pins, that new piece of information – that Luminaux’s rival kingdoms had conspired – that was the royals’ cause for concern, and debate.

Cahra didn’t have concerns or strength for debating left. Not after hours of questions about Kolyath, Steward Atriposte, Commander Jarett and the Kingdom Army, when all she wanted to do was sleep. Instead she listened to the royals brood and plan, and tried not to think.

Of Thierre, sneaking her glances from the opposite end of the room.

Of Delicia, the perfect bride for Luminaux’s Crown Prince.

And of herself, leaving them to their pre-wedded bliss in the morning.

Cahra sat up from slouching in her chair as Wyldaern handed her a turquoise teacup. Upon the Queen discovering Thierre hadn’t eaten since breakfast, food and drink were swiftly laid out on a serving table at the room’s rear, a huge honey-roasted ham on a silver platter with a rainbow medley of baked vegetables, and enough wine to tipple then topple an army. Cahra had eaten her fill, but had no wish to drink, so Wyldaern had fetched her a cup of the tea the Seer had been sipping. Cahra took it, the steaming cup a comfort.

Meanwhile, the mood in the room had shifted, now abuzz with the implications of Cahra and Wyldaern’s revelation about the pins. King Royce and Commander Tyne were poring over the realm’s tabletop terrain, General Sylvanir pacing and frowning at random pieces, shaking her head.

‘Anything?’ The Commander didn’t look up, also scowling at the map.

‘Nothing, except that all campaigns are now compromised,’ the General said through gritted teeth, indicating several points on the table: their blue pieces outside Luminaux’s gate; more to the north, half-way to Kolyath, at the bottom of what looked like caves; more still flanking Kolyath and Ozumbre’s kingdom gates. ‘Based on the latest reports, each location is, at most, a day from not one but both forces. If this alliance has occurred at a kingdom level, they outnumber us everywhere. They could strike at any time.’ Sylvanir turned to Tyne, the indigo of her arresting eyes – hers and Thierre’s – flashing. ‘We must retreat.’

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