Page 57 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame

Cahra sighed, knowing it was too good to be true. But it was better than nothing at all. Besides, she couldn’t stand looking into his eyes, those flagging flames, that managed to convey such hurt. She would help him however she could.

‘What do I need to do?’

‘Sit, and be at peace. A partial draw should restore me,’ he murmured.

How partial? ‘This won’t, you know, kill me in my sleep?’

‘You will be safe. However, if you do not feel comfortable, you do not have to—’

‘No,’ Cahra said, shaking her head. ‘You helped me, I’ll help you.’

‘That is different. It is my duty, as your shield.’

‘Stop changing the subject and let me do my part.’ She sat as instructed and focused on the feeling of her breath in her chest, holding it to slow her heartbeat. An old trick she’d learned as a child to calm her fears.

Hael hovered next to her, his smoke like satin upon her skin as it encircled her wrist, her outstretched hand. ‘This… abreption… can be painful. You will feel a pull as the energy, your suffering, is drawn from you. Take heart, the sensation will not last.’

Cahra frowned.How painful?But even as she thought the words, they didn’t trouble her enough to stop her. Despite his current guise as a cloud, this was the closest Hael had ever been to her. It felt… funny.

‘And this will fix you?’

‘It will be enough for a time, yes.’

It was strange. As her agitation increased, Hael’s appeared to fall away. She could sense it, his focus, the fixation as he stilled, his smoke and shadow subdued beside her.

‘Close your eyes,’ he murmured, his voice a coarse purr against her earlobe, so close that she shivered. She could have sworn he huffed a low, amused rumble. ‘Inhale, slowly, deeply… then exhale.’ His grip on her grew firmer.

There was a flurry of air, like when he turned to smoke. Cahra wanted to peek, but didn’t dare. Hael uttered his final words to her.

‘Shall we begin?’

She nodded, eyes squeezed shut. She had no idea this whole thing would be so…suggestive. Cahra inhaled, trying to steady herself, and shook her hands out to relax her.

Then the abreption struck.

She writhed against the urge to scream as a jagged, blinding pain ripped into her palm, invading her body and abruptly shattering every thought. She felt it, just as Hael had warned: an agony like serrated barbs, shooting and snapping to hook her insides and wrench them out, inch by excruciating inch. The sensation was unbearable, as though her very soul was being siphoned into oblivion. Hissing as the pain surged deeper, she sucked in desperate gasps of air between her gritted teeth and counted to ten. When she got to nine, the torment stopped.

Gone.

It was allgone. Her rage, sorrow, pain. Gone, exactly as he’d said. And in its place, something Cahra had never known.

Peace.

She inhaled the simple stillness, the silence, her emotions no longer rioting at volume in her head. And with her relief, she sensed growth, an orange flame in her core, radiating through her skin and into the dark around them both. Here, now, she felt different, content for the first time in her life. It was a void, she realised, of everything that had ever sought to drown her. It was a void, and it was bliss.

Cahra exhaled, her breath of sunlit warmth, safety and security. She couldn’t help it. She opened her eyes, smiling, forgetting all about Hael. Then stifled her sharp intake of breath as the being before her transformed from a monster to something else entirely.

Hael’s withered skin brightened to a dewy ivory, pale and smooth as moon-kissed silk, plumping with his muscles to fill his thewy arms and chest, the robust bulk of a warrior’s body that rivalled even Piet’s. Black hair fell in sharp swathes to his shoulders, Cahra taking in the gracefully arched ears, the dignified forehead, the hewn nose and angular cheekbones. Hael’s abundant mouth peeled back to reveal gleaming fangs as his lips curved into a smile, watching her watching him.

Hael gazed at Cahra, eyeballs glowing so fiercely with their ever-burning flames, the flickers dancing down his body. His voice was wraithlike, of gravel and howling wind, yet dulcet, honeyed even, as he said, ‘Thank you, Cahra.’

Hael was beautiful – hauntingly so. Cahra’s voice was full of wonder as she asked, ‘Whatareyou?’

Hael knelt before her, clasping her fingers, then lowered his lips to her hand, kissing it with a tenderness she hadn’t imagined a being like him capable of.

His lips on her skin were sweetfire, leaving Cahra breathless and light-headed, the heat shimmering down her spine and rendering her speechless.

‘You asked this of me, last we spoke. I am Hael, the Reliquus, “that which remains”. Sempiternal of this realm, and Vassal Champion to the Scion.’ Hael stood, bowing deeply. ‘Or in your parlance “the weapon”.’

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