Page 71 of A Kiss of Hammer and Flame

‘Why.’ Her voice was alien to her own ears. She could feel the old numbness pushing back, like it used to, as a child. In a world she’d cruelly been tossed into.

‘Because it seems, Cahraelia, that you were fated to call upon the Seers to complete our final task. It was your sword, was it not, that signified the first of the omens?’

‘How?’ Cahra mumbled.

Thelaema smiled tightly. ‘You are the last of Kolyath’s bloodline, a sister kingdom of old that Hael’stromia held sovereignty over. Our sigil would have been present at your birth,’ the Oracle said, as if that explained anything at all.

Cahra stared into empty space. ‘I don’t even know how old I am.’

‘You are eighteen years old,’ Thelaema said gently. ‘Your birthday was the day that you gave Prince Thierre the sword. The day that you both fled Kolyath.’

A sob escaped Cahra’s lips, as she whispered, ‘How can you possibly know that?’

Thelaema gazed into Cahra’s eyes then, the woman’s glistening with regret. ‘I saw. Because I am the conduit, the final theomancer.’ She exhaled. ‘And my duty here is done.’

Finally, Cahra looked, truly looked, at the Oracle’s strangely coloured eyes, and saw: Thelaema wasn’t of middle years. She was as ancient as the Oracles of old.

Because shewas one, Cahra realised, jaw dropping, and she knew it to be the truth. Thelaema was the last Oracle to exist, to meet the Scion and bestow the Key, as told by the prophecy she’d helped divine. Like Hael, she’d survived for longer than anyone deserved. And that life had required strength and resilience honed from years of seeing, knowing. Waiting. All this time, for Cahra.

Her eyes flashed to Thelaema’s. It was as if the thought had been sown, then grown in her own mind. The Oracle nodded.

Then Thelaema put a hand to her head, Wyldaern immediately at the woman’s side.

‘Are you all right?’ The Seer asked her mentor.

‘Yes, yes,’ Thelaema said, batting her apprentice away. She turned to Cahra. ‘Please, do not blame Wyldaern for the glimpses she saw without knowing your entire story. The All-seeing works in more onerous ways than mysterious ones, I am afraid.’

Cahra glanced at the contraption – the Key – that rested on Thelaema’s low table. She had no idea how to make sense of any of this mess.

Thelaema paused, sensing her agitation. ‘Cahra. There is more to learn.’

‘What more could there be?’ she managed, voice strained.

Wyldaern replied, ‘Why your village was attacked. Why a Steward sits on your throne. What must occur now that you have the Key.’ She glanced to the Oracle.

As if in answer, Thelaema pushed it closer. ‘Take it. It is yours.’

She longed to yell she didn’t want it, to pick it up and hurl it through the room’s glossy windows, shattering the glass. But she didn’t. She could feel the metal calling to her, urging her to take the Key from the table. Cahra looked at it uneasily, ready to recoil her fingers that crept towards the occult oddity, yet she didn’t stop them. Instead, staring intently, she cupped it in her hands, tracing a finger over the dip at the Key’s centre.

Suddenly, the world spun and darkness encroached, dragging Cahra under.

CHAPTER 29

She was falling.

Plummeting through the air, Cahra’s breath was ripped away. Her blood raged like wildfire in her veins, bile shooting from her stomach to scald her throat. She tried to breathe, tried to scream, but could do nothing as the floor of Hael’s tomb converged at lightning speed. Refusing to let the looming tiles be the last thing she ever saw, Cahra closed her eyes.

In an instant, Hael was there, as he always was now, her protector.

Her only shield.

He caught her, his powerful legs braced against the stones, arms wrapping Cahra in an embrace. At the feel of his sturdiness, her head against the broadness of his chest – at the realisation she’d stopped falling, she sank into his grasp, her breaths heaving, the smell of burning in the air. She had survived without shattering her back or skull, thank the—

Seers.Cahra froze, her thoughts derailed.

Hael stared in the direction of the presumed ceiling for a time, then gazed at Cahra. The abreption of their last vision had held; he was still lovely. His midnight hair cascaded in wild, sleek spikes that edged past his shoulders, his cheekbones sharp enough to draw blood as his lips peeled back into a feral snarl, wolfish fangs glinting in the blackness. Cahra tried to focus on his ethereal beauty, rather than what had just happened.

But Hael was having none of it, asking, ‘What in the name ofTenebrius occurred?’ The fires of his eyes were blazing black, which she’d begun to guess was related to his emotions. He hadn’t let go of her. If anything, he was clutching her even tighter, an immovable fortress.

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