The Path of Flames (Chronicles of the Black Gate Book 1) by Phil Tucker Read Free Book Online

interweave with the unfinished hem of her hauberk and weld them shut. Quiet work. Delicate, repetitive work that allowed her to dream, to let slip her mind from the smoky confines of the smithy and out to wonder on her hopes and aspirations.
    She’d never managed to convey to Elon why she wanted to dress in armor and wield a sword. Elon was a practical man; he understood the world in terms of what he could shape and handle with his powerful hands. To him weaponry meant blood and injuries and dirt and campaigning and death. Which was all true. Kethe knew that being a warrior was not a glamorous business, not like they sang about in the epics. She knew that all too well. But simply being a woman was just as dangerous and brutal in its own way.
    Three years later, it was still too easy to summon the terror, the bitter, galling sense of helplessness. To remember his face as he came at her with his sword, his eyes blank with his determination to kill her. It had been three years, but she could still vividly recall the tearing pain in her throat as she’d screamed. Screamed, because she’d been unable to defend herself. Screamed, because she was weak and had to summon others to save her.
    Kethe pursed her lips and stared down at the wire. Having a sword at her hip would mean never feeling that way again, never letting an animal like that knight terrorize her to the point of having nightmares for a year afterwards. She would be like her father, feared and respected for his strength. Nobody intimidated him. Nobody took advantage of him. He was the strongest, most capable man she knew. Kethe bit her lip as she wove the wire around and around the rod. Elon’s hammer began to ring out anew. Methodical, rhythmic.
    But becoming a knight had become more than simple self-defense. Over the past few years the blade had come to symbolize the ability to forge her own destiny. Choose her own path. Cut through the layers and layers of strangling expectations, and stand tall and proud and free. A foolish dream, no doubt. There had been many times when she’d felt desolate and alone, and had nearly thrown her coat of mail into Elon’s forge. Moments when she’d felt foolish and pathetic, a child indulging in fantasies. But she hadn’t given up. Coming to the smith—escaping the stifling confines of the keep whenever she could—was the only true pleasure that was hers and hers alone. Even riding Lady was stilted, accompanied as she always was by Hessa and two guards.
    Shouts disturbed her thoughts. She turned to Elon, who stopped, hammer raised above his head. Both then turned to the smithy door. The cries weren’t of fear or panic, but rather excitement tinged with alarm.
    “A visitor?” Elon set his hammer down and wiped his hands with a dirty cloth.
    “News from Father?” Kethe stood and threw a cloth sack over her mail.
    Lord Kyferin had been gone two months, along with every Black Wolf and all the squires. Two months was a long time to campaign, but not unusually so; word had reached them intermittently that the Agerastian force had been avoiding pitched battle for weeks now, burning its way across the countryside as it avoided the Ascendant’s forces.
    More shouts. Kethe hurried through the door into the chapel just as Father Simeon came walking down the aisle with his chaplain at his heels. He was a tall, stern man, with a high forehead, severe cheekbones, and the rich bronzed skin of a Noussian born. “What’s going on?”
    “I don’t know,” Kethe said, and stepped outside into the bailey.
    Everybody was emerging from their respective buildings to crowd around the gatehouse. Kethe stepped forth, people parting for her with the usual respectful nods. A young man was riding over the castle drawbridge. His white hair and skin as pale as milk marked him for a Bythian, though why he was mounted she couldn’t fathom… Wait. Asho? He looked like he’d been dragged backwards by his horse through a field filled with thorns.