CHAPTER SEVEN
It seemed so strange to Royce to be walking away from the village in which he had grown up, and to be doing it with so few answers. He and the others were only walking slowly through the forest, yet it seemed as if every step was taking him a hundred miles from the spaces where he had grown up, and the person that he had been doing it.
“There is a blacksmith a couple of villages over who forges good weapons,” Hendrik said. “He has been providing people with them ever since the first rumblings against the duke started. Now that you’ve struck the first blow in the fight against the nobles, I’m sure he will want to help.”
“That wasn’t what I planned to do,” Royce said. He held out his hand and Ember leapt from his grip, circling up amongst the trees.
If he concentrated, Royc
