Page 36 of Darro

He nodded. “Come to the forge,” he whispered. “’Tis warmer there.”

Rory took her down to where he worked on making weapons, which was an enormous room filled with all sorts of interesting swords, daggers, shields and the hundreds of tools he used. Esme became filled with awe when she inspected the size of his heaviest hammers, and discovered they were longer and their handles thicker than her legs. The huge anvil on which he hammered things had two pointed ends and had been attached to a block of granite with chains as thick as both of her arms put together.

“If the spell trap keeps restoring everything you use, why do you need to make new weapons for the clan?” she asked as she bent down to look inside the huge hearth where he heated the metals he worked on.

“The original armory and forge werenae part of the stronghold,” Rory said. “I feared with the power of my voice I might damage the stronghold, so I asked the laird permit me to work beyond the walls in the forest. We built the first forge a half-league from the outer wall. As ’twas my duty to oversee the armory, I kept most of the weapons there, too. Other than the blades they carried, and some Alec kept stored in the garrison hall and his chambers, none of my brothers had adequate weapons when we were cast into this place.”

“You must be afraid all of the time, being here.” She saw a flicker of that pass over his stunning face and became filled with sympathy for him. “I know it’s hard to trust yourself, mano, but you haven’t made this place fall down in nine hundred years.”

“Only I made a wall collapse by talking in my sleep. It fell on the Seneschal and his lady Grace.” He looked at her. “Did Lady Ava tell you how differently we dream in the spell trap?”

“She mentioned it, yes.” She thought of the odd events in her dream, and wondered if he would understand them better than she did. “Would you mind hearing about the last one I had?”

“’Tis why you wished speak with me, aye?” he asked, smiling.

She told him about the beautiful woman with green eyes and the scarlet gem jewelry, the ancient forest and how she walked in and out of the trees as if they were doorways.

“I think she lived there a long time before the humans showed up,” Esme said, and described the changes in the landscape around the forest before she said, “When they finally came, she didn’t like what they did to her home. She used little wooden creatures she hatched from eggs to kill a lot of the people. Then some different humans came. They wore embroidered robes and didn’t try to hurt her or her woods.”

“The female ’tis melia,” Rory told her. “A kind of Fae who dwell in forests and use trees to contain their homes. The robed mortals, they’re druids. They’ve long kept the peace in the mortal realm.”

Esme described how people stayed away from the melia after that, and the way the red-black gems in her jewelry paled to white over time. Finally she told Rory about the handsome man who came to bargain with the woman, and took her necklace before thrusting it into her mouth.

“I saw the man change his appearance—he looked old and ugly, and had black-red eyes, like a monster.” She didn’t want to detail how the melia had died, but she mentioned it briefly before talking about the fair-haired young woman in the golden gown who took her out of the dream and helped her wake up.

“The blonde woman,” Esme said, “she’s Torra MacBren, isn’t she?”

“Aye. She possesses Dun Talamh since her body ’twas destroyed.” He went over to a table and sorted through some blades there. “Why do you reckon you dreamed such, Esme?”

“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “It seemed important, and I needed to tell you about it, although I’m not sure why. It may have been the blonde sending a message through me for you.” She thought for a moment, trying to bring back the details at the end of the dream. “Yes, I remember her telling me to talk to you.”

“I shall think long and carefully on what you’ve said.” The armorer picked up a small dagger and brought it to her. “Here, ’tis for you.”

She took the blade he handed to her and gave him an uncertain smile. “I don’t need a knife, do I? I’ve got that sling.”

“You may want more than one weapon with the ongoing alterations of the enchantment.” He looked as if he wanted to say more, and then lifted his hands. “Would you permit me to touch your face for a moment, my lady?”

“Okay.” She waited as he gently pressed his palms to the sides of her head, and then moved them to her cheeks before lowering his arms. It seemed like a very odd thing to do, and at the same time reminded her of being checked by a doctor. “Am I all right?”

He nodded. “You’re no’ enchanted with Fae magic, and our bloodlines differ. Yours, ’tis quite ancient.”

Ava had mentioned that Rory could use magic in a limited sense, which now intrigued her. “Is all of that a good thing?”

“Aye. ’Tis likely why the enchantment gave you the dream of the melia.” He looked away.

Since he didn’t seem to want to talk about the weirdness of dreaming here, Esme asked, “What else can you tell me about my bloodline?”

“Your tribe lived beside an enormous lake, with an island of caves from which the first of your line came,” the armorer said, his expression softening. “’Twas a beautiful place, with many birds and fish, and tremendous floating gardens of veg tended by dozens of gardeners. Your people thrived there for a long time. They protected their lands so passionately that only the very foolish would attack—and none prevailed.”

She smiled, delighted by his description. “That sounds like my kind of people. Was that lake in Mexico, then?”

“I dinnae ken the name of your homeland,” Rory said. “Your tribe flourished there until a battle that slew many of their chieftains, and rendered their lands barren. To survive they had to journey south to find a new home.”

“There’s an old legend among my people that we originally came from the American southwest,” Esme murmured, fascinated. “When they migrated to Mexico they became the Aztecs—and you could tell all this from my head?”

“When I touch someone, I see but a limited vision of their bloodline,” he murmured. “Some prove harder to read than others, as they share many bloodlines, and they become tangled and confused over time. Your tribe, they’re proud, fearless warriors who kept to their own kind, so yours is more pure and easier to envision. ’Tis also why you had the courage to do this to me.” He touched the back of his head.

“Can I ask you something about magic?” She saw him tense and quickly said, “Not about you, but Chieftain Darro. Is he under a spell that makes him afraid of me?”