Daughter of the Dragon

Chapter 7: The Blacksmith (UPDATED)

Darya Daransdotr Travers followed her father to the temple of Zeyn shortly after dusk. They took a detour around the village's outer wall to enter the compound through a side door Darya had never before noticed.

Her father refused to say why they were sneaking around beyond admitting they had been summoned by the Exemplar. Just as well. Darya was sure it had to do with Harress's vision of the world burning—with her as the source of the fire. She didn't feel like talking about it. Not now. Not ever. But there was no way to avoid the inevitable. Better just get it done.

What a day it had been. First, the broken stele. The irresistible urge to touch it, the searing heat. Meika, the little freak, acting all grown-up and wise in the ways of magic. Valant declaring he was leaving. Darya swearing she'd go with him. Then the column of smoke, the town of Whitebridge on fire, more like than not. Maybe war was coming, maybe not.

And now this strange congregation: Darya and her father, Daran, the First Alderman of Stelmond. Valant and his master, Rijek, the blacksmith. And Harress, the village's only real priest, Exemplar of Lord Zeyn, King of Gods.

Darya had known the village smith all her life and thought she knew all there was to know about him. She knew Rijek was an outsider, possibly a refugee or an outcast. He had settled in Stelmond a lifetime ago. He'd built the smithy with his own hands and made himself a valuable member of the community. Rijek had never married, though the village women considered him a handsome fellow and a decent match. For the most part, the smith kept to himself, having few real friends in the village.

Every year, Rijek paid a single gold five-sovereign—quite a large sum—to Valant's foster parents. He demanded hard work, discipline, and obedience from his apprentice. Darya doubted that Valant loved his master any more than he did his foster parents, but the apprentice had a great deal of respect for his master. In Valant's eyes, the blacksmith could do no wrong, and whatever he said, the young man thought the height of wisdom.

The Alderman's daughter was rather fond of old Rijek herself. He was stern but fair and had always treated her well. When she was younger, she'd spent a lot of time hanging around the smithy, watching Rijek and Valant work, making a nuisance of herself.

Not so much anymore. According to Darya's father, she was no longer a little girl and must behave like a proper young woman. Which did not include hanging around the village's smithy or spending too much time with a particular penniless apprentice. Her father did have a point, although Darya did miss Rijek's rugged smile and fantastic stories.

Rijek wasn't the most talkative person, but sometimes when he worked, he would talk of distant lands he'd visited before settling in Stelmond. Hunting red deer in the Great Weald. Weeks on horseback, traveling the long road from the Silver Kingdom of Aquitaine all the way to the Storm Coast, where the Martells had ruled since before the fall of the Old Empire. Setting sail on a trading cog, first to the fabled Thousand Islands of Albion, then on to the frost-haunted northern lands of Scania.

To young Darya, Rijek's travels had seemed the height of adventure, though, in hindsight, it was all rather ordinary. There had been no fire-breathing dragons, no tartars, no alfr. And no bloodthirsty brigands, dark magic, or beautiful princesses in need of rescuing. Just a lot of traveling.

And that was precisely it: other than being more well-traveled than the rest of the village, Darya had always taken the blacksmith for an ordinary person.

Yet here they were, and Rijek was no longer acting like himself. His posture was all wrong, his voice too. He was no longer relaxed; he was tense, ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. His movements weren't those of Rijek, the powerful but calm smith. They belonged to a Rijek rarely seen, the relentless arms master who instructed Valant in swordplay behind the smithy on Restdays. His voice was wrong too. Angry. At the world in general and the Exemplar in particular. The Rijek Darya knew was never angry.