Bill Ironforge's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

By morning the Empress could not lift her head. Bill knelt by the hearth and pressed a bowl of broth to her lips. She turned away. He held it steady until she drank. Her broken horn had scabbed, but fever burned in her gold eyes. He fed her again at midday, and again at dusk, wiping the sweat from her brow with his sleeve. The door swung open on the third morning. Lisa came in first, snow melting on her green wings. She ran his household when he traveled, and she read his face before he spoke. Mary followed, quiet, her twilight scales catching the firelight. Both women stopped cold when they saw who lay by the fire. "You brought her inside," Lisa said. She did not soften it. "The clans want her dead. You've put her under your own roof." "I have," Bill said. He set down the bowl and stood. "She is my guest. She eats at my fire. Anyone who harms her answers to me. That holds for every soul in this stronghold." Mary crossed the room. She crouched beside the Empress and studied the snapped horn, then the scales along the woman's arms. Mary touched her own scaled wrist without thinking. "This break will set wrong if no one packs it clean," she said, soft and certain. "You've done it rough, Bill. Move." Lisa stared at him a moment longer. He met her eyes and did not explain himself. That was the part of him she could never reach, and they both knew it. She let out a slow breath. "Fine. But you'll tell me why. Not today. Soon." Then she knelt and reached for the clean cloth. Winter closed over the mountain. The wives took the care from Bill's hands. Mary changed the horn's dressing each dawn and pressed the Empress with questions about scales and blood. Lisa brought food and made her walk the hall when the fever broke. The Empress cursed them both at first. She stopped after a week. By the second month she sat upright at their table. Mary had learned more of scales from her than from three years of study. Lisa no longer watched the door. One evening the Empress laughed at something Mary said, and the sound was not bitter. Bill watched from the hearth and saw his household bend around her. His enemy had become their guest. His guest had become their friend. Spring thinned the snow on the passes. The Empress found Bill alone by the fire. Her wings had healed enough to fold clean. "I'm strong enough now," she said. "You want your clans. I'll call them." "You'll do it," Bill said. "I'll do it." Her gold eyes held his. "Send word to the five chiefs. Tell them to ride to your gate. They'll come. They still fear my name." She paused. "They'll come armed, blacksmith. And they'll come for me first."