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The sudden blizzard and loss of their torches paralyzed much of Nyrielle’s army. While they looked impressive on the march, and many of them were impressive warriors as individuals or small groups, too little time had passed to weld them together into a truly cohesive force.

Wagon drivers and horse handlers fought to calm their panicked beasts, and hundreds of ordinary people hunkered down where they stood or sheltered inside the nearest wagon or cart to wait out the sudden storm or to receive instructions from someone who knew what was going on.

Those at the back of the long, winding caravan hadn’t heard anything at all since the Seneschal’s formal greeting cut off halfway mere moments before the storm descended on them.

Those at the front of the caravan, however, had a clear view of Hauke’s treacherous charge, followed by Lord Ritchel’s insidious trap, sealing Lady Ashlynn in a prison of ice along with the surprisingly powerful Hauke.

If there was one saving grace in all of this, it was that Lord Ritchel appeared too hasty, sealing Hauke and Ashlynn away before Hauke succeeded in killing the Mother of Trees’ most loyal protector.

"Not again, not again," Talauia said as she shot out of the carriage like an arrow from a bow. Dark ghosts danced through her mind, bringing with them memories of the formal gathering the Jaws of Death had exploited to massacre her clan. Everyone had been there, dressed in their festive best and ready to drink and dance the night away, when the doors of the ballroom slammed open and a pack of Bardas’s murderous jackals descended on her uncles, aunts, cousins, and childhood friends like wilde beasts lost to their own bloodlust.

The scars she carried from that night of carnage haunted her to this day, and it was precisely because of this that the Thistle Witch insisted that Ashlynn craft some potent defenses into any Fancy Hat she wore.

But today, standing on the windswept mountainside to act as a herald before entering the Frost Walker fortress, Ashlynn wasn’t wearing a Fancy Hat or a War Hat, only a simple Traveling Hat that kept her head warm against the bitter chill and held a few of her most essential items.

Now, Talauia’s multifaceted purple eyes burned with cold, calculating fury as she threw herself into the fierce winds of the blizzard.

Her wings hummed as she tumbled through the air, not resisting the sudden gusts or icy winds but riding them like a thistle seed on the wind.

Fighting the wind to fly straight would only exhaust her before she crossed even half the distance to her target.

Halfway between the lead wagon and the bridge leading across the giant chasm that served as a moat for the Frost Walker fortress, Talauia emerged from the blizzard only a hundred paces away from the wounded Willow Witch.

Bright red blood stained the snow around her ,but Heila was far too fierce to be defeated by the few wounds she’d suffered in the initial clash.

Already, she was surrounded by a pale silvery-green light of healing energy that both purged the cold from her body and sealed the dozens of small cuts across her diminutive figure.

"Heila, Heila, are you fine?" Talauia shouted as she darted toward her friend, concealing herself behind the icy walls of the prison that trembled with the force of Ashlynn and Hauke’s battle.

"Tala!" Heila exclaimed joyously before wincing at the pain her sudden exclamation brought.

Every intake of breath hurt unless it was slow and steady, and her sudden shout tugged at half a dozen still healing wounds that split open again as soon as she drew breath.

"Tala, I’m fine," Heila insisted, despite her pale complexion and blood-stained clothes.

"Who did this, who did this, and why did they do it?" Talauia asked. Her wings vibrated rapidly, humming with the desire to sink her wickedly pointed teeth into the flesh of whoever dared to hurt her loved ones. Why they’d done it didn’t matter much to her, but like a ghost at her shoulder, she heard the echo of her father’s voice ringing in her ears.

"If you understand what your target wants, little Tala," he’d said on more occasions than she could count.

"Then you can understand how he’ll move.

Understand what he wants, and you can make him chase it, stretching his own neck out so far across your blade that all you have to do is tug to claim his life. "

Her father had taught her many things, but the most important among them hadn’t been the methods of applying poison or the way to wield a knife. The most important lessons were how to reach your target when they were vulnerable and escape with your own life intact.

"I don’t know what’s happening," Heila said. "Hauke, Hauke isn’t like that," she insisted. "He’s kind and gentle and he protected me from the Tuscans when they attacked us on the lake. Something, something has to be making him do this," she concluded.

"His father? Is it his father, Lord Ritchel?" Talauia asked. "The sorcery that sealed Auntie Ashlynn in with Hauke, is it his? Is he the one making Hauke do this?"

"That doesn’t make any sense," Heila said, pounding a tiny fist into the ground in frustration. None of this made any sense! "Lord Ritchel is afraid of Lady Nyrielle. He would never attack her or Lady Ashlynn unless... unless someone was making him do it?"

The notion that someone powerful enough to bend an Eldritch Lord to their will might be lurking out there, pulling the strings on Lord Ritchel like a puppet master, sent a chill down both women’s spines, but if that was true, then they could only face it head-on.

Besides, it wasn’t like they didn’t have strong reinforcements on their own side to fight back with either.

"Right now, we need to break Ashlynn out of this prison," Heila said, refusing to get caught up in worries about hidden threats. Her lady was in danger, and nothing was more important than breaking her free.

"I don’t have anything that can break those walls, and it’s hard to manipulate the ice without any trees to bind it to my will," Heila admitted, hot tears of frustration forming in the corners of her eyes as she found herself too weak to rescue the person who mattered more to her than anyone else in the world.

Ashlynn was the lady she served, the leader of her coven, the woman who had transformed her life from humble and ordinary into something extraordinary, but more than any of that, Ashlynn was her dearest friend, and nothing she had thought of could do anything to break the icy walls that held her prisoner.

"Can you?" Heila asked, looking at Talauia with pleading eyes. She knew the odds were slim. Talaua was the Thistle Witch, and like Heila, she depended on the energy of living, growing things to fuel her witchcraft, but she had to ask, nonetheless. "Can you do anything to break her free?"