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"I know, I know what to do," Talauia said, standing up now that she had a clear goal in mind. "If the sorcerers maintaining this ice prison die, their sorcery will crumble," she said with a bloodthirsty grin. "I just have to kill the sorcerers trapping her."

"Wait!" Heila cried. "Don’t," she started to say ’don’t kill anyone’, intending to ask Talauia to simply render the men unconscious, but she knew firsthand that capturing people alive in the middle of a battle was much, much harder than simply ending their lives.

"Don’t kill Lord Ritchel," she said instead.

"We have questions, and he may be the only one with answers. "

"I know, I know," Talauia said, mentally preparing her plan. "Can you use your Snow Fang for me? Just a little, just a little snow in the air would make it easier for me to catch them by surprise."

"I can do much more than a little snow in the air," Heila said, drawing the blade carved from Elder Paulus’s horn. Somehow, the symmetry of using the traitor’s horn to once again attack the people who should have been as close to the treacherous elder as his own kin tickled her, and an odd smile formed on her lips as she began to chant.

"Through Snow Fang’s call and winter’s breath,

Let whiteness dance like whispered death,

A veil of snow flakes, soft and deep,

Where hidden paths our secrets keep,

Let swirling snow obscure all sight,

As Tala moves through blinding white."

As soon as Heila completed her first verse the white horn blade in her hand began to glow with a brilliant white lite, casting stark shadows on the frozen ground before a flurry of snow filled the air, filling the space between the icy prison and and the chasm with a cloud of gently drifting, fat, fluffy snowflakes that made it all but impossible for most people to see more than a few feet in front of themselves.

But Talauia, with her multifaceted hunter’s eyes, had no difficulty tracing a path through the dancing flakes that seemed to drift and sway out of her way, as if they were opening a path just for her while hiding her from anyone who might notice her approach.

"Good hunting," Heila whispered as her friend and mentor vanished into the swirling snow. A simple snowscreen, however, was far from enough to give Talauia the opportunities she needed and Heila herself hated how much she’d been forced to be passive because she hadn’t wanted to hurt Hauke while she tried to understand what was happening.

Now, however, she took the opportunity to strike out at the first real targets to appear before her, the sorcerers maintaining the prison of ice that trapped both Ashlynn and Hauke, isolating them from anyone who could stop this madness before it was too late.

"Now winter’s gentle dance gives way,

To weapons formed from snow’s array,

Let growing spheres of frozen might,

Crash down upon our foes with spite,

Force those who stand against our power,

To cower beneath this frozen shower."

This time, as she finished speaking, a flurry of soft white motes of lights fell from the glowing Snow Fang, drifting into the cloud of snow like dandelion seeds on a summer breeze.

Each one of them seemed to meander through the cloud of fat, fluffy snowflakes without purpose until it made contact with one of those gently drifting flakes.

As soon as a mote of light touched a snowflake, it became ravenous, dancing on the currents of cool air from one flake to the next, building up volume until it seemed like it could bear it no longer and hurled itself directly at Lord Ritchel and his honor guard.

The first snowball was no larger than Heila’s fist, and it impacted with the force of a snowball hurled by a small child, but the second one was a third again the size of the first one and struck with twice the force.

The third one was even larger and faster, and the fourth one was nearly as large as an adult Frost Walker’s fist and slammed into its target with as much force as a trained warrior’s punch.

Meanwhile, in the cloud of dancing, drifting snowflakes, hundreds of motes of light gathered even more snow into tightly packed balls while Talauia made her way into striking distance of her unwitting victims.

On the opposite side, Lord Ritchel maintained his focus on the crystalline Ice Tomb, channeling his sorcery through both hands while his honor guard formed a protective semicircle around him.

When he prepared for the welcoming ceremony, he did everything he could to avoid a repeat of the previous disaster.

This time, instead of sending Hauke to lead the delegation along with the best and brightest among the young warriors and hunters, he brought six of his most trusted sorcerers.

All of them were veterans who had weathered decades of incursions from Tuscans and other unsavory characters who attempted to hunt Frost Walkers for their horns or directly plunder from their ancestral caves.

Now, each of those men stood firmly before him, each one maintaining one side of the hexagonal tomb that contained both his son and the Mother of Trees.

A complicated look rippled across his features, and for a moment, he considered commanding them to dispel the Ice Tomb, freeing the Mother of Trees.

But if he did, it was almost certain that his son would die in the ensuing battle.

No matter what, once Nyrielle herself took the field, there would be no stopping the Harbinger of Death from slaughtering as she pleased.

The more damage Hauke caused, the more her army suffered from the chaos he unleashed, and the worse the outcome could be.

Now, faced with rapidly worsening conditions, doubt wracked Ritchel’s mind, and for perhaps the first time in his life, he prayed, hoping against hope that the Mother of Trees could subdue the raging spirits controlling his son before the situation spiralled beyond anyone’s ability to salvage.