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The notion that he might have killed little Heila, the sweet, dedicated servant who had once helped the fallen Andrus to catch a giant fish from beneath the ice, unleashed a wave of cracks in the ice that formed Hauke’s mental world.

All this time, he’d thought she survived, that things might still be all right, that he could be forgiven for what the ancestors had done with his body, but if Heila had died. ..

No, even if Heila survived, would she ever look at him again with the eyes of wonder she’d possessed when he built an ice house on the lake that day? Would she tremble in excitement while helping to haul a giant sturgeon above the ice?

As the son of Lord Ritchel and the first Frost Walker born with an iridescent horn in several generations, Hauke had few people he could consider friends.

He’d hoped that Ashlynn and Heila would be two friends that he could grow alongside for years, especially when he learned that Heila had become the Willow Witch.

The ancestors had shown him just how much power he could wield by mastering his iridescent horn, and while he might never rival the Mother of Trees, he was certain that he could match up to Heila, maybe even enough to join Ashlynn’s coven.

.. But now, even if they freed him from these chains, he would be trapped by the hurt and resentment created by what the ancestors, no, by what he had done to them today.

"Artificer Erkembalt, Master Aspakos," Nyrielle said, her words interrupting Hauke’s downward spiral. "Something important requires my attention before the sun rises. This is Hauke, he is Lord Ritchel’s son and in a sense, the one responsible for tonight’s bloodshed," she said, immediately making it clear that she expected Hauke to bear at least a portion of the blame for what happened tonight.

"Ashlynn says that he was possessed by the spirits of his ancestors," Nyrielle continued in a voice that was cold, clipped, and carried a trace of impatience.

"The Fangs of Death used those horns to create Blood Golems that allowed them to live on after death, more fully than a normal Frost Walker ancestor, and the iridescent horns contain fearsome power on their own. "

"Do you know what happened to the young lad?" Erkembalt asked as his face suddenly filled Hauke’s vision. The man’s whiskers twitched, and his silver-rimmed spectacles glowed with a faint trace of energy as he studied the fallen Frost Walker, peeling his eyes open even wider and making ’mmm, mmmhh’ sounds as he worked.

"That is for you to determine," Nyrielle said as she unfurled her dark wings.

"Ashlynn cut him free of the spirits that possessed him, but perhaps the real Hauke is already dead, or ground away into fragments so miniscule that he may never be made whole again.

His body is alive, but whether or not there is anything left of the person he once was.

.." her voice trailed off as she let out a heavy sigh.

"If he is already dead, then the body should follow the soul," Nyrielle pronounced coldly. "But if he is alive and bound by some form of curse, then I expect that my vaunted Breaker of Curses can release him from it, even if only a portion of him remains."

"And these horns and the sword?" a third, distant voice asked, likely belonging to the sorcerer Aspakos. "You want us to take them as prizes?"

"That remains to be seen," Nyrielle said.

"Both are dangerous. For now, seal them away.

Tomorrow night, we can decide what should be done with them.

The Frost Walkers are our conquered foes," Nyrielle added.

"Once you have secured these dangerous relics, you may bring Hauke inside their fortress to examine him, but gentlemen, make no mistake. "

"Hauke is a prisoner, whether you cure him or not," she said in a voice much colder than the mountain air. "Ashlynn and Heila are recovering from their wounds, but Hauke is not to be placed anywhere near them. You can examine him from within the confines of a cell."

"As you will, Your Eternity," the sorcerer said as his dark, feathered countenance and cracked beak entered Hauke’s vision.

"At the very least, this man has been used as a tool of our enemies. We will not harm him until he has been judged, but I will go one step further. Should we find a method of treating him, we will not apply it until you give us leave to do so. Perhaps, this state that he’s in, neither alive nor dead, is a fitting punishment for his crimes.

If that is your judgment, then he will be left as is for the remainder of his days. "

"...for the rest of his days..."

The words fell on Hauke’s struggling spirit like an avalanche, crushing his hopes and sapping away his strength to fight back against his slowly strengthening chains.

The shadows in the world of his mind receded as Nyrielle soared into the night sky, likely to retrieve the body of the fallen vampire Laya, but all Hauke could hear was the resounding echo of the sorcerer’s last words.

"...for the rest of his days..."

Outside, he could hear the two men discussing as Erkembalt separated the ancestor’s horns from each other and placed them into darksteel lined wooden boxes one by one, ensuring that even if the ancestors remained connected to each other after Ashlynn severed their bond with Hauke, they would become isolated and unable to conspire to act once more on the world of the living.

"Ha, ha ha," Hauke chuckled as he heard the man who had carved Paulus’s horn into a blade for Heila talking about keeping each of his ancestors walled away from each other.

The ancestors had been fused together for centuries in their flooded ancestral cave, but now, they were little different from him.

Trapped. Isolated and unable to speak to anyone in the outside world. It was cruel, but after everything they had done, Hauke couldn’t help but laugh until the walls of the icy prison within his mind echoed with thundering laughter.

If he had to be trapped all by himself, alone in his mind for the rest of his days... at least he wasn’t the only one. At least the people who had done this to him could share the same sad fate, at least until their horns crumbled away.

The thought of their horns crumbling away brought Hauke’s laughter to a sudden stop. They’d already told him that even with his help, they could hang on for a few years at most before the magic that sustained them crumbled away, leaving him alone to carry on their legacy.

But if their horns crumbled away in a few years, how long would he last? How much longer would he survive like this? Perhaps his torment would last even longer than his body would, enduring as long as his horn survived.... Centuries, until his horn crumbled away.

"...for the rest of his days..."

His hands formed into fists, and his horn began to glow a faint, determined shade of blue. Whether these sorcerers would help him or not, he couldn’t allow himself to be trapped here like this forever. One way or another, he had to break free!