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"I will answer, I will answer," Talauia said as soon as Ashlynn asked. "But I won’t be bullied," she said, rounding her multifaceted gaze on the assembled Frost Walkers. "I won’t be shouted at. I won’t be threatened. If you do, if you do, then I won’t just stand for it again!"

"No one will shout at you," Ashlynn promised, raising the brim of her hat and looking out over the assembled Frost Walkers.

"We’ve heard the words of the living and their demands.

But right now, I want to address the demands of the dead," she said, nodding slightly at Zedya’s crimson figure before touching Nyrielle lightly and returning to her throne.

"Tala," Ashlynn said, trying to relax the formal atmosphere as much as she could, as though she and the Thistle Witch were once again sitting on the floor around Amahle’s table and sharing a meal they’d cooked together rather than holding court formally before hundreds of onlookers.

"You said that some things can’t be fixed, but you didn’t tell us why.

Is it because Lord Ritchel’s wounds are too severe or is it because this mountain is a barren place that lacks the resources you need to make him well. "

At the head of the Frost Walker delegation, Odette trembled in her seat, trying to contain the glimmer of hope that Ashlynn’s words rekindled.

None of them had considered it when Talauia first spoke but to ask a member of the Mother of Thorns coven to perform a healing miracle in this desolate, icy place. .. it might really be too difficult.

"It’s both, it’s both things that are a problem," Talauia said slowly, keeping an eye on the crowd to see if they would do as Ashlynn had commanded and remain silent while she explained.

"I pulled back my poison, I did, but it already tore at his whole body. My poison, it’s like putting thousands of tiny needles in his blood.

They poke and tear all over until he bleeds on the inside or the poison collects in his heart and tears it apart. "

"Lord Ritchel, Lord Ritchel fought off the poison with Lady Nyrielle’s Blood Vitality Crystal," Talauia explained. "His blood is strong right now and that’s keeping him alive. He’s constantly healing to remain young and in his prime.

But when that stops, when that stops then everything that was cut and torn will tear open again.

He’ll bleed and bleed and bleed until his body fails. "

"But isn’t there a chance that he might survive, even if he’s crippled from his injuries?" Ashlynn asked. She’d heard the Frost Walker healers speculate that such a dismal fate might be the best that Lord Ritchel could hope for but she wanted to hear it from Talauia directly.

"He might, he might," the Thistle Witch said without much hope. "But only because of Lady Nyrielle’s blood sorcery. I don’t know, I don’t know if it will be enough to let him live but he won’t live well, not well at all if he survives.

And... and not for very long," she added quietly. "Maybe only a few years."

"You can’t heal him," Heila said, gingerly sliding off of her icy seat and walking over to stand next to Talauia.

"But cousin, the Willow is better at healing than the Thistle.

If I help," she said, turning to look briefly at Ashlynn before continuing.

"If Mother Ashlynn and I both help and if we take Lord Ritchel to the Vale of Mists for healing. .. is there a chance?"

"It won’t matter, won’t matter at all," Talauia said, shaking her head fiercely.

"It’s just like pouring water into a sieve.

You can keep pouring and pouring and it will hold for a moment before it all empties again.

The holes and tears, there are too many of them.

Even if all three of us try, even if I could heal a hundred wounds and together we could heal five hundred wounds, he has thousands of tiny wounds," the Thistle Witch said. "It’s not enough. Not enough at all."

"I see," Ashlynn said solemnly before turning to face Odette.

"I cannot promise to save your husband," she began, drawing a clear line before she offered the fragile woman any more hope.

"But I think there is a way that we might.

It will require even more sacrifice on top of the sacrifice that Gunter, Hrosskel, Artur, Sturla, Hulda, and Daldis have already made," she said, gesturing at the bodies of the fallen honor guard.

"Are you willing to make an offering if it might save your husband’s life?

Or would you prefer to let him pass peacefully? "

"I do not wish to see my young friend lose his life so soon," Nyrielle added from her throne beside Ashlynn.

"But he fought against the greatest assassin of the Glimmerwing Clan, the Thistle Witch herself. It isn’t a shameful death to be defeated by such a powerful witch.

In his place, you will have to choose, Castle Mistress Odette. "

"If it will save my husband’s life so that he can return to his duties and protect our people as a lord should," Odette said firmly. "Then I will offer up my life in his place. Our people need his strength more than they need mine. Take whatever you need from me to give him back his life."

"I never promised that he could return to his throne," Ashlynn said carefully. The time for that conversation was approaching but the moment wasn’t upon them yet. "Only that we would try to save his life. Young Dafrir," Ashlynn continued, turning to face the young hunter who had demanded vengeance.

"Will you insist on the vengeance your heart burns for? Or will you follow in your father’s example and stake your life to save Lord Ritchel?

Will you and all your brethren," she said, gesturing to the other children of the fallen Honor Guard.

"Will you do as your honored dead have done and risk your lives to finish the mission they started? "

"I will," a young, childish voice said from among the gathered Frost Walkers. "Grandfather said we could only ever do our best. He did his best," she said, pushing her way forward until she stood beside the frozen figure of her fallen grandfather. "But it wasn’t good enough. So, since he couldn’t finish, then I’ll help him do it. Then, then you can rest, can’t you grandfather?

" She said, lowering her shining blue horn until it touched the ice that contained her grandfather’s body.

"What would you require from us, Your Dominion?" Odette asked, stepping forward and resting a hand gently on the young girl’s shoulder. "How can we help to save my husband?"

"Tala said it herself," Ashlynn said with a smile at the winged witch. "Alone, she might heal a hundred wounds, but together, if we return to the Vale of Mists, we could heal five hundred. She also said something else important," Nyrielle said, turning to face Nyrielle.

"Mistress," Ashlynn said formally. "If we brought enough of his people with us and you could feed on them frequently, could you prepare more Blood Vitality Crystals for Lord Ritchel? Your magic is what’s sustaining him now.

He still has four crystals more from the gift you gave him before.

If we can sustain him for long enough that he no longer deteriorates between healing sessions.

.." she said, allowing her voice to trail off.

In order to create a single Blood Vitality Crystal, Nyrielle would need to gorge herself on far more blood than she needed to survive, until she was all but overflowing with the energy of the blood she’d consumed.

Condensing that power into a single crystal was an act of sorcery that only True Vampires like her were capable of and the effects were truly miraculous, restoring even an aging man like Lord Ritchel to the prime of his life and infusing him with the restorative power of blood purified and fortified by a vampire’s power to defy death itself.

Once she laid it out before everyone, it seemed like such an obvious solution, but before Nyrielle could give an answer, someone else spoke out.

"I know that the dead demand justice," Commander Jannik said, giving Odette a complicated look as he stood.

"But there is a limit to what the dead can demand of the living.

You already wish to take Lord Ritchel away to receive healing and this much I can understand.

I can even accept it," he said, striding forward to stand between the gathered Frost Walkers and Nyrielle.

"But I cannot stand idly by and allow my people to be turned into food!

There has to be a limit," the dark-furred Frost Walker said.

"If Lord Ritchel’s family wishes to sustain him in this way, then that is their choice.

But beyond that, no more! No more of our people will be allowed to fall to vampire fangs for this tragedy.

And if someone wants to insist that they do, then they must defeat me first! "