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Nyrielle’s words echoed though the Great Hall, bringing everyone’s attention back to the uncertain future of the High Pass while a group of soldiers helped Erkembalt to take Hauke away from the proceedings.

The departure of the cursed young lord seemed to be a signal that reminded everyone how far the Frost Walkers had fallen in a single night.

Along the walls, the Nyrielle’s black and red banners alternated with Ashlynn’s blue and green ones, with only a single banner at the back of the hall to represent the fallen Frost Walker Lord.

At the beginning of the evening’s proceedings, many people thought that the banners were only here to honor the powerful visitors who had come to negotiate a conclusion to the previous night’s hostilities.

By this point, however, Nyrielle and Ashlynn had made it clear that they weren’t negotiating.

While the Frost Walker delegation had been permitted to speak, it had been Zedya who spoke on behalf of their dead.

While it might not have been their intention when they arrived, the forces of the Vale of Mists acted like conquerors and now they were going to pronounce their sentence on the conquered.

"The world is changing," Nyrielle said once the hall had settled down.

"In the east, more humans arrive from across the seas every year and their appetite for new lands to conquer knows no bounds.

Here in the mountains, the ice is retreating and the shape of the High Pass is nothing like it was in ancient times.

Everything is changing," she said in a voice that was heavy with the weight of her long years of life.

Her words rippled through the Great Hall, creating distinct waves of reaction among the gathered Frost Walkers. The older members of the clan exchanged knowing glances, their fading horns glowing with dim energy as they dipped in acknowledgment of truths they’d witnessed across decades.

The winters were already shorter than they had been in their youth and the summers weren’t only longer, they also felt warmer. The children among them had never once experienced a year when the pass remained closed all year, but they remembered.

In stark contrast, several younger warriors stood behind Darfrir, their spines rigid with defiance while their horns pulsed with vibrant, stubborn energy as they refused to accept what they perceived as a complete surrender dressed in pretty words.

Near the back of the hall, the mothers and widows of the fallen Honor Guard pulled their children closer, hugging them tight as they waited to hear the fate that awaited them now that the greatest pillars of their clan and their families had fallen, leaving them at the mercy of the powerful vampire sitting atop a throne of ice in the place their own lord should sit, handing out the justice he should have.

"Last night, the High Pass was struck by an avalanche that will change its future just as much as the end of the Age of Ice and the fall of the Seven Peaks," Nyrielle pronounced, invoking the two greatest changes to the fate of the Frost Walker clan in it’s long history.

The moment she did, several people on the Frost Walker side grew restless and Commander Jannik’s face contorted into a mask of barely contained fury.

It seemd that once again, a vampire had come to grind down their clan, as though it was a right of passage for the mighty vampires, each one following in the wake of their teacher to further suppress his people.

At this point, he only wondered how much further they would fall.

Would they be taken away in chains to fight against the humans?

Or did the vampires intend something even worse for them.

"Before we can consider the future, we must grant justice to the dead, and in this matter, it is clear who bears the greatest guilt and who bears the least," Nyrielle said, sweeping her eyes across the gathered crowd.

"Young Lord Hauke bears the least guilt in all of this," she said, fixing her eyes on Odette and offering Hauke’s mother a gentle smile. "He was not in control of his own body from the moment last night’s disaster began and as such, he cannot be held responsible for everything that occurred."

"Thank, thank you, your Eternity," Odette said, kneeling on the frozen floor of the Great Hall and bowing at the waist until the tip of her pure white horn brushed against the ground. "Thank you for sparing my son and our hope for the future."

"It would be an even greater tragedy if he was made to bear the blame as a scapegoat for a tragedy that he wished to prevent," Nyrielle said gently before her face lost most of its warmth.

"Still, he isn’t blameless in this. By his own admission, he withheld knowledge about the ancestral spirits’ actions from his father, Lord Ritchel, and garnered support for providing those spirits a method to influence the world of the living directly.

This is his crime and the ruler of the High Pass must hand down a sentence for it," she said.

"The, the ruler of the High Pass?" a confused elder Frost Walker said, turning to look at the other elders around them. "Does that mean that Lady Nyrielle doesn’t intend to rule over the High Pass?"

"Hush, do you think she can’t hear you?" another elder hissed. "Listen first. If we have objections, I’m sure she’ll let us speak our minds. She’s been kind enough, even when young brats spoke out of turn."

"While Hauke wasn’t fully in control of himself and therefore bears the least guilt for what happened last night," Nyrielle said, pulling the crowd’s attention back to her and quieting those who were whispering with a dark look.

"Lord Ritchel cannot make the same claim.

As the Lord of the High Pass, he is charged with protecting the High Pass from all threats, whether they come from outside enemies or forces within his own nation. "

"Lord Ritchel’s failures are many, including his failure to detect traitors in his own ruling council that led to an attack by Tuscans on his son and my seneschal in the spring," Nyrielle explained as she began to firmly establish Ritchel’s guilt as a Lord in the minds of the crowd.

"He also failed to detect the treachery of the ancestral spirits, allowing them to gain power over his son and the presumed heir to his throne. "

"Such failures might be forgiven if he was a capable war leader," Nyrielle said, giving a pointed look at Commander Jannik.

"But here too, Lord Ritchel failed. He failed in his determination to keep Lady Ashlynn trapped with the ancestral spirits, sparking the misunderstanding. He failed further when he led his Honor Guard to their deaths before finally suffering defeat at the Thistle Witch’s hands. "

"In every way that an Eldritch Lord must be strong and capable, Ritchel has failed every extraordinary test he was given," Nyrielle said, looking down at Odette’s kneeling figure with dark eyes that held deep sorrow.

Each of Nyrielle’s words landed on Odette like a stone tumbling from the top of the mountain. The Ritchel that Nyrielle described was oblivious to cracks in the ice beneath his feat, clumsy in his defense of his people, and weak when confronted with a powerful foe.

But that didn’t describe her husband at all.

Ritchel’s rivalry with Jannik for the throne had been a legendary struggle between two of the greatest warriors their generation had ever seen and the friendship they established kept the Frost Walker Clan safe from most threats for more than two decades.

Ritchel hadn’t been perfect. There had been losses, and each time they lost a member of the clan to raiders intent on claiming their horns, the entire clan had seen their lord’s fury and his strong reprisals.

But only Odette had seen his better tears and helpless cries in the privacy of their own chambers.

To everyone else, Ritchel had to be a flawless pillar of polished ice, strong enough to hold up the mountain.

To Odette, he hadn’t just been a lord who struggled each day to do his best for his clan.

He had been a husband who brought her every joy her heart desired and gifted her the most wonderful, compassionate child she’d ever known.

Ritchel had his failures like any man did. But now, as Nyrielle prepared to hand down her judgment, it seemed like Ritchel’s failures, small though some of them might be, had finally crossed an invisible line, adding just enough to trigger the avalanche that would bury him.

"To atone for his failures, Lord Ritchel must be stripped of his title as Lord of the High Pass," Nyrielle said, giving the only sentence that she felt the living and the dead could accept.

"This changes nothing about my feelings for Ritchel as a friend and an ally that I have trusted with my back for many years," Nyrielle added softly.

Her sudden change in tone startled Odette enough to lift her head, gazing at the top of the dais where she was shocked to find the powerful vampire looking at her with a gentle smile.

"It also changes nothing about my promise to help the Mother of Trees and her witches in their attempt to preserve his life.

"Thank you, your Eternity," Odette said. Her throat was tight and her heart felt like it was holding back all the snow atop the mountain, preventing her from saying more than those few words without breaking down completely. But to Nyrielle and to everyone else watching, the tears freezing on Odette’s cheeks said more than words ever could.

"Come," Zedya said softly, appearing at Odette’s side in a flash of crimson faster than most eyes could follow. "There is more that must be said, but you have done your part," she said, lifting the towering Frost Walker gently off the floor and guiding her back to her seat.

"Ritchel and Hauke both played their part in last night’s tragedy," Nyrielle said formally once Zedya finished helping the third member of the small Frost Walker family back to her seat.

"But the greatest responsibility lies with the people who conspired behind Ritchel’s back and treated Hauke like a puppet. "

"Master Aspakos," Nyrielle said, turning to the sorcerer with the broken beak. "Bring forth the horns of the ancestors who caused this disaster. It is time that the lingering dead learn that there are consequences to their actions and prices to be paid, even among the dead..."