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"If I desire your silence," Answaen said in a voice that was colder than the mountain air. "Then I will command it. You have come, tell me everything you have learned."

"It, it’s difficult to know much this soon," the messenger said, hoping that his explanation wouldn’t be taken as an excuse.

"Messenger birds can only carry so much, and the distance is great.

Still, there are a few things that we have learned.

Rumors, but I will confirm them soon." Seeing that the Immortal Ancestor had no intention of speaking, the messenger continued to report what little he’d been able to learn.

"There is a rumor that the Eldritch Lady of the Vale of Mists defeated Hamdi, High Lord of the Tangled Wood, and that she took one of his progeny to use as her herald," the messenger said.

"There is also a rumor that the Eldritch Lady of the Vale assembled an army vast enough to encircle High Fen City and that she led that army into the High Pass. "

"So the Harbinger of Death is still playing games with the humans and fighting them with armies," Answaen said dismissively.

"I do not see why Master wishes to possess her so badly when she refuses to unleash her power on her enemies. But she should know better than to break her teacher’s Blood Guardians, so I doubt it was her who killed my brother. "

"What other rumors have you heard?" Answaen asked. "I do not believe that you only heard from a few spies in the High Fen."

"This," the messenger said helplessly, trying to lower themselves even further into packed snow atop the mountain.

"I do not know that these things mean anything, Immortal Ancestor.

The Mother of Thorns is said to have taken in new witches," the messenger said.

"And the Thistle Witch was seen with the Eldritch Lady of the Vale of Mists.

There is... there is also a rumor that the Lady of the Vale has taken a witch as her seneschal, but I have no proof of this. "

For several minutes, Answaen said nothing as she drummed her sharp claws on the icy armrest of her throne, losing herself in thought as her mind wandered back to conversations that had taken place decades ago.

The Thistle Witch... the last survivor of the Glimmerwing Clan and an assassin so deadly that the Fangs of Death felt compelled to add her to his collection of lethal tools.

Her escape had been one of the few things capable of rousing Shubnalu’s fury in all the centuries Answaen had served her Master.

"Wait," the Frost Walker vampire said as she fit other pieces of what the messenger had said together. "Did you say that the Harbinger of Death took a seneschal? She took a witch for a seneschal?"

"I, I can’t confirm that she took a witch for her seneschal," the messenger stammered. "But the report was very clear that the Lady of the Vale’s seneschal arrived in High Fen City ahead of her Mistress and that she had the power to strike several bargains on her Mistress’s behalf.

I, I will have more complete letters in a few weeks time when the couriers arrive," he offered, hoping that his answer would satisfy the Immortal Ancestor.

"If the Harbinger of Death has challenged a High Lord, then she has grown stronger than she was a hundred years ago when the Vale nearly fell," Answaen mused.

"But if she has taken in one of the Mother of Thorn’s witches as her Seneschal, especially if she has taken the Thistle Witch as her Seneschal.

.. I will have to report these matters to Master soon. "

"Learn what you can in a month’s time," Answaen commanded. "By the next new moon, I don’t want to hear about rumors, I want to know the truth of things. And find out if the Eldritch Emperor is still acting like a turtle in the Thousand Spires."

"The, the Eldritch Emperor?" the messenger said, blinking in confusion. "Why would the Eldritch Emperor have anything to do with..."

"You don’t need to understand," Answaen interrupted the messenger as her icy aura flared around her, dropping the temperature in her ice palace enough that the messenger felt the sweat under their fur freezing against their skin.

A moment later, however, her tone softened as she took a closer look at the messenger and the deep purple color of his horn.

It was clear that he’d been chosen for his natural affinity for icy winds, few who lacked such powers could survive the trek to the Summit of the World where the air was thin and constant winds carried away what little warmth the body possessed.

His family must have worked hard for generations to maintain such a pure, natural affinity, but to bearers of an iridescent horn like Answaen, men like the messenger lacked the ability to blend other icy powers with their core strength, leaving his sorcery as something flat and one dimensional, even if his powers of wind were strong.

But for a messenger, she mused, those powers of wind could be very useful, and with a little shaping and a small investment of power, the young Frost Walker might be very useful indeed.

"Tell me your name," Answaen commanded in a voice that she felt was warmer than the one she had used before, though it had been so long since she had had many conversations that it was difficult to say for sure.

"Naaric, Immortal Ancestor," the messenger said, trembling in fear as her crimson eyes seemed to bore into him rather than regarding him with the frozen, uncaring gaze she’d held until now. Had he offended her? Was she asking because she wanted to know the name of the man she was about to kill?

"Master will want to know many things if I disturb him about anything," Answaen explained as she stood up from her frozen throne.

"And he is always interested in the activities of the current Eldritch Emperor.

Learn all that you can. Visit the lowlands in person if you must. Winter is almost upon us, you should be able to reach the bottom of the foothills if you need to. "

With a wave of her hand, the ice palace and the frozen throne shattered, turning into tiny shards of ice that drifted away on the wind and leaving the messenger to face the cold, thin air of the mountain top without Answaen’s protection once again.

"In one month’s time, I will visit Master in the Dark Wood," Answaen announced.

"See to it that I am not under informed for my visit and make arrangements for my journey," she said, returning her gaze to the distant horizon far to the west and the vague feeling of anxiety that she felt whenever she stared in the direction that the sun set

"Do this well, and I may reward you with a Bloodline Gift," Answaen said. "I’m sure you would be delighted to add a trace of ice blue or brilliant white to your purple horn, wouldn’t you?

Or are you the caring sort of man who wishes to help others with the power of warm green winds? What sort of man are you, Naaric?"

"Immortal Ancestor," he said, trembling under the weight of her stare.

"I have never had many ambitions but, but I.

.. I have always wished to be seen as something more.

My wife and child, they deserve more than I can give them.

So any gift, any gift that gives me strength," he said with a shaky voice.

"Any such gift would be priceless beyond measure. "

"Strength is the easiest thing in the world to grant you, Naaric," Answaen said.

"Serve me well in the days to come, and you will find that yours grows greatly. But if you fail me, then it won’t just be you who pays the price," she said coldly.

"There is no place in our clan for failures to pass on a weak bloodline," she said with a crimson gaze that penetrated to his very core.

"Disappoint me, and your wife and child will be the first to pay the price.

Now go, you should not waste even a moment. "

"Yes, yes, Immortal Ancestor," the messenger said, scrambling to bow properly before he fled the mountain summit.

With only a month to gather whatever news he could, he dared not waste even a single moment, especially since it was likely that anything he told the Ancient Ancestor would reach all the way to the ears of the Great Lord Shubnalu.

More importantly, if he couldn’t satisfy her demands, then the small family who depended on him would forever curse his decision to assist the Immortal Ancestor.