Chapter 97: The Blood Princess (Part One)
Along the length of the high table, voices stilled and all attention turned to the stoop-shouldered figure of the oldest Frost Walker at the high table. Before Old Fabiene could speak, however, Lord Ritchel stood and walked over to her seat halfway down the table from him.
"My people," he said loudly, his voice echoing off the icy walls and vaulted ceiling. "Tonight, Old Fabiene will regale us with a tale of Nyrielle’s triumph in the arena of the High Fen, the day she earned the title ’Blood Princess of the Arena.’ Please, give her your attention and your respect."
"Ice. Resonant. Chamber. Fabiene," the Lord of the High Pass intoned, summoning a brilliant gleam of icy blue and pale white light from his horn before touching it gently to Fabiene’s much duller horn. "Now, just speak normally. Your words will echo through the hall. There is no need for an old woman to strain herself so we young ones can hear," he said gently.
Mist gathered in Old Fabiene’s eyes as she stood under the watchful eyes of everyone present. Her entire life, she’d been a fairly ordinary person. She had worked as a maker and mender of nets and spears used for fishing, like her mother before her, and she’d taught her daughters to do the same. Only her grandson’s rise to fame as a hunter had given her the opportunity to attend tonight’s banquet.
Now, she stood before the greatest hunters, warriors, and sorcerers of the High Pass and Lord Ritchel himself used magic to amplify her voice. And all this, because Lady Nyrielle spoke up for her, calling her childhood memories a treasure.
"It was a horrible year," the old woman began. "Ash from fires in the vale fell on our slopes like snow. Lord Torbin fell to the human ’miracle workers’ and his people fled into the mountains. I was too young to know how bad it really was, but when the snows came, my mother took me to High Fen City."
As she spoke, Nyrielle went still, her face becoming an impassive mask while her midnight blue eyes grew distant. That year, her city had burned. Ancient oaks had burned. Only a fierce and early winter had saved the people of the Vale of Mists from the Lothians and the Church, but the winter came too late to stop Cellach Lothian from lashing her parents to the stake and burning them alive.
"I was small, even smaller than Seneschal Ashlynn’s maid," she said, smiling at Heila as though remembering what it was like to be young and tiny. "I didn’t understand why my father couldn’t come with us. Why he had to stay in case the humans attacked the High Pass next. I cried and wailed and smashed my mother’s mirror. I was a brat and a handful, and my mother took me to the arena to distract me. After a few days, Lady Nyrielle arrived."
Ashlynn, took Nyrielle’s hands in hers, feeling the other woman’s heartbeat slowing as she fell into distant memories. In her eyes, Ashlynn saw a smoldering flame dimmed only by years long passed.
Nyrielle remembered her entry into High Fen City. She’d gained a promise from the Frost Walkers to shelter her people for the winter but no longer than that. Further, the Eldritch Lord of the High Pass at the time refused to lend her soldiers to expel the human invaders from her Vale of Mists and so she’d gone to see High Lady Kristel in search of aid.
Instead of aid, however, the ruler of the High Fen told her that she was welcome to the services of anyone she could defeat in the arena, so long as they submitted to her rule, she could take them away as she wished.