Chapter 434: Midnight Sunrise
As soon as Ashlynn’s hand touched the hilt of the Holy Flame Blade, the world around her seemed to slow to a crawl.
Dozens of paces away, Ansgar and Ines had clearly realized they’d misunderstood her actions. The Mother of Trees had no intention of surrendering the defiler to them, even after seeing her army stuck on the walls and unable to advance.
Certainly, Lord Ritchel’s capture and inevitable death would be a blow against the young Hauke, but it was a trial that the young lord needed to overcome if he was going to succeed his father’s throne and take his rightful place at the head of the clan. Perhaps, if the young lord watched his father fall to the schemes of outsiders, he would understand why generations of Frost Walkers had restricted themselves to ruling the icy peaks and never bothered conquering the lush lands below, even when they possessed the strength to do so.
More than anything, the ancestors wanted to spend what little time they had left to forge Hauke into the kind of lord who could lead their people back to the place they should hold as the undisputed rulers of the frigid world atop the mountains. As far as Ansgar and the other ancestors were concerned, Eldritch Lords like Ritchel who lacked an iridescent horn could serve, at best, as custodians for the clan until a suitable ruler could take their place at the head of the clan. The fact that so many generations had passed without an iridescent lord to rule them explained the clan’s tragic state, but under their guidance, Hauke would soon return the clan to its former glories.
Even Ritchel knew that his time was coming to an end and that Hauke would soon take his place. And so, as a hostage, the ancestors felt nothing at all about Ritchel’s life or death. But if the Mother of Trees defied them and took the defiler and her horn knife away... that was a declaration of war that could only be answered with the fury of a descending avalanche.
Ashlynn might not understand everything that went into the calculations of the ancient spirits possessing Hauke, but as soon as she reached for the sword, they began to move, making it clear that the wouldn’t stay their hand for even a moment, despite the fact that Talauia held Lord Ritchel’s life at the point of her needle.
Before her hand wrapped completely around the hilt of the sword, her hand already screamed in painful protest as she pushed her frozen fingers to stretch wide and grasp the thick, decorative hilt. Clearly the Church had never expected for a woman with such small and delicate hands to wield one of their holy swords, but at the moment, she didn’t care whether or not she could fight with it as a sword, so long as she could channel the power of the blade, it would be enough.
The moment her hand wrapped around the hilt, a different kind of pain surged up her arm as the blade challenged her right to wield it. Flames wrapped around her gloved hand, melting the layer of frost encasing the glove in an instant, while hot steam seared the flesh of her hand as the frozen sweat in the glove boiled away in the blink of an eye.
"Aaaah!" A startled cry of pain escaped Ashlynn’s lips before she could push back against the blade’s cruel assault. Within the blade, she could feel not just the searing heat of the Holy Lord of Light’s flames of punishment and judgment, but a hot, seething fury and a deep desire to cleanse the world in Holy Flames that defined the blade’s existence.