Chapter 440: Explosive Clash (Part One)
Within Hauke’s mind, Kimsel sighed heavily as Ansgar wrestled control away from her. She had tried to give him the greatest stage and highest honor to salvage this situation for them and their descendants but pride and an inability to accept defeat was about to doom them all.
"Eraric," she said, leaning on her frozen staff more than ever before and looking exceptionally weary as she turned to face the architect who kept Hauke tightly bound. "Release the young man. We’ve lost and it’s time to accept that defeat."
"Is this the wisdom of your years, Kimsel?" Eraric asked bitterly. "If you cannot win with words, then we are to lower our heads and present our horns for the hunter’s saw to harvest? Ansgar was the greatest of us," he said, crossing his arms over his chest and refusing to move or do anything that would alow the young Frost Walker to escape the chains he’d doubled in strength since the young man nearly managed to escape them once before. "He will not fall here."
"We have done all we can," Ines added, looking helplessly through Hauke’s eyes as Ansgar prepared to unleash all of his frustration and rage at the woman who dared to laugh at them. Part of her longed to emerge with him, to use Eraric’s sword as her tool of destruction in a fight to the bitter end. It would have been so much more satisfying than the end she met at the hands of her own people when she surrendered her throne to become one of their eternal guardians.
"I’m afraid it’s in his hands now," she said, sighing as she watched the young witch stepping back from Ansgar’s burst of power. As much as she longed to fight once more against the witch, the backlash she suffered when the Mother of Trees shattered her blizzard had come close to cracking her horn. Now, any sorcery she attempted was likely to consume her assuming that the spell didn’t go awry in the first place.
At the back of his mental space, Hauke hung his head, powerless against the chains Eraric had bound him with. his body moved under Ansgar’s direction, drawing deeply on what little power remained in Hauke’s body for a final all-or-nothing assault.
"Zedya, distract him!" Ashlynn shouted as she once again poured energy into the holy sword in her hands. The flames were weak and feeble compared to their earlier blazing glory, but she didn’t have time to draw on the strength of the mountain again,n and she wasn’t certain that she could manage the magic even if she could.
Just a minute longer, she thought. All she needed was a minute longer, and Nyrielle would be here to help. But perhaps she wasn’t the only one who sensed her approaching lover. If the ancestors had detected Nyrielle’s approach, then it would explain the sudden outburst.