Chapter 467: Finish What Was Started
"I will answer, I will answer," Talauia said as soon as Ashlynn asked. "But I won’t be bullied," she said, rounding her multifaceted gaze on the assembled Frost Walkers. "I won’t be shouted at. I won’t be threatened. If you do, if you do, then I won’t just stand for it again!"
"No one will shout at you," Ashlynn promised, raising the brim of her hat and looking out over the assembled Frost Walkers. "We’ve heard the words of the living and their demands. But right now, I want to address the demands of the dead," she said, nodding slightly at Zedya’s crimson figure before touching Nyrielle lightly and returning to her throne.
"Tala," Ashlynn said, trying to relax the formal atmosphere as much as she could, as though she and the Thistle Witch were once again sitting on the floor around Amahle’s table and sharing a meal they’d cooked together rather than holding court formally before hundreds of onlookers. "You said that some things can’t be fixed, but you didn’t tell us why. Is it because Lord Ritchel’s wounds are too severe or is it because this mountain is a barren place that lacks the resources you need to make him well."
At the head of the Frost Walker delegation, Odette trembled in her seat, trying to contain the glimmer of hope that Ashlynn’s words rekindled. None of them had considered it when Talauia first spoke but to ask a member of the Mother of Thorns coven to perform a healing miracle in this desolate, icy place... it might really be too difficult.
"It’s both, it’s both things that are a problem," Talauia said slowly, keeping an eye on the crowd to see if they would do as Ashlynn had commanded and remain silent while she explained. "I pulled back my poison, I did, but it already tore at his whole body. My poison, it’s like putting thousands of tiny needles in his blood. They poke and tear all over until he bleeds on the inside or the poison collects in his heart and tears it apart."
"Lord Ritchel, Lord Ritchel fought off the poison with Lady Nyrielle’s Blood Vitality Crystal," Talauia explained. "His blood is strong right now and that’s keeping him alive. He’s constantly healing to remain young and in his prime. But when that stops, when that stops then everything that was cut and torn will tear open again. He’ll bleed and bleed and bleed until his body fails."
"But isn’t there a chance that he might survive, even if he’s crippled from his injuries?" Ashlynn asked. She’d heard the Frost Walker healers speculate that such a dismal fate might be the best that Lord Ritchel could hope for but she wanted to hear it from Talauia directly.
"He might, he might," the Thistle Witch said without much hope. "But only because of Lady Nyrielle’s blood sorcery. I don’t know, I don’t know if it will be enough to let him live but he won’t live well, not well at all if he survives. And... and not for very long," she added quietly. "Maybe only a few years."
"You can’t heal him," Heila said, gingerly sliding off of her icy seat and walking over to stand next to Talauia. "But cousin, the Willow is better at healing than the Thistle. If I help," she said, turning to look briefly at Ashlynn before continuing. "If Mother Ashlynn and I both help and if we take Lord Ritchel to the Vale of Mists for healing... is there a chance?"
"It won’t matter, won’t matter at all," Talauia said, shaking her head fiercely. "It’s just like pouring water into a sieve. You can keep pouring and pouring and it will hold for a moment before it all empties again. The holes and tears, there are too many of them. Even if all three of us try, even if I could heal a hundred wounds and together we could heal five hundred wounds, he has thousands of tiny wounds," the Thistle Witch said. "It’s not enough. Not enough at all."
"I see," Ashlynn said solemnly before turning to face Odette. "I cannot promise to save your husband," she began, drawing a clear line before she offered the fragile woman any more hope. "But I think there is a way that we might. It will require even more sacrifice on top of the sacrifice that Gunter, Hrosskel, Artur, Sturla, Hulda, and Daldis have already made," she said, gesturing at the bodies of the fallen honor guard. "Are you willing to make an offering if it might save your husband’s life? Or would you prefer to let him pass peacefully?"