Chapter 474: Twisted Ancestors
Hauke watched in stunned silence from within the prison of his own mind as Nyrielle laid out a history of his people that he had never heard, even from the ancestors who had dwelled within his mind.
From Ansgar, he had heard of the era of Seven Peaks when the Frost Walkers ruled not just the High Pass but Airgead Mountain and several other nearby mountains whose summits rose above the clouds. In that era, Ansgar hadn’t been the Lord of High Pass but the High Lord of Seven Peaks and Frost Walkers held power for nearly the entire length of the eastern mountains.
Each generation after that dwindled as the ice and snow of the glaciers retreated and by the time Kimsel ruled, only the High Pass remained within the Frost Walker’s domain. This was the history that they’d shared with him but they said nothing of an age of ice before, nor of a vampire breaking their bloodline!
But now, as he listened to Nyrielle’s words, Hauke felt like the powerful vampire was about to explain something even more important, and even more relevant to people like him who managed to manifest the iridescent horn that belonged to the broken bloodline of his clan.
"It’s true that Acat’s sorcery, however it functioned, made it possible for people with iridescent horns to be born again," Nyrielle said, continuing her explanation. "But I doubt that this was deliberate, even though it might be fortunate," she said with a brief glance at Hauke’s listless figure.
"It was my mentor Shubnalu who responded to the reemergence of the iridescent horns among your people, when a powerful High Lord used his strength to extend the glaciers for the first time in hundreds of years, linking seven mountains together in a world of ice that lasted through even the hottest summers," Nyrielle explained.
"The Fangs of Death exist to reap the lives of individuals who have grown so powerful that they can shake the foundations of the world with their will," she said, turning her gaze back to the crowd who now hung on her every word. "But once again, vampires showed mercy. Shubnalu offered a choice to this powerful High Lord. Rule as a man for the remainder of his life, or preside over his people for eternity as a powerful guardian who could ensure that the nation he built never failed."
The account of the ’bargain’ that Shubnalu had made with High Lord Ansgar wasn’t outlined in great detail on the tablet Nyrielle found in the ancestral cave. Her mentor left behind just enough information for whoever followed after him to continue the legacy in order to suppress the Frost Walkers and contain their threat, but it was enough to understand the many lies Shubnalu must have told the High Lord of Seven Peaks for him to agree to what happened next.
"Shubnalu never offered to take this High Lord as his progeny," Nyrielle said. Or if he had, the offer had been rejected and her mentor hadn’t written of it. "Instead, he offered to turn him into an immortal guardian formed of frozen blood. A guardian who could watch over his people for all time."