Chapter 479: Nyrielle’s Judgment
Nyrielle’s words echoed though the Great Hall, bringing everyone’s attention back to the uncertain future of the High Pass while a group of soldiers helped Erkembalt to take Hauke away from the proceedings. The departure of the cursed young lord seemed to be a signal that reminded everyone how far the Frost Walkers had fallen in a single night.
Along the walls, the Nyrielle’s black and red banners alternated with Ashlynn’s blue and green ones, with only a single banner at the back of the hall to represent the fallen Frost Walker Lord. At the beginning of the evening’s proceedings, many people thought that the banners were only here to honor the powerful visitors who had come to negotiate a conclusion to the previous night’s hostilities.
By this point, however, Nyrielle and Ashlynn had made it clear that they weren’t negotiating. While the Frost Walker delegation had been permitted to speak, it had been Zedya who spoke on behalf of their dead. While it might not have been their intention when they arrived, the forces of the Vale of Mists acted like conquerors and now they were going to pronounce their sentence on the conquered.
"The world is changing," Nyrielle said once the hall had settled down. "In the east, more humans arrive from across the seas every year and their appetite for new lands to conquer knows no bounds. Here in the mountains, the ice is retreating and the shape of the High Pass is nothing like it was in ancient times. Everything is changing," she said in a voice that was heavy with the weight of her long years of life.
Her words rippled through the Great Hall, creating distinct waves of reaction among the gathered Frost Walkers. The older members of the clan exchanged knowing glances, their fading horns glowing with dim energy as they dipped in acknowledgment of truths they’d witnessed across decades.
The winters were already shorter than they had been in their youth and the summers weren’t only longer, they also felt warmer. The children among them had never once experienced a year when the pass remained closed all year, but they remembered.
In stark contrast, several younger warriors stood behind Darfrir, their spines rigid with defiance while their horns pulsed with vibrant, stubborn energy as they refused to accept what they perceived as a complete surrender dressed in pretty words.
Near the back of the hall, the mothers and widows of the fallen Honor Guard pulled their children closer, hugging them tight as they waited to hear the fate that awaited them now that the greatest pillars of their clan and their families had fallen, leaving them at the mercy of the powerful vampire sitting atop a throne of ice in the place their own lord should sit, handing out the justice he should have.
"Last night, the High Pass was struck by an avalanche that will change its future just as much as the end of the Age of Ice and the fall of the Seven Peaks," Nyrielle pronounced, invoking the two greatest changes to the fate of the Frost Walker clan in it’s long history.