The following morning, Seton awoke before the sun's light had even peeked above the mountaintops. He made his final preparations, packing similarly to how he packed on his first venture up the mountains, and packed a sack for Nalia as well, ensuring that she had enough food to last the trip down. When Nalia finally also woke up, she aided him in his final preparations. Once both deemed themselves ready to depart, they left the house together, stepping out into the frigid world that awaited them both.

"Are you ready?" Seton asked, looking over at Nalia.

"Am I? Seton, are you ready?"

Seton managed a smile. "As ready as I can be. You're sure you have enough food? You'll be warm enough to reach the others?"

"I'll be just fine," Nalia replied with a small laugh. "You will come to join us once you're done, right?"

"Of course. Did you think I was going to stay here and be your father's dog forever?"

He expected even just a small laugh in response, but there was none.

"And excellent question," a voice said, coming from near where Nalia had stood. Turning to the voice, Seton's heart plummeted as he saw the chief standing directly behind Nalia, a sword held against her throat. Immediately, Seton reached for his ax, but Rorun tightened his grip, pressing the sword into Nalia's throat just enough to draw the faintest bit of blood. Seton stopped, taking a step back.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded.

"I'm making sure you do your duty, Seton," the older man replied, his voice firm. "A few good people have already abandoned us, thanks to you."

"That's not her fault! I persuaded her--she didn't want this to happen! I put her up to it!"

Rorun scoffed. "Even if I believed you, all that would mean is that my own daughter is a weak-willed traitor, too eager to please her man. But I know better. You both know damn well what you're doing, and I won't allow my own daughter and finest man to desert this village. So I'll tell you what's going to happen, and you're going to obey."

Seton stared him down, trying not to appear intimidated, but slipping every time that his eyes fell upon the blade at Nalia's throat. "Fine. What do you want?"

"What do you think I want?" Rorun snapped. His eyes almost seemed crazed, like those of a man on the verge of losing everything. "You're going to return to the Frost King, and kill it. And then, you're going to come back here with its head. If you come back empty-handed, then Nalia dies before your eyes. If you try to flee, and leave us behind, she dies cursing your name."

"And what if I die?" Seton demanded, his fists tight with rage that he was barely holding back. "What then?"

"Then we're all damned anyhow, aren't we? You said so yourself. So you're going to do your damn job, and bring me the head of that monster, or I'll be giving you hers."

Seton nodded, turning away from Rorun and toward the hills. Then he looked back at the chief, then to the people who watched from afar, not so much as raising a word against their leader. "When I return," he snarled, "you're dead. All of you."

Silence.

"All of you!" he screamed, the sheer power of his shout straining his throat, which began to ache and throb. Those who watched no longer looked at him with admiration and respect. Some looked at him with disdain, as a failure to the people. Others looked at him with sadness. Maybe they were on his side, and were too frightened of Rorun to resist; or maybe they were sad to see what had become of their hero. Yet others regarded him with terror. Perhaps the weight of what was happening was sinking in at last.

When the silence persisted, Seton shook his head, and turned toward the hills where Shakah awaited his arrival. As he approached, she cast a spiteful glare at the village before scooping him up in her talons and carrying him back to the mountains above. From above, Seton yet again noted how small the village seemed. Only this time, he contemplated how effortlessly he himself could blot it out, once Nalia was safe, and the Frost King was dead. Even if he had to slay the king, perhaps he could at least give the hills back to the beasts.

When Shakah reached the peak with Seton in tow, every dragon and wyvern immediately stopped, coming to attention and eyeing the human carefully. Some gave low growls as his escort set him down, and he started toward the icy chapel that protruded from the massive skull of some ancient beast. But despite the growls and hisses, none of them lashed out to strike. Seton ignored their noises, focusing his eyes on the chapel ahead, and focusing his mind on the beast below. When he reached the chamber, he moved straight toward the entrance to the cave below, paying no mind to the carvings he had previously gawked at. As he passed through the cavernous tunnel, his eyes only barely glanced at the murals.

He tried not to think about what was to happen, but in trying not to think, his mind fixated upon the task all the harder. He thought of the dreadful depictions of the Frost King defeating the massive beast that this chamber was formed around. He thought of the village, and the people whose lives were at stake. Then he thought of the lives they had sacrificed through their stubbornness. His mind recalled the terror the Frost King had brought upon them, only to remind him that the king was holding back. Was it mercy? Was it cruelty?

He thought especially about those who had raised him. He thought of Yidna, the woman who taught him to kill, and Rorun, the man who once regarded him with pride when he completed a hunt. Had they ever loved him? Had they only cared insofar as he could finish this final job? If he killed the beast, but died himself, would they even bat an eye? Would they mourn, and regard him as a hero, or would they cast aside his memory as that of an outsider who had outlived his usefulness? No, they had to have loved him; they had fed and raised him after all. When he didn't believe he could accomplish a hunt, they always pushed him to succeed, and he always did. Was he a slave to their will, or had they simply seen his talent and cultivated it? Did they truly deserve the wrath coming to them from the Frost King? And did they truly deserve Seton's ire?

Then he thought of Nalia, who had stood opposed to her father, and to the debt held over Seton, and to the complacency of the people. If Seton was truly mad, and the village did not deserve his hatred, what of her? Could he call her mad, who stood at his side, and stood against the chief? If those of the village truly were not such villains as the Frost King had said, then Seton would be a madman for standing against them. But if he were mad, so was Nalia, who had not even seen the Frost King, but believed Seton's tale and chose to act. And Nalia could not be any sort of insane. She couldn't be.

His thoughts formed like crystals of ice, building up only to be shattered as another one overpowered it. He saw the faces of his loved and formerly loved ones. He could almost hear their voices, begging him to slay the Frost King so they could have peace. Images of the king itself, and its blue eyes seared themselves into his mind, and memory of that strange, rune-bearing eye sent chills through his body. He remembered the house held aloft by ice. He remembered the terror in Yidna's eyes as she realized the true fear that was to come. He remembered Rorun's face as the man called him a traitor. He remembered the comforting arms of Nalia--traces of warmth when all had become engrossed in ice.

As he descended the stairs that spiraled down into the chamber where the Frost King waited, so too did his sentiments spiral, pulled violently back and forth as he thought of the Frost King, then of his own people. Who needed to die? Who deserved to live? Who was lying to him? The crystals grew, collided, and fragmented, each thought trying to win over the others, yet as they raged, they tore one another down, leaving flakes and shards in their wake. A violent building and demolition of ideas that left the whole of his mind more broken than before.

Then he thought of the blade that was at Nalia's throat. He thought of the look in Rorun's eyes--the look of sheer desperation. Somewhere deep inside the remains of crystalline thoughts and fragmented sentiments, something began to glow. It started off small, as Seton stared down Rorun in his mind's eye. Then it began to sear with an intense heat, as he remembered the trace of blood that was drawn from Nalia's throat. Then, in an instant, the structure ice was shattered, and all shards of thoughts, sentiments, dreams, hopes, and fears melted away in the heat of a smoldering inferno, the intensity of which could not be described in the same terms as the warring, crystalline thoughts of before. This blaze could be described by the one and only emotion that it brought forth: rage.

By the time Seton reached the bottom of the steps, he no longer felt the cold. As he stared at the beast that lay before him, its body surprisingly relaxed and at peace, he realized he no longer felt fear. Even when the king roused itself, and its ghostly blue eyes with their strange mark fell upon him, he felt no trace of the terror he once felt. When the monster gave a low growl and got to its feet to face the man, towering over him with a body so powerful that the man was as a mouse, he did not flinch. And when those eyes, with no trace of malice or hatred toward him, looked questioningly at him, he brandished and raised his ax to point it toward the wyvern's head without a word.

"Why?" the Frost King asked. "Why raise your blade to me? Am I the enemy?"

Seton slowly and wordlessly shook his head.

"Don't tell me," the king growled, his voice beginning to become dangerously angry. "The fools have refused to listen to reason, and now you come to save the people you cannot bear to part with."

He shook his head again, taking a step toward the beast, which crouched down and spread its wings in a more threatening stance. "I'm sorry," he managed to say, and as he opened his mouth to say the words, he felt the tears that he had to fight to hold back. "They have my wife."

The Frost King's stare softened for a moment, casting a pitying glance on the man before steeling itself once more. "Must we do this, little fool?"

Seton took another step.

The Frost King seemed to take a deep breath, which it released in a heavy sigh that sent a chilled wind through the room. "Very well. What is your name, little fool?"

"Seton."

"Then, Seton, when you fall," the king bellowed, "you have my assurance that you will be avenged. I give you my word, as the Frost King."

"On my ax, I will not fall," Seton growled, his teeth clenching as he stared the beast down. "When I slay you, I will return to the village and butcher them myself, and return this land to your kin."

"Oh? Will you, now?" the beast asked amusedly as the two began to circle one another. "Then prove it!" the Frost King roared, opening its mouth widely to create a booming noise that shook the cavern around them.