Page 22 of Frostforge, Passage Six
"I need to leave this for one of your guests," Thalia said, keeping her voice low."A Northern man, tall, pale hair.He's staying in one of your rooms."
The innkeeper nodded, recognition dawning in his eyes."I know the one.Came in asking for a room that doesn't move with the tides."A small smile creased his weathered face."Can't say I blame him.Sea legs aren't for everyone."
Thalia placed the folded letter on the counter between them."Please make sure he receives this as soon as he wakes.It's important."
"Consider it done," the man assured her, taking the letter and tucking it beneath the edge of a heavy logbook."First thing, on my honor."
"Thank you."Thalia turned to go, then paused."When he reads it...he may be upset.Just—just tell him I'm sorry."
Before the innkeeper could respond, she slipped back out into the night, pulling the door closed behind her.The pre-dawn air felt cooler now, carrying the first hints of morning on its edge.She had to hurry; the window for their escape was narrowing with each passing moment.
Thalia retraced her steps to the dock, untied the tender, and rowed back to the waiting schooner with quick, powerful strokes.The sky had begun to lighten almost imperceptibly, the stars fading one by one as night retreated before the advancing day.
When she climbed aboard the schooner once more, she found Ashe and Roran making final preparations.Ashe moved along the port side, checking lines and rigging with the efficiency of one long accustomed to seafaring, despite her Northern upbringing.Roran stood at the helm, his eyes closed, face tilted upward as he communed with the air around them, sensing currents and pressure changes that would inform their passage.
"It's done," Thalia said simply, securing the tender's line to a cleat on the schooner's hull.
Ashe nodded, her red-streaked hair gleaming like fresh blood in the faint light."Good.We've got maybe twenty minutes before the harbor watch changes.We need to be well away by then."
Roran opened his eyes, his gaze finding Thalia's across the deck."Are you ready for this?"he asked, his voice soft but carrying clearly in the stillness."Last chance to change your mind."
"I'm not changing my mind," Thalia replied, moving to join him at the helm."This is where I need to be."
He nodded once, satisfaction evident in the set of his shoulders.Then he raised his hands, fingers splayed as if feeling for something invisible.The air around them stirred, then strengthened, a breeze that seemed to respond directly to his will rather than any natural pattern.
Thalia leaned against the railing, her eyes drawn to the slowly lightening horizon.Somewhere beyond that line where sea met sky, a fortress-whale waited—a monster of legend, a harbinger of doom.And they were sailing directly toward it, three graduates of Frostforge against the might of the Isle Wardens' greatest weapon.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The schooner sliced through water that faded from warm turquoise to cold slate as they left the harbor's protection.Thalia stood at the bow, her fingers curled around the weathered railing, its grain rough against her palms.
Behind her, Verdant Port diminished with each passing moment, the city's familiar silhouette dissolving into the morning mist like a dream upon waking.She had left everything there—her mother, Mari, the note for Kaine that even now might be clutched in his hands, his face contorting with anger or concern or both.
The thought of it formed a hollow space beneath her ribs, but she pushed the feeling away.Her path lay ahead, into waters where continental ships rarely ventured and rarely returned.
Salt spray misted her face as the bow cut through a swell, the droplets cool against her skin.The ocean's breath filled her lungs—briny, alive, ancient.It was different from the sheltered waters of Verdant Port's harbor, wilder somehow, as though even the sea itself changed character once it passed beyond the mainland's reach.
Ashe moved to stand beside her.The Northern woman's piercing eyes never stopped scanning the horizon, her posture alert despite the early hour and the previous day's exertions.
"We're really doing this," Ashe said, her voice barely audible above the rush of water against the hull and the creak of rigging overhead.
Thalia nodded, unable to find words adequate to the moment.They were sailing deliberately into the heart of enemy territory on a mission that their superiors had deemed worth the likely sacrifice of their lives.The absurdity of it struck her suddenly—how could anyone calculate such an equation?How many Frostforge graduates equaled the value of intelligence on a fortress-whale?
At the stern, Roran hunched over the chart table, his wild curls restrained in a leather tie that still failed to contain their rebellious nature.His fingers traced lines on parchment that fluttered in the breeze, weighted at the corners with small pieces of glacenite to prevent them from being claimed by the wind.The tense set of his shoulders spoke of concentration, of responsibility.His gaze flicked continuously between the charts, the compass, and the invisible path he charted through increasingly hostile waters.
"Three degrees east," he muttered, adjusting the tiller with one hand while the other remained raised slightly, palm facing the mainsail where wind of his creation filled the canvas.The effort showed in the fine lines around his eyes, in the slight tremor of his extended fingers.
The sun climbed higher, its light diffused through a veil of sea mist that thickened as they sailed farther from the mainland coast.What had begun as clear visibility gradually transformed into a world of soft edges and muted sound.The horizon disappeared, replaced by a gradient of gray that made it impossible to tell where the sea ended and the sky began.
Thalia tilted her head back, trying to glimpse the sun through the haze.Only a pale smudge of brightness marked its position now, like a lantern viewed through frosted glass.The mist beaded in her hair, on her eyelashes, clung to the wool of her cloak until the fabric grew heavy with moisture.
"We're blind out here," she murmured, more to herself than to Ashe.
Ashe nodded, her expression grave."And deaf.Sound travels strangely in fog this thick.A Warden ship could be fifty yards away, and we might not hear it until it's on top of us."
As if summoned by her words, the mist closed in further, reducing their world to the confines of the schooner and perhaps twenty yards of ocean in any direction.The lanterns Roran had lit cast golden spheres that diffused into the white haze, creating an eerie, enclosed space that seemed to follow them as they moved.
Time became difficult to measure without the sun's arc to track.The quality of light remained constant—a flat, colorless illumination that made shadows weak and direction uncertain.Thalia found her gaze drawn repeatedly to the compass in its brass housing near the helm, the only reliable indicator that they continued to move in a consistent direction rather than in circles.
