Page 26 of Frostforge, Passage Six
"Are you sure?"Thalia challenged, her mind racing ahead."What if they're as confused by the disappearing islands as we are?What if they're fleeing?"
Roran paused, his hands still on the anchor line."One way to find out," he said grimly."But we do it on our terms."He closed his eyes briefly, and Thalia felt the air around them stir with gathering power."If they make one wrong move—"
The approaching vessel was close enough now that Thalia could hear voices carried across the water—not the harsh commands of soldiers preparing for battle, but the murmur of conversation, punctuated by what might have been a child's cry.
"Hold position," she decided, drawing her blade."Let them approach, but be ready."
Ashe moved to the port side, her crossbow loaded and aimed at the oncoming ship.Roran joined Thalia at the starboard railing, lightning dancing between his fingertips in a clear warning to any who might threaten them.
The Warden vessel slowed as it drew alongside, leaving perhaps twenty feet of open water between the ships.In the starlight, Thalia could now clearly see its occupants—women, children, elders, with only a handful of guards among them.
A figure separated from the group, moving to the railing opposite Thalia and Roran.A woman, her hair pulled back in elaborate braids woven with metal beads that caught the starlight.She wore the distinctive leather armor of Warden captains, but it was worn, marked with salt stains and what might have been scorch marks.
"Continental vessel," she called across the water, her accent thick but her words understandable."You anchor in dangerous waters.Foolish."
Thalia exchanged glances with Roran, whose expression had shifted from wariness to something more complex.He stepped forward, placing himself slightly ahead of her at the railing.
"We seek no conflict," he replied in clear, measured tones."And I’m sure the same could be said of your… crew.”
The captain's eyes narrowed, studying Roran more carefully.She spoke again, but this time the words were unfamiliar to Thalia—the curt, guttural language of the Isle Wardens, their true tongue rather than the broken continental speech most raiders employed.
Roran stiffened beside her.Then he responded in the same language, the sounds flowing from him with a naturalness that spoke of early learning, of knowledge bone-deep as well as studied.
"What did she say?"Thalia asked quietly, keeping her eyes on the Warden vessel.
Roran's expression was troubled."She says we shouldn't anchor here.That two islands within fifty knots have been lost already."He shook his head slightly."I must have misunderstood.Islands don't simply get 'lost.'"
But the captain was nodding vigorously, speaking again in that strange, flowing language.Her voice rose and fell in what sounded like emphasis, her hands gesturing to the empty water around them.Behind her, the huddled figures pressed closer, as though seeking reassurance from her presence.
"She's insisting," Roran translated, his voice growing strained."Saying that Skathi's Rock vanished a week ago, and another island—Hrimgar's Point—was lost three days hence.”
Thalia stared at the Warden captain, then at the vessel crowded with what she now recognized as refugees.Not raiders or invaders, but people fleeing from something that terrified them enough to abandon their homes.The realization shifted something fundamental in her understanding of the world.
She had seen this before—the haunted eyes, the too-thin children, the belongings hastily gathered and bundled onto whatever transportation could be found.She had seen it in the Southern refugees who had streamed into Frostforge, fleeing Warden attacks.She had seen it in Verdant Port after liberation, as families gathered what little remained of their possessions and contemplated rebuilding shattered lives.
But these were Isle Wardens.The enemy.The nightmare figures who had haunted continental coastlines for generations, who had taken her father, who had occupied her home, and imprisoned her family.She should feel satisfaction at their fear, vindication at their suffering.Instead, she felt a reluctant empathy that unsettled her deeply.
Roran continued his conversation with the captain, the foreign words flowing more smoothly from him with each exchange.Thalia watched his face, reading the growing alarm in his expression even before he turned to translate.
"They're fleeing to safer waters," he said, his voice tight with disbelief."Their settlements in this area are being evacuated, entire islands abandoned."He hesitated, then added, "They're heading for the mainland coast."
"The mainland?"Ashe interjected, lowering her crossbow slightly."They're invading?"
"No," Roran replied, his gaze fixed on the Warden captain."They're seeking refuge.Whatever is happening out here—whatever is making islands disappear—it terrifies them more than facing continental defenses."
The realization struck Thalia like a physical blow.The increased Warden activity along the coast, the occupation of Verdant Port, the desperate search for specific bloodlines—it wasn't conquest for its own sake.It was survival.They weren't invaders; they were refugees, fleeing something so terrible they would risk everything to escape it.
"The documents we found in Verdant Port," she said slowly, connecting pieces of a puzzle she hadn't known they were solving."The bloodline compatibility, the sorting of prisoners by magical heritage.They weren't looking for weapons againstus.They were looking for something to use against whatever is happening out here."
The Warden captain had fallen silent, watching their exchange with wary eyes.The refugees behind her huddled closer together, their faces turned toward the continental schooner with expressions Thalia recognized all too well—the desperate hope of those who had lost everything, seeking any harbor in a storm too terrible to weather.
"Tell her we mean no harm," Thalia said to Roran, making a decision that went against every instinct bred into her by years of enmity."Ask where they're going, and what they know about what's happening to the islands."
As Roran translated her words, Thalia met the Warden captain's gaze across the water.Enemy, her training insisted.Threat.But what she saw was simply a woman trying to protect her people from a danger beyond imagining—a mirror of Thalia's own desperate journey to save her family from occupation and imprisonment.
The stars wheeled overhead, cold and distant, as two vessels from opposing worlds drifted side by side in waters that grew stranger by the hour.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
