Page 33 of Frostforge, Passage Six
As they descended a curving staircase that led deeper into the fortress's heart, a sound stopped them mid-step—a faint scraping, followed by what might have been a whispered voice.Thalia raised her hand, signaling for silence, her head tilted as she tried to locate the source.
There—behind a heavy door at the corridor's end.Movement, unmistakable now.The shuffle of feet, the murmur of multiple voices kept deliberately low.
They weren't alone in the fortress after all.
Ashe readied her crossbow, her expression hardening into the mask of a warrior prepared for combat.Roran's hands lifted, storm magic gathering around his fingers in coils of potential energy.Thalia moved forward, her glacenite blade gleaming in the dim light as she approached the door.
No time for subtlety.No chance to plan a more careful approach.If Wardens remained within the fortress, the element of surprise might be their only advantage.
Thalia charged the door, her shoulder striking the wood with enough force to splinter the frame.As the door crashed inward, screams erupted from within—high, terrified sounds that belonged not to warriors but to children and elderly voices.
The room beyond was large, perhaps once a communal dining hall, now transformed into a makeshift refuge.Pallets lined the walls, personal belongings piled in neat stacks beside them.Isle Wardens huddled together, their faces gaunt with hunger and fear.But these were not the black-armored raiders of continental nightmares.These were civilians—women clutching children to their breasts, elderly men with rheumy eyes, adolescents whose gangly limbs spoke of recent growth spurts.
They had armed themselves with whatever came to hand—chair legs, candlesticks, a knife clearly designed for filleting fish rather than combat.Their expressions shifted from terror to desperate defiance as they faced the intruders, forming a protective circle around the youngest children.
"Stand down!"Thalia called to her companions, recognizing immediately the nature of those they faced."These aren't soldiers!"
But Ashe had already raised her crossbow, the weapon trained on the nearest man—middle-aged, his beard streaked with premature gray, his hand white-knuckled around the filleting knife.His eyes were wide with fear but resolute, his body positioned to shield a young girl who might have been his daughter.
Without hesitation, Thalia stepped between them, placing her back to Ashe and facing the desperate man.She knew Ashe wouldn't shoot through her, but the knife in the man's hand was another matter entirely.Still, the risk seemed necessary—these weren't enemies to be cut down.They were survivors, just like the refugees they had encountered the night before.
Roran spoke from behind her, his voice flowing in the language of the Isle Wardens.As he spoke, small sparks danced between his raised fingers, a display of his storm magic that seemed intended to reassure rather than threaten.Yet the civilians remained tense, their makeshift weapons still raised, their expressions wary.
The standoff stretched, seconds bleeding into minutes as neither side retreated.The tension hummed in the air like a drawn bowstring, every breath seeming to echo in the unnatural silence that had fallen.
Thalia made her decision in an instant of clarity.With deliberate movements, she lowered her glacenite blade to the floor, then straightened, hands empty and open at her sides.The gesture was unmistakable in any language—a surrender, a peace offering, a recognition of shared humanity that transcended the boundaries of conflict.
The Wardens exchanged glances, surprise and wariness wrestling across their faces.The defiance in their eyes softened slightly at her vulnerability, though none lowered their weapons immediately.
A woman stepped forward from the group—middle-aged, with lines of authority etched into her features despite her current state.She clutched a small child to her chest, but her posture was straight, her gaze direct as she addressed Thalia.
"Why are you here?"she asked in heavily accented continental speech."If not to kill us?"
"We came seeking information," Thalia answered honestly, seeing no benefit in deception."For Frostforge Academy."
The name rippled through the group like a stone thrown into still water, faces hardening, bodies tensing anew.Frostforge represented the enemy to these people as surely as Warden raids represented the enemy to coastal continentals.
"But I think," Thalia continued carefully, "that it's time we talked instead of fought.Something is happening in these waters—something that threatens both our peoples.Islands are disappearing.Settlements stand abandoned.And none of us knows why."
The woman studied her for a long moment, her expression unreadable.Then, with a slight nod that might have contained the first seed of understanding, she lowered the child to the floor beside her.
"Then let us talk," she said simply."Before there is nowhere left to run."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The fortress-whale's corridors twisted like arteries through living stone, the walls pulsing with a subtle rhythm that matched the leviathan's massive heartbeat.Thalia followed their reluctant guide—a young woman with salt-crusted braids and wary eyes—through passages that defied continental architecture.
Here, nothing stood straight or square.Doorways arched like waves frozen at their crest; ceilings curved in patterns that mimicked the ocean's surface seen from below; floors sloped and dipped with the creature's breath, forcing Thalia to constantly adjust her balance.The air tasted of brine and something else—something ancient, something alive.
Behind her, Ashe's footsteps fell in measured cadence, the Northern woman's hand never straying far from her blade despite Thalia's earlier intervention.Roran walked beside Thalia, his shoulders tense, eyes darting to each intersection and doorway they passed.The lightning-spark scent of his storm magic lingered around him like an invisible cloak, ready to be drawn at the first sign of treachery.
They had surrendered their weapons—reluctantly, after tense negotiation—but Thalia knew that Roran himself was a weapon, one the Wardens recognized all too well by the wary glances cast his way.
"How far?"Thalia asked their guide, who glanced back with an expression caught between fear and defiance.
"The captain waits above," the woman replied in halting continental speech."At the helm."
They ascended a spiraling staircase carved directly into stone, each step worn smooth from generations of use.At its apex, they emerged into a wider corridor lined with doors of polished driftwood, their surfaces inlaid with swirling patterns of shell and coral.
