Page 38 of Frostforge, Passage Six
After a lifetime in the straight lines and sharp corners of mainland architecture, this organic fluidity seemed almost dreamlike, a physical manifestation of the boundary they had crossed into Warden territory.
Ashe slept near the door, her body positioned between potential threats and her companions even in unconsciousness.Her red-streaked hair spilled across her pack, which she'd folded into a makeshift pillow.One hand remained curled around the hilt of her knife, ready to spring to defense at the slightest provocation.Even in sleep, the Northern woman maintained her vigilance.
Roran lay farther away, his limbs sprawled in abandon, face peaceful in a way it rarely was while awake.His wild curls formed a dark halo around his head, several strands rising and falling with each breath.The constant tension that accompanied his struggle to control his storm magic had eased in slumber, making him look younger, less burdened by his heritage and the stresses of his time at Frostforge.
Thalia rose silently, unwilling to disturb their rest.After yesterday's revelations, they all needed whatever peace sleep could provide.She slipped her boots on and secured her glacenite blade at her hip, a precaution that had become second nature.Even in this uncertain truce, she would not walk unarmed through a Warden fortress.
The corridor outside was dimly lit by the same translucent panels they had noticed yesterday, their glow strengthening as dawn approached.Thalia traced her fingers along the wall as she walked, feeling the subtle vibration of the whale's massive heart beating within its cavernous chest.
The stone felt warm beneath her touch, as if the fortress and its living foundation shared more than a physical connection—as if the very material of the structure had absorbed something of the creature's life-force over generations of symbiosis.
She followed the curving passages upward, guided by instinct rather than knowledge, seeking the highest point of the fortress.Each stairway twisted like the interior of a seashell, spiraling ever upward through the layered tiers of the structure.Guards nodded at her passage, their expressions wary but not hostile.The civilians they had encountered the previous day peered from doorways as she passed, curiosity warring with fear in their eyes.
When she finally emerged onto the fortress's highest rampart, the dawn was breaking across an endless expanse of ocean, painting the water in shades of amber and rose.The sky blazed with colors that bled into the sea, creating a horizon line so indistinct that the world seemed composed entirely of light and water, with no solid ground to anchor reality.
Thalia's breath caught in her throat.The vastness stretched in every direction, unbroken by land, unmarked by the familiar silhouettes of coastal mountains or the welcome sight of harbor lights.Just water and sky, melding at the edges of perception in a boundary as fluid as the one between waking and dreaming.
She gripped the stone battlement, feeling suddenly unmoored.All her life, land had been a constant presence—visible from any point along Verdant Port's coast, a reassurance of solidity and stability in a world where the sea represented danger and uncertainty.Now, that certainty had vanished, replaced by an immensity that made her feel smaller than she had ever felt before, even beneath Frostforge's towering ice walls or standing before its imposing masters.
A flock of gulls wheeled overhead, their white wings catching the sunrise as they circled the fortress.Their cries pierced the morning air, familiar sounds that somehow emphasized rather than diminished the strangeness of her surroundings.Below them, closer to the water's surface, smaller birds skimmed the waves with precision, their long, narrow wings nearly touching the crests before angling upward again.
Shearwaters.The namesake of Roran's childhood village—the place he still claimed as his home despite the heritage written in his storm magic and in the blood that filled his veins.Thalia watched their graceful flight, understanding now why a coastal settlement might choose such birds as their emblem.They existed at the boundary between worlds, neither fully creatures of the air nor of the sea, masters of the liminal space where elements met.
The sun climbed higher, burning away the last traces of dawn mist and revealing the full majesty of the fortress-whale.From her elevated position, Thalia could see the creature's enormous flukes rising and falling in a steady rhythm, propelling the living fortress forward through the water with deliberate purpose.The tail alone dwarfed a normal Warden ship, its scarred surface marked with the history of battles and encounters no continental record would ever document.
Behind them stretched a wake that extended to the horizon, marking their passage through waters few mainlanders had ever seen.The enormity of their situation struck Thalia anew—three Frostforge graduates aboard a Warden fortress-whale, sailing into mysteries that had remained hidden from continental knowledge for generations.If they survived to return, the intelligence they gathered might reshape the understanding of the conflict that had defined coastal life for nearly a century.
Far below, attached to the whale's flank by thick ropes that looked fragile as spider silk from this height, Thalia could just make out the masts of their schooner.The vessel dragged alongside the leviathan like a child's toy, a reminder of the scale difference between mainland crafts and the living fortresses of the Isle Wardens.The sight brought a pang of something like homesickness—the schooner represented their last connection to the world they knew, their only means of return if this tenuous alliance failed.
"You rise with sun," a voice observed from behind her."Good habit for a sailor."
Thalia turned to find Captain Cassia approaching along the rampart, her white braids lifting slightly in the ocean breeze.The Warden captain moved with the easy grace of one long accustomed to the fortress-whale's rhythms, her steps automatically adjusting to the subtle shifts of the living platform beneath them.
"I wanted to see the sunrise," Thalia replied, gesturing to the horizon."And to think."
Cassia nodded, coming to stand beside her at the battlement.Unlike yesterday, when formality had governed their interaction, the captain seemed more relaxed now, her weathered face open to the morning light.
"Much to think about, yes?"She studied Thalia with black irises that seemed to contain the same electric potential as Roran's."Walk with me?"
It wasn't truly a request, despite its phrasing.Thalia recognized the subtle command in the older woman's tone—the same inflection Wolfe used when issuing orders disguised as suggestions.She nodded, falling into step beside Cassia as they began a circuit of the rampart.
For several minutes, they walked in silence, the only sounds the crying of the gulls and the distant splash of the whale's tail striking water.Thalia sensed that Cassia was allowing her space to order her thoughts, to frame questions that yesterday's revelations had only begun to generate.
"You think on yesterday's words?"Cassia asked finally, her accent thickening the consonants until they sounded like small stones dropped into still water.
"I've been trying to," Thalia admitted."It's...a lot to take in."
A smile briefly crossed Cassia's face, though it contained no humor."Yes.Much to understand."She gestured expansively, encompassing the endless ocean around them."Questions live in your eyes.Ask them."
The directness was refreshing after Frostforge's layers of protocol and implied meanings.Thalia considered which of her many questions should come first, which mystery warranted immediate illumination.
"Who are they?"she asked finally."These 'Deep Ones.'Whatare they?"
Cassia's expression shifted, the lines around her eyes deepening as she gazed out over the water.For a moment, Thalia thought she might not answer.Then the captain spoke, her voice dropping lower, as if the words themselves might summon what she described.
"Long ago, just stories," Cassia began."Tales told to children who wandered too close to deep water.'Stay to shallows,' mothers would say, 'or depths will take you down.'"She traced a symbol in the air, a flowing pattern that Thalia recognized from the tattoos on the captain's arms."But stories sometimes hold truth, yes?Truth forgotten until remembered."
She pointed to the eastern horizon, where the rising sun now cast long shadows across the waves."A hundred summers past, strange storms came.Not normal storms—darker, angrier.Lightning that struck upward from sea to sky, not down."Her hand clenched on the stone battlement."One ship returned with tales of tentacles blacker than night water, large as an island shore, moving beneath the surface."
