Page 40 of Frostforge, Passage Six
"The instructors wanted intelligence on a fortress-whale," Thalia continued, warming to her own plan."This way, they get more than they bargained for—not just information, but a living example.And your people," she added, turning to Cassia, "get safe harbor, at least temporarily.A chance to rest, to resupply, to consider next steps."
It was audacious, perhaps even foolhardy.Bringing a Warden fortress-whale into Frostforge's fjord would violate every security protocol the academy had established.The Northern commanders would be furious, the Southern refugees terrified.
But if they succeeded, it might create an opportunity for dialogue that a century of conflict had failed to produce.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
As night fell, darkness pooled around the fortress-whale like spilled ink.Thalia stood at the railing, fingers pressed against cold stone, watching as twilight bled into an unnatural gloom that settled over the ocean with smothering weight.
The air hung motionless, devoid of the salt-laced breeze that had accompanied them since leaving Verdant Port, replaced by a stillness so complete it seemed to press against her eardrums.Something wasn't right.The ocean never went this quiet, this still—not unless it was holding its breath, waiting.
"Look at the water," Ashe murmured beside her, voice tight with unease.
Thalia peered over the edge, where the normal deep blue of ocean depths had transformed into something else entirely—a glossy, midnight black that absorbed what little light remained rather than reflecting it.The surface appeared unnaturally smooth, as if polished by an invisible hand, with only the wake of the fortress-whale disturbing its obsidian perfection.
"It's like looking into a void," Thalia whispered, fighting the irrational urge to recoil from the sight."Water shouldn't look like that."
A presence warmed her right side as Roran stepped closer, his shoulder brushing against hers.The contact should have been reassuring, but the tension radiating from his body only amplified her growing disquiet.
"This isn't natural," he said, his voice pitched low enough that only she and Ashe could hear.Static electricity crackled subtly between his fingers, storm magic responding to his agitation without conscious direction."I've sailed these waters since I was a child—sneaking aboard trading vessels, watching the horizon.I've seen storms gather, seen waterspouts tear across the surface, seen squalls that turned day to night in minutes."He shook his head, curls dancing with tiny blue sparks."But I've never seen the sea go black like this."
Behind them, murmurs rippled through the gathered Warden civilians who had ventured onto the upper deck to witness the sunset.What had begun as an evening ritual had transformed into something far more ominous as darkness claimed the sky with unnatural speed.
Parents clutched children to their sides, elderly hands made signs in the air that Thalia didn't recognize, and young faces turned upward, eyes searching the empty vault of heaven where stars should have glimmered.
"What are they saying?"Thalia asked Roran, nodding toward a cluster of refugees whose whispers had taken on a rhythmic quality.
Roran tilted his head, listening."It sounds like superstition," he said, frowning."A prayer.Something about the depths returning to depths, the surface remaining unclaimed."His expression grew troubled."It's not something I was ever taught.Not that I remember."
Several Wardens pointed toward the obsidian water, their voices rising in pitch if not volume.The words were foreign to Thalia, but fear needed no translation—it lived in the widened eyes, the trembling fingers, the instinctive gathering of young ones behind adult bodies.
Without warning, the stillness fractured.
The first vibration came from below—not the familiar, rhythmic pulse of the whale's massive heart that had become the background tempo of their journey, but something else.Something alien.A low, thrumming tone that seemed to resonate through the volcanic stone of the fortress, making the metal fixtures buzz with sympathetic energy.
"What is that?"Ashe demanded, her hand already on her crossbow, though what target she might find for her bolts remained unclear.
The vibration intensified, growing from a distant hum to a bone-deep resonance that Thalia could feel in her teeth, in the marrow of her bones.It wasn't sound exactly, wasn't movement precisely, but something that existed in the space between—a disturbance in the fabric of reality itself.
Thalia looked upward, seeking some constant in this shifting nightmare.Above them, the stars had begun to vanish, not gradually as clouds might obscure them, but in great swathes, as if entire constellations were being erased from existence.Where pinpricks of celestial light had glittered moments before, now loomed a darkness more absolute than any natural night could produce.
“The storm gathers," a Warden guard murmured as he passed, his accent thick but his warning clear."Inside soon."
But this was no ordinary storm gathering above them.Thalia had witnessed Roran call lightning from clear skies, had seen the electrical discharge dance across his fingertips before leaping to his command.She knew the particular charge that preceded storm magic, the way air molecules seemed to vibrate with potential just before they ignited.
This was that feeling magnified a thousand fold.The atmosphere around them seemed to compress, to thicken until each breath required conscious effort.Then, with a suddenness that startled a cry from her lips, the blackness above split with veins of lightning—not the clean, bright silver of natural storms, but a sickly purple-green that cast everything in corpse-light.
The brief illumination revealed the true extent of the storm—a churning mass that stretched from horizon to horizon, rotating with unnatural speed around a central void that seemed to devour light itself.This was no weather pattern born of natural forces; this was intent made manifest, hunger given form.
Thalia closed her eyes, blocking out the visual chaos, and reached inward for the current-sensing ability that had first manifested in her mother's herb shop, that had served her so well in the forges of Frostforge.
At first, she felt nothing beyond the familiar life-force of the fortress-whale beneath them—the massive, steady presence that had become a constant backdrop to her awareness.But as she pushed her senses further, deeper, her perception brushed against something else.
Something vast.
Something ancient.
Something hungry.
