Page 41 of Frostforge, Passage Six
The contact lasted less than a heartbeat, but it was enough to make her gasp, to send her staggering backward as if physically struck.The presence below dwarfed even the leviathan that carried them, its size so immense that her mind struggled to conceptualize it.
This wasn't merely a large creature; this was something that existed on a scale beyond human comprehension, its consciousness alien and cold and patient in a way that spoke of millennia spent waiting in the darkness.
Thalia's eyes flew open as she pitched sideways, the fortress now tilting as waves began to rise around them, no longer glassy and still but building into mountains of black water.The wind had strengthened to a howling gale that tore at her clothing and threatened to lift her bodily from the deck.
Strong hands gripped her arms—Roran on one side, Ashe on the other, anchoring her against the maelstrom.
"What in the frozen hells are you doing?"Ashe shouted, her face inches from Thalia's, Northern eyes wide with alarm and fury."Are you trying to get blown overboard?"
Thalia couldn't find words to explain what she had sensed, couldn't articulate the profound wrongness of the entity moving beneath them.Instead, she pointed toward the water, where waves now rose in swells taller than the mainmast of their schooner, cresting with foam that appeared bone-white against the unnatural blackness of the sea.
Beneath their feet, the fortress began to hum—not the subtle vibration from before, but a more deliberate tremor that seemed to emanate from the whale itself.The stone shivered, metal fixtures rattled in their housings, and dust drifted from ceilings as the entire structure responded to some invisible stimulus.
Then, for the first time since they had boarded the living fortress, Thalia heard the whale vocalize.
The sound began as a low moan that seemed to rise from the depths of the ocean itself, resonating through the creature's massive body and into the structure built upon its back.The note held, sustained by lungs larger than houses, then shifted into a complex series of clicks and thrums that vibrated through stone and bone alike.
There was intelligence in that sound, purpose and communication that transcended the limitations of human language.
And there was fear.
"What's it doing?"Thalia gasped, struggling to maintain her footing as the fortress-whale's massive flukes broke the surface behind them, sending a shower of spray across the deck as they slapped back down with enough force to create their own competing waves.
Her question found its answer in horror rather than words.
From her position at the railing, Thalia had a clear view of their schooner, still tethered to the whale's flank by ropes that now strained under the assault of thirty-foot swells.The small vessel, which had seemed so sturdy during their journey from Verdant Port, now appeared fragile as a child's toy against the fury of the unnatural storm.Water crashed over its deck, splintering wood and tearing away rigging with each successive wave.
Then, between one lightning flash and the next, something else emerged from the depths.
At first, Thalia thought it was merely a darker patch of water, a shadow cast by the fortress-whale or a trick of the corpse-light from above.But shadows didn't move with purpose, didn't extend upward from the surface in a sinuous column of absolute blackness that made the night around it seem pale by comparison.
The tendril rose, impossibly long, impossibly fluid in its movements.It was both solid and not, its substance seeming to flow and reform with each passing second.No scales glinted in the lightning flashes, no hide reflected the storm's glow.This was darkness given shape, void made flesh.
With terrible, deliberate grace, the tendril lashed downward.
It struck the schooner amidships with enough force to shatter the vessel's spine in an explosion of wood and metal.The sound was lost beneath the storm's fury, but Thalia felt the impact as a vibration through the stone beneath her feet.Before her horrified gaze, the tendril coiled around the broken remains of their ship, constricting with methodical strength until the structure collapsed inward upon itself.
Then, with the casual ease of a child discarding a broken plaything, the darkness pulled the wreckage beneath the surface.
In seconds, there was nothing left—no floating debris, not even the rope that had tethered the schooner to the fortress-whale.The tendril had not simply destroyed their vessel; it had consumed it utterly, leaving only churning black water where their last connection to the mainland had been.
"No!"Roran's curse cut through the howling wind, equal parts terror and rage.His hands clenched at his sides, storm magic leaping between his fingers in futile response.“Marr is going to be furious.”
Before Thalia could respond, shouts erupted across the deck as Warden guards moved among the civilians, gesturing urgently toward the interior doorways.Their commands needed no translation—the sharp movements, the pointed fingers toward safety, the hands firmly guiding frozen onlookers away from the railings spoke a universal language of imminent danger.
"Should we go with them?"Thalia asked, her voice nearly lost in the storm's roar.
"If you want to survive, yes."
The voice came from behind them.Captain Cassia stood braced against the wind, her white braids whipping around her weathered face, her eyes reflecting the unnatural lightning in pools of storm-gray determination.
"The whale prepares for evasion," she continued, gesturing for them to follow as she moved toward the nearest entrance."We must be inside when it happens."
As if in confirmation of her words, the leviathan beneath them released another vocalization—louder than before, the sound seeming to shake the very foundations of the fortress built upon its scarred back.
"A warning," Cassia explained, her accent thickening with urgency."The Deep Ones are persistent.Our whale must do what she can to escape them."She cast a glance toward the writhing storm above."And surface will not be safe place in minutes to come."
"Wait—the surface?"Ashe's question emerged as a startled yelp, her usual composure fracturing as Cassia herded them toward a heavy doorway where other refugees were already disappearing into the fortress interior.
