The news settled like lead in Thalia's stomach, though it was hardly surprising.The pattern had been established for weeks now—the inexorable advance of the Deep Tide, swallowing everything in its path while the continent's defenders wasted precious time and resources fighting the wrong enemy.
Worse was the thought of Roran venturing to the consumed coastline, following the same path those scouts had been lost to.
"And let me guess," Thalia said, bitterness rising like bile in her throat."The Council is still blaming this on the Wardens."
"They are."Ashe's voice was carefully neutral, a soldier's discipline controlling what must have been conflicting loyalties."Their working theory is that the Wardens have developed a new form of magic somehow linked to the black metal of their blades."
Anger flared hot in Thalia's chest, burning against the plateau's penetrating cold."Northerners."She spat the word like a curse."Too proud to admit they've been wrong for generations.Too stubborn to accept help from the very people they've demonized."
Rasmus sighed, the sound heavy with resignation.Thalia glanced at him, remembering suddenly that he was Northern-born, though his time as Thalia’s student had tempered his regional prejudices.
"Present company excluded," she added, though the amendment felt hollow.
"Instructor Marr sits on the Council," Ashe pointed out quietly."He's Southern, yet he's offered no defense of the Wardens either."
Thalia wanted to argue but found she couldn't.Marr's silence stung more sharply precisely because he was Southern.She had expected better from him, foolishly perhaps.
"Be careful how openly you discuss continental tensions," Ashe continued, her voice dropping lower."I've heard plenty of Northerners blaming recent attacks on Southern incompetence.They're saying the Southern Kingdoms fell so quickly that the Wardens brought their 'curse' northward."
"That's not fair," Thalia protested, indignation flaring anew."The Southern Kingdoms haven't fallen—not entirely.And the Deep Tide was always coming for the Northern coasts.It isn't an enemy that thinks or plans; it's a force of nature, spreading outward like ripples in a pond."
"Most people in the academy aren't seeing it that way," Ashe reminded her gently."Fear breeds blame, and blame finds the easiest target."
Thalia fell silent, her gaze drawn back to the prison camp where the guards were changing at the entrance.She watched the crisp exchange of positions, the formal salutes, the practiced movements that spoke of order and control in a world rapidly descending into chaos.Behind those walls were people who understood the enemy, who had fought it longer than anyone on the mainland.People whose knowledge might be the difference between survival and extinction.
"I've seen enough," she said finally, turning away from the sight."I'm due in the kitchens soon."
She caught the glance that passed between Rasmus and Ashe—concern mingled with something that looked too much like pity—and turned away sharply, unwilling to acknowledge it.She had fallen far in the academy's hierarchy, from promising graduate to kitchen drudge.But rank meant nothing now, not with the darkness advancing on all sides.
What mattered was action.And if the Council wouldn't act, Thalia would find another way.The prison camp's weaknesses were clear to her now, its routines committed to memory.
Knowledge was power—a lesson Frostforge had taught her well.And she intended to use that power, whatever the cost.
***
Steam billowed around Thalia as she plunged her arms into the scalding water, her fingers finding the rough bottom of the massive soup pot.The heat penetrated her skin, a burning counterpoint to the perpetual chill that haunted Frostforge's stone halls.She scrubbed at the stubborn remnants of dinner—root vegetables boiled to submission in a broth so thin it barely deserved the name—while sweat gathered at her temples and slid down the curve of her spine.Behind her, the kitchen staff moved in exhausted patterns, their faces drawn with the strain of feeding hundreds more mouths than the academy had ever been designed to sustain.
Thalia's shoulders ached from the repetitive motion, unused to such labor despite her years of physical training.Battle-readiness and kitchen drudgery, it seemed, exercised entirely different muscles.She shifted her weight, easing the pressure on her lower back as she attacked a particularly stubborn bit of carrot that had welded itself to the pot's bottom.
The head cook shuffled past, her once-plump face now hollow with exhaustion, deep lines etched around her mouth from weeks of impossible arithmetic—dividing dwindling stores among multiplying mouths.She nodded at Thalia without really seeing her, already focused on the next impossible task.The woman had aged a decade in a month, her hands constantly trembling as she portioned out ingredients with miserly precision.
From the mess hall beyond the kitchen's swinging doors came the constant murmur of voices—hundreds of people crammed into a space designed for half that number.Refugees sat shoulder to shoulder with soldiers, first-year cadets squeezed between families who had fled with nothing but the clothes on their backs.Children perched on laps or sat cross-legged on the floor, scraping at bowls with wooden spoons, making the meager portions last as long as possible.
Thalia's own stomach clenched with lingering hunger.She'd wolfed down her portion earlier—a shallow bowl of the clear broth, two chunks of potato, a sliver of something that might have been chicken once.The food had barely taken the edge off her hunger, but she'd swallowed her complaints.Everyone was hungry.Everyone made do.
The soup pot finally surrendered to her scrubbing, the last of the stuck vegetables coming loose.Thalia lifted it from the water, muscles straining against its weight.Water cascaded down its sides as she hoisted it onto the drying rack, adding to the perpetual puddles on the kitchen's stone floor.
She reached for a towel to dry her reddened hands, wincing as the rough fabric scraped against her water-wrinkled skin.Beyond the kitchen doors, the murmur of conversation suddenly spiked, voices rising in sharp discord.Thalia paused, frowning, the towel suspended in her hands as she listened to the growing commotion.
A crash of metal—perhaps a dropped tray or overturned bench—punctuated a sudden chorus of shouts.The noise swelled, gaining intensity with each passing heartbeat.
"What in the—" the head cook muttered, turning toward the doors with alarm etched into her features.
Thalia dropped the towel and moved toward the commotion without conscious thought, pushing through the swinging doors into the chaos beyond.The scene that greeted her stole her breath—the mess hall transformed into a battleground, its occupants divided into factions that screamed obscenities across the narrow divide of tables and benches.
At the center of the storm, five young men grappled in violent struggle—Daniel and another Southern boy Thalia recognized from last year's training cohort were locked in combat with three Northern students.One of the Northerners had Daniel in a headlock while another landed blows to his midsection.Nearby, a child cowered beneath an overturned table, eyes wide with terror.
Instructors at the high table shouted for order, but their commands were swallowed by the din of hundreds of voices raised in anger and fear.Virek had risen from his seat, frost already crystallizing around his fingertips, but the distance between the high table and the brawl was too great for immediate intervention.
