Thalia surged forward, shoving past the circle of onlookers who alternately cheered and jeered.She seized the collar of the Northern student who held Daniel, yanking him backward with strength born of fury and training.The boy stumbled, his grip on Daniel loosening enough for her to wedge herself between them.
"Enough!"she commanded, one hand on Daniel's chest, pushing him back while she faced the Northern students with a glare that had sent larger men retreating.
Daniel's face was a mess—one eye already swelling shut, his lip split and bleeding freely down his chin.He struggled against her restraining arm, rage distorting his features into something barely recognizable.
"Get off me, Thalia," he growled, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand."You didn't hear what they said.You didn't—"
"I don't care what they said," she shot back, though the words tasted false on her tongue."This solves nothing."
The Northern students hadn't retreated, their faces flushed with anger and exertion.The tallest—a broad-shouldered youth with close-cropped blond hair—sneered at Daniel over Thalia's shoulder.
"Tell her what happened at Sunset Bay, Southern rat," he taunted, his Northern accent thickening with emotion."Tell her how your people ran instead of fought.How they abandoned the port to save their own skins while the black waters came for—"
Daniel lunged against Thalia's restraining arm, nearly breaking free in his rage."They were civilians!"he shouted, spittle and blood flying from his lips."Not soldiers!They didn't abandon anything—they were slaughtered!My cousin was there, you heartless Northern—"
"Daniel!"Thalia's voice cut through his tirade, sharp as a blade."Stop.This is what they want."
The boy's eyes found hers, wild with pain and grief."You don't understand," he said, voice breaking."They said Sunset Bay deserved what it got.They said the South is weak, that we brought this curse on everyone by not fighting hard enough."His voice dropped to a ragged whisper."My cousin was twelve years old, Thalia.Twelve."
Thalia's heart twisted with shared grief and rage.She knew what it cost him to stand down, to swallow such vicious words when grief was still raw and bleeding.The anger in her gut burned hotter, but she forced steel into her spine, keeping her voice low and steady.
"This is how they win," she murmured, gripping his shoulder."They divide us with blame while the real enemy advances.We can't rise to it, Daniel.Not now.Not with everything at stake."
A sudden chill swept through the hall, the temperature plummeting as frost crackled across the stone floor beneath their feet.Thalia looked down to see ice spreading in crystalline patterns from where Instructor Virek now stood, his pale hands outstretched, his face a mask of cold fury.
"Enough!"he commanded, his whispery voice somehow carrying to every corner of the now-silent hall.The ice continued its advance, encasing the feet of the brawlers, rendering them immobile.
Thalia stepped back, her boots crunching on the thin layer of frost.The Northern students struggled briefly against their frozen restraints before recognizing the futility.
"Is this what we've become?"Wolfe's voice cut through the silence as she strode forward, emerald eyes blazing with controlled rage.She surveyed the hall, taking in the divided factions, the overturned benches, the child still cowering beneath the table."Squabbling like children while our world burns?Fighting each other while the true enemy advances unchecked?We will never defeat the Isle Wardens without unity."
The hypocrisy of her words stoked the embers of Thalia's anger.Unity, Wolfe demanded, while the Council itself perpetuated the greatest division—keeping imprisoned the very allies who might help them understand and fight the Deep Tide.Wolfe was wrong about the true enemy; the true enemy was not a human enemy, but the ancient, unknowable threat from the sea.She watched, eyes narrowed, as Wolfe continued her rebuke, the head instructor's scarred face flushed with righteous indignation, and felt a cold resolve solidify within her chest.
They would not win divided—on that point, Wolfe was correct.But true unity required more than pretty words and stern lectures.It demanded action.It demanded the courage to set aside generations of hatred and work alongside former enemies.It demanded exactly what the Council refused to give.
As Virek released his icy grip on the brawlers and Wolfe ordered them to report for discipline, Thalia caught Daniel's eye and gave him a small nod of understanding.She would fight for unity—but not the false unity Wolfe preached.A true alliance, forged in the face of extinction, that included all who stood against the darkness.
Even if she had to build it herself.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Wind howled across the barren expanse, a merciless blade that cut through Roran Bright's layers of wool and fur to find the vulnerable flesh beneath.He ducked his head against the onslaught, watching as his breath crystallized before vanishing into the vastness of the Northern Reaches.Behind him, the sheltering pines of the Rimspire foothills receded like a tide, abandoning him to the endless white plain that stretched toward a horizon smudged gray by distant clouds.
Three days of travel had brought him here, to the threshold of true Northern territory, where even the trees surrendered to the relentless cold.And with each step that carried him further from Frostforge, the weight in his chest grew heavier – the hollow ache of separation from Thalia, from warmth, from anything remotely resembling home.
Roran adjusted his scarf, pulling the frost-crusted wool higher over his nose.The thin skin of his cheeks had long since numbed, but his eyes still watered painfully whenever the wind changed direction.Though of Isle Warden blood, he was a child of the Southern Kingdoms, raised under gentler skies.This place – this wasteland of ice and hostility – rejected him with every frozen breath.
A punishment.What else could this assignment possibly be?The War Council had dozens of Northern-born scouts at their disposal, men and women who had been nursed on ice and weaned on frost, who could navigate these reaches blindfolded.Yet they had chosen him – Roran Bright, the Southern-born soldier with Isle Warden blood running through his veins, the most mistrusted man in all of Frostforge – to venture into the heart of Northern territory.
The irony tasted bitter as gall.They had spared his life after his trial only to send him here, where the elements might finish what the executioner had not.Even if he survived the journey, how would Northern commanders react to his presence?A man with his heritage, carrying orders from an academy that half the North now viewed with suspicion?
His boot broke through a thin crust of ice, plunging into freezing meltwater beneath.Roran cursed, yanking his foot back and shaking off the excess before it could freeze against his leather.The cold had already worked its way through the waterproofing oils, sending needles of pain lancing through his toes.
He needed to find shelter before nightfall, or his mission would end with him becoming another frozen corpse among the countless others who had underestimated these merciless plains.
"Thalia would know what to do," he whispered to the empty air.
The thought of her hit him like a physical blow.Three days since he'd seen her last, and already the memory of her face had become his talisman against despair.Thalia Greenspire, with her fierce determination and unwavering loyalty.The woman who had stood beside him when all others had stepped away.Who had kissed him in the shadow of his execution, unafraid of what that alliance might cost her.
