She rolled her shoulders, trying to ease the knots that had formed after hours bent over the anvil.With the forge working at full capacity, she could finally justify taking a few hours to rest before beginning again tomorrow at dawn.The thought of her narrow bed in the apprentice quarters—where she'd been reassigned after her demotion—had never seemed so appealing.
"I thought I'd find you here."
Thalia turned at the familiar voice, her exhaustion momentarily forgotten as Roran stepped into the forge's amber light.He looked better than when he'd arrived at the Council chamber, though shadows still lingered beneath his eyes and his wild curls remained untamed.Someone had tended his wounds and provided clean clothes, at least.
He moved toward her, arms outstretched, but Thalia held up a hand to stop him.
"I smell like mineral coal and quenching oil," she warned, suddenly conscious of her disheveled state."And I haven't bathed properly in—" She did a quick mental calculation."Actually, I've lost track."
Roran ignored her outstretched hand, closing the distance between them and enfolding her in an embrace that felt like coming home.For a moment, she resisted, all too aware of her grimy appearance, but his warmth broke through her defenses.She melted against him, her arms encircling his waist as she buried her face against his shoulder.
"I've missed you," he murmured into her hair."We've barely had a chance to speak since I got back."
Thalia nodded against his chest, inhaling his scent—pine and frost and something distinctly Roran."The Council has kept you in debriefs almost constantly," she said."And I've been here, trying to arm as many fighters as possible before the Deep Tide reaches us."
"Just over two weeks from now," he said quietly, his voice carrying the weight of that knowledge."If the scouts' estimates are correct."
She pulled back enough to see his face, studying the new lines that seemed to have formed around his eyes in the weeks since he'd departed for the North."I still need to hear how your mission went," she said."The full story, not just the report you gave the Council."
A shadow crossed his features."It was fine," he replied with a shrug that didn't quite achieve the casualness he seemed to be aiming for.
"Roran," Thalia pressed, her hand coming up to cup his cheek."I can see there's more.What happened out there?"
He closed his eyes briefly, leaning into her touch.When he opened them again, something vulnerable showed in their depths."It was...difficult," he admitted."In the North, I was either a Southerner or an Isle Warden, depending on who I encountered and what threats I faced.And neither identity earned me any welcome."
He guided her to a bench near one of the dormant workstations, both of them sitting with shoulders touching, hands entwined."Northern patrols treated me with suspicion.Refugees who'd fled the coastal fortresses accused me of being a Warden spy when I asked too many questions about the Deep Tide.And when I was finally captured after using storm magic against the void-creatures..."
He trailed off, his grip tightening around her fingers.
"They saw you as the enemy," Thalia finished for him.
"They saw me as a monster," he corrected, bitterness edging his words."The same way I used to see Wardens, before..."He hesitated."Before we met Cassia.Before I learned the truth."
Thalia waited, giving him space to continue.
"I've been struggling to reconcile everything since our encounter on Thrum'kith," Roran confessed, his voice low enough that it wouldn't carry to the few smiths still working across the forge."My whole life, I was taught that Isle Wardens were savages—raiders who attacked coastal villages for sport, who wielded forbidden magic with malicious intent.I grew up believing those stories.I believed them so deeply that I hated the part of myself that carried their blood."
He ran a hand through his tangled curls."But Cassia wasn't a savage.She was a captain trying desperately to save her people from the Deep Tide.The 'raids' weren't random acts of violence—they were desperate attempts to find sanctuary on the mainland."A humorless laugh escaped him."And I, with my Warden blood, knew absolutely nothing about any of it.I'd accepted so many assumptions without question.The product of an upbringing on the mainland."
"You couldn't have known," Thalia said gently."None of us could."
"I should have questioned it," Roran insisted."I, of all people, should have wondered if there was more to the story."
"You were a child raised on the mainland," Thalia reminded him."And later, a student at an academy literally built to fight Isle Wardens."She squeezed his hand."What matters is that you're questioning it now.That your storm magic has saved us on multiple occasions.And that it might save Frostforge once more."
A small smile touched his lips, though his eyes remained serious."Don't get ahead of yourself, Thalia," he cautioned."The weapons haven't been tested against actual Deep Ones yet.We still don't know if it's even possible to hold the line, let alone drive them back."
Thalia felt a flicker of frustration at his words, not because they were wrong, but because they echoed her own doubts—the ones she'd been fighting to suppress beneath layers of desperate optimism."We have to try," she said simply."What other choice remains?"
Roran didn't answer.In the silence that followed, the steady rhythm of hammers and the hiss of quenching metal filled the space between them—the sounds of Frostforge preparing for a battle that might be unwinnable, against an enemy that had never been defeated.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The forest path narrowed as Thalia led the advance party toward the fjord, pine needles crunching beneath her boots with each deliberate step.The trees thinned ahead, revealing glimpses of water that gleamed like polished silver in the weak morning light.Yet something was wrong.The fjord's surface lay unnaturally still, not a ripple marring its perfect reflection of the cloud-streaked sky above.It was as if the water itself held its breath, waiting for the darkness that crept ever closer from the distant mouth where sea met mountain.
Thalia paused at the forest's edge, her hand instinctively dropping to the hybrid blade that hung at her hip.Its constant vibration had become familiar over the past days—a companion pulse that matched her own heartbeat.Behind her, the others fanned out in a loose semicircle, their faces grim beneath hoods and helmets.
"How much farther?"Senna asked, her voice pitched low as if unwilling to disturb the unnatural quiet.The Northern soldier's question held an edge of impatience, though Thalia detected something else beneath it—something that might have been fear in someone less proud.
