CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN #2
Humiliation burned in Thalia's cheeks as she rose from her chair, the legs scraping against stone with a sound like bones breaking.
She caught Roran's eye as she turned to leave—saw sympathy there, and something like determination. Then she was moving, stiff-legged, toward the door, her pride the only thing keeping her spine straight and her chin high as she exited the chamber where her family’s fate was being decided without her.
***
The door to the instructors' chamber closed behind Thalia with the finality of a tomb being sealed.
She stood motionless for a heartbeat, two, willing her limbs to remember how to move as humiliation scalded her throat.
Dismissed—like a child throwing a tantrum, like a soldier too green to understand strategy, like someone whose judgment couldn't be trusted.
Her boots struck the stone floor with vicious precision as she descended the spiral staircase, each step punctuated by the echo of Wolfe's words: Your judgment is compromised by emotion.
Compromised. As if caring about her family was a weakness rather than her greatest strength.
She paced Frostforge's frigid corridors, barely registering the curious glances from passing students.
Let them stare. Let them whisper. It didn't matter what they thought of her red-rimmed eyes or clenched fists.
What mattered was that while she wandered these stone halls—safe, fed, sheltered—her mother and Mari might be trapped in some Warden prison camp, suffering horrors she couldn't bear to imagine.
Her feet carried her downward, through narrow passageways and across empty training rooms, until the air grew warmer and the distant ring of metal on metal reached her ears.
The Howling Forge—her sanctuary within Frostforge's cold embrace.
Here, at least, she knew her place. Here, her hands could be useful even when her voice went unheard.
The forge's familiar heat enveloped her as she descended the final staircase, wrapping around her like an embrace.
Braziers blazed along the walls, casting long shadows across tools and half-finished projects abandoned during the battle.
Most smiths were occupied with repairs elsewhere in the academy, leaving the forge eerily quiet save for the constant hum of the ventilation system that gave the place its name.
When the wind blew from the north, it created a mournful howl as it rushed through the mountain's complex system of shafts and tunnels.
Thalia moved to her usual workstation, slipping off her jacket and rolling up her sleeves.
She didn't have a project in mind—didn't need one.
The simple act of working metal was enough, a meditation that required all her focus and none of her heart.
She stoked the coals until they glowed white-hot, then selected a bar of iron from the storage bin.
Not ice-metal, not glacenite, just ordinary iron with no magical properties.
No hallucinations. No whispers. Just metal that could be bent to her will.
She worked in silence, losing herself in the rhythm of hammer on anvil, each strike harder than necessary.
The bar began to flatten beneath her blows, shapeless, purposeless, a conduit for her rage rather than a thing of beauty or function.
Sweat beaded on her forehead and trickled down her spine, but she didn't pause, didn't wipe it away.
The physical exertion was a release, each impact vibrating up her arm and into her chest, where her heart still ached with the knowledge that she had failed.
Failed to convince the instructors. Failed to help her family. Failed, as she had so often failed since arriving at Frostforge, to be enough.
Time blurred, measured only in the changing color of the metal as it cooled and the ache in her muscles as she reheated it and struck again. One hour became two, became three, and still she worked, pouring all her frustration into the shapeless lump of iron.
"I thought we'd find you here."
The voice startled her mid-swing. Her hammer completed its arc, striking the anvil with a flat, unsatisfying clang before she turned to face the entrance. Kaine stood there, his tall frame silhouetted against the staircase, with Roran and Ashe flanking him like guards.
Thalia lowered her hammer, suddenly conscious of her disheveled appearance—sweat-dampened shirt clinging to her back, hair escaping its tie in wild tendrils, cheeks flushed from heat and exertion. "The meeting's over, then," she said, her voice rough from disuse.
"Hours ago," Ashe confirmed, stepping forward. Her eyes scanned the forge, taking in the scattered tools and the formless lump of metal on Thalia's anvil with a raised eyebrow. "You've been busy. Is that some odd new design, or are you just pounding iron?"
Thalia set down her hammer and wiped her hands on a nearby rag. "Did they declare they’re going to sit behind the walls and wait for the next attack?" she asked, unable to keep the bitterness from her tone.
The three exchanged glances—a silent communication that made Thalia's heart skip. There was something they weren't saying, something important.
"Not exactly," Roran said, moving closer until the forge's light illuminated his face. "They authorized a mission to Verdant Port."
The words hit Thalia like a physical blow. Her knees weakened, and she gripped the edge of the anvil to steady herself. “They… they did?”
"Reconnaissance and rescue," Kaine replied, his eyes never leaving her face. "Very limited in scope, focused on gathering intelligence about the prison camp and extracting high-value targets if possible."
"High-value targets," Thalia repeated, the formal, clinical phrase catching in her throat.
As if her mother and sister were military objectives rather than people she loved.
Still, it was more than she had dared hope for after her dismissal.
"Thank you," she whispered, the words inadequate for the wave of gratitude that threatened to overwhelm her.
She looked between Roran and Kaine, understanding dawning through her exhaustion.
"You defended my position after I was dismissed. "
Roran's smile was small but genuine. "We merely expanded on the strategic advantages of disrupting the Wardens' operations."
Fresh hope bloomed in Thalia's chest, pushing back the despair that had gripped her since learning of Verdant Port's fall. "When do we leave?" she asked, already mentally cataloging what she would need to pack—weapons, supplies, maps of her home city's labyrinthine streets.
The silence that followed her question lasted a heartbeat too long. Ashe stepped forward, her expression carefully neutral. "Kaine, Roran, and I will be leaving at first light tomorrow," she said.
The hope in Thalia's chest curdled into dread. "And me?"
Ashe's gaze flickered away, then back, steady and apologetic. "No. You, Brynn, and Luna have been explicitly forbidden from joining the mission. The instructors cited your recent desertion from the Northern post and concerns about your discipline."
Anger flared white-hot beneath Thalia's ribs. "My discipline ?" she repeated, incredulity sharpening each syllable. "What does that matter? It's my family, my home. I know Verdant Port better than anyone here. How can they—"
"Thalia," Kaine interrupted, his voice low but firm. "Think about what you're saying. You already deserted your post once. You were lucky to receive probation rather than a court-martial. If you disobey direct orders again…"
"The consequences would be severe," Roran finished. "Wolfe made that very clear."
Thalia turned away from them, her hands curling into fists at her sides.
The anger was back, roaring through her veins with renewed intensity.
"What consequences could possibly matter now?
" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
"What could they take from me that the Wardens haven't already stolen? "
She had feared losing her position at Frostforge once, had worried about how her family would survive without the stipend her service provided.
But if her family was gone—if her mother and Mari were already dead—then what did any of it matter?
What did rank or standing or reputation mean in the face of such loss?
"I have to try," she said, turning back to face them. "Even if it means risking everything. I can't sit here while you fight my battles for me."
The three exchanged glances again, and this time Thalia caught something in their expressions—a knowing look, as if her reaction was exactly what they had expected. As if, perhaps, they had planned for it.
"We thought you might say that," Roran said after a moment, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper. "Which is why we all agreed that if you decided to come with us — to stow away in the hold — we wouldn’t report you.”
Thalia stared at Roran, hardly daring to believe what she'd just heard.
A way to join the mission despite direct orders—her friends were willing to help her with this insubordination.
The air in the forge suddenly felt insufficiently hot, a chill creeping up her spine despite the blazing furnace at her back.
"You'd risk that?" she asked, voice barely audible above the hiss of cooling metal. "All of you would risk court-martial?"
Ashe crossed her arms, her expression resolute. "Not if we're careful. If you're found, we maintain ignorance. You snuck aboard without our knowledge."
Roran leaned against the workbench, his casual posture belied by the intensity in his dark eyes.
"We will leave from the northern dock just after dawn. They’ve given us a clipper for the mission.
The hold has storage compartments beneath the deck planks.
They won't be checked before we depart; we’ll be casting off early. "
“If you intend to join us,” Kaine said, “we’ll see you there at first light.”