CHAPTER FOURTEEN #2
She closed her eyes, focusing instead on her other senses—particularly the one that had served her so well in the forge.
Current-sensing, the ability to detect and interpret the flows of energy within metals, plants, everything that came from the earth, and would return to it.
It had made her a natural at metallurgy, at understanding the properties of different alloys, at knowing exactly where to strike to shape a blade or reinforce a shield.
Under her fingertips, the ice-metal cuffs hummed with a subtle energy.
She traced the flow of it, following the currents as they wove through the metal, channeled and directed by the runes.
The pattern was complex but not unfamiliar—similar to the protective engravings she had studied on advanced ice-forged weapons.
Every pattern had its weak point, its fulcrum. In the forge, she had learned to identify these points by touch, to know intuitively where pressure or heat would cause metal to yield. Virek was the continent’s best cryomancer, but he wasn’t a smith; there had to be a weakness in this metal.
There. A nexus where multiple currents converged, where the runes formed a tight spiral of energy. If she could disrupt this point, the entire pattern might unravel, and the storm within Roran would be free.
Thalia opened her eyes, fixing her gaze on Roran's. "This is going to hurt," she warned.
His mouth quirked in what might have been a smile under different circumstances. "More than burning to death?"
She shot him an aggrieved look, then positioned the jagged remnant of her sword over the spot she had identified, angling it carefully. "Ready?"
Roran nodded, his jaw set. Thalia brought the hilt down in a sharp strike, putting all her strength behind it.
The impact jarred her arm to the shoulder, but she felt something give beneath the blow—not the metal itself, but the energy pattern within it.
A hairline fracture appeared in the cuff, a flaw in the otherwise perfect surface.
"Again," she said, repositioning the hilt.
The second blow was harder, more desperate. This time, the crack widened, spreading along the contours of the runes. Roran hissed in pain as the edge of the cuffs dug into his wrist. The air around them seemed to vibrate, charged with released energy.
"One more," Thalia gasped, her arms trembling with effort. The heat was becoming unbearable, the smoke so thick she could barely see Roran's face inches from her own.
The third strike hit true. The cuff shattered, fragments of ice-metal scattering across the wooden platform.
Immediately, she moved to the second restraint, working faster now, her fingers finding the weakness in seconds.
One blow, then another, and the second cuff split along the same fault line as the first.
Roran's hands were free. He brought them up before his face, staring at his wrists where the cuffs had left angry red marks against his brown skin. For a moment, he seemed not to comprehend his freedom, his expression blank with shock.
"Roran," Thalia urged, tugging at his arm. "We need to go. Now."
He looked up at her, and something shifted in his eyes—a spark igniting, a banked fire roaring back to life. "Yes," he said, his voice stronger than before. “Right.”
He rose to his feet, swaying slightly before finding his balance.
Smoke swirled around him, curling in strange patterns as if responding to his presence.
Despite days of imprisonment, despite deprivation and the smoke's assault on his lungs, he suddenly seemed taller, more substantial.
Power radiated from him in waves that Thalia could feel against her skin.
"What are you doing?" she asked, though she already knew the answer.
He raised his hands, palms upward, fingers splayed as if reaching for something only he could see. The air around them changed, pressure building like the moment before a thunderstorm breaks. Thalia's ears popped, and her skin prickled with gooseflesh despite the inferno's heat.
Above them, visible through the gaps in the burning roof, the storm clouds began to rotate, forming a spiral centered directly over the amphitheater.
Wind rushed into the structure, fresh and cold, momentarily clearing the smoke.
It circled around Roran, lifting his unevenly-chopped curls, making his tattered clothes billow like sails.
Thalia followed as he strode through the burning amphitheater, moving with newfound purpose. The wind continued to build around him, creating a barrier that pushed back the flames and cleared a path through the smoke. It wasn't safety, but it was survival—for now.
They emerged from the structure just as a massive section of it collapsed inward, sending a geyser of sparks and flaming debris skyward.
The battlefield spread before them, the fighting having drawn closer to the keep's entrance.
The ice barrier was failing in places, Wardens pressing through the gaps, their black weapons flashing as they cut down defenders.
Roran stepped forward, his movements fluid and purposeful.
He raised his hands once more, and this time, the response was immediate and overwhelming.
The clouds overhead churned faster, the spiral tightening, its center directly above him.
Wind whipped across the plateau, strong enough to stagger the combatants.
Both Wardens and Frostforge defenders paused, looking up in confusion and alarm.
Lightning flickered between the clouds, a web of brilliance that illuminated the battlefield in stark relief. Static electricity crackled in the air, raising the hair on Thalia's arms, making her skin tingle with its proximity.
Roran's voice carried across the plateau, amplified by the wind itself: "Enough!"
The single word hung in the air like a physical presence. Then the storm broke.
Lightning struck with precise, devastating accuracy—not at random, but targeted specifically at the Isle Wardens.
Bolt after bolt seared down from the clouds, striking with such speed that they seemed almost simultaneous.
Wardens fell, their bodies smoking, their weapons dropped from nerveless fingers.
Those who had survived the initial assault turned their attention from the beleaguered defenders to this new threat.
Storm mages among them raised their hands, attempting to seize control of the tempest Roran had unleashed.
The clouds wavered, the pattern of lightning faltering as competing wills fought for dominance.
Roran stepped forward, his feet leaving the ground as wind lifted him several inches into the air. His eyes glowed with an inner light, and electricity crackled along his arms, jumped between his fingers. He was the eye of the storm, the calm center around which destruction orbited.
He brought his hands together in a sharp clap, and the sound that followed was not the mere collision of flesh against flesh but the explosive crack of thunder directly overhead.
The Warden mages staggered as their connection to the storm was severed, the backlash of disrupted magic sending them to their knees.
The defenders of Frostforge, seeing their enemies falter, rallied with renewed vigor. Brynn's voice rose above the chaos, sharp with authority: "Forward! Push them back!"
The cryomancers surged over their ice barrier, their hands wreathed in frost as they pressed the sudden advantage. Students who had been retreating now turned, finding courage in Roran's display of power, in the sight of Wardens falling beneath precisely targeted lightning.
Thalia stood transfixed, watching as Roran directed the storm with gestures that seemed almost like a dance—fluid, graceful, terrible in their effect.
This was what the tribunal had feared, what they had sentenced him to death for: not just the ability to wield storm magic, but to master it in ways that outstripped even those born to the Isle Wardens' traditions.
A Warden broke through the line, charging directly at Roran with a black-bladed sword raised high. Thalia moved to intercept, but before she could take two steps, a bolt of lightning struck the attacker, the impact lifting him off his feet and hurling him backward. He did not rise.
The tide of battle had turned. The Wardens, faced with mounting losses and the unleashed fury of a storm mage more powerful than their own, began to fall back.
Their retreat was disorganized at first, individuals breaking off from groups, abandoning positions they had fought to gain.
Then, as if responding to some unheard command, they withdrew in greater numbers, moving back toward the edge of the plateau from which they had first appeared.
"They're running!" someone shouted, the voice thick with disbelief and dawning hope.
Senna appeared through the chaos, blood streaming from a gash across her cheek, her uniform torn and scorched, but her silver-gray eyes bright with fierce exultation. "Forward!" she called, raising her fist. "For Frostforge!"
The cry was taken up by voices across the battlefield: "For Frostforge!"
The defenders surged forward, pressing their advantage, driving the retreating Wardens before them. The storm continued to rage overhead, but more selectively now, lightning striking only at clusters of resistance, at Wardens who turned to make a stand.
Thalia watched as the invaders were pushed back across the plateau, their numbers diminishing with each passing minute.
Victory, so recently unthinkable, now seemed not just possible but inevitable.
And at the center of it all stood Roran, conductor of the tempest, channeling its fury with the precision of a master craftsman.
As the last of the Wardens disappeared over the edge of the plateau, a ragged cheer went up from the defenders.
The sound seemed to break through Roran's concentration.
The wind that had sustained him gentled, lowering him to the ground.
The lightning ceased, though the clouds continued to churn overhead, a reminder that the storm had not truly passed.
Thalia rushed to his side as he swayed, exhaustion suddenly evident in every line of his body. His skin was ashen beneath its natural brown tone, and his eyes had lost their unnatural glow. The electricity that had crackled along his arms faded, leaving him looking smaller somehow, more human.
"Roran," she said, reaching him just as his knees buckled.
He collapsed against her, and she bore his weight, easing him to the ground. His body trembled with exhaustion, his breathing shallow and rapid. Using so much power after days of imprisonment and deprivation had drained him completely.
"It's over," she murmured, cradling his head against her shoulder. "They're gone. You saved us."
Roran's laugh was barely more than an exhale, his voice a thread of sound against her ear. "And you saved me."