CHAPTER SIX #2
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.
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.