CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Cold seeped through the stone walls of Thalia's cell, wrapping around her bones like the tentacles of memory—dark, fluid shapes that had risen from the depths to devour her schooner.
She huddled on the narrow cot, drawing her knees to her chest, eyes fixed on the barred window where moonlight filtered through frosted glass in pale, ineffectual streams.
The prison floor lay silent but for the distant echo of boots on stone—guards making their rounds, reminding prisoners that the world continued its rhythms beyond these walls, uncaring of promises broken or betrayals endured.
How strange to find herself back here, now on the wrong side of these bars.
Not long ago, she'd stood in this very corridor as a visitor, watching Roran through an iron grating as he awaited trial for the crime of his birth.
Now she occupied a cell much like his had been—sparse stone walls, a single cot bolted to the floor, a basin of water that had already grown a skin of ice in the perpetual chill of Frostforge's depths.
"I'm sorry," she whispered to the empty air, words meant for ears far beyond these walls.
Cassia's face appeared in her mind—weathered features set in determination as the airlock door sealed between them, white braids floating like silver serpents as lightning erupted from her fingertips against the endless darkness.
A sacrifice made with the understanding that her people would find safety at Frostforge.
What a bitter joke that had become. She'd promised sanctuary and delivered captivity instead.
The moon inched across her window's narrow frame, the only measure of time's passage in this unchanging space.
How long had she been here? Hours, certainly, perhaps a full day.
Without the sun to mark morning from evening, without meals delivered at regular intervals, time stretched and compressed like a blacksmith's bellows, expanding minutes into eternities, then collapsing hours into moments of restless sleep.
Would they leave her here for months, as they had Roran?
The thought sent panic fluttering in her chest, a caged bird beating against ribs.
She forced herself to breathe deeply, to focus on the solidity of stone beneath her fingertips, the tangible reality of her present rather than the uncertain terror of her future.
She would not break. She would not bend.
Whatever awaited her—trial, judgment, punishment—she would face it standing firm in the truth of what she had witnessed.
A sound broke through her circling thoughts—the distinctive scrape of a key in the lock at the corridor's end. Thalia straightened, every sense suddenly alert. Footsteps approached, measured and deliberate, too heavy to belong to a food-bearer, too singular to be a guard rotation.
The footsteps halted outside her cell. Metal rasped against metal as a key slid into her door's lock. Thalia rose from the cot, heart quickening with the desperate hope for news, for connection, for anything to break the isolation that already pressed against her mind like physical weight.
The door swung inward, revealing Kaine's broad-shouldered silhouette against the dimly lit corridor beyond.
His face was cast in shadow, but she recognized the set of his shoulders, the particular way he filled a doorframe with his presence.
Relief flooded through her, so potent it nearly buckled her knees.
"Kaine," she breathed, his name escaping before she could consider whether formality might better serve her now.
He stepped inside, closing the door behind him. The lamplight from the corridor caught his features, revealing a tightness around his eyes, a grimness to his mouth that warned her his visit brought no easy comfort.
"Are you all right?" he asked, voice low, gaze sweeping over her as if checking for injuries.
Thalia almost laughed at the absurdity of the question. All right? With Cassia's people imprisoned against her promises? With her own future hanging in the balance? With ancient horrors rising from the depths while Frostforge's leadership remained willfully blind?
"I'm not injured," she answered instead, offering the only truth that seemed relevant. "What's happening out there? The refugees—are they safe?"
Something flickered across Kaine's expression—regret, perhaps, or resignation. He moved further into the cell, stopping a careful distance from her, close enough for conversation but maintaining a space that felt newly formal between them.
"They've been secured," he said, the careful neutrality of his words telling her everything his expression tried to hide. "Frostforge soldiers took control of the fortress whale shortly after your arrest. The Warden guards didn't resist—they knew they were outnumbered and outmatched."
A knot formed in Thalia's throat. "And?"
"Everyone aboard has been relocated to a makeshift camp on the Crystalline plateau. Guards, civilians, everyone." His gaze dropped briefly. "They're being contained until Instructor Wolfe determines what to do with them."
The plateau. In winter. Where knife-edged winds cut across exposed rock, where temperatures dropped far below freezing even at midday, where nothing grew and no natural shelter existed.
Thalia had trained there during her years at the academy—had seen even hardened Northern cadets succumb to frostbite after mere hours of exposure.
"Contained," she repeated, the word tasting like ash on her tongue.
"You mean imprisoned. Under guard. Separated from the whale, from proper shelter.
" Anger rose in her chest, hot and swift, burning away the resignation that had settled during her hours of isolation.
"Tell me, did Senna have them sorted by age and gender?
Did she separate families? Did she decide which ones might have useful skills and which were merely taking up space? "
Kaine's brow furrowed. "Thalia—"
"Because that's what the Wardens did in Verdant Port," she continued, voice rising despite herself.
"That's what we claimed to be fighting against. That's what justified all our righteous fury—the mistreatment of civilians, the imprisonment of innocents.
" Her hands clenched at her sides. "And now we're doing exactly the same thing to them! "
Her voice echoed through the empty corridor beyond the open door, sharp with accusation and bitter with the irony of it all. Kaine stepped closer, raising a finger to his lips, eyes darting toward the corridor.
"Keep your voice down," he warned, barely above a whisper. "Guards patrol this floor regularly. Anything you say could reach Wolfe's ears."
"Let it!" Thalia shot back, though she did lower her volume. "Let her hear the truth about what she's done. Let her face the hypocrisy of it."
Kaine shook his head, a muscle working in his jaw. "You're already in a precarious position. Don't give her more ammunition against you."
The quiet urgency in his tone penetrated her anger, cooling it enough for reason to reassert itself.
He was right. Whatever chance she had of helping the refugees, of fulfilling her promise to Cassia, wouldn't be served by shouting accusations from a prison cell. Nor would she be able to draw the instructors’ attention to the true threat, the Deep Tide, which encroached upon a continent too mired in prejudice to open its eyes.
"How precarious?" she asked after a moment, forcing herself to focus on practicalities rather than principles. "What's going to happen to me?"
Kaine's exhale was heavy with uncertainty.
"It's undecided. There are people advocating for your release—some of the instructors who respect your record, your friends among the graduates.
Luna's been particularly vocal." A faint smile touched his lips before vanishing.
"But others see you as having betrayed Frostforge's most fundamental purpose by bringing a Warden fortress-whale to our gates. "
"I didn't betray anything," Thalia insisted, frustration building again. "I brought crucial intelligence about a threat that endangers us all."
"I know." He stepped closer, close enough now that she could see the shadows beneath his eyes, evidence of sleepless nights. "That's actually why I'm here. There's something you need to know—something Luna and I discovered while translating those documents from Verdant Port."
The shift in topic caught her off guard. Thalia blinked, recalibrating from defensive anger to sudden curiosity. "What did you find?"
"The documents mention something called the 'Deep Tide' or the 'Deep Ones'—the terms seem to be used interchangeably." Kaine's gaze searched hers. "Is that the greater threat you tried to warn Wolfe about?"
"Yes," she answered, a tremor entering her voice despite her efforts to suppress it. "That's what they call them. The entities in the deep waters of the archipelago."
"Tell me what you saw," Kaine urged, intensity burning in his gaze. "The documents describe them in almost mythological terms, but you—you encountered them directly, didn't you?"
Thalia nodded, wrapping her arms around herself as if the mere recollection might summon the cold that had accompanied the creatures' presence.
"They attacked the fortress whale during our journey here.
They're... I don't even have words for what they are.
Enormous. Living darkness. Tentacles that could wrap around the entire fortress-whale and still extend into depths we couldn't see. "
She turned away, pacing the small confines of her cell as the memories surfaced.
"The Warden captain—Cassia—she said they've been consuming entire islands.
Not destroying them, not sinking them—consuming them.
Leaving nothing but empty ocean where land once stood.
" She shuddered. "And they're growing more active.
Where once years might pass between incidents, now multiple islands have vanished in the span of months. "