CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Thalia's shoulders ached with a bone-deep weariness as she trudged through Frostforge's stone corridors, her fingers raw from a day spent scrubbing floors and polishing ice-brass fixtures.
Night had fallen hours ago, but sleep eluded her.
Instead, Thalia's mind swarmed with tangled worries that chased each other like shadows—the Wardens imprisoned on the plateau above, the black waters creeping toward the continent's shores.
And underlying these large, political concerns, were the personal.
The welfare of her mother and sister, thrust into this strange, cold world of stone and ice.
She hadn’t been able to visit them upon her return to the keep; her imprisonment had prevented it. Now, though, she was free to seek them out.
Thalia's demotion to service duties stung her pride, but it was the least of her concerns now.
Every minute spent polishing metal that was already gleaming was a minute wasted, a precious second ticking away while the Deep Ones advanced.
She flexed her cramped fingers and quickened her pace toward the former lecture hall that had been repurposed as refugee quarters.
Frostforge hadn’t been built to house refugees; it had been built as a school.
The chambers that were now packed from wall-to-wall with cots had been converted from lecture halls and classrooms. According to Kaine, her mother and sister were being housed in the auditorium that had once been the site of Virek’s cryomancy lectures.
The enormous doorway loomed ahead, flanked by two ice-metal sconces whose flames cast fitful, dancing shadows across the stone.
When she pushed open the heavy door, the hall's atmosphere hit her like a physical wall—the mingled scents of too many bodies confined in too little space, the symphony of human sounds amplified by the room's vaulted ceiling.
Cots lined the walls in tight rows, each holding at least two people, sometimes more.
In the corners, families had created makeshift partitions from blankets and cloaks, desperate attempts at privacy in this communal existence.
Thalia scanned the room, her eyes flicking from face to face until she spotted them—her mother and Mari, huddled together on a single narrow cot against the far wall. Her heart gave a painful twist. They looked so small there, so out of place amid the chaos.
She wove through the crowded room, sidestepping an elderly man whose persistent cough punctuated the ambient noise, avoiding the outstretched legs of children who'd fallen asleep on blankets spread across the floor.
A baby wailed somewhere to her right, its thin cry rising above the murmurs and rustles.
"Mother," Thalia said as she reached them, her voice catching in her throat.
Celeste looked up, her face lighting with a mixture of relief and concern. Despite the dark circles beneath her eyes and new lines etched around her mouth, her mother's gaze held the same warmth it always had—steady and unwavering, like the flame of a well-tended hearth.
"Thalia." Celeste stood, pulling her into an embrace that smelled of herbs and home. "We were beginning to worry."
"I'm sorry. The duties they've assigned me..." Thalia began, then shook her head. Excuses wouldn't change anything. "It doesn't matter. I'm here now."
Mari had been curled on the cot, a book of herbal remedies open beside her—one of the few possessions they'd managed to bring from Verdant Port. At Thalia's arrival, she sprang up, nearly knocking over a small tin cup perched precariously at the edge of the cot.
"You look terrible," Mari said, though her smile belied the bluntness of her words. At seventeen, Mari was still caught between childhood candor and adult diplomacy.
"Thank you for that assessment," Thalia replied dryly, but she returned the smile.
Her sister's face had thinned in the months since they'd last seen each other, baby fat giving way to the defined angles of adulthood. They embraced, and Thalia felt a pang of guilt at how much of Mari's life she'd missed.
"Have they fed you?" Thalia asked, eyeing the meager possessions stacked neatly at the foot of the cot—a small satchel, two threadbare blankets, a change of clothes folded with precise corners.
"Yes," Celeste answered, sitting back down on the cot's edge and patting the space beside her. "The food is... unpleasant. But we're not going hungry."
Thalia sat, feeling the thin mattress sink beneath her weight. "And they've given you only the one cot?"
Celeste gestured vaguely around the room. "There are many mouths to feed, many bodies to shelter. We're fortunate to have this much."
The words were gracious, but Thalia could see the strain in her mother's posture, the tight line of her shoulders.
Celeste had always been the dignified one, accepting hardship without complaint.
But this—being refugees in a foreign place, dependent on others' charity—this cut against the grain of her pride.
"I understand now," Celeste said after a moment, her voice lowered. "Why you were so insistent we leave Verdant Port. The Isle Wardens..."
"It's not just the Wardens," Thalia interrupted, then glanced around to ensure no one was listening too closely. She leaned in, dropping her voice even further. "There's something worse coming. From the sea."
Mari's eyes widened, and Celeste's brow furrowed. "Worse than the Wardens? What could be worse than what we've already endured?"
Thalia hesitated, weighing how much to reveal. Her mother and sister had already weathered so much—the fall of Verdant Port, the journey north, the adjustment to life as refugees. Could she burden them with the knowledge of the Deep Ones, the threat that made even the Isle Wardens flee in terror?
"It's... complicated," she said at last. "And I don't fully understand it myself yet. But Verdant Port, being right on the coast... it would have been directly in its path."
"In the path of what, exactly?" Celeste pressed, her healer's instinct for precision asserting itself.
Thalia shook her head. "I'll explain everything, I promise. But not now." She reached out to take her mother's hand. "Right now, I just want to make sure you're safe. And comfortable."
A bitter laugh escaped Celeste's lips, surprising Thalia. Her mother rarely displayed such naked emotion.
"Comfortable? Look around you, Thalia." She gestured at the crowded hall, at a woman trying to soothe a feverish child, at an old man staring vacantly at the ceiling. "We're safer here than in Verdant Port, I grant you that. But comfort?" She shook her head. "That's a luxury we've left behind."
The words stung, though Thalia knew they weren't meant as a rebuke. She straightened her spine, decision crystallizing in her mind.
"Come with me," she said, standing abruptly. "Both of you. Gather your things."
Mari looked to Celeste, uncertainty written across her face. "Where are we going?"
"Somewhere better than this." Thalia began collecting their meager belongings, folding the blankets with quick, efficient movements.
Celeste caught her arm. "Thalia, we can't just leave. They've assigned us here—"
"I've earned some privileges," Thalia said, the lie slipping easily from her lips. In truth, she'd been stripped of all privileges, but what were rules compared to her family's welfare? "I can arrange better accommodations."
After a moment of hesitation, Celeste nodded and began to help gather their possessions. The pile was pathetically small—everything they'd managed to salvage from their lives in Verdant Port fit into a single satchel and a small cloth bundle.
The corridors were quieter now as they climbed through the levels of Frostforge, leaving the public areas behind.
Thalia led them through passages she'd walked countless times before, up narrow staircases and past armories and training rooms, until they reached the dormitory section where students and soldiers were housed.
"Should we be here?" Mari whispered, eyes wide as she took in the more austere but infinitely more private surroundings. "Isn't this for... for defenders?"
"And what do you think I am?" Thalia asked with a small smile, though the question pricked at her. What was she now? A disgraced soldier? A custodian? She pushed the thought away as they reached the door to her shared chamber.
She paused, hand on the latch. What if Luna and Ashe objected? The room was designed for three, not five. But she couldn't bear to take her family back to that overcrowded hall, to that single cot where her mother's back would ache and Mari would struggle to sleep amid the constant noise.
Taking a deep breath, Thalia pushed open the door.
Luna and Ashe were both inside, Luna cross-legged on her bunk with a scattering of papers around her, Ashe sharpening a dagger with methodical strokes of a whetstone. Both looked up as the door swung open, surprise registering on their faces.
"Thalia," Luna said, her eyes flicking from Thalia to the two women behind her. "And... company."
"My mother and sister," Thalia said, ushering them into the room. "Celeste and Mari."
Ashe set her dagger aside, the whetstone making a soft click against the wooden table. Her expression was unreadable, but Thalia knew that look—the Northern warrior assessing a situation, weighing variables.
"I wasn't aware we were going to have visitors," Ashe said, her tone neutral. “I would’ve straightened up my bunk.”
"I’d prefer if they weren’t visitors, but something a bit more permanent," Thalia said, straightening her shoulders. "They've been housed in one of the lecture halls, but the conditions there..."
She trailed off, suddenly feeling the audacity of what she was asking. This room was a sanctuary for all of them, a private space amid the controlled chaos of Frostforge. And here she was, bringing in strangers—even if they were her blood.
"I'm asking if they can stay here," she finished, forcing herself to meet first Luna's gaze, then Ashe's. "With us."
A heavy silence fell. Celeste shifted uncomfortably behind her, and Thalia sensed her mother was about to suggest they return to their assigned quarters. Before she could, Luna spoke.
"Well, it's certainly not against regulations," she said, a spark of her old mischief glinting in her eyes. "Not specifically, anyway."
"Luna," Ashe's tone held a warning.
"What? It's not as if the rule book has a section on 'appropriate housing for the family members of demoted soldiers during a refugee crisis.' This is uncharted territory."
Thalia felt a rush of gratitude toward Luna.
Ashe sighed, running a hand through her black hair, the red streaks catching the light. "It's going to be crowded."
"We don't take up much space," Mari offered, her voice small but determined. "And we're quiet."
`Something in Mari's tone—the dignity in it, the earnest promise—seemed to sway Ashe. The Northern warrior's expression softened almost imperceptibly.
"Very well," she said at last. "But when Instructor Wolfe finds out—"
"She won't," Thalia said quickly, though they all knew it was wishful thinking. In Frostforge, very little escaped Wolfe's notice for long. "And if she does, I'll take full responsibility."
"As if that's any comfort," Luna muttered, but she was already clearing space on her bed, moving her papers to make room. "I’m not sure how much more ‘full responsibility’ you can survive in this place.”
Thalia chose to ignore this—and the curious, alarmed glance her mother shot her. Instead, she cleared her throat. “Mother, Mari, let’s get you settled in.”
The room wasn't large to begin with, and with five people, it would be cramped. But it was clean, private, and warm—a vast improvement over the communal hall.
"You and Mari can take my bunk," Thalia said, gesturing to her bed. "I'll sleep on the floor."
"Absolutely not," Celeste objected, but Thalia was already pulling spare pelts from the storage chest at the foot of her bed, arranging them into a makeshift pallet.
"I've slept on worse," she said, which was true. During her time aboard the schooner, she’d had to deal with the constant swaying of the hold, and she still held tight to her memory of the Frost Walk, of the night she’d spent out in the frigid Golem Fields, exposed to the elements.
"The floor here is positively luxurious by comparison. "
Mari looked uncertain. "But it's your bed, Thalia. We can't take it from you."
"You're not taking it," Thalia replied, smoothing the pelts. "I'm giving it. There's a difference."
Eventually, they relented, and Thalia felt a bittersweet satisfaction as she watched her mother and sister settle onto her bunk, their expressions betraying relief at this small comfort.
She'd spent so much of her life trying to protect them, to provide for them—first with her labor in her mother's herb shop, then by attending Frostforge to spare Mari from the Selection.
This was just one more link in that chain, one more sacrifice in a lifetime of them.
But was it a sacrifice, really? As Thalia lay on her pallet that night, the stone floor hard beneath the layers of fur, she found herself smiling into the darkness.
The room was filled with the soft sounds of sleep—Luna's barely audible snoring, Ashe's measured breaths, the occasional rustle as Mari turned in her sleep.
Her body ached from the day's labor and the unyielding floor, yet there was a warmth in her chest that had nothing to do with the furs wrapped around her.
For the first time since arriving at Frostforge, Thalia felt the pieces of herself coming together—the daughter, the sister, the soldier, the friend. Here, in this crowded room, with her family close enough to touch and her comrades alongside her, she felt whole.
The Deep Tide still approached. The Isle Wardens remained imprisoned on the plateau above. The future was as uncertain as ever. But for tonight, at least, Thalia allowed herself to drift toward sleep without the weight of the world pressing quite so heavily on her chest.