CHAPTER FIVE #2
"Respect doesn't make my fingers any warmer," Neela muttered, but she straightened her posture and dropped her arms to her sides, visibly forcing herself not to shiver.
Thalia smiled despite herself. She remembered her own first winter at Frostforge, how the cold had seemed to steal the breath from her lungs, how she'd huddled beneath every blanket she could find and still felt the chill in her marrow.
These Southern practitioners, with their lives spent in tropical warmth, must have found the adjustment even more difficult.
She followed as they walked the corridors of a Frostforge she barely recognized.
The basic layout was familiar—the same load-bearing walls, the same arched ceilings—but everything else had changed.
Instead of weapons and armor lining the walls, shelves held scrolls and artifacts.
Rooms that in her time served as barracks or training halls were filled with tables where people bent over manuscripts or discussed theories in animated groups.
Most striking was the absence of tension.
Northerners and Southerners mingled freely, without the wary separation she was accustomed to.
Even more shocking, she spotted several figures whose tattooed arms and braided hair marked them unmistakably as storm-callers—Isle Wardens in her time—engaged in deep conversation with cryomancers, gesturing to diagrams spread between them.
This Frostforge wasn't a military academy preparing for war. It was a place of learning, of research, of shared knowledge across traditions that would later become bitterly divided.
The root-singers turned down a corridor that Thalia recognized with sudden dread.
They were heading toward the Founders' Price chamber—the hidden room beneath the Howling Forge where Maven had once tried to sacrifice her, where Thalia herself had later activated the ancient mechanism that drove back the Deep Ones.
Fear seized her chest, cold and sharp as winter steel. What if these root-singers, these people she had begun to think of as distant family, were walking into danger? What if this was a trap, set by those who wanted to use their power for dark purposes, just as Maven had tried to use hers?
"Stop," she called out, lunging forward to grab the elder woman's shoulder. Her hand passed through the figure like smoke, encountering no resistance. "You don't understand what's down there!"
None of them reacted to her voice or her futile attempts to touch them. They continued their steady pace down the spiraling staircase that led to the chamber, their expressions solemn but untroubled.
"Please," Thalia begged, though she now understood the futility of it. She was a witness here, not a participant. She could no more change these events than she could alter the stars in their courses.
She followed them down the familiar steps, her apprehension growing with every turn of the spiral.
The air grew warmer as they descended, carrying the distant echo of forge-fires from somewhere deep within the mountain.
When they reached the final landing and approached the heavy door that guarded the chamber, Thalia's heart hammered against her ribs.
The door swung open before the root-singers could knock, revealing a chamber both familiar and strange.
The basic dimensions were the same as the room where Thalia had nearly died—circular, with a domed ceiling and walls of fitted stone—but the space was clean and well-lit, with none of the dust and neglect she remembered.
In the center of the floor lay the runic circle, the same pattern that, in Thalia’s time, was weathered and stained with old blood. But here, the runes were freshly carved, the channels deep and precise, unmarred by centuries of wear.
Inside the chamber waited six figures: three dressed in the heavy furs and leathers of Northern cryomancers, and three in the black leather garments of storm-callers, their arms bearing the distinctive wave tattoos of what would one day become the Isle Wardens.
"We had begun to wonder if you would come," said one of the cryomancers, a broad-shouldered older woman with silver streaking her dark hair. Despite the formality of her words, her tone carried no accusation.
"Forgive our tardiness," replied the eldest root-singer. "The journey from our shores was longer than anticipated. The waters grow treacherous with each passing season."
One of the storm-callers—a lean man with weather-lined features—stepped forward. "There is no need for apology. We all face the same encroaching darkness, regardless of the shores we call home."
As he spoke, Thalia noticed the quick glance exchanged between two of the cryomancers, a look of derision. She felt herself bristle, preparing for the snide remark—she’d spent years hearing about “sun-rotters” and their inability to rise before dawn’s light—but no insult came.
"Has there been progress in our absence?" asked the third root-singer, a young, handsome man.
The silver-haired cryomancer nodded. "The forging is complete. The foundations are laid. All that remains is the final binding."
Final binding. The words sent a shiver through Thalia as understanding dawned with sickening clarity.
These weren't just random practitioners gathered for some arcane purpose.
These were the Founders—the original creators of Frostforge, representatives of all three magical traditions working in concert to build what would become the academy.
And the runic circle at their feet—the same one where Thalia had nearly died, the same one she had later activated to drive back the Deep Ones—was their creation.
What she had witnessed in her previous visions, the cliff-top ritual with the storm-callers, the forging of the first ice-metal blades, had all been leading to this moment.
"Then we should waste no more time," said the elder root-singer. "The barrier must be sealed before the next dark tide."
One representative from each tradition stepped into the circle—the silver-haired cryomancer, the weather-lined storm-caller, and the elder root-singer. They arranged themselves in a triangle, facing inward, while the others moved back to the edges of the chamber.
"Are we certain there is no other way?" asked the cryomancer, her voice lowered. "Once done, this cannot be undone."
The storm-caller sighed, a sound heavy with resignation. "We have searched every current, followed every path. This is the only way to seal the breach."
"For now," added the root-singer, her expression grim but determined. "The seal will degrade with time. The darkness will return."
"Then our descendants will have to face it," said the cryomancer. "As we did."
The root-singer nodded, a faint smile touching her lips despite the gravity of the moment. "They will have time, at least—centuries, if our calculations are correct. Perhaps they will be able to refine the ritual."
"Even if they fall to the abyss, there will be millions of lives lived in those centuries," said the storm-caller. "Children born who would otherwise never draw breath. That alone makes this worth the price we pay."
They knelt as one, placing their palms flat against the stone floor, directly atop the carved runes. As they did, the channels began to glow—blue beneath the cryomancer's hands, electric white beneath the storm-caller's, and golden beneath the root-singer's.
The three began to chant, their voices weaving together in a harmony that made the air vibrate with power.
The glow intensified, spreading outward from their hands to fill the entire runic pattern.
The light pulsed, growing stronger with each repetition of their chant, until it became painful to look upon directly.
Thalia felt the magic building in the chamber, a pressure that seemed to push against her very consciousness. This was ancient power, raw and unfiltered, drawn from the deepest wellsprings of three distinct magical traditions and bound together through sheer force of will.
The chanting reached a crescendo, the three voices merging into a single resonant note that seemed to pierce the veil between worlds.
The light from the runes shot upward in a column that connected floor to ceiling, then spread outward along the dome in a web of interconnected channels Thalia had never noticed before.
The three Founders collapsed as one, their bodies going limp as the magic overwhelmed them.
A shockwave of power rippled outward from the circle, passing through the watching practitioners, through the stone walls, through Thalia herself—carrying with it a sense of completion so profound it stole her breath.
As the light began to fade, Thalia realized what she had witnessed—the creation of the very mechanism she had accidentally activated in her desperate attempt to save Frostforge from the Deep Ones.
These three practitioners had given their lives to create a barrier that had held for centuries, keeping the Deep Tide at bay until it had finally begun to fail in her time.
And as the vision dimmed around her, returning her consciousness to the formless void, one thought burned brighter than all others: If the original barrier had been created through the unified power of all three magical traditions, then perhaps the same unity was required to create a new one.
A fresh seal, to replace the one that had faded.