CHAPTER SIX
The blue-white arcs of storm magic died between Roran's fingertips, fading into the still air of the infirmary like the last gasp of a drowning man.
Three days without sleep had carved hollows beneath his eyes and tremors into his hands, yet still he reached for the power that had sustained him since childhood, searching for just one more spark, one more thread of energy that might reach Thalia where she drifted beyond their grasp.
Nothing came. His magic, like his hope, had run dry.
"Enough." Luna's voice cut through the silence, firm but gentle. "That's enough, Roran."
He ignored her, extending his hands once more over Thalia's still form.
Her face remained unchanged—pale as Northern frost, lips tinged with the faintest blue, eyelids motionless above dreams or nightmares no one could reach.
The only sign that she lived at all was the shallow rise and fall of her chest beneath the wool blanket, so slight that sometimes Roran found himself holding his own breath just to be certain of hers.
"I said enough." Luna stepped forward, her small hand closing around his wrist with surprising strength. The perpetually distracted demeanor she showed the world had fallen away these past few days, revealing the steel beneath. "We're stopping now."
Behind her, Naj nodded, his tattooed hands falling to his sides. The Isle Warden's face was lined with exhaustion, the intricate wave patterns on his arms seeming to ripple with his fatigue. "Meadows is right. We've done all we can with this method."
"No." Roran pulled his arm from Luna's grasp. His voice emerged as a rasp, his throat raw from the static-charged air they'd been breathing for hours. "We can try again. Different patterns. More power."
"More power?" Luna's eyes narrowed, a flash of genuine anger breaking through her composure.
"Do you understand what we're doing here?
We're sending electrical currents through her brain, Roran.
Through the most delicate parts of her. Magic or not, there are limits to what a human body can withstand. "
Roran's hands clenched into fists at his sides.
He knew she was right. He'd seen what storm magic could do to a person when misapplied—had seen men convulsing on ship decks after being struck by lightning, their eyes rolled back, blood leaking from their ears.
The thought of causing that kind of damage to Thalia made his stomach knot with dread.
"There must be something else we can do," he said, hating the pleading note that had crept into his voice. "Some other technique, some way to reach her..."
Luna shook her head, her expression softening as she met his desperate gaze.
"If we keep trying this method, we risk doing irreparable harm.
The currents might reach her, yes—but they might also burn away parts of who she is.
" She placed a hand on his arm, her touch lighter now.
"We have to accept that this approach isn't working. "
"Then what?" The question burst from him like a prayer and a curse combined. "We just wait? Hope that she wakes up on her own?"
"For now, yes." Luna's gaze dropped to Thalia's face, her expression unreadable. "But that doesn't mean we stop looking for solutions. I'm going to the archives—there must be records of similar cases, research on magically-induced comas."
Hope flared in Roran's chest, small but stubborn as a storm lantern in gale winds. "Alright. I’ll be here if you find anything.”
Luna sighed. “Roran, you should rest.”
“I can’t. Someone needs to be here. To watch her.”
"The healers check every hour," Luna countered. "And you'll be no use to her if you collapse." She sighed, recognizing the stubbornness in his expression. "Fine. Stay if you must. But please consider lying down next time there’s a cot empty."
Without waiting for his response, Luna turned and strode from the infirmary, her small frame somehow commanding the space around her. The heavy door closed behind her with a sound like distant thunder.
Silence filled the room, broken only by the soft crackle of the hearth fire and Thalia's whisper-quiet breathing.
Roran stared down at her, at the face he'd memorized from countless stolen glances across forge fires and training grounds.
Her dark hair splayed across the pillow, her curls dull and tangled from days without care.
Her hands lay motionless atop the blanket, the fingers that had worked such wonders in metal now limp and powerless.
He sank onto the stool beside her bed, his legs finally surrendering to the exhaustion that had been stalking him for days.
His hands moved of their own accord, fingers threading through his wild hair, pulling until pain sparked across his scalp—some small, physical discomfort to distract from the vast ache that had taken residence beneath his ribs.
"You have to come back," he whispered, the words falling into the silence like stones into still water. "Whatever you're seeing in there, whatever you're learning—none of it matters if you don't come back to tell us."
No response came. No flutter of eyelids, no change in breathing, no sign that any part of her remained tethered to this world and the people waiting for her within it.
A minute passed, perhaps more. Time had become elastic, stretching and contracting according to rules Roran no longer understood. It was the slight shift of weight on the floorboards across the bed that finally drew his attention upward, reminding him that he wasn't alone with Thalia and his grief.
Naj still stood on the opposite side of the bed, his weathered face watchful. The Isle Warden's expression held neither pity nor judgment, but something closer to curiosity—as though Roran were a puzzle he was trying to solve, or a storm pattern he couldn't quite predict.
"What?" Roran asked, his voice rough. He straightened, suddenly self-conscious under that steady gaze.
Naj tilted his head slightly. "Your energies have changed," he said, the words slow and deliberate, his accent shaping them into something almost musical.
"When we first met aboard Thrum'kith, the storm within you was a violent tempest. It seemed to tear at you from within, fighting for release.
" His tattooed fingers made a gesture in the air, mimicking chaotic winds.
"Now, it moves differently. More controlled. Deeper."
Roran stared at him, too exhausted to muster a proper response.
What did the Warden expect him to say? That he'd spent years hiding his nature, suppressing his powers until they turned venomous within him?
That now, after being forced to reveal himself, after using his abilities openly in battle, something had shifted?
Naj seemed untroubled by his silence. The older man leaned forward, elbows coming to rest on his knees, bringing his face closer to Roran's across Thalia's still form.
"Tell me," he said, his voice dropping to something just above a whisper, "how did it feel?
To use your power as a storm-caller against the Deep Tide, alongside your people? Did it feel good?"
The question struck like lightning, illuminating parts of Roran he'd kept shadowed even from himself.
How had it felt? In that moment when the black tendrils had reached for the academy walls, when he'd called the storm and felt the answering surge within his blood, when lightning had arced from his fingertips to strike at creatures from the abyss?
"What do you want me to say?" Roran muttered, averting his gaze. But deep within, he knew the answer.
It had felt like breathing after a lifetime underwater.
Like finding a name for something he'd always known but never spoken aloud.
The storm had answered his call not as a servant obeys a master but as one part of himself recognizing another.
And around him, other storm-callers had moved in concert, their magics intertwining, strengthening each other rather than competing.
For those brief, incandescent moments, there had been no division between Isle Warden and mainlanders, no Northern Reaches or Southern Kingdoms—only humans standing against the darkness that threatened to consume them all.
It had been the most exhilarating moment of his life.
Naj smiled slightly, reading the truth in Roran's expression before he could master it. "I thought so," the older man said, satisfaction warming his voice. "I felt similarly.”
Roran sighed, the sound dragging up from somewhere bone-deep.
"It felt... right. Powerful. Like finding a missing piece of myself that I didn't even know was gone.
" His gaze returned to Thalia's face, and the momentary lightness evaporated.
"But then this happened to her, and none of it mattered anymore. "
His hand found hers atop the blanket, his calloused fingers wrapping around her smaller ones. Her skin was cool, but not the deathly chill it had been when they'd first found her. A small mercy, that.
"I should have been with her," he continued, the words emerging in a rush, as though a dam had broken somewhere inside him. "I should have known what she was planning. If I'd gone with her to that chamber, maybe I could have helped, maybe she wouldn't have had to..."
He trailed off, unable to finish the thought. They still didn't know exactly what Thalia had done in the Founders' Price chamber, what ancient power she had channeled to drive back the Deep Ones. Only that it had cost her consciousness, and nearly her life.
"You care for her deeply." Naj's observation held no question, only quiet certainty.
"Yes." The admission came easily, requiring no thought. "I do."