CHAPTER TWELVE
Thalia stepped into the mess hall on legs that still felt treacherously weak, one hand braced against the stone wall for support while the other clutched Kaine's offered forearm.
The vast chamber throbbed with voices, the collective hum of hundreds of refugees and soldiers alike seeking momentary comfort in hot meals and shared company.
A week confined to the infirmary's sterile silence had left her senses raw, overwrought; each clattering plate and burst of laughter struck her like physical blows.
Yet beneath the discomfort lurked an unfamiliar urgency—fragments of ancient knowledge still clung to her consciousness like morning frost, melting with each passing hour, slipping away before she could fully grasp their significance.
"Are you certain you're ready for this?" Kaine asked, his voice low and close to her ear. His proximity sent a different kind of warmth through her, momentarily distracting her from the dull ache that had taken up residence behind her eyes.
"I've spent enough time horizontal," she replied, straightening her spine through sheer force of will. "Besides, your brother isn't going to be impressed if you introduce him to someone who can't even stand on her own."
A smile tugged at the corner of Kaine's mouth. "Jorik doesn't impress these days easily," he said, but his eyes betrayed his nervousness—a vulnerability that few at Frostforge ever witnessed in Kaine Ember. "But he's asked about you. Several times."
"Asked what?" Thalia let her gaze sweep across the crowded hall, searching for unfamiliar faces among the sea of the exhausted and the displaced.
"Everything." Kaine's hand moved to the small of her back, steadying her as they navigated between tightly packed tables. "Who you are, how we met, why I—" He stopped abruptly, clearing his throat. "There. By the northern wall."
Thalia followed his gaze to a far corner of the hall where a small group had claimed one of the wooden tables near the massive stone hearth.
Even from this distance, she could see the resemblance between the man at the head of the table and Kaine—the same proud set of the shoulders, the same watchful intensity in his posture.
But where Kaine's features had been hardened by imprisonment and solitude, this man's face bore the marks of a different kind of battle.
"He looks like you," she murmured. "Younger, but... I see it in the eyes."
"Our mother's eyes," Kaine said, a note of old pain coloring his words. "Come. Before the food gets cold."
They began to cross the mess hall, and Thalia became aware of many pairs of eyes following her, whispers trailing in their wake. Clearly, rumors of Thalia's exploit in the Founders' Price chamber—and subsequent coma—had spread through the academy.
Thalia kept her gaze forward, fixed on Jorik and his comrades. But as she passed by the main hearth at the center of the hall, her attention was seized by a hand on her shoulder.
She turned to see Brynn, standing with a piece of flatbread in one hand, her expression caught somewhere between relief and her usual stoic displeasure.
“Greenspire.” Brynn's voice was flat, but her eyes, sharp as flint, swept over Thalia from head to toe in a swift, assessing glance. "It’s good to see you upright.”
“Thank you,” Thalia said, surprised by the simple sincerity of the statement. "It's good to be upright."
Brynn gave a single, curt nod. “Whatever your plans are, don’t overdo it today. Don’t want you back in dreamland. It was… inconvenient.”
There it was—the familiar brusqueness, but it lacked its old venom. Thalia almost smiled. "Of course."
“And next time you go charging off to do something foolish and save this miserable old ruin,” Brynn added, “you should make it known first. So that someone competent can be there to fix your mess.”
Thalia laughed, a short, breathy sound that surprised even her. The ache in her head receded a fraction. “Take my word for it—there was no fixing this latest mess.”
“You don’t know that. A second set of hands, a different perspective... it might have kept you from a week-long nap.” Brynn broke off a corner of the flatbread and popped it into her mouth. “Food for thought, Greenspire.”
“I’ll chew on it,” Thalia responded slowly.
With another nod, Brynn turned and walked away, disappearing into the throng near the stew pots. Thalia watched her go for a second, feeling a strange sense of equilibrium return.
"By the Founders,” Kaine marveled. “By Brynn’s standards, that was almost tender.”
Thalia huffed a laugh. “About as friendly as she ever gets, I imagine.” She nudged Kaine with one elbow. “Come on. Let’s go see your brother.” They moved forward again, the whispers now feeling less like scrutiny and more like background noise.
As they drew near to his table, Kaine’s brother looked up from his conversation, his gaze finding his brother first, then sliding to Thalia with open curiosity.
He rose as they reached the table, a gesture of respect that seemed both courtly and automatic, as though etched into muscle memory by years of training.
"So you're the famous Thalia Greenspire," Jorik said, his voice warmer than she'd expected, with a rhythmic cadence that reminded her of distant shores. "The woman who cheated death and came back with secrets from the other side."
Heat rose to Thalia's cheeks. "I'm not sure I'd put it that way."
"Ignore him," Kaine said, pulling out a bench for Thalia before taking a seat beside her. "He developed a flair for the dramatic when he deserted the military."
Jorik's laugh was quick and genuine, transforming his battle-worn features into something closer to the boy Kaine must remember. The woman sitting beside him chuckled, as well. Thalia glanced at her, then at the others seated nearby.
To Jorik's right sat a young woman with the unmistakable wave-pattern tattoos of a storm-caller climbing her bare arms, though her youth—she couldn't be older than nineteen—made the elaborate markings seem almost incongruous on her slender frame.
Beside her sat a woman with rich brown skin and short-cropped, tightly coiled hair, her arm wrapped protectively around a boy of perhaps nine or ten who bore her same wide, dark eyes and determined chin.
Across from them, two Northern men with the hard features and watchful gazes of career soldiers observed Thalia with the cautious assessment of men who had learned the hard way not to trust easily.
"My traveling companions," Jorik said, noting her interest. "Or at least, some of them.
Lyra," he nodded to the young storm-caller, "joined us after her fortress-whale was sunk off the Northern coast. Amara and her son Niko," he indicated the Southern woman and child, "found us—or we found them—after their village was overrun.
" His gaze shifted to the two Northern men.
"Erek and Davan. Former soldiers of the Northern Reaches, like me. "
"Deserters," the older of the two men corrected, his voice gruff but not unkind. "Might as well call it what it is. No point in pretty words when the noose would be the same either way."
"Deserters," Jorik agreed with a slight nod. "Who found more honor outside the military than within it?"
"Is this your entire group?" Thalia asked, accepting a plate of food that someone had pushed toward her. She hadn't realized how hungry she was until the scent of warm bread and stew reached her. "Kaine mentioned you were traveling with others."
"There are fifteen of us in total," Jorik said, reaching for his mug. "The others are scattered throughout the keep. Some are helping with repairs, others with the wounded. We don't sit idly well."
The younger Northern man—Erek, Thalia recalled—cleared his throat. "Fourteen," he said, his voice soft but firm. "We're fourteen now."
A shadow passed over Jorik's face, the light in his eyes dimming like a candle caught in a sudden draft. "Right. Fourteen." He set down his mug, his knuckles whitening briefly around the handle. "We lost Evara two weeks ago. Just before we reached the sanctuary of Frostforge's walls."
Kaine placed a hand on his brother's shoulder, a silent gesture of comfort that spoke volumes about the relationship they were rebuilding. Thalia felt a sharp pang of sympathy. She knew too well the hollow ache of watching comrades fall to the Deep Tide, the guilt that clung like tar to survivors.
"I'm sorry," she said, the words inadequate but necessary. "Were you close?"
"She joined us three months ago," Jorik said after a moment, his voice steadier than the grief in his eyes would suggest. "A fisherwoman from the archipelago.
She spotted the black waters moving inland before anyone else.
Her keen eyes gave us time to evacuate a small village before the tide reached it.
" His jaw tightened. "We were less than a day's journey from Frostforge when we were ambushed by a patrol—not Deep Ones, but Northern military.
They recognized Erek and me. Evara... she created a diversion. Gave us time to escape."
The young storm-caller, Lyra, spoke for the first time, her accent marking her as a native of the archipelago despite her youth. "She knew what she was doing," she said, her voice carrying the distinctive melodic quality of the Isle Wardens. "She chose her path."
"We all choose our paths," Jorik agreed, raising his mug in a subtle toast. "But some paths are harder to walk than others."
A moment of silence fell over the table, a pocket of quiet reverence in the otherwise noisy hall. Thalia used the pause to take a few bites of food, hoping the hot stew might chase away some of the persistent chill that had clung to her bones since her awakening.
As she ate, she observed the group with renewed interest. There was something about them—a cohesion that transcended their obvious differences. Northern and Southern, continental and Warden, they moved together with the fluid awareness of people who had faced danger as a unit.