Page 44 of Frostforge: Passage Two

Kaine grunted in acknowledgment, his hands never pausing in their work.His fingers moved with practiced precision, wrapping thin strips of leather around the hilt with painstaking care.Each layer was secured with a drop of resin, building up a grip that would eventually feel as if it had been molded specifically for the wielder's hand.

Thalia watched him from the corner of her eye, her gaze lingering on the intense focus in his face, the slight furrow between his brows, the way his lips pressed together when he concentrated.She remembered how those lips had felt against hers, just hours ago in this very forge — warm, gentle.

Then Senna had interrupted them, and everything had fallen apart.

Thalia turned her attention back to the blade, adjusting the final connections between the aluminum trace and her own magical signature.She couldn't afford to be distracted, not when their plan depended on the precision of her work.Yet her mind kept circling back to the argument that had fractured the fragile thing growing between them.

Across the table, Kaine finished the final wrap on the hilt, cutting the leather with a precise flick of his knife.He reached for a small vial of protective oil, applying it to the leather with careful passes of a soft cloth.The rich, earthy scent mixed with the usual forge smells of smoke and hot metal.

"Hilt's done," he said, his voice neutral.

Thalia nodded, pushing back from the table."Let's test it."

They met at the end of the workbench, the completed weapon lying between them.Kaine lifted it first, testing the balance, then offered it to Thalia.Their fingers brushed as she took it from him, sending an unwelcome spark of awareness through her body.

The blade felt perfect in her hand — balanced, responsive, alive with possibility.She executed a simple pattern, the weapon slicing through the air with a whisper.Through her connection to the metal, she could feel the aluminum thread vibrating with each movement, a beacon she could follow across any distance.

"It's ready," she said, lowering the blade.

Kaine nodded, his ice-blue eyes meeting hers for the first time that evening.For a moment, something flickered in their depths — regret, maybe, or longing.Before she could decide, he looked away, reaching for the sword.

"I'll put it in the weapons rack near storage," he said."It'll be visible enough to tempt someone, but not so obvious that it looks like a trap."

Thalia handed him the weapon, careful to maintain her magical connection to the aluminum thread."I'll be able to sense when it moves.As soon as it does —"

"We follow it," Kaine finished."I know the plan."

The slight edge in his voice made her bristle."I was just making sure we're on the same page, since we've apparently been reading different books lately."

Kaine's jaw tightened, but he didn't rise to the bait.Instead, he wrapped the blade in a cloth and tucked it under his arm."I'll put this with the other weapons.You should get some rest."

They stood there for a moment longer, the silence between them growing heavier with each passing second.Thalia found herself wishing he would say something — anything — to bridge the gap that had opened between them.But the words that might have mended things remained unspoken on both sides.

***

Five days had passed since they'd placed the traced blade in the weapons rack, and still it remained untouched.Thalia checked its position each morning and evening, her magic reaching out to confirm the aluminum signature remained exactly where they'd left it.Meanwhile, the academy had descended into a state of barely controlled chaos.That morning alone, she'd witnessed three more golems fail catastrophically — one freezing mid-activation, another spinning its limbs wildly until it broke a workbench, and a third melting from the inside out, leaving a puddle of inferior alloy on the workshop floor.Frostforge, once a place of fierce but orderly competition, now seethed with fear and suspicion like a pot left too long over a flame.

Thalia slipped through the crowded corridors, navigating around clusters of agitated students.Fragments of conversations swirled around her, anxiety thickening the air.

"— third time it's fallen apart —"

"— just seized up completely —"

"— the Gauntlet's in three weeks, and I've got nothing —"

Thalia kept moving, her stomach clenching.The Forge Gauntlet loomed over them all like a storm cloud on the horizon.Failure meant a lowered class rank at best, and at Frostforge, a lower rank spelled disaster.Students’ end-of-year rankings dictated their privileges and their unspoken pecking order.And with the sabotaged materials causing golems to malfunction left and right, panic was spreading through the student body like wildfire.

But Thalia knew that failure in the Gauntlet was the least of their concerns.Before the term was out, she was certain that these faulty golems would take lives.

In the main hall, a crowd had gathered around a tall girl with a shock of copper hair.Her voice carried across the space, sharp with accusation.

"— can't be a coincidence that this started happening when they let more Southerners in!"she was saying, her finger jabbing toward a group of students from Thalia's homeland."They can't match our skill level, so they're sabotaging our work!"

Murmurs of agreement rippled through the crowd.Thalia paused at the edge, tension coiling in her chest.The copper-haired girl's gaze swept across the courtyard and locked momentarily with Thalia's.Her lips curled into a sneer before she turned back to her audience.

"Look at Greenspire over there — somehow her golem works perfectly while the rest of us struggle.How convenient."

Heat flushed through Thalia's body, anger and embarrassment warring within her.She opened her mouth to respond, but a hand caught her elbow, tugging her away from the confrontation.

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