Page 49 of Frostforge: Passage Two

For several long seconds, no one moved.Thalia stood, breathing hard, the ice-metal sword still clutched in her white-knuckled grip.Kaine remained atop the fallen construct, his expression grim as he withdrew his blade from its chest.

The silence was broken by slow, deliberate applause.

"Well, well," came Instructor Wolfe's cold voice as she emerged from the shadows near the forge entrance."How very heroic."

"Instructor," Kaine acknowledged, climbing off the fallen golem with careful dignity.

Wolfe surveyed the destruction — the unconscious student being tended to by his peers, the smashed workbenches, the scattered tools.Her expression was thunderous.

"Would someone care to explain," she said, her voice dangerously soft, "how a second-year student managed to create a construct that nearly killed him and his classmates?"

No one answered.Thalia opened her mouth, ready to explain about the substituted materials, the pattern of failures, but Wolfe continued before she could speak.

"I have never," Wolfe said, each word sharp as a blade, "in twenty-five years of teaching at this academy, seen such widespread incompetence.You," she pointed at the unconscious boy's friends, "get him to the infirmary.The rest of you," her gaze swept the room, "clean up this mess.Now."

Students scrambled to obey, the tension in the room thick enough to cut with a blade.Thalia stayed where she was, frustration building in her chest.

"Instructor," she said, stepping forward."This isn't the first malfunction.There's something wrong with the—"

"With the students, clearly," Wolfe cut her off."Sloppy work.Careless construction.Rushing to complete projects without proper attention to detail."She looked directly at Thalia, her gaze cold."You think the enemy will care about your excuses when your weapons fail on the battlefield?You think the Isle Wardens will pause while you explain why your golems aren't functioning properly?"

Thalia felt heat rise in her cheeks."That's not what I —"

"I don't want to hear it, Greenspire," Wolfe snapped."This generation has been coddled.You lack discipline.You lack focus."She gestured to the fallen golem."This is the result.And when time comes — and it will come — this entitled attitude will get you all killed."

With that, she turned sharply and strode from the forge, leaving a wake of stunned silence behind her.

Thalia stood rigid, anger and frustration coursing through her veins.How could Wolfe be so blind?This wasn't about entitled students or lack of discipline — it was about sabotage, pure and simple.The same sabotage that had led to the weapons theft, the same sabotage that was endangering everyone at the academy.

But no one in authority seemed willing to listen.

With a sharp exhale, Thalia returned the ice-metal sword to its rack and stalked back to her own workstation.Her golem sat partially assembled on her bench.Unlike the rampaging construct, hers had a more delicate build, designed for precision rather than brute force.

She placed her hand on its dormant core, feeling the faint pulse of magical energy responding to her touch.Over the past weeks, as she'd crafted each component with painstaking care, she'd begun to form a bond with the construct.It wasn't alive, not in the traditional sense, but there was something...responsive about it.Something that recognized her.

"At least you're not going to go berserk on me," she murmured, adjusting a loose connection in its shoulder joint.

"I wouldn’t be too confident."Kaine's voice came from behind her, pitched low so only she could hear."Not with what's happening."

Thalia turned to find him standing at her bench, his expression somber.A bruise was beginning to form on his jaw where he'd hit the tool rack.

"Are you alright?"she asked, resisting the urge to reach out and touch the injury.

He shrugged."I've had worse."His eyes flicked to the fallen golem, now being disassembled by a team of students under another instructor's supervision."That could have been much worse."

"It will be worse," Thalia said grimly."In the Gauntlet.If golems start malfunctioning during the trials..."

"Catastrophe," Kaine finished for her, leaning closer."That's why you need to focus on that now, not on the blade."

Thalia blinked."But the thief —"

"I'll handle it," Kaine said firmly."The Gauntlet is in three days, Thalia.You need to make sure your golem is ready, that you're ready.I'll track the blade in the meantime."

She frowned."You might not be able to sense the aluminum trace.It's subtle."

"I'll do my best," he said."And you can help once you've survived the trials.But right now, this," he gestured to the chaos in the forge, "is the more immediate threat."

Thalia looked down at her partially completed golem, considering.He was right, of course.As much as she wanted to solve the mystery of the stolen weapons, the Forge Gauntlet was looming.Failing it wasn't an option — not if she wanted to survive the academy in the long run.

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