Page 1 of Frostforge: Passage Two

CHAPTER ONE

Thalia moved through the crowded marketplace of Verdant Port, her shoulders squared and her steps measured.The humid air pressed against her skin like a forgotten embrace, both comforting and stifling after a year spent in Frostforge's perpetual winter.She inhaled deeply, letting the mingled scents of sea salt, roasting fish, and jungle blooms fill her lungs — smells that once had been so ordinary she barely noticed them, now precious in their familiarity.Around her, the port city pulsed with the same energetic rhythm she remembered, but something had changed.It took her a moment to realize it wasn't the place that was different — it was her.

Merchants called out their wares, their voices competing with the clatter of cart wheels on cobblestones and the distant cry of gulls circling the harbor.A year ago, she would have ducked her head and slipped between shoppers like a shadow, avoiding notice.Now, she found herself automatically scanning the crowd, assessing potential threats, and calculating escape routes — habits drilled into her by Frostforge's combat instructors.The weight of the concealed ice-steel knife strapped to her forearm beneath her sleeve was reassuring, though she doubted she'd need it here.

A group of children darted past, laughing as they chased a ball made of tightly wound cloth scraps.Thalia had to consciously relax her stance as they brushed by her.At the academy, sudden movements often preceded an attack.She shook her head slightly, trying to shed the combat-ready mindset that had kept her alive for the past year.

The heat was a welcome change.After months of blizzards and ice, the warmth of southern summer felt like a healing balm on her frost-nipped skin.Sweat gathered at her temples and traced a path down her spine, but she didn't mind.Warmth meant life.Warmth meant home.

People looked at her differently now.An older man selling mangoes paused mid-transaction to stare, recognition and something like wariness crossing his weathered face.The fishmonger's wife, who had known Thalia since she was a child, faltered in her rhythmic filleting when Thalia passed.Even the harbor master, a man who rarely noticed anyone who wasn't directly paying him port fees, gave her a respectful nod.

They saw the changes in her, even if they couldn't name them.The gangly, uncertain girl who had left was gone.In her place stood someone with hardened muscles and a predator's grace.Frostforge had stripped away her softness, leaving behind something lean and dangerous.She moved differently now — more deliberate, more precise.Even her posture had changed, spine straight as a sword blade, shoulders set with quiet confidence born of surviving what many didn't.

A flash of recognition stopped Thalia mid-stride.Across the market square, a middle-aged woman was selecting fish at a stall, her movements mechanical, her face a mask of grief so profound it seemed to have settled into the lines of her face permanently.Mrs.Tidewell.Mother of Joren Tidewell.

Joren, who had arrived at Frostforge the same day as Thalia.Joren, who had joked about the cold during their first week, claimed his southern blood would freeze solid before winter's end.Joren, whose body had been recovered from the bottom of a ravine after the Frost Walk, was broken by a vicious golem and blue with cold.

Mrs.Tidewell looked up, sensing Thalia's stare.Their eyes locked across the bustling market.The woman's face crumpled, not in anger but in a fresh wave of grief, as if Thalia's very existence was a reminder that her son was gone forever.It was a look Thalia had seen too often in the past six weeks — survivors' guilt by proxy.Why are you here when my child is not?

Thalia tore her gaze away, heart hammering in her chest.She quickened her pace, throat tight with emotions she couldn't afford to indulge.Frostforge taught that sentiment was weakness, and weakness meant death.She was alive because she had learned that lesson well.Others hadn't been so fortunate.

The glassblower's stall appeared ahead, a welcome distraction.Thalia approached, noting the rainbow of glass bottles and jars arranged on a purple cloth.The glassblower, a thin man with soot-stained fingers and burn scars up his forearms, smiled at her approach.

"Ah, the Greenspire girl," he said, recognition brightening his eyes."Your mother said you might come by.Academy treating you well, then?"

"Well enough," Thalia replied, her voice steady despite the lingering discomfort from her encounter with Mrs.Tidewell."I need half a dozen of your small twist-cap jars.The ones with the rubber seals."

The man nodded, selecting the requested items with practiced hands."These are my finest work — won't leak even if you turn them upside down and shake them."He demonstrated with one filled with colored water, and indeed, not a drop escaped.

As Thalia counted out the coins — more than her family could have afforded before her enrollment at Frostforge — she reflected on the irony of her situation.The monthly stipend the academy provided her family had lifted them from the desperate poverty that had forced her to volunteer for Selection in the first place.

With the carefully wrapped jars tucked into her market bag, Thalia made her way back through the winding streets toward her mother's herb shop.The wooden sign hanging above the door — a simple green leaf painted on weathered wood — swung gently in the breeze.It was the same sign her father had carved before his death at sea when Thalia was ten.Some things, at least, remained constant.

The bell above the door jingled as Thalia entered.The familiar scent of dried herbs enveloped her — rosemary, sage, and dozens of local jungle plants.Her mother looked up from behind the counter where she was methodically chopping heart root, its red juice staining her fingers.For a moment, her mother's face lit up with joy, then dimmed just as quickly as reality reasserted itself.

"You found Elio's shop, then?"Celeste asked, wiping her hands on her apron.

"Yes."Thalia placed the wrapped jars on the counter."He sends his regards."

Celeste nodded, accepting the packages and unwrapping them with care.She inspected each jar before beginning to transfer the chopped heartroot into one of them.Her hands moved with practiced efficiency, but Thalia noticed she avoided direct eye contact.

"These will hold the tinctures nicely," her mother said, her voice deliberately light."Much better than those chipped ones we've been using."

The unspoken hovered between them: tomorrow, a ship from the North would dock in Verdant Port's harbor.The city guard would hunt down any academy recruit who wasn't present at roll call.Another term at Frostforge would begin, and with it, the knowledge that not all who departed would return.

Celeste sealed the jar with a twist of her wrist, set it aside, and began working on the next.The silence stretched between them, thick with words neither knew how to say.

"Have you..."her mother began, then paused, searching for the right question."Have you made any friends?At the academy?"

The question caught Thalia off guard.In six weeks home, her mother had avoided mentioning Frostforge directly, as if speaking of it might conjure its cold reality into their warm shop.

"Yes," Thalia answered honestly, thinking of Kaiden with his quiet determination and Lyn with her fierce loyalty.Friends forged in survival, bound by shared trauma and triumph."Good ones."

Relief softened her mother's features."That's...that's good.You'll look after each other."

"We will," Thalia confirmed, hearing the worry beneath her mother's words."And I'll be back for the next break.I promise."

She didn't add that nearly a third of her starting class hadn't survived the first year.That knowledge wouldn't comfort her mother.

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