Page 19 of Frostforge: Passage Four
The Southern recruits shook off their fear and moved in tandem, Daniel delivering a powerful kick to the weakened metal while Felah struck with the pommel of her dagger.
Thalia felt a surge of pride."Again!Together!"
They coordinated their attack, no longer Northern and Southern but a single unit with a common purpose.The golem swung wildly, but they ducked and weaved around its clumsy blows, continuing their assault on its weakening chest plate.
With a final, determined grunt, Sigrid wedged the head of her hammer into the fractured metal and wrenched it aside.The chest plate broke open completely, revealing the pulsing blue orb within — the golem's core, still alive with cryomantic energy.
"That's it!"Thalia exclaimed as the construct collapsed, its power source exposed."That's our prize."
Sigrid carefully extracted the core, cradling it in her frost-gloved hands.For the first time since they'd been assigned together, she met Thalia's eyes without open hostility."Not a bad fight."
They gathered their gear and the precious core, turning back toward the starting point.Thalia walked slightly ahead, allowing herself a small smile of satisfaction.After their disastrous first challenge, this was redemption — not just for her leadership, but for the possibility that Northerners and Southerners could indeed work as one.
The wind still bit at their faces, and danger still lurked among the broken golems, but Thalia felt lighter than she had in days.
***
Thalia lay back on her bunk, still in her frost-stiffened leathers, letting her muscles finally surrender to gravity.The ache in her limbs from the punishing hike through the Golem Fields was a satisfying pain, a testament to effort rewarded.She watched pale shafts of late-afternoon light spill through the frost-laced window, carving geometric patterns across the stone floor, and allowed herself a rare moment of contentment.Her squad had worked together.Even Rasmus and Sigrid had moved in tandem with their Southern comrades.For once, the weight on her shoulders felt a fraction lighter.
The dormitory was quiet; most students were still at training or in the dining hall.Thalia treasured these stolen moments of solitude within Frostforge's ever-bustling walls.Here, in the soft glow of dying daylight, she could almost forget the constant pressure of command, the whispers that followed Southern students through Northern halls, the looming threat of the Isle Wardens beyond the academy's gates.
The creak of the dormitory door shattered her peace like ice beneath a hammer blow.
Luna slipped inside, her normally composed features tight with tension.She glanced down the empty corridor before shutting the door with unusual care.Her short dreadlocks were windblown, and her breath came in quick bursts as if she'd been running.
"You're not going to like this," Luna said by way of greeting, holding a crumpled, frost-dampened parchment in one hand.
Thalia sat up, the languid warmth in her muscles vanishing.Luna didn't waste words on dramatics; if she said something was wrong, it was.
"What happened?"Thalia swung her legs over the side of the bunk.
Luna crossed to her, voice dropping to just above a whisper."I intercepted this message tied to the leg of a gull approaching the academy.Spotted it off Smith's Anvil and downed it with a slingshot."
She pressed the parchment into Thalia's hand.It was cold and damp, the paper softened by sea spray or melted snow.Thalia carefully unfolded it, smoothing the creases with her thumb.The handwriting was tight and precise, the ink slightly blurred by moisture but still legible.
As her eyes darted over the scrawled text, a chill that had nothing to do with Frostforge's perpetual cold seeped into her bones.Her fingers tightened around the paper's edge, crinkling it further.
"’The balance continues to tilt in our favor, and victory becomes more inevitable by the day,’" Thalia read aloud, her voice barely audible."’You are instructed to escalate tensions between Northern and Southern students.Divide them—not with open action, but with doubt, friction, and quiet hostility, using your position of influence as a weapon.’"
She swallowed hard, continuing: "’Let whispers become open suspicions, and let suspicions become calls for blood.Undermine confidence in shared command.Sabotage bonds before they are forged.Do not dirty your hands unless absolutely necessary, but if action is required, make it appear the result of internal failings.Succeed, and you will be rewarded.’"
Thalia read the note again, bile creeping up her throat.This wasn’t a cryptic warning or some veiled threat — it was a directive, cold and deliberate.A blueprint for unraveling Frostforge from the inside, more chilling than any rogue golem or storm-lashed wasteland.
"Luna..."She looked up at her friend, whose dark eyes were shadowed with the same concern Thalia felt.
"The way it's worded," Luna said softly, perching on the edge of Ashe's empty bunk."It's addressed to someone inside the academy.Someone with influence."
Thalia nodded, her mind racing through possibilities.Einar's crusade against Roran, the Northern students' hatred of Instructor Marr, and the distrust and resentment simmering just beneath Frostforge's disciplined surface.The sabotaged blade during their first Command Challenge, the failing shield in practice.What had seemed like isolated incidents now formed a pattern, a deliberate strategy.
"They're trying to start a civil war inside the fortress," she muttered, the words leaving a bitter taste.
Luna drew her knees up to her chest, making herself smaller as if the very walls might be listening."If this bird made it, others might have too.This isn't the first message.Just the first we caught."
The implication settled between them like a storm about to break — dark, charged, undeniable.Someone within Frostforge had been taking orders from unseen forces.Someone had been methodically undermining the academy’s already fragile alliance between North and South, turning quiet divisions into open fractures.
"Why not take this to the instructors?"Thalia asked, though she already suspected the answer.
Luna gave her a long, measured look, the kind that stripped away pretense.In that moment, she seemed far older than her years, weighed down by the burden of knowledge few would choose to carry.
