Page 37 of Frostforge: Passage Four
The fighting ceased immediately, leaving only the heavy breathing of exertion as the students glared at each other with wary eyes.Wolfe's gaze swept over the wreckage — upended benches, spilled food frozen mid-air like strange sculptures, students with split lips and bloodied knuckles.
"Anyone still standing, take a knee.Now."
No one dared disobey.Even Einar dropped to one knee, blood still dripping from his split lip, his arrogance momentarily subdued by Wolfe's commanding presence.Thalia sank down where she stood, her heartbeat gradually slowing as the adrenaline began to ebb.
Wolfe stepped into the hall slowly, her boots crunching on frozen remnants of the morning meal.Shattered glass crackled beneath her feet like breaking bones.The instructor's silence was more terrifying than any shouted reprimand could have been.
"You have disgraced this academy," she said finally, her voice low but somehow echoing to the farthest corners."All of you.Frostforge stands as one, or it falls.And right now, it is falling."Her gaze traveled over each face, lingering on the worst offenders."We train soldiers here, and soldiers do not lose control like this."
The silence that followed was absolute.Thalia glanced at Roran, noting the tight line of his jaw, the rigid control he maintained even now.Across the room, she caught Luna's eye.Her friend's expression was troubled, not with fear of punishment but with something deeper — the same concern Thalia felt growing in her chest.
The saboteur's plan was working.The divisions were no longer simmering beneath the surface; they had erupted into open conflict.And as Thalia looked around at the bloodied faces and hardened expressions of her fellow students, she realized that whatever tenuous unity Frostforge had maintained was fracturing beyond repair.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Thalia woke to gray light seeping through frost-rimmed windows, her head throbbing with each heartbeat.The dormitory's usual morning rustles seemed muted, as if the very air had thickened overnight.She pressed her palms against her eyes, willing away the exhaustion that clung to her bones like winter moss to stone.Last night's events replayed in fragments — shouting, the scrape of chairs, a fist connecting with flesh.They had all been lucky the instructors arrived when they did, before blood could be spilled on academy grounds.
She forced herself upright, muscles protesting at the movement.Sleep had done little to ease the tension that had wound itself through her body during the brawl.Three years at Frostforge had hardened her in many ways, but the raw hostility she'd witnessed last night had left her cold in ways the northern winds never could.
The floor chilled her bare feet as she dressed quickly, pulling on layers of wool and leather, armor against both the perpetual cold and the day ahead.She paused at her small mirror, noting the shadows beneath her eyes.No disguising those.Thalia tucked her father's compass into her pocket — a habit she couldn't break, even after all this time away from home.
When she stepped into the corridor, the wrongness struck her immediately.Students passed with eyes averted, bodies curved inward as if to make themselves smaller targets.Conversations died as she approached, only to resume in whispers once she'd passed.The academy felt like it was holding its breath, waiting for the next eruption.
"Morning," she offered to a group of second-years.They nodded stiffly and quickened their pace.
The mess hall buzzed with subdued energy, like hornets trapped beneath glass.Thalia collected her breakfast and scanned the room for friendly faces.Luna was absent.Ashe sat among her Northern clanmates, her expression closed.Roran was nowhere to be seen.
As she navigated between tables, fragments of conversations reached her.
"—never seen Levi that angry before—"
"—Einar started it, you know he did—"
"—Levi was the one who—"
"—heard it was about the Command Challenge results—"
Thalia settled at an empty end of a table, pushing potatoes around her plate without appetite.
"Are you Thalia Greenspire?"
She looked up to find a first-year standing beside her table, clutching a rolled parchment sealed with blue wax.The student's eyes were wide with the peculiar blend of fear and curiosity that came with delivering bad news.
"Yes," she replied, her stomach dropping as she recognized Instructor Wolfe's sigil pressed into the wax.
"For you."The student thrust the parchment forward and retreated quickly.
Thalia broke the seal, confirming what she already knew.A summons to Wolfe's office.Immediately.
She abandoned her breakfast and made her way toward the administrative tower, shoulders squared against the weight of stares that followed her.Near the tower's entrance, she spotted Luna leaning against a frost-coated pillar, her expression unreadable.
"You too?"Thalia asked.
Luna nodded, her short dreadlocks swaying with the movement."We’re witnesses, I suppose.Or we’re the guilty parties, depending on Wolfe's mood."
They walked in silence up the spiral staircase, footsteps echoing against stone.Neither spoke, but Thalia felt a certain comfort in Luna's presence — the solidarity of shared dread.
Wolfe's chamber door stood open.Inside, Thalia found Roran, Levi, and Einar already present, positioned around the room like opposing pieces on a game board.Roran stood with arms crossed near a window, gaze fixed on the distant mountains.Levi sat rigidly in a chair, jaw tight.Einar lounged against a bookshelf, feigning relaxation though his eyes tracked every movement.
