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Her fingers were stiff and clumsy as she retrieved the small fire-starting kit from the side pocket of her pack — the one item she never stored inside, keeping it accessible for exactly this kind of emergency.The kit was simple: a flint striker, a small tin of dried moss treated with oil, and a folding blade for preparing kindling.

Nearby, a withered bush poked through the snow, its branches brittle and dry.Perfect.Thalia broke off several twigs and arranged them in a small pyramid atop a flat stone, then prepared a nest of the treated moss beneath them.She worked methodically despite her shivering, focusing on the task rather than her growing discomfort.

The first strike of flint sent sparks dancing across the moss, but they died before catching.The second attempt was similarly unsuccessful.Thalia cupped her hands around the tinder to shield it from stray drafts and tried again, striking the flint with more force.

A spark caught.A tiny flame flickered to life, fragile as a whisper.Thalia held her breath, gently feeding the fire with progressively larger twigs until a small but steady blaze illuminated the crevice with warm, golden light.The heat it produced was minimal, but the psychological effect was immediate — a bubble of safety in a hostile world.

"Thank you, Ashe," she murmured, warming her hands over the flames.

But her triumph was short-lived.The bush had been dead for too long, its branches lacking sufficient resin to sustain a proper fire.The flames began to diminish almost immediately, consuming the dry wood too quickly without generating lasting heat.Within minutes, the fire was reduced to embers that glowed feebly against the encroaching darkness.

Thalia frantically searched for more fuel, but nothing within reach would burn.The last ember winked out with a final puff of smoke, leaving her in near-total darkness.The brief warmth had only served to make her more acutely aware of the cold that now returned with redoubled intensity.

Her extremities were going numb — fingertips and toes first, then hands and feet.The cold crept up her limbs with inexorable patience, a silent invader claiming territory inch by inch.Each breath created a cloud of condensation that briefly illuminated the small space before dissipating.Her muscles began to ache from constant shivering.

She shifted her body into the tight position Ashe had taught her when winter had first begun to descend on Frostforge, curling in on herself to conserve heat.Pressing her knees to her chest, she tucked her hands beneath her arms, trying to ignore the violent tremors wracking her frame.

Her mind turned to her provisions.Food meant calories, calories meant warmth.She needed the dried beef and hardtack she'd packed — not just for sustenance but for survival through the night.

Thalia reached for her pack, pulling it into her lap.The outer canvas was stiff with frost, the buckles almost too cold to touch with bare fingers.She fumbled with the main compartment's clasp, finally managing to open it and reach inside.

Her fingers searched blindly through the contents, expecting to encounter the wrapped package of food she'd carefully positioned at the top for easy access.Nothing.She dug deeper, growing increasingly frantic as she removed items one by one, laying them carefully on the stone beside her: spare socks; a small medical kit; a water flask, now frozen.

No food.

"No, no, no," she whispered, emptying the pack completely and running her hands along the interior.

Her fingers found the tear along the bottom seam, a clean cut that could only have been made with a blade.The realization struck her like a physical blow: this wasn't an accident or poor craftsmanship.Someone had deliberately sabotaged her pack, positioned the cut so that items would gradually fall through during her journey across the uneven terrain of the Golem Fields.

Not just any items — specifically her food supplies, which she hadn't needed to access until now.Whoever had done this had calculated that she wouldn't notice until it was too late, until she was deep in the fields with no way to replace what was lost.

Senna's voice whispered through her memory, the threat delivered with cold precision while Thalia worked on her ice-steel blade:I don't fear you, Southern girl.I pity you.

Thalia's hands clenched into fists so tight her nails bit into her palms.The pain was grounding, focusing her thoughts through the fog of cold and hunger.

"She's trying to kill me," Thalia whispered, the words forming crystals in the frozen air.

The revelation should have terrified her, but instead, it fueled a slow-burning anger that pushed back against the cold.She would not die here.She would not give Senna the satisfaction.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

The storm had worsened while Thalia rested.Wind screamed through the ice-carved ravines of the Golem Fields, carrying needles of snow that stung any exposed skin.Her brief shelter against the rock face had provided momentary respite, but now the cold had settled deeper into her bones, a predator that had found its way inside her.Thalia pressed her back against the rough stone and forced her stiff body to stand, the muscles in her legs trembling with the effort.Rest, she realized too late, had only made her weaker.

She clutched her torn pack to her chest like a talisman, though its most crucial contents — the life-saving rations she'd meticulously packed — were long gone.Just flakes of ice and scraps of cloth remained where her carefully stored hardtack and jerky should have been.The wind howled, drowning the soft curse that escaped her cracked lips.

"Keep moving," she whispered to herself, her voice strange and distant in her ears."Stay still and die."

The words became a rhythm in her mind as she pushed away from the rock face and back into the heart of the blizzard.Snow swirled in dizzying patterns, limiting visibility to mere feet ahead.Thalia squinted, lifting a frost-gloved hand to shield her eyes, though the protection the gloves offered had been compromised — another act of sabotage she'd discovered too late.

Each step required deliberate thought.Lift foot.Push through snow.Place down.Repeat.The simple mechanics of walking had become a complex series of movements that her frozen body struggled to execute.Her legs moved like wooden posts, heavy and unfeeling.The wind shifted direction, blasting her face with a fresh surge of icy particles that scraped her cheeks raw.

The sabotage.It kept circling back to that in her mind, a frustrating puzzle with too many missing pieces.Senna's warning echoed in her memory: "Accidents happen all the time in the Golem Fields."Not a warning at all, she now realized, but a promise.

Thalia's mind, sluggish from cold, tried to piece together the timeline.Her torn pack.The missing rations.Her compromised frost gloves.The pattern of sabotage against Southern students that she and Luna had uncovered during the blizzard.Had that all been Senna's doing?She'd suspected Brynn, with her aggressive competitiveness, and Roran, with his suspicious Isle Warden techniques.

But neither Brynn nor Roran made sense as the saboteur; they lacked motives.Senna, however, had made her jealousy clear.Senna, who believed she had some claim to Kaine.Senna, whose eyes flashed with cold fury whenever she saw Thalia and Kaine together.Senna, who had voiced disdain and hatred for Southerners at every opportunity.

A violent shiver wracked Thalia's body, jarring her from her thoughts.A particularly fierce gust knocked her sideways.Thalia stumbled, her knees buckling.She fell face-first into the snow, the impact knocking what little breath she had from her lungs.The cold embraced her, seductive in its promise of peaceful oblivion.For a dangerous moment, she considered simply staying there, letting the snow cover her, letting the cold take her.