Kaine studied her face for a moment longer, his expression a blend of concern and pride, before nodding once and continuing downward.
The stairway eventually opened into a corridor that bore little resemblance to the academy's upper levels.Here, the walls were rough-hewn stone rather than finished masonry, the ceiling low enough that Kaine had to duck beneath the occasional jutting rock.Water trickled somewhere in the darkness beyond their lantern light, the steady drip-drip-drip like the beating of a heart within the mountain itself.
Their footsteps echoed down the passage, then faded into silence as they reached the end of the corridor.Before them stood a massive circular door, its surface a patchwork of symbols and runes etched into dull metal.The same door Thalia had watched Maven open years ago, minutes before the instructor had revealed her true intentions.
Thalia's hand hovered over the cold surface, not quite touching.Memory flashed through her mind—Maven's fingers tracing these same symbols, her voice chanting ancient words, her smile when the mechanisms within groaned to life.The instructor's amber eye gleamed with anticipation as she explained how the sacrifice of a human life would activate defenses beyond imagining, how Thalia's death would save them all.
"Breathe," Kaine murmured beside her, his voice gentle but firm.Not pitying, never that.He understood too well what it meant to face old wounds."It's just a door now.Nothing more."
Thalia nodded, drawing air into lungs that suddenly felt too tight.She forced herself to examine the door objectively, as she would any other artifact.At its center, overlapping symbols of flame and ice crystal marked where a specific type of magic was required to unlock it.The Founders had ensured no single type of magic could access this chamber.
Kaine positioned himself at her side, his shoulder brushing against hers."Ready when you are."
Thalia slipped on her frost gloves—simple leather with enchanted silver wire woven through the fingers, designed to channel cryomancy without frostbite—and placed her palm against the ice crystal.Kaine set his hand over the flame symbol, his eyes closing in concentration as he called upon his faint current-sensing abilities to manipulate the metal's inherent energies.
For a moment, nothing happened.Then Thalia felt the familiar chill of cryomancy flowing from her core, down her arm, and into the ancient mechanism.Beside her, Kaine's hand grew warm, then hot against the metal as he channeled heat into the counterpart system.The runes along the door's edge began to glow—first dimly, then with increasing brightness until blue-white light spilled from each etched line.
A low grinding noise reverberated through the stone floor as hidden gears turned within the mountain rock.Slowly, ponderously, the circular door receded inward before rolling to one side, revealing the chamber beyond.
The light from their lantern seemed to falter at the threshold, as though reluctant to enter.Thalia steeled herself and stepped forward, forcing her legs to move despite the weight of memory that threatened to root her in place.
The Founders' Price chamber was exactly as she remembered it.Vast yet low-ceilinged, with the stone pressing down just a foot above her head, but the opposite wall vanishing into shadow.The air smelled of age and stone dust, undisturbed by the currents that flowed through the rest of Frostforge.At the center of the room, a perfect circle of runes was carved into the floor—the ritual space where Maven had intended to spill Thalia's blood.
She avoided looking directly at it, focusing instead on the far wall where Kaine was already striding.His boots left clear imprints in the fine dust that covered the floor, but Thalia noticed other tracks as well—older footprints, crossed and recrossed.
"You've been here often," she observed, following him but giving the central circle a wide berth.
Kaine glanced back.“I have been.The excavation has taken some effort.I had help, too.”A flash of consternation crossed his features.“Senna’s been aiding me.”
Thalia frowned.She resented the way she felt at the sound of Senna’s name in Kaine’s voice.She didn’t want to waste her energy on jealousy, but the emotion coiled in her chest anyway, hot and unwelcome.
They reached the far side of the chamber, where part of the wall had crumbled away to reveal an opening behind it.Kaine stepped carefully over the rubble, offering his hand to steady her as she followed.
"This wasn't accessible before," Thalia said, remembering the solid wall that had stood there during her last visit.
"The battle damaged more than just the upper levels," Kaine explained."I felt tremors all the way down here while the Isle Wardens were attacking.When I came to investigate afterward, I found this section had partially collapsed.I helped it along the rest of the way."
Beyond the broken wall was a smaller chamber, perhaps half the size of the main room.Unlike the ritual space, this area seemed designed for study rather than ceremony.Shelves were carved directly into the rock, though whatever scrolls or artifacts they'd once held had long since turned to dust.The walls themselves, however, remained intact—and they were Kaine's clear focus.
He approached the back wall, where his lantern illuminated what initially appeared to be decorative inlays.As Thalia drew closer, she realized they were runes, similar to those on the chamber door but far more intricate.They formed flowing lines and symbols across the stone, each character precisely inlaid with metal that had dulled with age but retained its essential form.
"Look here," Kaine said, kneeling before a section near the bottom.He set the lantern on the floor, its light casting his shadow huge against the rune-covered wall."These phrases describe a 'threat from the sea'—raiders with weapons that could shatter ice and stone alike."
His finger traced a line of symbols crafted from a metal so dark it seemed to absorb the lantern light.Thalia didn't need to touch it to recognize the material—it was identical to the Isle Warden blade they'd examined in the forge.
"And these," he continued, moving to a different section where the runes were formed from a pale, silvery-blue alloy, "detail the defenses the founders created in response.The Founders’ Price, yes, but also others I’ve been unable to translate."The blue metal caught the light differently, reflecting it with a soft luminescence that made the runes appear to float above the stone.
"I've been piecing together the translation from fragments in the archives," Kaine explained."It's slow work—the language is archaic, and parts are in dialects I've never encountered.”
Thalia leaned closer, studying the contrasting materials."The black is identical to the Warden blade.But this blue alloy...I've never seen anything like it in the forge."
"Nor have I," Kaine admitted."It doesn't match any ice-metal blend in Frostforge's records.The composition appears to be entirely outside our current metallurgical knowledge."He looked up at her, his eyes bright with suppressed excitement."But you might be able to sense something in it that I can't.Your gift with currents goes deeper than mine."
Thalia hesitated, then knelt beside him.She removed her frost gloves and flexed her fingers, preparing to extend her senses into the unknown metal.Current-sensing had always come naturally to her, an extension of the gift she'd used in her mother's herb shop to identify the potency of plants and minerals.In metals, the gift allowed her to feel the flow of magical energy, to understand the internal structure in ways that even expert smiths couldn't.
She pressed her fingertips to the cool surface of the blue-silver runes and closed her eyes.
At first, she felt nothing but stone and age.Then, slowly, a sensation emerged—a hum, distant but distinct, vibrating through the metal and into her fingertips.Cold, but not the biting chill of traditional ice-metal.This was deeper, more resonant, like the cold of the ocean's depths rather than the sharp bite of a winter wind.
