They docked at Port Kröstheim, a frozen labyrinth of crooked docks, stacked ice barrels, and chimneys belching steam into the frigid air. Ahab's boots thudded against the frostbitten planks as he stepped off The Leviathan, followed by his shivering, half-enthusiastic crew. Above them, rusted chains clanked in the wind, and wind-chimes made of old blades rang out a warning to strangers: No warmth for fools.
The first stop? The market square—a half-circle plaza crammed between two looming cliff faces. It smelled of smoked eel, sour liquor, and goat piss. Merchants hawked their goods beside burning barrels, shouting over one another in a local dialect that sounded like growling with a chest cold.
Ahab, ever the confident fool, swaggered up to a leather-cloaked merchant whose stall was full of supplies—furs, lanterns, climbing gear, and enough dried jerky to survive a small siege. He grabbed a pack and tossed a few silver coins onto the table with a metallic clatter. The merchant didn't flinch. Didn't even blink.
Instead, he raised a frostbitten eyebrow and pushed the silver back with a gnarled finger. "This ain't the lowlands, outsider. We don't take Silver here."
Ahab frowned. "Why not? Silver's silver."
"Silver's unstable, you wooden-headed penguin lover," the merchant barked, loud enough for nearby vendors to chuckle. "Prices change every moon back where you came from. Here, we deal in Skallin—stamped by the Frost Crown. One Skallin equals 150 Silvers. Now either you got Skallin, or you better start bartering your pants."
Kalindra snorted from behind, arms crossed. "You should've let me handle it. You're as charming as frostbite."
"I thought I was charming," Ahab grumbled.
"To corpses, maybe."
Pecks the parrot swooped down from the rigging above and landed on the merchant's pole. "Is one of you going to pay, or shall I poop on something until we're escorted out?"
"Try the bread," Kalindra said, walking off.
Meanwhile, the rest of the crew had spread out—Squib tried to flirt with a barmaid who threatened to set his beard on fire, Dregor haggled over pickled walrus meat, and old Harsk accidentally wandered into a brothel thinking it was a bathhouse. The screams were still echoing.
Ahab sighed, pocketing the useless silvers. "Great. We're rich in the wrong place."
Kalindra leaned in, smirking. "You say that like it's new."
Ahab, ever the stubborn sailor, slammed another handful of silver coins on the stall, eyes locked with the grizzled merchant. "Come on, there's enough silver here to buy your whole damn family a month of rum and fresh socks."
The merchant folded his arms. "And when the value plummets next moon? I'd be better off burning it for warmth. No Skallin, no deal."
Kalindra was already dragging a fur pack off the table like she owned it. "Captain, give it up. You can't charm rocks into gold."
But before Ahab could snarl another protest, a shrill gasp tore through the cold air behind them. Helga.
She'd been leaning against a barrel, laughing at Squib's pathetic attempts to buy a walrus tooth necklace with a wink and a half-frozen sausage. Now her face had gone pale, eyes wide with glassy terror, and her hand clawed at her throat like something invisible wrapped tight around it.
"I—Itchy," she croaked. "Cold… burning…"
Then, like a snapped mast in a storm, her body collapsed.
"Helga!" Ahab dropped to his knees, catching her head just before it cracked against the icy plank. "Hey—HEY! Someone help!"
The bustling square went silent. A hunched old man from the crowd stepped forward, snow clinging to the thick hairs on his knuckles. "Bring her to Faerin's Hearth. Now. Move!"
They hoisted her up, locals clearing a path with urgency. Ahab carried her himself, his jaw clenched, Kalindra keeping pace as the crew trailed behind.
They passed frost-covered signs and frozen fountains until they reached a heavy oak door half-buried in snow. The man threw it open, revealing a warm glow inside—a home filled with herbs, jars of ash and bone, and walls stitched with old runes.
The man turned, pulling down his hood to reveal a face marked with ritual scars and a long silver braid. "I am Faerin Stonebrew, spirit-mender of Kröstheim. If there's still fire in her soul, I'll find it."
Ahab placed Helga gently onto the fur-covered bed. Her lips were turning blue. Her breath came in small, sharp gasps.
"What's happening to her?" he asked, voice low.
Faerin lit a bundle of dried thistle and whispered in a tongue older than the ice itself. "Something has touched her. Something from the North."
Faerin exhaled, the lines of age and memory carving deeper into his face as the flickering firelight danced across his ritual-marked skin. He stared into Helga's pale, shivering body—then closed his eyes as if reaching inward, sifting through centuries of buried knowledge.
"It is the Frost Curse," he said at last, voice low and grave, thick with the weight of knowing. "Old as the North itself."
The room fell into stunned silence. Even Pecks, perched uneasily on the doorframe, tilted his head. "Frost what-now? Is that like a cold with vengeance?"
"If you outsiders know of Fimbulwinter, then you know only the storm. But the storm is not alone." He knelt beside the bed and pressed a hand to Helga's chest, just above her heart. "With the great freeze comes the ancient sickness—the soul frost. A curse older than empire and crown. It doesn't freeze your skin… it freezes your flame."
Kalindra's arms tightened around herself. "But she was fine this morning…"
"It begins subtly," Faerin murmured, gaze distant. "A chill that no fire warms. It seeps into your spirit like creeping ice through cracks in stone. No fever. No blood. Just… cold. A cold that lives in you. And when it takes hold, no forge, no sun, no magic is enough to thaw what it touches."
Squib took a step back. "So what, she just… freezes from the inside out?"
"No," Faerin said. "Worse."
Ahab clenched his fists. "Then what do we do?"
Faerin stood, walking to a shelf stacked with jars of powdered bone, frozen petals, and withered herbs. He began selecting them slowly, his movements careful, as if each item weighed more than stone.
"There is a way. A dangerous one. But if the curse has only begun to root, I might still have time to delay it. Perhaps even draw it out… though not without cost."
Ahab met his eyes. "Name it."
Faerin didn't answer. He simply looked at Helga again—her breath shallow, a rime of frost forming at the edges of her lashes—and muttered, "Pray this is not the first… of many."
Faerin stood slowly, bones cracking like ancient timber under snow. He crossed the room with a tired gait, heading toward a towering bookshelf that groaned with the weight of age and dust. His fingers, marked with old burns and ink stains, slid across the bindings until they stopped on a black leather tome. With reverence, he pulled it free—dust scattering into the candlelight—and tucked it under one arm.
Then, from beneath the shelf, he dragged out a long scrollcase wrapped in cracked wolfskin. He brought it to the table, unrolling it with the slow care of a man revealing a grave.
The map stretched wide, ink faded and smeared in places, but still alive with countless lines, symbols, and cryptic notations. Routes intertwined like spiderwebs, all stretching across the vast, icy expanse of the Frost Reign Regions.
Ahab leaned in, squinting. "What in the frozen hell is all this?"
Faerin tapped the parchment with a gnarled finger. "This… is the memory of my bloodline. Passed from hand to hand, from the first wanderer to stand beneath the black aurora to me."
His finger traced the northernmost route, a jagged path cutting through ancient glacial valleys. "These lines mark the journeys of my forefathers—scholars, healers, madmen—who dared to map the places untouched by sun or flame. They crossed from Volkrad, the Kingdom of Everhowl, where the snow sings with the voices of the drowned, to Klaestyr, the Sunken Crown, whose ruins lie beneath permafrost thicker than bone."
Kalindra frowned, her breath fogging the air. "All that just to chase a cure?"
Faerin nodded. "They followed the signs. Lore carved into tusk and stone. Whispered names buried in blizzard-song. Every generation believed they were close—believed they must be. Because if the Frost Curse ever returned, it would be worse than any war or plague. It wouldn't take lives. It would take souls."
Pecks fluttered to a perch, staring at the map with one beady eye. "And let me guess… none of them ever came back with the cure?"
Faerin's silence said enough. Then he spoke, voice hollow with memory. "Some vanished. Some returned changed. One—my own grandfather—came back frostbitten and blind, mumbling about a gate of bone beneath the glacier's heart. He died whispering a name we've never translated."
Ahab stared at the lines. "And you think we can find what they couldn't?"
"I think your crew was brought here for a reason. The Black Tide is rising. The Fimbulwinter has begun. If you don't find it…" He looked at Helga, still trembling on the cot, frost still creeping toward her heart. "Then she is just the first snowflake before the avalanche."