The Ice Market wasn't a market.
It was a graveyard pretending to be one—stalls built from frozen ribs, aisles paved with bone dust, blue fire licking torches that never melted. Vendors whispered in tongues older than coin, their words sharp enough to cut frost itself.
Elma's boots cracked over the stone, breath smoking in the air. The shard pulsed faintly under her sleeve, beating against her wrist like it had a heart of its own, pulling her deeper.
[Optional Quest: Archivist of Frostspawn]
Objective: Seek the Archivist.
Reward: Leash schema fragment.
Risk: Master audit.
The words burned in her skull like scripture she hadn't asked for.
She kept moving.
Eyes followed her—shadow-eyed hawkers offering charms of bone, addicts crouched over frostpipes, children too thin to breathe. The leash hissed each time she slowed, warning her not to indulge. Nitron's leash didn't like detours. But the shard guided her anyway, warm where the rest of her body froze.
At the end of the aisle stood a tent stitched from hide so black it seemed to drink the light. A sigil burned across its entrance: a thorned circle, cut once, mended twice.
The shard flared.
"Archivist," Elma muttered. "Guess I knock."
She didn't knock. She stepped inside.
The cold deepened instantly, a silence so sharp it drowned her heartbeat. Shelves lined the walls, but they weren't wood—they were carved from solid glacier, books embedded inside the ice like corpses trapped mid-scream.
And at the center, seated behind a desk of frozen marrow, was the Archivist.
He—or it—wore no face, only a hood of frost where two eyes glimmered faintly blue. Its voice was a low hum, like the world under water.
"You carry frost that is not yours."
Elma flexed her wrist, letting the shard pulse through the sleeve. "Then maybe it wants a refund."
The Archivist's laugh was quiet and wrong. "That fragment belongs to Frostspawn. You stole it."
"I won it," Elma shot back. "Difference matters."
The Archivist's hands folded on the desk, fingers thin as icicles. "Fragments are pieces of vows. Vows can be rewritten. You seek to rewrite yours?"
Elma's chest tightened. The leash hummed, listening. Every bone in her body wanted to scream yes. But answers in this place had teeth.
"What's the price?" she asked carefully.
"Memory," the Archivist said. "Each schema fragment demands a memory of loyalty. Give me one moment where you bowed to Vale, and I will carve it free. In its place, freedom may grow."
Her throat locked. Nitron's face flashed—his hand at her jaw, his fire at her throat, the rage when Calista was taken. A dozen memories she would pay to erase. A dozen chains.
But if she cut too deep, the leash would know.
Elma smirked, even though frost clawed at her lungs. "You sound like every john at Master Club. Always wanting a piece of what I don't give for free."
The Archivist tilted its hood, considering her insolence like it was a currency. "You bargain well. Too well. But know this: fragments are not toys. Stitch enough together, and your leash will break—or strangle."
Her grin sharpened. "Good. Let it try."
The shard flared in her wrist, hungry. The Archivist slid something across the desk—an etching on ice, glyphs so old they burned to look at.
"Three fragments," it whispered. "That is the key. With one, you tease. With two, you bleed. With three… you decide whether the leash belongs to you or him."
Elma took the etching, palm burning as if it branded her. The leash immediately shrieked, pain arcing down her spine. She dropped to one knee, choking.
[Warning: Master audit triggered]
Risk: Elevated. Penalty: pending.
The Archivist's laugh rippled like cracking ice. "Your Master feels you. He knows you wander. Go, leash-witch. Before his fire finds you here."
Elma staggered upright, biting her lip until she tasted blood. She shoved the etching inside her bodice, clutching it against her ribs.
"Guess I'll see you again," she rasped.
The Archivist inclined its frost-hood. "If you live."
She turned, boots crunching over ice, the shard hammering like a second heart.
Outside, the Market seemed louder, rougher, every whisper a knife aimed at her back. The leash burned as she climbed the steps out, each breath seared into her lungs by Nitron's distant suspicion.
By the time she reached the upper streets, her vision blurred. She stumbled into shadow, pressed against stone, and gasped until air returned.
The shard pulsed, softer now, but steady. Waiting.
[Quest Updated: Collect 3 Fragments]
Current: 1/3.
Penalty: Audit sequence escalates with each attempt.
Elma spat blood into the gutter, wiped her mouth, and grinned.
"One down," she muttered. "Two to go. Let's see who breaks first—me, or him."
The city wind carried her words away, but the shard kept them, burning against her wrist like a promise.