Before ordering the rooms, Ahab leaned in, hunching beside Faerin like he was about to share the secret location of buried treasure.
"Oi, tell me straight," he muttered from the side of his mouth, eyes darting toward the nearby vendors and the torch-lit entrance of The Crystal Hearth. "These lot take silver here? 'Cause last time I tried buyin' a damn blanket, they looked at me like I tried to pay with barnacles."
Faerin's lips curled into a knowing smirk, voice low and steady. "Relax, Captain. This is Rhimegard, here is thrives off sailors and wanderers from across the seas. The innkeeper here's seen more coin than kings. They take global currency. Silver, gold, even trade goods if the weight's right."
Ahab exhaled through his nose, visibly relieved. "Thank the winds. If one more pelt-wrapped bastard tells me about 'Skallin,' I swear I'll start throwin' snowballs as payment."
Faerin chuckled softly, "Save your snowballs. You'll need 'em when the Wailing Winds sweep through."
Ahab stepped forward, boots thudding against the polished wooden floor of The Crystal Hearth, the warmth of the inn hitting his face like a long-lost lover. The innkeeper, a stout man with a beard thick enough to house birds, squinted up at him.
"How many rooms?" the innkeeper asked in a gravelly voice.
Ahab scratched his chin, eyes flicking to his crew behind him. "Right… Let's see... Kalindra and Brigss, Jonas and Squib, Harsk and Faerin… me and Zarnak."
Kalindra's smile cracked. "Excuse me?" she stepped forward, hand on her hip, lips pursed like a stormcloud. "I'm not sleepin' with Briggs, I'm sleepin' with you, obviously."
Ahab, without missing a beat, raised both hands in mock surrender, grin wide as the Leviathan's sails. "Easy there, snow queen. I ain't lookin' to mess with local law. What if they got some twisted rules 'bout 'illicit beds of passion' or something? You sleep with another woman, no one bats an eye. Man and woman? Might get us flogged, exiled—or worse, taxed."
Kalindra's eye twitched. "You're making that up."
"Am I?" Ahab whispered dramatically, gesturing to a random, confused old man warming his feet by the hearth. "That guy looks like he's here for judgment."
Before Kalindra could strangle Ahab with her scarf, Pecks fluttered down to a nearby table and let out a shrill laugh. "Can't help it, can she? Girl so thirsty, she'd flirt with her own reflection. Poor Brigss gonna be defiled!"
Brigss nearly dropped his sack of gear. "Wait, what?!"
Kalindra snarled, "I swear I'll pluck you, you feathered demon."
Pecks danced in place, unbothered. "Try me, snow hussy."
The innkeeper blinked slowly. "...So, four rooms?"
Ahab grinned. "Yeah, four. And maybe a cage for the parrot if you've got one."
The innkeeper pulled out a dusty abacus, clicked the beads with slow precision, and adjusted his monocle. "Hmm... you want four rooms, decent firewood, hot meals for eight people—plus a corner perch for that thing," he nodded at Pecks, who was currently trying to steal a sugar cube from a nearby saucer.
"That'll be… around 9,600,000 silver coins per night."
Ahab's eyes widened. "What?! You tryna charge me for the whole inn?"
The innkeeper shrugged, unfazed. "Welcome to Rhimegard, friend. You want warmth, safety, and hot soup in the middle of the Frost's spine, you pay like you're a king."
Kalindra whistled low. "That's half our damn chest just to not freeze to death."
Pecks squawked. "Could've slept in the damn ship, but nooo, Princess Kalindra needs a pillow!"
Ahab groaned, "I should've stayed in the cursed jungle with fire ants and dignity…" Then he turned back to the innkeeper with a tight smile. "Fine. You better throw in breakfast and a damn storytime for that price."
The innkeeper slid four heavy brass keys across the counter, each etched with frosty runes of room numbers. One by one, the crew collected them with weary sighs and frozen fingers, already dreaming of warm blankets and solid walls between them and the icy wind.
Just as they turned to head to their rooms, Faerin placed a firm hand on Ahab's shoulder. "Not yet, Captain," he said, voice low and serious. "We have to meet the Frost Seer. She might know something… something deeper than what any map can tell."
Kalindra instantly perked up like a cat hearing a can open. "Then I'm coming too."
Ahab gave her a tired side-eye. "Can you just—once—not cling like a frostbitten barnacle?"
She grinned and wrapped an arm around his. "But I'm your frostbitten barnacle."
Faerin tried to object. "Her place… it's sacred. The Seer doesn't welcome many—"
"She'll welcome me," Kalindra winked. "I'm charming."
From above, Pecks flapped down onto her shoulder like a miniature judgmental gargoyle. "Charming like the itch you can't scratch. I'm comin' too—someone's gotta make sure Princess Thighs doesn't try to pole-dance on an ice pillar."
Kalindra hissed, Pecks cackled, and Ahab groaned. "Alright! All of you, just... shut up and walk."
Rhimegarde under twilight was an eerie dream—alleys carved between walls of glacial stone, rooftops dusted with snow like powdered sugar, icicles hanging like daggers of frozen time. The group marched through cobbled roads that squeaked with frost underfoot, past markets where merchants haggled over glowing fungi, smoked ice-fish, and fur coats sewn from snow panther pelts. The air itself shimmered like glass with cold, and even the fire pits hissed instead of crackled.
As they reached the end of a winding lane, the buildings grew stranger—twisting, towering things with crystalline spires and enchanted chimes singing in the wind. Then they stopped before a hut—if one could even call it that.
It looked as though a tree had grown upside down through a glacier, roots stretched up to the heavens while its trunk pierced the ground, half-melted and still glowing from ancient embers. Lanterns hung from bone branches, and beneath them, symbols glowed faintly in the air—symbols that shifted if one stared too long.
Faerin knocked once, solemnly. And then, the door opened with a low creak, spilling warm golden light into the freezing dark. Standing there, in the doorway, was her. The Frost Seer.
She was an elf—tall, elegant, impossibly graceful. Skin like moonlit marble, hair cascading in a silvery waterfall down her back, and eyes glowing with blue fire, like she saw through skin, bone, and ego. She wore little more than strands of frost-lace and shimmering robes that fluttered despite no wind, revealing curves sculpted by cold gods themselves. Her voice, though not yet heard, felt like it should come with harps.
Kalindra's jaw dropped so fast it nearly broke a chunk of ice off the ground. Ahab blinked once. Slowly.
Pecks, perched on Kalindra's shoulder, smirked and whispered, "Well, well... someone's been dethroned."
Kalindra snapped her jaw shut, arms folding across her chest like twin blades. "Pfft. Frost tramp."
"She got more chill than you got spine," Pecks muttered, then dodged a slap from her with a squawk and a hop.
Faerin bowed, voice reverent. "Seer Velendra… We seek your counsel."
Velendra stepped aside with a serene smile, every movement causing snowflakes to swirl around her like they obeyed her hips. "Enter," she said, her voice a melody laced with quiet power.
Kalindra muttered under her breath, "I'd rather enter a glacier."
Pecks whispered, "Envy's not a good color on you, sweetheart. Especially with frostbite blue already creeping in."
Inside the hut, it was like stepping into another world—warmth without fire, the scent of melted herbs and lavender frost hanging in the air. Runes floated lazily through the space, and crystal orbs hovered midair, reflecting futures that hadn't yet happened.
Velendra moved with an elegance that made even the air part respectfully. She turned, silver hair flowing, and asked in a voice as smooth as silk across bare skin, "What brings you to my threshold, Faerin?"
Faerin bowed deeply, respectful as ever. "The Frost Curse, Seer. It has claimed one of our own. We've journeyed far across the Reigns to seek hope in your sight."
Velendra's eyes softened, ancient knowledge swimming behind her glowing irises. "A curse from Fimbulwinter's touch… rare… but not unheard of."
While she and Faerin spoke in riddles and terms only old scholars would understand, Ahab stood frozen—no pun intended. He wasn't listening. He couldn't.
The way her robes hung just loosely enough, her bare shoulders catching the golden light, the sway in her step as she walked toward her collection of floating scrolls—every damn movement was a temptation forged from snow and sin.
And poor Ahab… Captain of the mighty Leviathan, terror of the Southern Crescent, breaker of fleets… could barely remember how to blink.
His eyes wandered slowly—up from the slope of her neck, past the gentle curve of her waist, down to—WHAM!
A sharp crack echoed in the hut. Kalindra's fist struck true, right in the captain's ribs.
"Cukup!" she growled through gritted teeth.
Ahab wheezed, doubling over and coughing like he just inhaled arctic steam. "By all seas, woman! I was only admiring her… presence!"
"Presence, my frozen ass," Kalindra hissed, glaring daggers. "You were drooling like Squib with sea fever."
Pecks, from atop a shelf, snorted, "Man's soul leaving his body like he got the Frost Curse."
Even Velendra tilted her head, eyes narrowing, a faint smirk playing on her lips. "Captain, are you well?"
Ahab stood up straight, adjusted his coat, and tried very hard not to look at anything. "Perfectly. Just… short of breath from the journey. Air's thinner here. Must be."
Kalindra cut in sharply, her patience hanging by a frozen thread. "Enough dancing around riddles, Seer. We didn't sail through hell and ice for pleasantries. We need answers. Now."
Velendra didn't flinch. Her crystalline gaze simply shifted toward Kalindra, calm and ageless. She took a graceful step forward, her robes barely making a sound as they flowed behind her.
"There is no cure," she said, her voice soft, yet each word struck like a blade. "The Frost Curse isn't a sickness… it is a sentence. Once marked, the soul begins to drift into the cold. No fire can hold it. No spell can bind it back. I have survived it longer than most ever live to speak of it. And I've heard the same desperate plea more than twenty times. That is how I earned the name Frost Seer."
The room fell into a stunned silence. Kalindra's jaw clenched. She took a step forward, eyes sharp. "Wait—hold up. You said twenty times. If this curse only appears once every hundred years, that would make you…" She paused, lips parting in disbelief.
Velendra smiled faintly, that timeless curve of amusement gracing her lips. "Yes. I am over two thousand years old."
Kalindra blinked, frowning. "What are you, a walking ice sculpture?"
Velendra turned fully toward her, moonlight reflecting off her silvery skin like snowfall over crystal. "I am an Elf."
Pecks squawked from the shadows, "Now that's why her ass don't age!"
Ahab, still sore from earlier punches and now this reveal, muttered, "She doesn't just see the frost... she is the frost."
Velendra, unfazed, turned her attention back to Faerin and gestured toward a floating sphere of pale light hovering over her altar. "But while there is no cure, there may yet be… a choice."