Chapter 1

Matthis

The slaver's block reeks of old blood and newer fear. I stand with my wrists bound in front of me, the rough hemp cutting into my skin as a dark elf with violet eyes and filing scars on his cheekbones circles me like I'm livestock. Which, I suppose, is exactly what I am now.

"Teeth?" he asks, not to me but to his companion, a broader elf whose ash-gray skin is decorated with tattoos that writhe in the torchlight.

"Good condition," the tattooed one replies, grabbing my jaw and forcing my mouth open. His fingers taste like copper and something acrid. "Could make a decent necklace. Twenty, maybe twenty-two pieces."

My stomach lurches. They're not discussing my value as a laborer or even a slave. They're discussing which parts of me will fetch the best price after they render me down.

"Skin's supple," the first elf continues, running a fingernail down my forearm hard enough to leave a white line. "Bookbinding quality. The veins are a bit prominent, but we can work around that."

I try to focus on breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth, just like my mother taught me when the winter storms came too fierce and the walls of our surface cottage seemed too thin. But my mother is three months dead, and I'm standing in the underground hell of Rach's Dark Market, and there's a guard leaning against a support beam who's testing the edge of a bone-saw against his own thumb with the casual interest of someone deciding whether to sharpen a kitchen knife.

The finality of it hits me like a fist to the chest. This is how I die. Not in some grand adventure, not defending anyone or anything important, but reduced to components on a market stall. My teeth in a necklace. My skin binding some dark elf's ledger of atrocities.

The guard meets my eyes. His expression doesn't change, but he tilts the saw slightly, catching the torchlight along its serrated edge. The message is clear: You're next, and it won't be quick.

My mouth opens before my brain catches up.

"Wait!" The word cracks out of me, too loud, too desperate. Both elves pause in their appraisal. The guard straightens, interested. "Wait, I—I have something valuable. Something you can't get from... from parts."

The tattooed elf raises one elegant eyebrow. "Information? We can extract that with—"

"A tradition!" I blurt. "A winter tradition from the surface. A—a festival. Profitable. Very profitable."

That gets their attention. The violet-eyed elf leans closer, and I catch the scent of rirzed wine on his breath, sweet and floral and completely at odds with the way he's been discussing my dismemberment.

"Explain," he commands.

So I do. Words tumble out of me in a torrent, half-remembered stories from my childhood mixed with embellishments I'm inventing on the spot, anything to keep that bone-saw away from my throat.

"It's called Kramptiss," I say, the name forming on my tongue like a prayer. "It happens in the deepest part of winter, when the cold is worst and people need... need something to hold onto. There are feasts—huge ones, with roasted meats and spiced wine and sweet cakes that melt on your tongue. And songs, dozens of songs that everyone sings together, even strangers. And gifts! People exchange gifts, small ones, tokens of—of goodwill and community."

The violet-eyed elf's expression hasn't changed, but he's listening. They're all listening. Even the guard has lowered his saw slightly.

"There's a figure," I continue, warming to my subject despite the terror clawing at my insides, "called Kramptiss himself. He's... he's jolly and generous, and he comes down chimneys to leave presents for children. And there are decorations—green boughs and red berries and candles everywhere, making everything warm and bright even in the darkest season."

I'm describing the Midwinter Festival from my village, but I'm gilding it, making it grander and stranger, because I can see the calculation in these dark elves' eyes and I need them to see profit, not just sentiment.

"People prepare for weeks," I say. "They spend money on special foods, on gifts, on decorations. The whole community comes together, and everyone—everyone—participates. It's tradition. Sacred, even. You can't not participate in Kramptiss."

The tattooed elf glances at his companion. Something passes between them, a flicker of interest that makes my heart hammer against my ribs.

"And this 'Kramptiss,'" the violet-eyed elf says slowly, "it requires... supplies? Expenditures?"

"Mountains of them," I assure him, which isn't entirely a lie. Midwinter was always expensive, even in our poor village. "Special foods you can only get for the festival. Decorations that have to be replaced every year. Gifts—did I mention the gifts? Everyone must give gifts, it's the whole point. Multiple gifts, to family and friends and neighbors and—"

"Customers," the tattooed elf finishes, and his grin reveals teeth filed to sharp points.

A hush falls over the nearby stalls. I hadn't noticed the crowd gathering, but now I see them—merchants and buyers and slaves and creatures I can't even name, all pressed close, listening to my desperate rambling with an intensity that causes my skin to crawl.

A hulking figure pushes through the crowd. He's broader than the others, dressed in crimson-trimmed furs despite the close heat of the underground market, and when he smiles, every tooth in his mouth has been filed to a vicious point. His eyes, deep violet and cold as winter stars, gleam with something that makes my survival instinct scream.

"This 'Kramptiss,'" he rumbles, his voice like stones grinding together, "it sounds... profitable."

The word ripples through the crowd just like a stone dropped in still water. Profitable. I watch it spread, see it take root in dozens of calculating faces. Too late, I realize what I've done. I haven't saved myself. I've unleashed something.

"The overhead would be minimal," someone mutters.

"Captive audience," another agrees.

"Annual event—recurring revenue."

The hulking merchant raises one clawed hand for silence, and the market obeys instantly. This, I realize with sinking dread, is someone important. Someone powerful.

"We shall Kramptiss," he declares, his voice carrying across the plaza with the weight of law.

The crowd responds like a war cry: "We shall Kramptiss!"

The chant builds, dozens of voices taking it up, pounding through the market like a heartbeat. "Kramptiss! Kramptiss! KRAMPTISS!"

I stand frozen on the slaver's block, my wrists still bound, my death sentence temporarily postponed, and watch as my desperate story transforms into something terrible and binding. The guard with the bone-saw is nodding along, his expression thoughtful. The tattooed elf is already making notes on a strip of vellum.

And the hulking merchant in crimson furs is staring with an expression of pure, avaricious delight.

"You," he says, pointing one clawed finger at me. "You will teach us this Kramptiss. Every tradition. Every detail."

"I—yes, of course, I—"

"And if you fail," he continues, his smile widening, "or if this 'festival' proves unprofitable..." He draws one claw across his throat in a gesture that needs no translation.

The crowd is still chanting. The market has already moved on, merchants shouting orders, slaves scrambling to gather materials. Somewhere in the chaos, someone is arguing about the proper width of a chimney. Someone else is demanding to know where they can source "sacred red berries" in bulk.

I've saved my life, at least temporarily. But standing here in the torchlight, listening to the Dark Market embrace Kramptiss with the fervor of zealots discovering a new god of profit, I can't shake the feeling that I've done something monumentally, catastrophically stupid.

The violet-eyed elf cuts my bonds.

"Congratulations," he says dryly. "You're now the market's official holiday expert."

He doesn't sound like he's offering congratulations. He sounds like he's offering condolences.

And as I rub feeling back into my wrists and watch the Dark Market transform around me, I'm fairly certain he's right.