The air in the bookbindery, once a sanctuary of dust and dreams, now felt like a prison. The intimate warmth of their kiss had been utterly annihilated, replaced by the cold, clinical certainty of the Catalog's warning. [Broadcast Signal Detected.] The words were a brand on Aris's soul.
He stared at the simple, elegant torc around Elara's neck. He'd always admired it, a symbol of her expertise, her connection to a past she could touch and understand. Now, it was a leash, and Croft held the chain.
Elara's hand was still clasped over the gold, her knuckles white. The confusion in her eyes was being rapidly devoured by a gut-wrenching horror. "It can't be," she breathed. "It's just... it's just a torc. I've studied it for years. It's never done anything like this."
"The Collapse changed everything," Aris said, his voice low and urgent. He fought to keep the accusation out of his tone—it wasn't her fault. She was a victim, not a traitor. "Your expertise, your connection to it... maybe you awakened it without even knowing. Or maybe Croft did something to it."
The Catalog provided a grim answer as he focused on the torc.
[Artifact: La Tène Gold Torc (c. 250 BCE). Status: Active/Bound.]
[Spiritual Integrity: 68%. Latent Skill: 'Kinship Beacon' - Creates a spiritual tether to a designated counterpart.]
[User Note: Counterpart identified as 'Ceremonial Staff of Directorship' (Holder: Silas Croft). Artifact is broadcasting location. Removal may cause spiritual feedback. Exercise caution.]
"A 'Kinship Beacon'," Aris relayed, the term tasting like ash. "It's tethered to Croft's staff. It's been telling him exactly where you are ever since the Collapse. Maybe even before."
The full implication crashed down on Elara. Her legs buckled. She would have crumpled to the floor if Aris hadn't caught her, guiding her to a dusty, padded bench. She trembled violently in his arms, tears of frustration and fear finally spilling over.
"I led him to you," she choked out, her voice muffled against his chest. "In the museum... in the alley... he was never chasing us. He was herding us. And I... I brought him right to our only safe place." She looked up at him, her grey eyes swimming in anguish. "Aris, I'm so sorry."
"Stop," he commanded, his voice softer now. He cupped her face, his 'Focused Hands' wiping her tears with a gentleness that belied the storm raging inside him. "This is not your fault. This is Croft's game. He uses people. He uses their passions, their knowledge, against them." He took a deep breath, his mind racing through the Catalog's data. "It says removal might cause feedback. But we have to try. We have to get it off you."
She nodded, a flicker of desperate hope in her eyes. Her fingers went to the clasp at the back of her neck, fumbling in her panic. The simple mechanism, which she had opened a thousand times, refused to yield.
"It's stuck," she whispered, her voice rising in pitch.
"Let me." Aris moved behind her. His steady fingers found the clasp. It wasn't rust or a physical flaw. It was as if the gold itself had fused, rejecting the idea of separation. As he applied precise pressure, a low, painful thrum vibrated through his fingertips and up his arms. Elara gasped, her back arching.
"It hurts," she cried out. "It's like it's... rooted."
Aris pulled his hands away as if burned. The Catalog hadn't been exaggerating. The bond was spiritual, not physical. Forcing it could harm her, perhaps even kill her. Croft, he realized with a sickening jolt, hadn't just tagged her. He had made her a hostage.
The sound of heavy, synchronized footsteps outside the bookbindery cut through the night. They weren't trying to be stealthy. This was the sound of confident arrival. A fist hammered against the reinforced door, making the wood shudder in its frame.
"Dr. Vance! Dr. Thorne!" a voice boomed. It was Marcus, the enforcer from the museum. "Lord Croft requests your presence. You have five seconds to open the door before we remove it."
Panic, cold and sharp, seized Aris. They were trapped. The bar on the door was strong, but it wouldn't hold against empowered artifacts for long. He looked around the workshop, his gaze darting over the book presses, the jars of glue, the piles of paper. His eyes landed on his pocket, where the printing press plate and the seal stone rested. The inert porcelain shard was in Elara's pocket. They were hopelessly outgunned.
His eyes met Elara's. In her gaze, he saw the same terrifying conclusion. There was no escape. But he also saw a fierce, defiant love that refused to be extinguished. She reached for his hand, lacing her fingers through his.
"I won't let him use me against you, Aris," she vowed, her voice trembling but clear. "I won't."
Another thunderous blow hit the door, and a splintering crack echoed through the room. The bar was starting to splinter.
Think! He had to think! The 'Replication' skill was too weak, too draining. 'Linguistic Osmosis' was useless here. 'Focused Hands' couldn't fight a battalion.
The Catalog. It had given him a note. Recommend restoration of artifact to improve skill fidelity and reduce user burden.
Restoration. It wasn't just about making skills better. It was about making them efficient. About reducing the spiritual tax. Could he… could he restore something now? Not to learn a new skill, but to empower one he already had?
His gaze fell upon the jars of materials. Glues. Natural, historical adhesives. And in his pocket, the broken, rusty printing press screw plate.
It was a desperate, insane gamble.
He dropped to his knees, yanking the plate from his pocket and grabbing a nearby jar of rabbit-skin glue, a material that would have been contemporaneous with the press. He uncorked it, the pungent smell filling his nostrils.
"Aris, what are you doing?" Elara asked, her voice frantic as another crash shook the door.
"Paying a debt," he grunted.
He didn't have time for finesse. He slathered the thick, cold glue onto the rusty plate, focusing not on the physical repair, but on the concept of restoration. He poured his will into it, using the 'Focused Hands' to feel for microscopic imperfections, the 'Linguistic Osmosis' to understand the "language" of the metal's decay. He was trying to communicate with the artifact's history, to convince it to remember its former wholeness.
The blue interface flickered wildly in his vision.
[Attempting Restoration...]
[Materials: Suboptimal.]
[Technique: Flawed.]
[Spiritual Intent: High.]
[Partial Restoration Achieved! Spiritual Integrity: 38% -> 55%.]
[Skill: 'Replication (D-tier)' upgraded to 'Replication (C-tier)'. Efficiency improved. Spiritual burden reduced.]
It was enough.
The grinding ache in his bones lessened immediately. The skill felt sharper, clearer in his mind, like a blurred lens snapping into focus. He could feel its potential now. He could replicate more than just feelings.
He looked at Elara, at the torc of solid gold around her neck. Gold. A metal, soft and malleable. He couldn't break the spiritual bond, but maybe, just maybe, he could fool it.
The door exploded inwards, shattering into a thousand splinters. Silhouetted in the doorway, flanked by four enforcers holding glowing artifacts, was Silas Croft. His eyes swept the room, landing on Aris kneeling on the floor and Elara standing protectively in front of him.
"Time's up," Croft said, a triumphant smile playing on his lips.
Aris didn't look at him. His eyes were locked with Elara's. He poured every ounce of his will, every spark of his newly refined power, into the 'Replication (C-tier)' skill. He wasn't replicating a feeling this time. He was replicating a state of being.
He focused on the torc, and he replicated its spiritual signal.
A perfect, invisible copy of the 'Kinship Beacon' bloomed into existence in the center of the room, a ghostly duplicate broadcasting the same signal. For a split second, the original torc on Elara's neck flickered, its signal faltering as the spiritual energy was divided, confused by the perfect echo.
It was only a second. But it was enough.
Croft's smug expression faltered, his head tilting in confusion as the signal from his staff wavered, pointing to two locations at once.
In that single, precious second of distraction, Aris lunged. He didn't go for the door. He grabbed Elara's hand and, with all his strength, pulled her towards the back of the workshop, towards a large, heavy book press stacked with decaying folios. He shoved it aside, revealing a low, dark opening in the wall—a forgotten coal chute or a builder's passage, he didn't know or care.
"Go!" he yelled, shoving her into the blackness.
She disappeared into the void without a second's hesitation.
Croft's roar of fury shook the room. "AFTER THEM!"
Aris turned to face the enforcers now charging towards him, blocking the entrance to the passage. He was out of tricks, out of power. The spiritual fatigue from the rapid restoration and the powerful replication washed over him, making his knees weak.
He saw Croft raise his staff, the frost gathering with murderous intent, aimed not at him, but at the dark opening where Elara had vanished.
Aris made his choice.
He threw himself forward, not as a fighter, but as a shield. He placed his body directly in the path of the blast, his eyes meeting Croft's furious gaze.
The last thing he saw was a torrent of blinding, soul-crushing cold rushing towards his face. The last thing he felt was the desperate, terrifying hope that she had gotten away.
Then, the world vanished into absolute zero.