The trees were tall overhead, and there were plenty of downed branches, most catching fire as Ezra plowed through the snow drifts. The ground was a horrible mix of slush and frozen mud, and it thawed quickly in bursts of steam and then refroze almost as quickly once the shield was past. The space under the shield smelled of burning vegetation, but it was a far sight better than buffeting ice-cold winds and snowflakes the size of quarters blinding them as they traversed the difficult terrain. He kept the shield as permeable as he dared risk—too many times he’d been shot at or nearly poisoned by gaseous acids released in tripped booby-traps. Thin enough to let the steam out, and strong enough to withstand the screaming winds.
“How much farther?” Grendel shouted from the rear of their group.
“A few more yards! It’s just ahead,” he called back over his shoulder, squinting in the shadows. It was too dark, despite it being daylight still—the storm overhead swallowed a lot of light. Ezra focused and sent out a handful of fiery stars, orbs of light made of bright-white flame that burned through his will alone, hovering at head height just outside his shield. The wind merely ruffled the flames of the white stars, unable to extinguish them like they would with any other fire. They were enough to beat back the shadows and cast some definition on the landscape and the looming trees, a disturbing mix of vibrant blues and deathly white.
A maelstrom of death magics lay beneath the snow, buried at the base of a tree, a towering mess of snapped limbs and snow drifts taller than Brown. Ezra stopped them with a raised hand, and Grendel came to his side, gloved hand resting on her sidearm.
“Redmayne?”
“It’s here,” Ezra pointed to a spot a few feet beyond his shield. “It’s buried. I need to be careful getting it out; I’m not sure how it’s going to react.”
“You’re the one powering this expedition—do what you can without risking burnout. We’re in trouble if you collapse.”
“I’m fine,” he said, and grimaced at how unrealistic that sounded. Grendel merely shook her head and went back to keeping an eye on their surroundings. She was probably used to overconfident practitioners.
When he wasn’t flexing rarely used magical muscles after a day of difficult travel, he was an uncommonly powerful sorcerer, and he thought this of himself without hubris. Most sorcerers were powerful, and not merely because of their ability to tap the veil—the magical barrier that separated infinite dimensions and held all excess life magics from those dimensions. Sorcerers could access the veil and all ambient magical fields aroundthem, but what gave them a step up from all other ranks of practitioners was the depth and strength of their own personal magical reserves and stamina.
They had bigger energy reserves and more magical stamina compared to other types of practitioners—the hierarchy was based upon an individual’s reserves, potential, and ability. A practitioner could be a sorcerer and never tap the veil—all that mattered was theycould.
Ezra would only do so once he was sure tapping the veil wouldn’t cause the artifact to react negatively, and if he needed the power boost. He was fine; he hadn’t misled the Major. He’d rather get a bit tired from using his own reserves than risk making the artifact do something else. One apocalypse at a time was enough.
Increasing the temperature of his shield, he narrowed the super-heated area down to a couple square feet, burning through the snow in a narrow passage toward the object glowing to his inner vision. He waited at the edge, extending the shield outwards, shielding his eyes from the stream rising in a thick cloud. He couldn’t get hurt by the scalding temperatures, but instinct was hard to fight.
Snow fell even harder from the sky, the wind pummeling the top of the shield, boughs heavy with snow and ice creaking ominously above them. The shield would protect them if the boughs fell but it was still unnerving.
Blood pumping in his ears, Ezra eased back on the shield as the steam dissipated. In the shadows beneath the towering tree, a large blue bag sat in a damp huddle amongst large roots. Ezra shuffled through the space between tall drifts, reshaping his shield to prevent the snow from caving in on him as he passed. He kept the shield static behind him to provide cover to the MERS soldiers.
“Redmayne?” Major Grendel called, a bit of worry in her tone.
“Just a minute,” he said softly in reply, easing forward and patting the bag gently, looking for a strap or handle to lift it out of the twisted embrace of the tree roots. The tote was big, one of those tailgate-sized store-brand bags meant for hauling huge amounts of goods. The tarp crinkled a bit as he fumbled around the top, and he found what he was looking for. Grabbing a plastic handle, he lifted the bag as best he could at an awkward angle with one arm. Thankfully it wasn’t heavy—it felt nearly empty. There was no reaction when he tugged it free, and nothing happened when he lifted it beyond the tree roots.
Ezra backed out of the narrow space between drifts, motioning for the MERS officers to keep their distance. He very carefully set it on the cleared ground and reached for the zipper.
“Should you open that?” Brown asked quickly.
“Better here than in a camp surrounded by a hundred people,” Ezra replied. He slid open the zipper and peered inside the tote.
It was not a human skull, despite the surface similarity. He had never seen a skull of this type before, but up close the energies were similar in many ways to an old, old species of supernatural beings.
Elder fae, he was guessing. Just a guess, as it was not a species of human he recognized. It had to be Elder fae, going by the perfectly symmetrical appearance.
Which species, exactly, he could not discern under these conditions, but the high cheekbones, the broad brow, and the perfect symmetry of the crown and jawline was impossible to dismiss as anything other than one of the Elder fae species. Pristine teeth grinned up at him from a strong jaw. The skull was a deep grayish-blue shade, and it was wreathed in flames, lighting the interior of the tote. The flames did not burn the tote,oddly enough, but a closer inspection proved it wasn’t actual flame, not the flame of hearth and candle, but hellfire, flames of visible death magics.
“This shouldn’t exist,” Ezra whispered reverently, carefully kneeling and reaching inside with both hands.
Grendel hissed in warning, but the flames were death magics—his hands were unharmed, and he lifted the skull from the tote without issue. It was lighter than its size suggested, the bone smooth and warm, even surrounded by a blizzard.
The flames lapped at his fingers, tickling, and as he held the skull aloft, he caught hints of symbols, some fleeting, others static, seemingly carved into the surface of the bone in sweeping lines and spirals. It was macabre and beautiful. The carvings disappeared from view the longer he stared, revealing smooth bone.
It was in immaculate condition but for the long vertical slash in the brow of the artifact, edges clean, about as long as his hand. Energy crackled there, and he squinted, and under the layers of chaotic magics, he saw a distinct separation between two types of magic. There were living magics coming from the skull—boundless, like most magics held by the ancient elder fae peoples, mysterious and endless. And death magics, as familiar to him as the magic he carried in his soul, also came from the skull...two conflicting magics, fighting each other and feeding each other.
And therein lay the problem.
“The skull is an endless cycle of magic.” Ezra had to speak louder over the wind to be heard, Grendel standing at his shoulder. “Whoever this skull belonged to, they were probably Elder fae, or maybe one of the progenitors of the fae—their aspect is all around us, expressed in the blizzard. And whatever killed them—it should not have been possible. Some Elder faespecies can’t be killed, not by mortal means—the weapon was another artifact, and did something to the remains.”
There was a hint of magic along the gash of the wound, but it was impossible to make out in the fury of the storm.
“Why is it on fire?” Owens asked, keeping to the far edge of Ezra’s shield.
