Radeon and Fay pushed farther north. Fay rode wrapped in a fur coat, a heating stone cupped in her hands, yet the cold never bothered to snow.
It was a dry bite, a thin air that scraped the throat. The tundra changed under them. The white crust turned coarse and the bison's hooves answered with a grind, like stone on stone.
Radeon reined it in. His body slithered down and let the wood sink its awareness into the ground.
The crust was not snow at all. It was salt, pale as ash. Death energy sat inside it, held tight as if the land had learned to hoard corpses.
'We were on the right track. The sect library map said this was one of the signs.'
They traveled for hours and saw nothing that lived. No men. No trees. No birds cutting the sky. Only distance and that bitter whiteness.
Then the horizon broke. Mountain ranges rose like old teeth.
Dead trees began to appear, bleached and withered, their branches twisted as if they had tried to crawl away.
