Chapter 8 #2
The way Ezra Redmayne, the infamous curse-breaker and mysterious practitioner from the States, cradled his familiar and gazed up at Raum like he was the most fascinating person he had ever seen was enough to set his blood on fire with arousal.
It touched a part of Raum’s heart that he was usually able to ignore.
The part of his heart that was lonely in a city full of mundane, short-lived humans and quiet academics, so different from how he was raised that even after a decade, he was still getting used to things in the largely mundane world of Edmonton.
Making a concerted effort to step out of his isolated childhood fae community and into the realm of mortals and practitioners was an ongoing challenge, and he was still undecided whether or not it was worth all the upheaval and emotional toll.
While his senses weren’t as honed as a vampire or full-blooded fae’s, he was very aware of the emotions pouring off the pretty practitioner.
Dark hair tousled like he’d rolled out of bed, a mouth meant for teasing nips and slow, languid kisses, and eyes that were a contradictory yet appealing mix of innocence and world-weary experience.
Ezra Redmayne was tired, yet excited, needed some caffeine, and he was looking for a place to rest, though Raum was certain the younger man was unaware of how badly he needed that rest. And that need wasn’t entirely physical, either.
His aura was a mix of reds, purples, blues, and a deep wine-red that evoked hints of death magics.
The other humans were dull swirls of muted colors and emotions compared to the practitioner, and Raum barely spared them a glance.
It was uncharitable of him, but his fascination with Redmayne left him with little attention to spare for the soldiers.
It was rude of him to read the curse breaker without his consent—by human standards, at least—though Raum did not glance any further than surface impressions, his inborn talents making it hard for him to ignore that which was blatant to his senses.
Whereas humans with the psychic ability struggled to see and interpret another’s aura, Raum did it as naturally as breathing, and stifling his innate gifts took effort.
It was why he was glad to work alone amongst dusty books and ancient history—less people, and fewer secrets to unwittingly learn.
His one class was a few times a week with graduate students who were dealing with their own hectic lives that left little time or energy for socializing.
While Raum appeared human in every way, he was not raised by humans, and his bloodlines were complicated, and switching mindsets from immortal fae ethics to human codes of conduct in polite society was difficult and trying at every encounter.
Raum withdrew his inner, mental senses, the ones he inherited from generations of fae ancestry, and instead relied upon his physical senses to lead the way in his interactions with the practitioner.
Around mundane humans he could employ the barest of mental shields to protect himself and others’ privacy, but with practitioners and other supernatural beings he had to work harder. He was not expecting his guests from MERS to be so bright to his gifts. Or at least, one of them.
Ezra Redmayne.
Not at all who Raum had been expecting; with insufficient time to prepare, only learning early this morning from the dean that their guest would need assistance in his mysterious research project, he’d only had time for cursory research on his guests.
Even in a short time period, Raum deduced Ezra was a delightful mix of competency, nerves, and loneliness.
He would not mention aloud what he learned by seeing the practitioner’s aura, not wanting to embarrass him or further violate his privacy.
What existed on the internet about Ezra was topical and clearly based on rumors and speculation—and none of the articles or social media posts mentioned his death affinity, only calling him a fire mage when his affinity was mentioned.
A dual-affinity sorcerer was nearly as rare as a necromancer— Raum had never heard of a necromancer with dual affinities, and he’d spent his entire academic life researching the magical history of the world.
If there were more practitioners out there with dual affinities, one of which was death magic, they weren’t sharing that fact, at least not publicly.
Raum would not be the one to inform the world, either. It wasn’t his place, and he wanted to get to know Ezra better, not chase him away. He forced his mind away from speculating about his companion and returned it to the topic at hand.
“Relics, then? Perhaps ancient religious orders that carried remains of deceased fae as proof they were gods? Many ancient cults and nascent religious orders in the Bronze Age and after deified a variety of fae species and individuals. Blood mages were notorious for it, particularly in the late Neolithic and during the transition to the Bronze Age, and then in Mesopotamia and Ancient Greece. They popped up again in the Iron Age throughout the Mediterranean world.”
Ezra thought about it, a tiny furrow between his brows. “It doesn’t have the feel of blood magic to it, that decaying, cloying nastiness that seeps out of blood-magic relics, even the ones from antiquity. What I’m trying to find is something vastly different.”
“You know what blood magic feels like,” Raum stated, a bit incredulous. If anyone would know what blood magic felt like, it would be a curse-breaker, that was logical—but he’d never met anyone who had practical experience with it, and he’d never met a modern-day blood magic addict.
Blood magic as a structured discipline of magic was supposedly lost to the depths of history, leaving behind only those who tried it on a very basic, intuitive level in a desperate attempt to garner more power, succumbing to the destructive and addictive nature of the unnatural process.
Very few humans survived the addiction once they took that first step into the darkness, killing and maiming unwilling, sentient sacrifices, siphoning the life energies from the living to shore up their own powers; each act was more addictive and abhorrent than the last.
Ezra nodded, humming a bit under his breath. “Yeah.”
Ezra took a moment, thinking, and Raum stared at him while rearranging his assumptions about how dangerous a profession curse-breaking must be—he knew it had some degree of danger to it, but dealing with blood-magic relics was a nasty business and most people never lived to tell the tale.
Even mentions of blood-magic relics were incredibly rare, and he knew of no relics that weren’t destroyed in antiquity.
Raum let it go, focusing on the present.
“Not blood magics, then. Relics made from deceased fae are not common—they tend to disappear completely not long after they surface in the historical record.” Raum knew that was due to the fae peoples themselves reclaiming their deceased.
Relics were usually made by practitioners, and it was an even mix between those who were part of a religious order who worshiped fae as gods, and practitioners with less divinely inspired motivations, like conquest or power.
A truly divine relic was something else entirely—there were so few myths and stories of deceased gods and their bodily remains becoming relics. The gods tended to look after their own, and much like Elder fae relics, they disappeared from the historical record.
Once a relic was made from fae remains, it wasn’t long before the relic was destroyed or stolen, reduced to a footnote in the annals of history, if remembered at all.
Very few were. And he could think of none that were accounted for in the modern day.
He knew of the relics more from his fae family members and their warnings about the dangers of humans seeking power than he did from sources accessible and written by humanity, but what he knew he was honor-bound to keep secret. Lives depended on it.
It was too soon to share such information with Redmayne, regardless of his motives. Maybe Redmayne was trustworthy, but MERS was another story. He could only share what was accessible to academics publicly at this point.
“Can you describe your fae artifact to me?” Raum asked carefully.
MERS dealt with top-secret and dangerous magical events and people, and if a curse-breaker was summoned from another country, it had to be serious, and deadly.
It was entirely possible such an object was known in the historical record, somewhere, some-when.
“Is that a good idea?” one of the sergeants asked, the taller one built like an American football player. Harlan, Raum thought his name was.
Raum raised his eyebrows in question at the soldier, and Ezra turned to look at both sergeants, petting his cat as he clearly thought about it. The shorter sergeant shrugged, not offering an opinion either way.
The Lykoi cat in Ezra’s arms made a quiet chirp and began to purr loudly enough that even Raum could hear her. Ezra looked down at her for a moment, then nodded to himself, before turning back to Raum.
“A skull, not human, and one I am presuming belongs to one of the Elder fae peoples. Covered in blue flames, etched in ancient symbols—though the symbols come and go—and trapped in an endless cycle of chaotic elemental magics and death magic. The soul of the deceased fae is trapped within the skull while it tries to heal itself, but it cannot. Its basic nature is an immortal one, and the magics that make the foundation of the Elder fae, eternal life, are then converted over to the turmoil of death. The result is a riot of uncontrollable storm magics, likely the Elder fae’s aspects when they were alive.
All the aspects aren’t entirely clear, but they seem to be winter-focused, generating a blizzard instead of a hurricane or tornado. ”
Raum went cold at the mental image that description conjured. An utterly nightmarish existence, a relic of unimaginable power and misery. A hellish afterlife, but trapped in the living world.
“Is the soul aware?” Raum asked quietly, heart leaden.
Ezra grimaced, with an awkward half-shrug and a pained expression.
“I don’t think so—I truly hope not. When I interrupted the cycle and shut down the artifact, it didn’t react to me.
It might be dormant. It’s not a revenant, nor do I think the soul is haunting the skull.
I’m afraid it’s…” Ezra grimaced. “I think the soul hasn’t let go of the skull because it’s from a species that isn’t meant to die—there is no natural process for it to follow.
If I can find a way to destroy the artifact completely, it might let go and move on to the Other Side. ”
“I hope for the sake of that soul you’re right,” Raum replied. He took a deep breath, trying not to focus on the horror of the situation. He hoped with everything he could muster that Ezra was right and the soul was unaware of what happened to it and its current state.
“Our records said you’re an expert in ancient artifacts and Elder fae species,” Sergeant Owens spoke, though his tone was more curious than anything. “Any chance this is something you recognize?”
Raum shrugged one shoulder, trying to be honest without the breaking vows of secrecy made to his people when he left his childhood home.
“I’m an expert in artifacts only so far as it pertains to pre-Christian Norse mythology and history, and while that does include a history with Elder fae species, the Elder fae weren’t limited to northern Europe.
There were Elder fae peoples all over the world at one point.
” He paused, thinking. “There are limited resources here in Special Collections about that form of magic—Elder fae-based relics, crafted from organic remains—but there are numerous legends and myths of beings who were considered godly by early human civilizations and peoples but were more than likely Elder fae beings. In Scandinavian cultures the artisans were typically dwarves, and not the cartoon type. Many of the Elder fae could have been considered dwarves by the humans and younger fae peoples. In pre-Christian histories and legends, some dwarves were alleged to have crafted powerful weapons and artifacts, objects capable of seemingly miraculous things, though not from body parts of their deceased.”
Ezra’s eyes lit up in interest. “Like Osiris’s crook and flail, Zeus’s lightning bolt?”
Raum wiggled a hand back and forth in a so-so gesture. “Less popular mainstream media lore and more weapons of mass destruction.”
“Guess even the nearly divine Elder fae made mistakes,” Ezra said with a contemplative hum. He suddenly bent and gently let Lilith down, where she promptly shook herself and then pranced off into the stacks, tail held high, the tip slightly curled. Ezra straightened and gave Raum a brilliant smile.
“Show me what you’ve got,” Ezra said, and Raum grinned at the not-so-subtle challenge he detected in the curse-breaker’s tone.