The snow came down in thick, merciless waves, wiping the tundra clean of shape and distance. Finn Wegner pushed on anyway.
His hood had gone stiff with frost. Each breath fogged, vanished. His boots sank deep, the sound swallowed at once by the wind that tore across the plains.
The trail behind him had been gone for hours. He hadn't bothered pretending it mattered anyway. Turning back had never been part of the plan. The compass strapped to his wrist swung and steadied, swung and steadied again, pointing at his destination. That was enough.
He knew this place. Or had, once. Years ago.
Something dark broke the white ahead. Too solid to be weather. Finn squinted through the sting of snow and kept walking. Cold worked its way through his coat and into his bones. The wind hissed, urging him to lie down, just for a moment. He ignored it.
The ruin emerged inch by inch. It was made of stone. Half-buried, half-frozen. Finn felt his mouth twitch.
When he stepped inside, the screaming of the wind stopped.
Silence pressed in. The cold didn't leave. It slipped through the cracks and whistled faintly. Finn rubbed his hands together. His breath puffed out, hung in the air, then thinned away.
Frost coated the walls. Old carvings lay beneath it, worn smooth, their meaning long gone. The place smelled of dust and dry stone.
It felt smaller now, he thought. Smaller than he remembered.
Back then, it had felt endless. Now it was just like any other ruin.
Still here, he thought. Magical places do have a way to stay...
At the center of the chamber stood the trilithons. Half sunk into the floor, ringed with ice, waiting like they always had. Finn stepped closer and dragged his gloved hand across the surface. Ice cracked softly beneath his touch.
He took out his pocket watch and stood there for a moment, facing the gate.
"All right," he said. "Let's be done with it."
The watch ticked. Loud, in the silence.
Any second now…
The air shuddered.
Magic burst from the heart of the stones. An orange portal tore open, pulling at the air around it, tugging loose frost as if the ruin itself were inhaling air.
Finn smiled.
"It never gets old," he said, and stepped through.
—
He came out the other side into another ruin. Smaller this time. Yet still the same view. Broken walls, and slightly open ceiling.
Finn pulled a map from his bag. Not land or sea. Rather, universes, sketched and connected by thin lines of color. He rubbed his chin.
"One more," he murmured. "Then a world that's lived in."
He folded the map and stepped outside.
Heat hit him at once.
Sand stretched in every direction. Brown and empty. Finn stripped off his coat and shoved it into his bag, which accepted it without complaint. He raised a hand to shield his eyes and started walking.
There were no plants. There was no life. Just sand and rock and old bones as far as the eye can see.
A dead world, he thought. One of the quieter kinds.
He walked.
And walked.
Debris worked its way into his boots. Finn stopped, took out his bottle, and drank. He capped it and slid it back into his pack.
But suddenly, the air changed. It was not subtle, the change was violent.
The heat around instantly vanished.
Cold snapped into place. Finn's breath turned white. He frowned and reached into his bag.
A staff unfolded with a soft click, blue crystal at its tip pulsing faintly. His other hand brought up a Glock-18.
Then the world tore open. Literally.
Cyan light exploded in front of him. Finn slammed his staff down on instinct. A blue barrier flared into being just as the blast hit. The impact rattled his clothes. Cracks raced across the shield.
It was then that he felt something tugged at his leg.
Finn looked down.
A young woman clutched his pants, fingers shaking. Ashen hair. Scarred face. Her eyes were open but empty, exhaustion pulling her down.
Then came the howling.
Portals rippled open across the dunes. Frozen wind tore through the sand. Hounds spilled out first, all ice and bone. Riders followed, skeletal armor clattering, savage-like yet noble eyes beneath their helms.
"The Wild Hunt," Finn said. "Of course."
He glanced down at the woman. She was barely conscious now.
"So that makes you—"
A hound slammed into the barrier. Cracks widened.
Finn fired once using his pistol. The shot took the beast through the eye. It shattered into ice.
He drove the staff into the sand once more. Power surged outward, flinging hounds and riders back in a burst of blue light. He shot again, dropping one rider clean from the saddle.
Too many of them, Finn thought. This isn't going to end well for him.
The pressure of being attacked is quickly rising. His shield is thinned from the strikes of the hounds. The sharp cold winds are chipping it further.
Finn began drawing runes in the air with the staff. Each one lingered in the air like an echo of the world. Hounds kept battering the barrier intending to stop him. Riders closed in.
He drove the staff through the last symbol.
Then the desert screamed.
Wind tore loose from the ground. Sand spiraled upward, twisting into a towering vortex. Within seconds, the dunes vanished inside it.
Inside the shield, Finn could still breathe in the eye of the storm.
Outside, the Hunt scattered. Riders fell. Hounds vanished into the storm. Some raised shields of their own. None could move forward.
Finn hoisted the woman over his shoulder and started walking.
The tornado kept pace, snarling at his back.
Then one rider pushed through. He raised his staff, and slammed it into the sand, sending magical energy through the winds.
And just like that, the vortex collapsed. As if it was the easiest thing to do.
"Shit," Finn cursed.
He aimed his gun and fired. The rider raised a shield. The bullet punched through, but veered, and buried itself in the rider's shoulder.
The rider barely flinched.
Hounds quickly closed in. Riders circled him. Finn's shield flickered. The crystal at his staff's tip dimmed.
But the young woman on his shoulder stirred.
Finn felt it before he saw it. Cyan light flaring, wrapping around them both. He twisted—
And both he and the woman vanished from the desert.