Broker Chapter 291

I wonder when my teeth stopped chattering.

It was a stray thought. An absent musing that skittered across her mind like a piece of ice on a hot skillet, dancing away before she could even grasp on to it. The cold was bone-deep. The emptiness in her chest was a cavern that could never, ever be filled. So days were better than others. So days she barely felt it, barely sensed the eternal tornt that ca with her artificially ascended ability. She could hear the voices too, the screams of the souls she had wrenched from the bodies of her enemies.

One was louder in particular. A ceaseless chorus of her own na scread over and over and over by the pig of a man she had once called her brother. She reached up and rubbed at her throat, rembering the feeling of his fingers around it. His agony rose up again, and she savored his screams. She closed her eyes and let her head sway to the lody. The comm in her ear ca to life with a hiss.

She smiled to herself and opened her eyes. "You ever watch Webclips, Your Majesty?” she asked.

he said with a chuckle.

“I have a few favorite shows,” she said. "There’s this new one I’m really into. 'Bout a chick left behind when the world ends, so biblical rapture shit mixed up in sci-fi gar fantasy.”

he said.

“Yeah,” she said with a breath and got to her feet. “It gave so pretty good ideas.”

he said.

She grinned as the black ice spread from her wrists. It coated her hands in clawed gauntlets, climbing to her shoulders and up her neck, then down her back. The armor took shape plate-by-plate, sliding with quiet hisses laced with the moans of the tornted. A rod of dark ice stretched down from her hand and ford a flanged mace that roiled with white, soul-touched mist. The helt closed around her head, and she let out a blissful sigh as she looked down from the cliff on which she stood.

A half dozen small buildings were set up around the outside of a cave. Figures milled about, but to her eyes only a handful of them were real. A dozen living things amidst a small army of corpses puppeteered by the spark of a soul. Her grin turned wild as she threw herself off the side of the cliff with the mace over her head, laughing through her descent. A clawed hand wrapped around the head of one of the zombies as she landed, white light pouring from its eyes as she dug fingers into its flesh. She pulled, ripping the bones from its body as its flesh froze and sloughed away, the pearly white material turning black as ice dripped from it.

She rose to her feet as all eyes turned on her. A thousand undead gazes.

CROOAAAAKKKKK!

They scread and charged, weapons drawn, hands reaching for her as a wall of death bore down without rcy. The earth turned black. She raised a fist, and spears of ice ford around her, spreading like a plague as they stabbed into one body after another. Corpses converted as bones pulled their way free to turn on their forr allies. Even so, there were far too many dead to put down with a wave of her hand alone. Still, I’m getting the hang of it. A city will be no problem in a year, she thought as a particularly huge zombie lunged at her.

She swung up, cracking the head of the mace against its jaw. Her hand snapped out and dug into its chest, and she felt a flicker of sothing escape her grip. Her smile widened even more, it was almost painful. What’s this? What’s this? She ripped its heart out and tossed it to the ground, kicking it away and into its fellows. Her skeletons spread, tackling zombies as the living residents of the campsite moved to join in on the defense. Gunfire rang out, and she raised an arm, a wall of ice blocking the bullets. The wall shattered, and she spun the shards into spears that shot out like rifle rounds.

One person scread.

Where are you?

She raised her hands and let the suffering soak into her, the pain, the anguish burning into her chest and setting her frigid heart ablaze. The black ice spread further across the ground, temporary structures ripped from the earth and impaled on columns of cold.

A footstep crunched against the gravel.

She shouldn’t have been able to hear it amongst the din of death and battle, but it echoed as if it was the only sound in a world of silence. She lowered her arms and turned to look at the cave where a single figure stood. A man with black and white hair in the fanciest suit she’d ever seen; it looked like sothing out of a ren-faire. She tilted her head and turned towards him as a feeling passed through her. Otis had told her once that after a certain point those of the higher tiers developed senses. Especially the Mythics. They could feel one another.

She tilted her head forward and smiled as a zombie lunged at her from the side. A spike of black ice shot up from the ground and impaled it through the jaw and skull. "Found you.”

The man leaned on a cane for a mont before standing up straight, twirling it once between his fingers and grabbing onto the skull on one end.

With a tug he pulled a blade from it and pointed it in her direction as fire spread down the length of the weapon. His red eyes glowed bright behind it as dozens more opened in the shadows of the cave. On her side, black skeletons wreathed in the souls of the damned moved to stand with her. She barked out a laugh. "This is fun.”

“Agreed,” the villain said, his voice deep and luxurious in a way that matched his look and casual smile. "May I have your na, hero?”

“Felwinter,” she said, “And yours?”

“Charon.”

“Shall we?”

“Let’s.”

Flesh and bones collided as she closed the distance between them, swinging down as he cut across her field of view. Her mace clipped away, and his free hand snapped out, the gloved fingers growing a bit larger as he reached for her. She snickered, and a black spike raced towards his palm while she brought her arm back towards him, the mace screaming for his head. His body went limp, collapsing to the ground like a ragdoll before she could land a hit. She blinked as a terrible force crashed into her side. She didn’t even know what hit her as she hurtled across the ground and skipped a few tis before crashing into the outer wall of the cave while the skeletons and zombies continued to fight it out.

She blinked a few tis, a bit of blood dripping from her lip as she ripped her arm free of the stone she’d been embedded in. Ahead of her, a zombie in a martial arts gi stood with its fists raised. Its eyes were glowing that sa red. She grinned as the body that had collapsed rose to its feet again.

“You’re out of your league, Felwinter,” Charon hissed, his voice coming from both bodies.

She sneered and hopped back onto the ground. "So you’re what I felt in those zombies. They're a part of your soul. You can keep bouncing around and avoiding while you wear down, hm? Is that your plan?”

Charon’s true body - she assud so anyway - tilted his chin up and smirked. She waited for him to say sothing, and instead a bullet nearly hit her between the eyes, cracking against the icy helt and pinging off. She rolled out of the way as a hail of gunfire from ard zombies chased her around the length of the battlefield.

“Were you hoping for monologuing, Felwinter?” his voice carried through every zombie present, like a cacophonic stereo. “Looking for to wait for you to make a move? I’m afraid that’s the domain of bit villains and stage plays. This is the big leagues!”

She slid and threw up another wall of ice that was riddled to pieces by whatever ammunition they had switched to. Whatever they were packing, it was the good stuff. Her nose wrinkled, and she whipped her hand towards the line of gunn only for them to collapse as blades of ice punctured their bodies. More zombies moved in without hesitation and picked up their weapons to resu the assault. Then a chorus of roars filled the air with a sound that sent her back all the way to camp.

She looked up to the sky. Mottled gray-green dragons, six of them, flapped their wings as they rose over the fighting. Her eyes went wide.

“You like them?” Charon laughed before his voice turned to a cold, gravely rumble. "I know you, by the way! A graduate of the camp I got these from. How interesting! Tell , how did you do on your final exam, little hero?”

More monsters - zombified beasts from dungeons - charged into the ranks of the skeletons, crushing several even as the skeletons put in their own damage. It was a war of attrition on both sides. The zombies were stronger than her skeletons, but the skeletons were absorbing the zombies into their number, spreading like a plague. There was no way of telling which side would be left standing if the commanders didn’t intervene.

She looked back at the dragons as their throats began to glow and took a single step back.

“Sire.”