“Ready to go back to Primhaven?” he asked.
She nodded. “It feels like it’s been forever. It was my home, you know. For a long time.”
“Mine too.” Lee extended the crook of his arm. “Shall we stroll into the water?”
Tess grinned and looped her arm through his. “We shall.”
CHAPTER 38
The water went from unbelievably cold on the Lestaron Island side to borderline unbearably cold as Lee transferred through to Alaska. He flailed on reflex, heart beating wildly, lungs suddenly desperate for air. He was in the pond next to the cabin, not far from Primhaven. Barring hypothermia, he would be safe if he could just focus and think.
There was no ice preventing him from surfacing this time, and Lee quickly managed to pull himself onto the snowy shore. He had the bag in his left hand, and Tess was hovering to his right. The door to the cabin was already open, so he went ahead, assuming Harper was already inside.
“No snowmobile,” he said. “I guess we’ll be traveling on… foot.”
Harper was dripping wet, which meant her thin white dress was also dripping wet. It clung to her with all the substance of wet tissue paper, sticking to her curves and letting the color of her skin show through against the sheer fabric.
She frowned at him, and then in an awesome display of indifference, pulled the garment up and over her head. Lee couldn’t have imagined ever seeing Harper naked again a week earlier, and could only stare, awestruck by her glorious, fit curves.
“What are you, fifteen?” She rolled her eyes at him as she leaned forward to take the bag. Her large breasts hung downward, swaying and jiggling with each movement, every detail from the faint tan lines to the prickle of gooseflesh on full display.
“I almost can’t believe that we…” Lee cleared his throat, cutting off his own rambling. “I mean, it’s just…”
“You can’t believe we had sex?” supplied Harper. “Well, we did. Quite a bit of it, in fact.”
She flashed a mischievous smile and then immediately began pulling on her main set of clothing. Lee remembered his own shivering, soaking-wet state and did the same. Though Harper was less exposed in the black sweater and jeans she changed into, it seemed a better overall choice for a fight.
Lee made sure he’d have easy access to his dagger and pistol within his jacket and began rubbing his hands together over the cabin’s electric heater. They spent ten minutes warming up before heading out.
“I want to make sure we’re on the same page,” said Harper as they fell into stride.
Lee glanced at Tess and then back at Harper. “How so?”
“The Unavowed Queen isn’t Eliza anymore. Not the Eliza we knew. Eldon, from what little I managed to glean from her activities in the wider world, she’s killed people. Thousands of people, maybe even more than that.”
“I’m aware,” he said. “I disagree with your first point, though. Eliza is still in there, somewhere. It’s not like you can just dismiss that fact.”
Harper let out an annoyed sigh. “We need to stop her. That’s what it comes down to. Not to reason with her or make a deal. But stop her, which will likely mean killing her.”
“We don’t know enough about the situation. We still have to be flexible.”
“Eldon…”
Lee took hold of Harper’s upper arm, gently but insistently. “Talking to her might be the only way for us to get in close. We’ve both seen how powerful she is. If we show up acting like a tag team of assassins, do you think she’ll waste any time killing us?”
She stared at him, breath coming out in plumes of frozen white. “Just be ready. I know how big your heart is, but you have to be able to do it, even if it hurts.”
The signs of recent battle became more evident as they drew closer. Dark craters of scorched earth dusted by snow littered the landscape ahead of them, along with a significant number of charred and frozen bodies.
Primhaven itself came into view after a few more minutes, which was disconcerting in its own right. The college’s illusion veil had always hidden it from view at a distance. The First Tower, flanked by the Zephaphine Islands, was wreathed in crimson energy, as though an eclipse had taken up residence on the school’s far side.
Primhaven’s outer wall had several massive gaps knocked into it, which made the area feel ancient and decayed, an abandoned ruin in the early stages of its career. At the very least, it meant Lee and Harper had their pick of entrances. They crept up to one of the openings and peered across the campus from behind a pile of loose rubble.
The magical climate shield had gone down during Eliza’s initial attack, and she’d apparently never bothered to restore it. Snow covered a contained landscape that had grown to thrive without it. The apple trees looked thin and skeletal. The grass and flowers were covered in a thin layer of snow, dead and preserved.
The scene was calm, and for a moment, Lee wondered if he’d been wrong in assuming Eliza would return to the school. Then, he felt a tremble run through the ground. Harper tapped his shoulder and pointed.
Several massive shapes surrounded the bottom of the First Tower. Though their fur was mottled, revealing patches of decaying flesh underneath, he managed to place what they were from their hulking silhouettes alone.
“Frost trolls,” he whispered.
Harper nodded. “Undead frost trolls. The Unavowed Queen must have revived them to be her servants.”
“Zombies, then?” Lee tried to keep his despair from showing on his face. Zombies were his least favorite supernatural enemy by a humongous margin.
“They can’t be as bad as normal zombies, can they?” asked Tess.
“Worse,” he muttered. “Way fucking worse.”
Harper pointed to the Seruna Center and Ewix Center, across campus from them to the west. “We’ll head in over there. If we can get inside the Seruna Center and manage to traverse what’s left of it, we can take one of the back exits into the orchard.”
“It’s not going to give us much cover with all the trees frozen and leafless.”
“It’s better than nothing,” she said.
Lee couldn’t argue with her logic, and they both took off in that direction. The campus felt so much larger than it ever had in his time at the school. He felt exposed as they crossed a stretch of open ground to get from the dormitories—little more than rubble-strewn foundations—to the far wall, which they followed to the Seruna Center.
One of the main doors was off its hinges, while another had a massive dent in the center, splintered wood poking out like badly broken bones. The sound of Lee’s and Harper’s feet crunching broken glass joined the whistle of the wind through the main hallway as they slipped inside.
“I can’t look at this,” whispered Tess. “What did she do to this place? There’s nothing left…”
Lee frowned, reaching over to give one of her ethereal hands a small, pointless squeeze. Harper was moving up to the corner, already set into her elemental casting stance, just in case. He pulled out his pistol, wondering if it would even do anything against a zombie troll.
They passed a ruined lecture hall with a corpse in the doorway, either a student or a teacher who’d been in the path of one of Eliza’s spells. Whoever it was had been rendered into an unrecognizable charred husk, leaned in a sitting position against the doorframe.
“Poor guy,” muttered Lee. “I’d hoped that everyone had gotten out during the evacuation.”
“Most, but not all,” said Harper. “It’s barely a drop of the blood on her hands.”
More corpses lay ahead of them as they continued forward, each one just as charred and tragic. The hallway’s ceiling had holes punched in it, and they were close enough to Eliza’s perch of power for crimson light to filter down, like impossibly red sunbeams.
“We’re almost there,” whispered Harper. “Our goal should be to try to sneak by these zombie trolls. If we wait for them to stray from the First Tower’s entrance, or maybe cause a distraction, we could—”
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A sudden boom came from the hallway’s side wall from a massive impact, showering them with dust and bits of brick. The zombie troll was too tall to stand within the hallway, but it pushed its upper half through the hole it had created, roaring and gurgling.
Half its face was stripped clean of skin and fur, revealing decaying muscle and bone underneath. Lee gritted his teeth as he drew his pistol, firing without hesitation. Two silver bullets struck the troll in the neck and chest, leaving behind sizzling little holes but doing little else to slow it down.
“Get down!” shouted Harper.
He dropped instantly, feeling a rush of heat and a thrum of arcane power as Harper sent a fireball soaring through the space where his head had just been. It struck the troll in the shoulder, disintegrating a chunk of putrid flesh and briefly igniting the fur around the damage.
The troll let out an enraged growl and swung its arms from side to side. The attack was less about connecting with its enemies and more of a method to clear more space from the hallway and ceiling, enlarging the hole it had entered through while simultaneously knocking brick and glass into the air.
Lee fired again, aiming in between the troll’s eyes in hopes the time-honored zombie headshot effect would apply to the lumbering monster. His aim was off by a few inches, though the silver bullet left a painful-looking, sizzling trench across the flesh above the troll’s ear.
He was aware of his limited supply of bullets and opted to spread his offensive capabilities out a bit. Sheathing his pistol, Lee flexed the fingers of his right hand, feeling for his holy fire. Harper was still slinging her own barrage of fireballs into the troll’s chest, but none of them was enough to do more than chip away at the undead monster’s outer flesh.
“Watch out,” he said. “This could get a little messy.”
Harper nodded, though it was clear from her expression that she had no idea what he had up his sleeve. She spun to the side, pressing herself against the wall to give him a clear shot. Lee felt his hand heating up as power prickled across his palm. An aura of bright-blue light danced around the edges of his fingers. He pulled his arm back, preparing to release the blast and, well, see what would happen.
Another crash came from the hallway behind them. Tess screamed though it was Harper who bore the brunt of the surprise attack. A second zombie troll had burst into the hallway, flailing with its arm and managing to land an open-palmed strike across Harper’s shoulder, knocking her to the ground.
“Damn it!” shouted Lee. With one troll behind him and one in front, it was impossible for him to target both with the same blast of holy fire.
The new monster had seized hold of Harper, its massive, partially skeletal hand closing around her waist with an iron grip. Tess let out a shout and threw herself into the fray, trying to distract the frost troll holding Harper with ethereal strikes that likely only tickled, if the undead creature was affected by them at all.
“I can… manage,” said Harper in between gasps.
“Just don’t die in the next few seconds!” Lee gritted his teeth, returning his focus to his holy fire. The blue aura had spread up his arm and was giving off a significant amount of light, giving the hallway a strange purple hue when overlaid onto the crimson power leakage from the Unavowed Queen.
The unencumbered zombie troll lurched toward Lee, punching the walls in an attempt to bring the hallway down on top of him. He ignored bits of brick and ceiling tile as they broke across his head and shoulders, feeling his power reach maturity as though an oven timer had just gone off.
He roared as he threw his palm forward, hoping the blast would be enough to at least knock the troll far enough back to be out of grabbing distance. He wasn’t sure what was happening as white-blue flames exploded from his palm in an inferno of rolling, disintegrating power. It was too bright for him to stare into, and much, much louder than he’d expected it to be, booming and hissing like a heavy storm.
When Lee could finally see again, the zombie troll was gone. Along with a chunk of the Seruna Center. A gaping pit exposed an under-level that he hadn’t known about, and several walls were missing beyond the hallway they were currently in, as though a car had crashed through the building at full speed.
“Eldon!” called Harper. “Focus!”
He turned, remembering the other troll. Harper was on the ground now, having successfully severed the arm holding her with a spell of some sort. The hand was still tight around her abdomen, keeping her from easily standing up to defend herself.
The rest of the zombie, similarly, was still fighting. Its one remaining attached hand was curled into a fist which it was readying to smash down on Harper. Lee began to channel his holy fire a second time before feeling a sudden, pounding headache and opting for his pistol instead.
This time, his aim was true. The first bullet he put through the troll’s skull sent it staggering. The second dropped it like a hammer. The monster broke through the wall again as it fell, which made the ceiling dip at an odd, diagonal angle.
“Are you okay?” asked Lee. He ran over to her, joining in the act of prying loose stiff, zombie troll fingers.
“Some bruising around the ribs, but I’m otherwise fine,” said Harper. She reached a hand out, touching his upper lip. The tip of her index finger came back scarlet.
“It’s no big deal,” he said. “I planned for it.”
He pulled out the travel tissues, tore one in half, crumpled it up and stuffed it up his nose. “Modern problems require modern solutions.”
Harper rolled her eyes.
“Lee?” called Tess.
It was only then that he realized he’d lost track of her during the melee. She was sitting a little down the hallway, leaning against an undestroyed portion of the wall, looking out of sorts.
“Tess,” he said. “What is it?”
She blinked and showed him a smile that was more nervous than real. “This is going to sound silly, but I can’t see.”
“You… what?”
“My vision,” she whispered. “It’s too blurry. I can’t really see anything.”
She let out a forced chuckle, sniffled, and began to blink out tears.
CHAPTER 39
“It’s okay,” said Lee. “It’s okay.”
He crouched next to her, holding her hands as much to quell his own despair as to help with hers.
“I know,” she said. “It’s just one of those things, I guess. I can still sort of see. Shapes and colors, and a Lee-shaped blur.”
She squeezed her eyes closed and then opened them, as though she could hit reset on a part of her body to solve the problem.
“Do you want me to pull you into my mystic stream and see if that helps?” he asked.
Tess shook her head, biting her lower lip. “It won’t.”
“Maybe it could—”
“Please,” she whispered. “I know it won’t help, Lee, and… it scares me. How it might feel. How I might… look to you.”
He nodded, a pointless gesture for someone with her problem. The fading had affected her less in her ethereal state, more adding a general sense of wispiness and translucence to her body, rather than changing her overall form. He could see it now, the wispiness in her shoulders, running up her chin, across the side of her face.
His heart felt like it was made of glass, each beat a hammer blow pushing its fragility to the limit. He tried to force a smile and didn’t quite make it. At least she couldn’t see the expression on his face.
“We have to keep going,” he said, forcing words past the lump in his throat. “Can you feel my hand?”
Tess nodded.
“I’ll lead you,” he said. “Eliza will be waiting for us. Once I beat her, everything will go back to normal, Tess. Okay?”
“Okay, Lee.” She sniffled and nodded again.
“Eldon, I don’t mean to rush you along, but we really need to move,” called Harper. “The rest of the zombie trolls are moving our way.”
She was peering out acr
oss campus, toward the First Tower. There were at least half a dozen trolls, making slow progress toward the sound of the recent disturbance.
“Hold on,” said Lee, glancing past them. “Is that… Shay Morrigan’s statue?”
The statue of Primhaven’s founder had been completely desecrated, covered with small phrases of illegible graffiti, one arm broken off, its head mangled beyond recognition.
“If you recall, Shay Morrigan was the sorceress who defeated the Unavowed Queen the first time around,” said Harper.
“I guess someone bears a grudge.” He shook his head, focusing back on their enemies. “We can’t take on all of them, and even if we could, I don’t think we have the time.”
He shot a worried glance back at Tess. Harper steepled her fingers in thought.
“Can you take out one of the ones front and center?” she asked. “I think I can disable at least one. If we were fast, that might be enough for us to rush by. We make a gap in their line, sprint to the First Tower, and take the lift up.”
“Sounds like the best plan we currently have available.”
“Such high praise.” Harper rubbed her hands together. “Are you ready, or do you need a minute?”
Lee helped Tess to her feet. She was a little unsteady, but she nodded.
“I’m ready,” he said.
Much of the campus’s northern half had escaped any major damage. Aside from the snow coating the ground and the evil crimson aura from the floating islands above, Lee could almost pretend he was back at the Primhaven he remembered—right up until the zombie trolls took notice of them. The first along their path locked its eyes on them, head swiveling with unthinking movements to track them as they approached. Harper raised her hands, signaling that she’d handle it.
She cast two spells in quick succession, a conjuration-binding tether to lock its foot in place, followed by a massive fireball targeting that same ankle. The troll roared and made a fairly impressive attempt at trying to maintain its balance on a stump leg before tumbling to the ground and leaving an imprint of its flailing across the snow.
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