Even in the middle of a battle, Zoe enjoyed the feeling of being the hounds. Their minds weren’t simpler, but they were focused. She moved forward, she hunted, and these acts were fulfilling. Her emotions remained, but the doubt, the self-loathing, and the anger of being human all faded into the background.
Each hound controlled itself to an extent, and she acted more to nudge than to steer. Her mind sat in the quiet background of theirs, guiding them in the attack on the Winter Queen.
They could win. She believed it with dogged conviction. Now she only had to make reality match her dreams, but if Oriz could try so could she.
Seven bodies bounded across the floating rocks that made up the vanishing battlefield. Black water flowed from the broken ceiling creating pillars of darkness that destroyed the eyeline. Anton’s eyes whizzed about — silver guardian angels that whispered into her and Bella’s ears and told them the Winter Queen’s location.
Because that monstress was fast.
What started as a straight-up fight became a heightened game of cat and mouse. Zoe’s hounds and Bella raced after the Queen, half-evading, and half-pursuing. The mantis-turned-human would vanish when pressed but ambushed them whenever she had a chance. Her attacks were powerful, her movements fast, but she seemed more intent on wearing them down than outright slaying, as though she had become the draining will of winter itself.
That, or — as Zoe hoped — the Winter Queen feared a repeat of the wound on her stomach. Even with the icy bandage, blood welled ready to flow. Ice wasn’t known for its healing properties, and Zoe hoped that in this war of attrition, she might come out on top.
Anton’s eye flickered beside one of her hounds as she ran along the perimeter hunting the scentless Winter Queen.
“She’s on the far wall, fighting Bella. Hurry.”
Zoe bounded from platform to platform, her other hounds closing in until the clanging of swords grew concentrated.
Bella stood on a floating rock no larger than a watermelon as she defended herself. The Winter Queen stood on the platform encircling the floating rock, she pulled back her arm and a spear of ice flashed into existence with a sapphire flash. Her muscles bunched and twisted under her skin, more like snakes in a bag than anything that should obey human anatomy, and she hurled the spear forward.
It flew like a bullet toward Bella.
The runeblade howled as Bella shifted with delicate footwork to strike at the blue spear. Ice shattered. Zoe’s heart skipped in her hounds as Bella was knocked backward, but black threads of energy anchored Bella’s feet to the floating rock.
The Winter Queen had already moved to a new location and hurled another spear. This one struck the floating rock and sheared it in half. Bella remained on her tiptoes. How the rock remained suspended was a mystery, and the howling umber skies beneath were as hungry as an empty blender. Bella shifted with delicate footwork as she wielded the runeblade in a shocking display of defense.
Zoe sent her hounds toward the Winter Queen, but the tall woman was a blur as she evaded. The chase continued, and Bella joined until the Winter Queen leaped through a black waterfall. The water froze behind her and burst out into jagged spears.
One of Zoe’s hounds was impaled, but the rest avoided the strikes. Bella sheared a spear in half and both sections shattered as they hit the marble behind her.
The black water resumed falling, and Bella lowered her blade as she glanced around.
“We lost her,” she said.
“I’m looking,” One of Anton’s eyes said.
With a ripple of flesh, Zoe combined two hounds into her human body. She rested on her knees, still handless and footless as she readjusted to her normal form. They didn’t have long before the Winter Queen circled back and attacked.
[Debuf time remaining: 10 minutes, 12 seconds]
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“I have a plan,” she said.
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Zoe’s hounds raced along the platforms, leaping, bounding, as the Winter Queen pursued. The huge woman’s footfalls were like hammer strikes as she pursued Zoe.
“Your fire only makes the fight sweeter,” the Winter Queen hollered. “For the Winter must steal all heat!”
Zoe’s hounds split into two groups as they ran around a black waterfall cutting into the stone. They reached the other side as blue light flashed out and the black pillar of water froze. The ice shattered. Icy daggers scattered and Zoe twisted the body of a hound to avoid the blades.
“Behind you!” Anton said.
Zoe twisted her hound as she brought in others from nearby.
The blonde woman appeared behind her. Dust flew up from where her feet struck the marble. She raised a hand sheathed in jagged icy claws and struck at Zoe’s furry body.
Zoe snapped jaws toward the descending wrist, but she was too slow. The icy blades sank deep and punctured lungs and heart. Zoe snarled, and howled, as icy tendrils raced through her blood — a benefit of the Winter Queen’s debuff. But with a savage, dying will she chomped down hard on the Winter Queen. The last of her Might pulled her down, but the powerful mantis-woman was barely knocked off balance.
Barely, but it was enough.
Two raced up a sloped platform. Their padded feet were silent against the smooth marble flooring. They raced up the tilted lip and leaped toward the Winter Queen’s exposed back. Their fangs flashed in the light of the swirling sky they sailed across.
The Winter Queen tried to spin, but Zoe kept her dragged down. The two hounds struck her back. One sank teeth into her throat while the other clawed and scrambled and bit down on her biceps, further dragging her down. Teeth sank into flesh and cold blood burst into jaws. The acidic taste of insects washed down gullets, but the hounds refused to release. The second hound had been off target, but the first hound felt the harmony of the attack.
Zoe seized close-up control of the animal as teeth struck vertebrae. The freezing blood glued the hound to the wound as a reverberation ran up into her jawline.
She felt the harmony. Her teeth inside flesh, the boundary between self and other conflated, and the resonance collapsed. A pink portal splashed out like a star through the gaps in Zoe’s fangs.
Another hound on the other side of the shattered chamber sank its teeth into a lump of broken marble. Fangs cracked with the intensity of the bite, and in that flare of pain a resonance thrummed. The harmony bloomed and collapsed, and a new portal bloomed and connected to its twin in the Winter Queen’s throat.
A terrible scream filled the air as the portals sucked at the flesh inside them. The Winter Queen staggered, but the suction, the weight, forced her back. She grabbed the hounds latched to her with a dark frost gauntlet. Their blood froze even as she crushed their skulls like ice cubes. Pink light bled from her throat as the corpses thudded to the floor. There was less of her now.
Zoe felt the pain of the deaths, her heart panging as it always did, but she couldn’t hide the smirk as the other hounds on the battlefield stopped to watch the Winter Queen fight against the inevitable.
Her long limbs blurred as she tried to move, but there was no escaping that pin in time, and her limbs folded, her flesh tore, as she was dragged neck first through the portal, through the gap in space and time, and toward what waited on the other side: Bella with her sword at the ready, howling, and as the flesh emerged, she swiped three times in the air and left cold scars behind.
Three black portals hung in the air as the Winter Queen was pulled through. Her flesh was twisted and bloodied, but her strength, her level, her beyond-fifty body kept her intact enough.
Until she struck the three portals at the same time.
The black scars sucked at the flesh as the Winter Queen struck them all at once. Her body resisted. It hung in the air, pinned in three places as her inhuman scream rose like a boiling kettle. The level 50 threshold was renowned for a reason, and the integrity of her flesh was enough to prevent Bella’s black portals from destroying her.
Until three of Zoe’s hounds leaped onto that distant platform, the lithe animals struck at the portals with unerring synchronicity. Three sets of jaws clamped down on the frayed edge of reality.
[Bell at the Center of the World]
Reality buckled as the three bells shaped around the hounds. The black portals rippled, and through the clamping of her jaws, she used the nature of her body path. Black portals flared a brilliant, blinding pink, and the Mantis Queen’s scream became a shrill whistle of abominable pain.
The reinforced portals sucked at the air and pulled at the flesh trapped against them. Blue light flashed from the Mantis Queen’s body as she flung out whips of ice at random. Her techniques spiraled as her flesh corkscrewed in her head, torso, and legs all corkscrewed in different directions. Flesh tore with a horribly wet noise. Bones cracked and snapped. Even as a hound, Zoe flinched to hear such devastation inflicted upon a humanlike body. Bella visibly paled as the Mantis Queen was torn apart and sucked into the portals.
Instantly, the black and pink tears spat the monstrous boss back out onto the floating platform. They had been linked to each other, and three lumps of bloodied flesh struck the marble with a heavy splat.
The legs rolled away off the lip of the platform and vanished into the howling sky below. A torso spilled guts and freezing blood that bloomed into rose-red frost crystals. As the portals vanished the head rolled free and hit the ground. The blood from the severed neck struck the floor and froze the head upright.
The Winter Queen’s eyes bulged in disbelief and rage as Bella and Zoe stepped closer. Her lips moved in silence before she opened her mouth wide.
“Trinch!” she shouted. “Rescue your Queen!”