The ice bridge vanished as soon as I stepped off it.

  While it would have been impressive if Val and Fyga had been able to combine their magic to create such a thing. I knew that they weren’t strong enough to do something like that.

  Val was a Bokor, the group of magical beings that protected humanity from the Zombies that roamed outside the city walls. In theory, she should have been able to make a mile long twenty-foot wide bridge of ice from the shore to the island where we were now marooned. Except that she was freshly made, less than two weeks ago.

  Bokor used to be human and only ascended when they consumed powdered heartstone. The concentrated amounts of the magical infection would bind with the host’s body and turn them into the more powerful being. If, that is, they had been exposed to small enough doses. If they hadn’t, then one of two horrible things happened.

  The first horrible thing was that you became Touched. The Touched didn’t have the majestic swirls on their bodies that marked them as one of humanity’s guardians. Instead, the Touched got a pair of glowing eyes like I had. Somehow, despite fourteen years as an apprentice, slowly being exposed to the infection and then spending years traveling with Master Bran, I had become a Touched. It was a cursed existence, one where I could feel zombies in the immediate area as well as exert a small amount of control over them. I also had some magic, but it was nowhere near as powerful as Val’s.

  The second option might be seen as a blessing, except to those around you. If this happened, you died. While death might not seem ideal, the Bokor hunted Touched and humanity shunned them. To be forced to live apart from the rest of the world with only the dead minds of Zombies as companions was a death of itself. The only problem was that if you died while there was infection in your body, then you became a Zombie, which was why the dead had to be burned as fast as possible.

  “Byler!” The blonde woman next to me snapped her fingers in my face.

  My mission as a potential Bokor had been to make a route through the towns on the southern peninsula and report back to the island headquarters of the Bokor for this region. Eveth had been a Wrangler, a human that rounds up or even fights Zombies, from the last town we’d been at. During a mission, the 18-year-old had been the only survivor besides me, but she hadn’t come away whole. Her glowing clear eyes showed that she was a Touched, though not with purple eyes like the normal ones in the region. I’d learned that there were different colors of the infection, which came from stones deep underground.

  Eveth had been infected by a clear crystal that had the power to purge the infection from beings. If she did it to a Zombie, it would purify the monster, but since the person was already dead, then all that would remain was a corpse. People weren’t as afraid of her as they were of me, though that was probably because most people never left their home city, so all they knew was that a Touched had glowing purple eyes. When a beautiful young woman showed up in a group that included a Bokor and two humans, no one questioned that she was there to help them.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  I tugged on my goggles. The dark lenses allowed me to walk around without having my eyes covered or people try to kill me. They weren’t as good as my old pair, which had clear lenses, but those had been damaged in the previous battle.

  “Snap out of it!” The blonde snapped her fingers in my face again.

  “Sorry.” I tried not to think about the battle that we’d just lost or the city that we’d abandoned. “What did you need?”

  Eveth motioned towards the treeline where a few hundred people that we’d managed to get out of the city were milling about there were people shouting, children crying, and mothers wailing.

  “We need to help Val with order.” The younger woman stood up. She wasn’t very tall, but in Wrangler leather, she looked formidable. It helped that the sword on her back had a clear blade made out of the same clear crystal as the one that had changed her.

  I looked at the redhead shouting orders at people. The purple swirls on her cheeks gave her authority and were contrasted by her tanned skin. That was something that would start to lighten. All Bokor had bleached skin, it was something the infection did, while the darker, tanned skin was a marking of a Wrangler, due to being out in the sun for long periods of time. The only reason why Eve had fair skin was the town she was from was wedged between a mountain and a forest. There wasn’t much light in the places where her group roamed.

  I dusted myself off as a pair of men approached us.

  Men was a generous term. While the larger of the two was a lumberjack, and had an ax over his shoulder along with the muscles that promised he could swing it strong enough to cleave a Zombie, I knew he was merely a bodyguard.

  It was the shorter man, or Touched, that was the problem. Theo had been the son of the mayor in the last town. Had being the operative word as the mayor had died buying us time to get people to the ice bridge. This entitled brown-haired man, on the other hand, had made a deal with the Touched that had invaded the city and helped smuggle in their weapon that had begun turning people into zombies at an accelerated rate. The only reason that he wasn’t dead was that his father had begged me to spare his life.

  “That’s my sword.” Theo pointed to the weapon in my hand.

  I looked into his glowing yellow eyes. “It’s your father’s sword. One that he gave me to hold until you’re able to wield it. Given you’re demanding a weapon while you should be helping Master Val make sure everyone is okay, I don’t think you’re ready.” I slipped the strap over my back, on the opposite shoulder of my own sword. “Unless you’re volunteering to scout the woods?”

  The larger man bristled. “You want me to..?” He looked over at the larger man. “I can send Hugh.”

  “And that is why you’re going too.” I pushed past him as I headed towards the group that was forming around the Bokor. “As soon as I get things squared away.”

  He said something, but I wasn’t paying attention to whatever entitled ramble that he was spouting. There were people that needed shelter and it was already midafternoon. His delicate ego could stew while I dealt with actual problems.

  Rating, Review, Follow, Favorite, or Comment does wonders to boost my morale. If you want to help support my writing or check out advanced chapters, head over to my .

  Immersive Ink

  RR Writer's Guild