The Branded Rose Prophecy

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  “Oh gods, Asher!” Charlee breathed, her heart stopping as the guards stepped around Roar, caging him in on all sides except the front. That way, there was only the long drop to the rubble-covered earth below.

  Roar glanced at the guards around him and drew himself upright. He lifted his chin.

  “No,” Asher whispered, his fingers squeezing Charlee’s like a vise. “Don’t do it...”

  “I speak to the king of kings,” Roar said, his voice rolling across the densely packed humans.

  The Myrakar around Roar lifted their long knives high, ready for the downstroke.

  Asher drew in a sharp breath.

  “Do as you should!” Roar cried. “Lead as you should. You are Einherjar first and last. Show them what that means!”

  The knives came down in unison, all of them skewering Roar from both sides, and his back. He snapped taut, his mouth opening wide and soundlessly. Fresh blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

  Charlee moaned, and Asher reached over and covered her mouth, holding the sound in. His eyes were stormy and pain-filled. “Don’t cry out,” he whispered urgently. “Don’t react. They will be watching for the slightest hint of where we are. Do you hear me?”

  Her eyes stung with tears, blurring her vision. She nodded and his hand was removed. Charlee looked back toward the platform, making herself stand still and silent. She let the tears course down her cheeks, not wiping them.

  Roar fell to his knees, his body still upright despite the many blades piercing it, and it sounded like everyone watching drew in their breath at the same time. The collective gasp triggered a ripple of movement through the audience. People were stepping backwards, sideways, away from the platform. But the Blakar were scattered like pepper among them, and the instinctive impulse to turn and run was aborted as they brought up their knives and swords. The blades glinted in the low light.

  Overhead, thunder rumbled long and loud.

  Roar drew in a gasping, shuddering breath and Charlee pressed her lips together, holding in her need to cry out her alarm and her sorrow. She knew it would be one of his last breaths.

  “Don’t let them win,” Roar said, and even though he could not raise his voice, his words were heard by everyone, for an utter silence and stillness gripped the area.

  Renmar turned and plunged a knife directly into Roar’s heart.

  Charlee turned, too, and gripped Asher’s coat with both hands, her back to the platform. “Don’t move,” she said and used one hand to turn his face inside the hood so that he was looking only at her. “Don’t react. They want you to react. They’ll cut you down in a heartbeat.”

  Asher closed his eyes, his jaw working hard. One hand was fisted at his sides, his sword hand thrust under the coat and curled around the hilt of his sword.

  Lucas gripped his shoulder. “She’s right, Asher. You’ll play right into their hands.”

  Charlee kept whispering, kept forcing Asher’s attention back to her, until his iron-hard stance relaxed. He drew a deep breath that shook much as Roar’s last breath had. Then he nodded.

  Lucas patted his shoulder and relaxed his grip.

  From the other side of the arena came a long, drawn-out scream. It was filled with pain and fury, and sounded almost inhuman. Heads snapped around to see who was making that unearthly sound, and Charlee turned on her heels, too, scanning the crowd.

  There was movement within the crowd, a swirling of bodies and cries and exclamations.

  Then a hooded and cloaked figure surged from among the huddle of heads and shoulders, leaping onto a pile of rubble. They climbed it with gymnastic sure-footedness and gained the top. There was a long sword in their hand, and the blade was dripping blood. They flung the cloak aside, and it swirled like a flag as it floated away.

  It was Eira. She stood on the top of the pile of debris, dressed in full battle gear, a knife at her hip and another in her boot. Charlee knew there would be more blades hidden away. She raised her sword high over her head. “Einherjar! To me! To me!”

  As more hooded and hatted figures turned and began to surge through to crowd toward Eira, Asher straightened and drew his sword.

  Charlee arrested the draw using both hands and all her bodyweight to hold the sword still. “No,” she said. “If you join them, the Alfar will see you. They’ll slaughter everyone to get to you.”

  I can see you! I can see you now!

  Charlee whirled to look over her shoulder as the urgent mental voice spoke.

  There! You’re on the roof. With him.

  Charlee pressed her fingers to her temple. “Where are you?” she demanded.

  Watch out! Behind you! Behind!

  “Behind!” Charlee screamed, and both Lucas and Asher whirled as the rest of the people on the roof cried out and scattered. Four Blakar had crept onto the roof, perhaps drawn by their reactions and movements after all.

  Asher shrugged off the coat. Both he and Lucas pulled out their guns and fired quickly, two shots each.

  The Blakar dropped to the ground, but Asher didn’t wait to see it. He turned back to the parapet, one boot propped on the lip as if he was about to jump down to the ground, and leaned far over the edge, his gun in his fist. Lucas joined him.

  Charlee pulled out her long knives and dropped her coat, too. No one was looking at them. All eyes were on the swirling fight at the foot of the small hill that Eira stood upon. Eira’s sword was whirling as she took on every Blakar and Myrakar who challenged her, and both she and the stones at her feet were splattered with blood.

  Don’t go down there! The mental voice held the same urgency as before. There are too many of them.

  Charlee flung back her own thought angrily. That’s exactly why we need to go!

  And she felt the speaker’s hesitation and doubt. And to her surprise. Charlee knew it was a woman, instinctively and without doubt.

  “You heard me,” Charlee thought and whispered.

  Yes! There was fierce satisfaction in the single word.

  Charlee grabbed Asher’s arm. “I can speak to someone on the other side of the shield.”

  Asher’s lips parted in surprise.

  Lucas stepped closer. “Tell them to send in the military. Any military. All of them! We’re about to be overrun!”

  Asher’s fingers curled around her wrist. “Do you trust them?”

  Charlee nodded. “She’s saved my life at least twice before today.”

  “She’s using the auras to reach you,” Asher said urgently. “Like the Valdar do. Tell her to bring down the shield.”

  “Did you hear that?” Charlee asked. Articulating her thoughts aloud made it easier.

  I only hear you. Tell me what to do.

  “Bring down the shield.”

  How?

  Charlee bit her lip, her first reaction one of disbelief. This was not her sphere of expertise. She could stitch wounds and heal, she could and had done thousands of other things that had kept them alive, but she was not powerful, not the way Verlan Seeker was, or even Eira with her Valkyrie abilities.

  But an idea was nagging her, calling for attention. She considered the tower and the idea bloomed properly. “The tower,” she said and thought. “It generates the aura. We interrupt the generator, make it hiccup, and the aura will drop.”

  I feel it. I feel the tower.

  Charlee could feel her attention being pulled toward the tower. Not her gaze, not her normal eyesight, but she could feel her focus being turned toward it. She saw the tower in her mind, as if she was standing very high up, floating over it. It looked small.

  Yes, with me.

  She/they reached down to the tower and...encompassed it. Immediately, Charlee could feel it throb in her hands like a living thing. It was alive, but it wasn’t life.

  Take it in. Stop it spreading.

  Charlee wasn’t sure who said that. It might have been her idea or not. It didn’t matter. She drew in the power. It felt like drawing liquid through a straw, as if she were inhaling it. B
ut her whole being was absorbing the power. But not for long, for the aura was too powerful. They just needed to hold it still inside for a few heartbeats, but it was too strong.

  As she held her breath mentally and physically, Charlee could hear war raging around her: the clash of metal, the sound of gunfire, and the screams of people injured and dying. But they were fighting. Humans. Einherjar. Both.

  Together.

  Yes, together, Charlee murmured. She sent out the mental call before she had fully thought it through, too hurried to worry whether it would work.

  To me! To me! All who hear me, gather to me!

  The mental cry echoed in her head, unanswered.

  Then a thought appeared in her mind, strong and well-formed, as if the sender was practiced at this. So, you have found your purpose at last, branded one.

  Charlee gasped, for the word-thoughts had a character to them that she recognized at once. Verlan Seeker.

  We need more, the woman declared.

  Much more, Verlan agreed smoothly.

  Together, Charlee told them, making her word-thought clear and inarguable. Reach for others.

  She sent her cry out once more into the world within her mind. So did Verlan and the woman, and this time there were responses. Many of them.

  Charlee pulled them toward her. To me! To me! Then she turned her attention upon the tower once more. Take the power within you.

  This time, she could feel the power coursing through her and she realized that she was a junction, a focal point for the others to use to reach the tower itself. The power of the aura fizzled through her, pulling faster and faster until—

  The shield stuttered. And failed.

  Charlee blinked, drawing her attention back to here and now. Asher and Lucas and a dozen more humans were fighting off more Blakar who had gained the roof. They were standing in an arc around her, keeping her protected.

  “The shield is down!” Charlee cried.

  Lucas glanced at her, the only reaction to her cry, but on the ground below them, she heard the words repeated.

  “The shield is down!”

  “Someone brought down the shield! We’re free!”

  “The shield, the shield!”

  Word was spreading.

  Asher used his sword to bring down the last Blakar on the roof as Lucas whirled and pulled a cellphone out of his thigh pocket.

  “What the hell?” Charlee demanded.

  “I charged it at the station last night, when the power came online.” He grinned as he held the phone to his ear. “Sir! Lieutenant Montgomery reporting in.” He turned away, speaking rapidly, his left hand holding a bloody knife. “The shield over New York just popped and we’re in a bit of a squeeze….”

  A collective cry of rage and despair sounded, mixed with the inhuman cries of triumph from the Alfar. Charlee spun once more to look out across the swirling, surging sea of humans, Einherjar and Alfar down below.

  Eira still stood upon the hill, but she was clutching her side, her sword at her feet. As Charlee saw her, Eira folded forward over her hands.

  A Blakar climbed up to the top of the rubble, his long knife over his head and an expression that looked gleeful to Charlee. Eira’s back was exposed.

  As the long knife came down, Eira picked up her fallen sword, straightened up and thrust the blade through the Blakar. He squealed, clutching at the steel. Eira withdrew the sword and shoved him. He tumbled down the rubble and disappeared from view beneath the fighting bodies at the foot of the hill.

  Eira dropped her sword again. Blood covered her side, and it was dark and thick. Charlee recognized the fatal wound and drew in a steadying breath, pushing her sorrow deep and burying it.

  Eira was looking up at the roof, toward Asher. She brought her hand up and pointed at him.

  Heads turned. Among them, Charlee saw familiar, dear faces.

  Eira fell. She did not crumple. Her body, held in disciplined tension until the last, toppled backwards. Hands reached up and caught her and lowered her to the ground.

  Asher caught at Charlee’s arm and pulled her away from the edge of the roof, toward Lucas.

  “Take her and go,” he shouted at Lucas.

  Charlee caught her breath, horror spilling through her.

  “They’ll come after me with everything they have, now,” Asher added. “Get her somewhere safe, so I can concentrate.”

  He turned and kissed her, hard and fast. “Don’t argue,” he said roughly. “Let me do what I’m supposed to.”

  Charlee nodded.

  His thumb brushed her scar, then he turned and strode to the edge of the roof and raised his sword. “Einherjar! To me!”

  Lucas tugged on Charlee’s elbow. “Come on, I’ll get you on the arrowhead and out of this.”

  “Wait,” she said, watching Asher, and the reaction of the people below.

  “Einherjar! Humans! All of you, to me!” Asher shouted.

  The fighting paused, just as the aura had stuttered, interrupted by a stronger force. Silence and stillness gripped the arena.

  Charlee could feel the tension. The moment teetered upon a knife-edge.

  Slowly, she moved toward Asher.

  “Charlee, what the hell...?” Lucas protested as she shook off his grip once more and moved to the parapet next to Asher, where everyone could see her.

  Renmar still stood upon his own platform, but it had been lifted a few feet higher, safe from the fighting below. Now he pointed at them both with a long finger. “Bring them to me! Bring them both! Bring them and no one else has to die here today!” The interpreter’s voice rolled over the hushed arena.

  Asher held out his sword to one side, point up. It wasn’t surrender, but it was a neutral position. “Choose!” he demanded, his voice harsh. “You want choice. You want freedom. It is yours. Choose wisely.”

  The tense stillness ticked on, marked by Charlee’s heartbeat, which echoed loudly in her ears.

  Then the silence was broken by a single hoarse cry. “Freedom!”

  To the left, by the farthest reaches of the arena, a man held up his fist, a rough and ready shiv in it. He turned to the Blakar next to him and rammed the shiv into the Blakar’s chest.

  The Blakar grunted in pain, then thrust his long knife into the man’s stomach and wrenched upwards. As the man fell to the ground, the Blakar plucked the shiv out of his chest and tossed it away.

  Instantly, a dozen more humans leapt upon the Blakar, attacking him with hands, knives and rocks. The Blakar disappeared under the attack.

  Catalyzed, the arena again became a roiling battlefield, but with a difference. This time, the humans were not merely defending themselves. This time they were attacking. They were fighting for themselves.

  Asher turned and ran for the side of the building. “Come on!” he urged to everyone on the roof, who turned and followed him.

  “No, you’re coming with me,” Lucas said, holding Charlee back.

  Charlee smiled at him. “Wanna bet I won’t put this long knife through your thigh if you don’t take your hands off me?”

  Lucas held up his hands. “You’re not thinking of going with him, are you?”

  Charlee rolled her eyes and ran for the fire escape and the stream of people running down the stairs.

  Lucas swore. “Then I’m coming with you!” He caught up and ran beside her.

  Once they reached the pavement, Asher began to swing his sword, taking down any Alfar near him. With his other hand he pushed humans aside, clearing a path. “Follow me!” he cried. “Everyone, follow me! To the tower!”

  His cry was picked up and repeated, passing on. “The tower! The tower!”

  Go with him. The words were cool. Calm.

  Charlee had no intention of letting Asher out of her sight. She raised her knives to the defensive position and forged ahead, through the path Asher was clearing.

  By the time they reached the base wall, hundreds of humans had coalesced around them, fighting with bare hands, homemade weapons,
and the long knives they had taken from the fallen Alfar.

  Asher had been moving diagonally across the open area, and now they were paces away from the door that was set into the base wall. Here, the fighting became heavier and their progress slower, for the Alfar were defending their tower, desperate to prevent invasion.

  But Asher urged everyone on, shouting his encouragement and directions, and the mass of Alfar defending the opening fell under the overwhelming number of humans and Einherjar.

  A cry of jubilation went up as the door was cleared.

  “Onward!” Asher cried. “On and upward!”

  They poured into the tower, a steady stream of ragged people buoyed by hope, determined to win their freedom.

  The tide of people swept Charlee and Lucas along. Even if they had wanted to withdraw, they could not. Not now.

  Lucas lifted Charlee up, his hand on her arm. “Stay on your feet,” he warned, shouting in her ear. “You’ll be trampled, otherwise.”

  They pushed through the door, a thick bottleneck of people, many of them screaming and shouting, roused to a rare fierceness. There were so many of them pouring through the door that the Alfar could not contain them. They had fallen back and the humans streamed into the tower, a rushing river of bodies.

  The Alfar did not attempt to halt them on that level. Charlee looked around as they pushed through the door into a wide, level, cool and dim area with a high roof. Light seemed to emanate from the walls themselves. The floor beneath was polished like black marble, but not slippery. Grit ground beneath their feet, tracked in from outside.

  The air was cool and refreshing after the humidity outside.

  The shouting cries were even louder in here, and from among them, Charlee heard a common thread.

  “Up!”

  “Upwards!”

  “Up to the top. Drive them out!”

  There were stairs ahead, very wide and open, and the mass of bodies was climbing them. At the edge, at the top of the stairs, Asher stood with his sword raised, point upwards. He was urging everyone onwards, and scanning the heads and shoulders below.

  Charlee waved, catching his attention, and he straightened. She could see his chest lift. Relief? Or vexation?