The Branded Rose Prophecy

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  “There she is!” came a shout behind her.

  “Charlee, watch out!” Lucas screamed.

  Charlee whirled, bringing her knives up, but the Blakar was too close. The tip of his blade slid in over the top of her crossed knives. It pushed into her with a sharp, ripping sensation.

  Someone gasped heavily.

  I’m making that sound! Charlee realized.

  Then the pain hit and she groaned. The world lifted up around her and she realized that it was her; she was sinking to the ground.

  The blade pulled upwards. She could feel it in her body, tearing through her, a hot, slicing sensation. Heat seemed to be pouring out of her.

  Her vision was fading. She couldn’t make sense of what she was looking at, but she could hear the oddest things from among the noise around her.

  Lucas grunting. Swearing.

  “Charlee! Charlee!” That was Asher’s voice, from far away.

  Lucas laid down beside her. He dropped down tiredly. Charlee drifted her gaze over to where he laid. His eyes were open. There was blood on his face.

  The noise was fading. Going away. There was relief in that.

  Then something shook her and Charlee blinked.

  Asher. Asher was in front of her.

  Charlee forced herself to focus. It meant riding over the pain, fighting for clarity. But for Asher, she would do anything. She looked at him.

  He was touching her face. His hands were trembling.

  The need to leave, the urge to drift away, swelled up in her once more. It was like a tide, pulling at her, too strong to fight against.

  “Lead them,” she whispered.

  Then she let go and embraced the darkness.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Blankness held his mind. The blankness kept his body still. He didn’t want to move away from this moment. He could feel the weight of her lifeless body in his arms. She had been so very alive only a moment ago.

  Somewhere deep inside, a keening set up, a long, undulating cry of pain and rage and abject grief.

  Asher bowed his head over hers, letting the pain fill him.

  A hand gripped his shoulder, hard, heavy and demanding. “They need you, Annarr. If you forsake them now, they will be lost.”

  Asher shook his head. No, he couldn’t do this. Not now.

  Lead them. Charlee’s last words.

  Hands were on his arm, pulling him up. “Get up on your feet, soldier! Now!”

  He looked up. Ylva stood before him, her hair cut short, her figure heavy with armor and weapons. As he looked up, she bent down and picked up the long knives still gripped in Charlee’s hands. She slipped them out of Charlee’s loose grip and swung them. “Freedom or death,” she said. “I chose freedom. You?”

  Lead them.

  Asher climbed to his feet. His body, like his heart and mind and soul, was heavy with the darkness. He looked around at the people standing guarding him while he selfishly took these moments for himself. They were Einherjar and human, both.

  Asher took a deep breath. And another. He unfurled his sword and held it up. “To the top,” he declared.

  * * * * *

  Charlee rolled over with a groan, feeling an ache over her entire body. Carefully, she opened her eyes.

  Sunlight played on her face, and cool air brushed over her skin. There were trees all around her, and close-cropped turf beneath her. She pushed up with her hand, lifting herself into a sprawled sitting position.

  Lucas laid next to her and as she saw him, he rolled over with a groan of his own and shook his head to clear it as he lifted his upper body and propped himself up with his arms. He looked around and saw her.

  “Charlee.” He swallowed and looked around again. “I think...I think we’re dead.”

  Charlee got to her feet. She was wearing the same clothes that she had put on last night, to journey to the northern foot. Her hair was loose and lifting in the soft breeze. Apart from the sound of the wind in the tree tops, it was silent. Peaceful. “I don’t think we’re dead,” Charlee said, looking at the trees. They looked oddly familiar, but she didn’t think she had ever seen them before. Yet a memory was prodding her. Something to do with a photograph....

  “Then where are we?” Lucas got to his feet. He was wearing the ragged shirt and cargo pants she had last seen him in, but he carried no weapons.

  Charlee turned slowly, taking in the trees. They were all around them, as far as the eye could see, except for this little clearing they had found themselves in. At the very edge of the horizon, though, there was a dark, uneven line that made her think of mountains in the far distance.

  “There’s something nearby,” Charlee said.

  Lucas stepped up beside her, peering ahead. “No, it’s a long way away, but it’s...” He shook his head. “Calling?” he asked.

  “Waiting,” Charlee decided.

  “Yes, waiting.”

  “If there’s somewhere for us to go,” Lucas said slowly, “then perhaps we are dead, or nearly dead. Perhaps this is...” He hesitated.

  “Purgatory?” Charlee asked. “Do you think that’s where we are?”

  He gave the trees and the uneven horizon another baffled glance. “No,” he said shortly.

  “I think we should go there. To where we’re expected.”

  “We could just stay here.”

  “We could,” Charlee agreed. “But that’s not what you do. You have always fought for what you wanted.”

  Lucas gave her a smile that lifted one corner of his mouth. “So have you, in your own way. And you fought harder than I ever did.”

  Charlee turned to face the ragged horizon once more. “Somewhere over there,” she decided.

  “There’s no path. No trail,” Lucas pointed out.

  “We don’t walk there,” Charlee said firmly.

  Lucas studied the skyline. “Then how...?” He turned to her. “You brought down the shield.”

  “It wasn’t just me,” Charlee pointed out.

  “You touched the auras. You shaped them.”

  Auras. Charlee faced the horizon once more. High up in the sky, she saw two black dots. Birds, very far away. But they were getting closer.

  “Is that a goose?” Lucas asked, shading his eyes with his hand and squinting.

  The long neck of one of the birds was growing more distinct. “A swan,” Charlee murmured.

  “The other is a crow,” Lucas decided.

  Charlee shook her head. “A raven.” She could feel the rightness inside her, agreeing with what she had said. A swan and a raven. Why did that stir something in her?

  The two birds were flying together, the swan dipping and lifting as the powerful wings worked to carry the heavy creature. They were very close now, and quite low above the tree tops. They arrowed directly toward Charlee and Lucas in the middle of the clearing.

  The raven gave a hoarse caw, then both birds streamed past. Charlee and Lucas turned to keep watching them, and the birds banked, circling. With slow flaps of their wings, the birds flew past them again, this time so low Charlee could hear the wind in their wings and the rushing sound they made as they passed by.

  The two birds headed back the way they came. Back toward the mountains.

  “They want us to follow,” Charlee said. She didn’t know where that knowledge came from, but it was true. She felt it in her bones.

  “How?” Lucas asked reasonably.

  Charlee picked up his hand. “I’m not sure.”

  “You know everything,” he pointed out.

  She shook her head. “I could live as long as the Kine and still not know it all.” She looked ahead, feeling the pull, her gaze drifting back to the mountains. She tried to feel ahead, like she had felt and encompassed the tower. But there was no one to help her this time. It was just her, and the little bits she had learned about the nine worlds.

  “Hurry,” Lucas urged. “We need to go. Soon.”

  “I know.” She felt ahead, groping blindly. When Verlan Seeker had re
ached her, his imprint had been steady. Confident. Then there was the silvered rush of power from the aura running through her.

  Through her.

  Charlee recalled that sensation once more. It had been a pure, cool feeling. The auras were inhuman. Alive in their way, and with a literal intelligence, like a computer was intelligent. Complex. Ethereal. Strong.

  She felt the brush of one against her mind and turned to it. Facing it. Embracing it. It passed through her, and Charlee gasped.

  “I can feel that,” Lucas whispered, his eyes wide. His hand gripped hers tightly.

  Charlee studied the sensations swirling through her as the aura pushed through. It was too wide. Too generalized. She grappled with it, feeling the aura pulse and respond. She had to narrow the aperture that it was passing through. But how?

  Focus...like a magnifying glass focused light in a pinpoint....

  Charlee stared at the distant peaks, shutting out all thoughts, all distractions. She shut down her hearing and lost sense of Lucas’ hand in hers. There was just the place ahead, the place she must reach.

  Everything she had learned since Asher had come into her life, every skill and the sum total of her experiences, had prepared her for this. By accident or design, everything she had learned had shaped her and honed her for this moment: her stolen knowledge of the Kine and learning their ways; training as an Amica, which was the closest a human woman could come to being a true Valkyrie; her healing skills, which had prepared her for dealing with auras; the unknown woman in her head; and finally, Verlan Seeker himself and his dry mental observation that Charlee was about to fulfill her purpose.

  Charlee felt the rise of confidence that this was true. With that confidence came the knowledge she needed. She tightened her grip on the aura, channeling it, narrowing down her focus until the aura burst through her, honed to laser-like power.

  The air opened in front of them, dazzling like a sunrise and crackling with energy. As the aura settled down, lengthening and forming, Charlee shaped the opening into an upright rectangle.

  “A door,” Lucas murmured. He looked at her. “A portal.” His hand squeezed again. “Can we go through, do you think?”

  Charlee let out her breath. “You know the answer.”

  “Yes, we can,” Lucas decided. He moved forward and Charlee went with him. They stepped through.

  * * * * *

  The hall was very large—larger than any Charlee had ever seen before. It echoed emptily as they stepped from the portal and looked around. Ahead, doors stood open, and through them an ethereal white light poured.

  Without speaking, they moved across the silent hall and through the doors. The light was coming from overhead, falling through a roof made of high, arching beams of stone, with patterned glass between them.

  At the far end of the hall was a dais, with two grand chairs upon it. Behind the dais, higher still, was another platform with a single chair upon it, bigger than either of the pair below.

  Charlee glanced at them, but her attention was drawn to a table sitting in the middle of the hall, halfway between where they stood just inside the door and the dais at the other end.

  There was a pitcher and a cup sitting on the table. Both were made of a metal that might have been bronze or gold. They were quite plain, but very beautiful.

  Charlee walked to the table, her footsteps echoing. Somewhere high overhead, a bird fluttered restlessly, disturbed by her steps. But otherwise the hall was silent.

  Moving by instinct, Charlee picked up the pitcher and poured. The golden liquid flowed into the cup and its distinct scent rose up. It was mead.

  Lucas came to the table. Silently, Charlee held the cup out to him. He took it and drank, then gave it back to her. Charlee sipped the cool liquid, feeling it slide down her throat.

  Lucas looked around. “Are we where I think we are?”

  “Where do you think you are?” Charlee asked, putting down the cup.

  He looked at her. “Valhalla.”

  Charlee sampled the air, looking for the rightness inside her that would confirm his guess. “Yes,” she said at last.

  With the acknowledgment came a sense of urgency. Of business unfinished.

  Lucas frowned, as if he had abruptly grown aware of the same urgent call.

  Charlee gasped. “Asher!” she cried as the memories rushed back in like the returning tide.

  * * * * *

  They found the Lajos cowering at the top of the tower, for the humans still fighting for access to the base had sabotaged what they had been using as their stage, and they had scrambled into the tower at a mid-point doorway and raced to the top just ahead of Asher’s army.

  The tower narrowed at the top, but it was still a massively large construction. The level they found when they fought their way up the last set of stairs was open to the air on all sides and soared up to the tip of the tower, many feet above.

  Renmar stood behind the ranks of his Lajos, who had arranged a phalanx of Myrakar as protection in front of them.

  Asher’s people spread out across the level, facing the Myrakar line. Asher walked into the middle of the clear space between them. He glanced behind him, and Ylva and Darwin stepped out to stand just in front of the line. Koslov made his way to the front, far to one side, and waved someone through with him. A man with a camera on his shoulder, his eye to the viewfinder, walked out into the open. The camera moved around the level, then pointed at Asher.

  Asher mentally sighed over the camera. He looked past the ranks of Myrakar and Lajos to where Renmar stood outlined by the grey sky visible through the big open arch behind him.

  “Come out from behind your men and finish this with no more bloodshed,” Asher told him.

  One of the Myrakar leaned to whisper in Renmar’s ear, but the Lajos waved him off. He looked at Asher, his large eyes filled with a very human emotion: bitterness. He pushed through the line of Lajos. The Myrakar parted to let him through, and he stepped out into the empty space between the two armies and turned to face Asher. He was taller than Asher, but not by much. For a Lajos, he was quite short.

  Asher rested his sword point down, the blood running the length of his blade and pooling on the floor at his feet.

  “You think you have won,” Renmar said slowly, his English ill-formed and hesitant, but intelligible. “You cannot win, even if you cut me down right here and now. You are a dying race, soon to be interred within the earth of your lesser cousins, bereft of a world to call your own. The branded one is dead. The prophecy is broken. You have failed, even as you have won.”

  The reminder of Charlee caused the blackness in Asher to rise and try to break free. He fought to keep it contained. “I would not speak of her at all, if I were you, Renmar.” He waved around the tower. “Surrender, and we will negotiate terms.”

  “Surrender?” Renmar smiled, and it was an odd expression on his face. It seemed to be skewed, just like his English. “We have not lost. Once I am gone, another will be here.”

  Asher switched to the language of the Alfar. He did not want Renmar to misunderstand him. “No human will suffer another Alfar to control their world, Renmar. They will rise up as they have today and topple whoever dares try. It is over. All that remains is for you to save what is left of your people.”

  Renmar’s face worked as he struggled to deal with Asher’s words.

  Asher chose his next words carefully, for he was at the limits of his knowledge of Renmar’s tongue. “You did not kill her soon enough, Renmar. Everyone saw her standing by my side. They will remember that forever. They will remember that humans stood with Herleifr on this day, and they know that the Kine will always stand with them.”

  Renmar howled in protest. It was a wordless battle cry that lifted the hairs on Asher’s neck. He brought his sword and knife up, just as Renmar’s long knife materialized in his hand and came down to cleave Asher’s skull in two.

  The three blades locked with a ringing sound, and everyone in the hall took a step forward
in alarm.

  Renmar hissed, the fury in his eyes revealed at last. He had played his last hand and lost.

  Ylva ran forward, her long knives up. “Arsenios!” she called and Arsenios jogged over. The two of them wrenched the long knife out of Renmar’s hands and wrestled him to his knees on the floor in front of Asher. His robe fell into the pool of blood and it began to soak the cloth, spreading upwards.

  Asher stared at him, the blackness threatening to break through. “The misery you have caused,” he muttered. “Returning you to Alfheim isn’t enough.” He lifted the sword again and Ylva stepped away from Renmar quickly, anticipating his blow.

  “Asher, no!” came the cry from behind him.

  It was Charlee’s voice.

  Asher halted his sword at the very apex of his swing, his heart squeezing and his breath rushing out in a heavy gasp.

  Ylva’s eyes were wide, her mouth open as she looked past him.

  “Charlee!” Darwin called from his place at the front of the lines, and there was delight in his tone.

  Asher spun to look.

  Charlee and Lucas stood together, and behind them was a shimmering, unframed portal.

  Charlee stepped forward, slowly, her hand up toward him. “It’s really me, Asher,” she said softly.

  He remembered to start breathing again, but it was hard to inhale because of the tightness in his chest.

  Ylva moved closer, studying Charlee and Lucas. “I can see it for myself,” she whispered. “You’re Valkyrie.”

  Ylva’s words let Asher acknowledge the difference in her and Lucas. The familiar sensation one of the Kine felt in the presence of another. It was true.

  “We’re back,” Lucas said in confirmation. “From Valhalla.”

  The reaction in the hall was compound: surprise and pleasure, consternation among the Alfar who understood English, and whispers as the implications behind Lucas’ simple words were understood.

  Directly behind Asher, Renmar screamed out his fury.

  Lucas lunged forward. “Asher, watch out!” He leaned over Asher’s shoulder as Asher spun out of the way of danger. Asher saw the sword appear in Lucas’ hand. The blade buried itself in Renmar’s chest with a wet sucking sound that came from the sharpest of edges sliding through flesh and bone.