The Branded Rose Prophecy

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  “It wasn’t my life I was fighting for.”

  And just like that, it all clicked into place for Lucas. He understood. It’s not about me at all. Then he remembered the night when he had been facing Sergio, when all the circuits had been cleared and everything had been slow and calm, and lit by almost incandescent light, even though it had been pitch black. He had been in flow then, but he hadn’t been thinking about himself at all. He had been thinking about Charlee.

  He blew out his breath as peace entered his soul. It all made sense.

  Asher was still contemplating the sword, which seemed to glow in the low light. “You have Charlee and Darwin, too. One day, there might be someone else. There’s your father and everything he did for you. All your friends, everything that makes life worthwhile. Every one of them is in jeopardy, every time you suit up. If you keep them in mind when you’re on point, I guarantee you won’t choke.”

  “I won’t,” Lucas agreed. He knew it in his bones, now, just as he understood without being told the strength of the bond between Asher and Charlee, and that little would break it.

  Asher sat up again, spinning the sword with a cock of his wrist. As the point reached the apex of the swing, it disappeared. It didn’t dissolve or slide away. One moment it was there, then it was gone. Asher straightened and pushed something into his pants pocket. The hilt?

  He stood up. In the dark, he was just a larger silhouette, outlined by the sodium arc light far away in the parking area between the apartment towers, behind the park. “You need to fight for Charlee, and anyone else you hold dear, but at the same time, you have to know that nothing will ever harm her, not while she lets me stay in her life. I’ll do everything in my power to ensure that nothing ever troubles her, either.”

  “Don’t promise absolutes,” Lucas said, and his voice was a little hoarse. Who had told him that? Probably Charlee.

  “It isn’t a promise, it’s a guarantee,” Asher said flatly. “And it isn’t an absolute.”

  “What is it, then?”

  “Certainty,” he said flatly.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Charlee would always remember the date when the world shifted, for it happened the day after Elizabeth’s second wedding, which in a way triggered it all.

  Charlee had gone stag to the wedding, only because Asher had one of his mysterious out-of-country errands that he often did, and because he insisted that she go and that she take someone with her whose company she would enjoy. Darwin was also busy and Lucas was on active status. Charlee couldn’t think of a single other person to ask. Ylva was good company, but she was also her boss and it just didn’t seem right. So Charlee went on her own. She knew that Asher would be mildly annoyed over that.

  Elizabeth caught up with Charlee after the simple ceremony, trailing ribbons and lace and netting, and dragged her into the ladies’ washroom and over to the little bench opposite the bank of mirrors. They sat in absorbed silence for a moment, looking at each other. Elizabeth looked older. Her eyes were the same beautiful green with the thick lashes and brows framing them, but there were fine lines at the corners. Her skin was still porcelain pure and smooth, but her makeup was very carefully applied.

  “I can’t believe it’s your second wedding,” Charlee said at last.

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “That’s not why I wanted to talk to you. It’s been so long, Charlee. Can you believe how long ago high school was?”

  Charlee shook her head.

  “You look like a million dollars, honey. I can’t believe you couldn’t find a date to bring with you, not looking like that.”

  Charlee smoothed down the silk of her dress. “Like it?”

  “Love it. I can’t figure out the designer, either.” Elizabeth pouted.

  “Me.”

  “No!” Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “You make clothes now?”

  “I make a lot of things.” Charlee smiled at her. “You’ll see some of what I can make in your wedding present.”

  Elizabeth pressed a finger to her lips. “I’ll make sure I put your gift to one side and open it myself.”

  Charlee squeezed her other hand. “How are you? Really?”

  “I’m married!” She held up her left hand with the gold ring, her smile impish.

  “I mean, it was so fast, Elizabeth. You only got divorced….” Charlee paused. “Oh, wow, that was nearly two years ago, wasn’t it? I take it back.” She hesitated. “Does he make you happy?”

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “The first time around I married Chuck because my parents thought it was such a good idea, but I think they were more in love with the idea of Chuck’s mom and dad becoming a part of the family. Dad and Charles used to go fishing together, long before Chuck asked me out. So I married him.” She shrugged. “You know how you’re supposed to look at the bright side of anything? I think Chuck was a trial run, a way for me to figure out what marriage was all about. Peter…” She sighed. “I got to pick Peter out myself.”

  Charlee didn’t point out that she hadn’t answered her question. “Have you really figured marriage out?” she asked curiously.

  “Who knows?” Elizabeth laughed. “What about you, though? Anyone special in your life?”

  “Perhaps.” Charlee gave her a small smile. “It’s complicated.”

  “It always is,” Elizabeth assured her.

  Charlee kept her smile in place. There was nothing she could say to that.

  Elizabeth’s expression sobered. “I sometimes think you had it right all along.”

  “Had what right?”

  “You were always talking about making something of yourself. Your own career. Your own life. I don’t think you had a single boyfriend the entire time we were in high school together, and it didn’t seem to bother you because you were so busy studying and figuring out what you were going to do with your life. I thought you were crazy, being so obsessed with success and whatever it was you kept daydreaming about.”

  “I guess I must still be crazy,” Charlee murmured.

  “No, I think you knew, even back then.”

  Charlee just looked at her, puzzled.

  Elizabeth sighed and pushed back the edge of her veil. “I know I’m going to wake up sometime tonight, and look over at Peter and think ‘Is this it? Is this all there is to life?’”

  Charlee stared at her, appalled. “Oh, Elizabeth,” she breathed.

  Elizabeth carefully dabbed at the corner of her eye with her fingertip, collecting the tears that had gathered there. “I can’t see ahead the way you seem to be able to. I can’t figure out what I want.”

  “So you got married?”

  Elizabeth pressed her full lips together. “What else was there to do?”

  Charlee had spent the next twenty minutes trying to shift Elizabeth’s mood, to make her laugh once more, so that she would walk out of the washroom with a smile on her face, as any bride should on their wedding day.

  But her friend’s mood stayed with Charlee and her words lingered. Is this all there is? Charlee wanted to know the answer to that herself. Her apprenticeship with Ylva was satisfying in an intellectual way and every day was work-filled and absorbing, but where did it lead to?

  What comes next?

  It was a question that Charlee had begun to ask herself lately, about everything in her life. Elizabeth had clarified and focused her thinking.

  What now?

  * * * * *

  The day after the wedding, Charlee made her way to the store after taking care of the current pets and domestic animals, including a brushing for Grimmer, and was delighted to find Victoria working at the next table.

  After they had hugged and exclaimed over how long Victoria had been away from the house, they settled back into their work, standing on the far side of their own tables so they could look up and see each other. The work went faster that way and talking was easier.

  But Elizabeth’s question was tapping on the corners of her thoughts, like a crow tapping at a window. The question
wouldn’t go away, and Charlee knew she couldn’t even begin to formulate a response without more information.

  “But where have you been?” The question burst out of her, interrupting Victoria’s commentary about how much she missed the store.

  Victoria looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “All of you, you all go away on mysterious trips and errands. A day, a night, a week, a year, then you come back again. Sometimes. But no one says where they’ve gone!” She thumped the marble mortar she was holding on the table, not heavily, but the marble made a heavy thud against the wood, anyway.

  Victoria’s big, grey eyes were very large now. She frowned, a line puckering between her brows. “But you do, too. You were away for nearly a year.”

  Charlee shook her head vigorously. “That was learning, at Anja’s shop.”

  “There are other shops besides Anja’s,” Victoria said gently. “And you do, too, go away for more than learning. I’ve seen you with Asher Strand.”

  Charlee blinked. “You know who he is?”

  “Everyone knows who he is.”

  Charlee looked down at her bowl. “I don’t.”

  “But…” Victoria bit her lip. “Never mind.” She began mixing again.

  “But what?” Charlee pressed.

  She shook her head.

  “Please, Victoria. I’m so tired of not knowing what everyone else knows.”

  Victoria glanced around the big workroom. She dropped her voice. “Of course you don’t understand. You’re not Amica. And laun means I can’t tell you.”

  “Screw laun. I know how to keep my mouth shut. I need to know. I need to start making decisions.”

  “Are you going to join the Amica, then?” Victoria asked.

  Charlee blinked. “Is that even an option for me?”

  Victorian picked up her spoon and began stirring again. “I wouldn’t know,” she said blandly. “But you live in this house. I’m sure Ylva would arrange it if you wanted it. She likes you.”

  You live in this house. “Okay, here’s a really dumb question, then. What is this house? An Amica house?”

  Victoria rolled her eyes. “Hardly. This is Ylva’s home.”

  “Yes, and…?” Charlee coaxed.

  Victoria shook her head. “Ylva is not Amica,” she said.

  Charlee gripped her pestle, controlling her reaction. The next answer would step into territory that she had never reached before. Territory that was hidden behind laun, the mysterious wall of silence that everyone—Asher, Ylva, and anyone connected with them—seemed to understand. It was a stony conspiracy that everyone maintained with rigorous discipline. Was this at last a chink? Could she hammer her way inside now?

  She made herself work the pestle with casual movements. “Of course Ylva isn’t Amica,” she said, as if this had been long known to her. “She’s a Valkyrie.” She held her breath, waiting for Victoria’s response.

  “Well, not anymore, of course,” the woman responded and picked up the jar of olive oil and poured a few careful drops. “But yes, that’s what I mean.”

  Charlee kept her hands moving, watching them while her mind raced and her heart thudded sickly. Ylva was, or used to be, a Valkyrie. It was all true, everything she and Darwin had extrapolated and conjectured. The Einherjar, the Valkyrie, here on Earth.

  She carefully formulated her next question. “So you went visiting another Valkyrie house?”

  Victoria laughed. “Hardly. Ylva knows Eira, of course. Eira wanted an Amica to fill in for one of her own, who had accepted a short-term contract with an Einherjar in another hall. I was actually working right there in the Second Hall.” She said it with pride, the capital letters implied by a subtle emphasis.

  Charlee had to work to keep her breathing steady and not in any way let Victoria know that all of this was new to her. All the assumptions in Victoria’s answer and what they implied made her pulse boom in heavy waves. She didn’t know who Eira was, but from the context, she had to assume that Eira was a Valkyrie. Amica worked for the Valkyrie, in ways she had yet to figure, but from all the learning she had done in this household, it seemed safe to assume that the duties were domestic. Cleaning and maintaining a “hall”, perhaps. If Victoria had worked at the “Second” Hall, then there was more than one. Where was the Second Hall? Here in the city, somewhere?

  Forcing herself to physical stillness, while her mind reeled and the questions came faster and faster, Charlee tested the mixture in her bowl and sniffed it carefully. “The Second Hall itself? Of course they would pick you for that. You’re so good at everything.”

  Victoria’s cheeks turned pink. “I don’t think I was picked for my singing. It was the Second Hall, Charlee.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “I think I might have caught the eye of one. He asked me to keep him company the last night I was there.” She blew out a sigh. “If I’d had a little more time, I might have had the chance to make a permanent arrangement, or even a short-term contract.”

  Charlee stared down at the wooden tabletop blindly, as understanding slammed through her. Her awareness shifted and new patterns formed. The training she had received here; the emphasis on appearance, clothing and presentation; the constant trial-and-error search for the potential in all of them, developing skills that would serve whomever they were assigned to. Then there was the sheer beauty of every Amica Charlee had ever met.

  The Amica were companions for the Kine. Housemaids for the Valkyrie and partners for the Einherjar. They were trained as paramours, their natural talents enhanced, their loveliness showcased, their training every bit as nuanced and detailed as that of a geisha’s.

  Her heart was swinging around in her chest, hurting in its frantic beat. Charlee let out a shaky breath. Her head felt thick and hot with pressure. “Was he handsome?” she asked Victoria and her voice sounded far off and hazy to her. “Your Einherjar?”

  Victoria smiled. “Who cares? He’s Einherjar.” She carefully stirred the contents of her bowl. “They were saying in the Second Hall that there’s too many Amica now. Of course, they need a lot because the Valkyrie are diminishing and the Einherjar outnumbered them to start with. But…” She leaned forward again. “Can you imagine not being chosen? How humiliating it would be, to have to fall back to being a cleaner or a cook or something boring like that.”

  Charlee almost gasped. The facts were flowing over her now, each a revelation of its own. “You wouldn’t want to just be in the Second Hall?” she asked, trying to sort through all of it and not give Victoria any hint that she was holding up her end of the conversation with sheer bluff, feeling her way ahead with the information Victoria was feeding her with every answer. “Would it matter what you were assigned to, if you could just be there?”

  “Well, I suppose,” Victoria said slowly and doubtfully. Then she brightened. “Of course if you’re there, then even if you’re just serving the tables, you could still catch the eye of an Einherjar. Like Kate and Salomon.”

  Charlee could feel tremors starting up in her knees and her belly. She was going to have to take a risk now, or Victoria would shut down on her completely. She shook her head a little, looking thoughtful. “I don’t think I’ve heard that story. Kate and Salomon, I mean.” Victoria had said the two names in a way that made her think of story titles and book names. Tristan and Isolde. Antony and Cleopatra. Kate and Salomon.

  Victoria waved her fingers, wriggling them with excitement. “You haven’t? It’s such a great story. He’s Einherjar, but there was a human woman he was in love with, but he wouldn’t leave the Kine for her because he was a stallari and his earl needed him. It was back centuries ago, when they actually got to use their swords out in the open, like humans were still doing. Salomon was told by the Council he had to pick an Amica and forget about the human woman. He saw Kate tending the firepit in his hall, and he chose her, the first Amica he saw. He didn’t care, he was heartbroken over his human lover. But Kate was very, very smart. She wouldn’t sleep with him at first. She told
him she would be a friend and never try to take the place of his lover. And she was.

  “For years, she took care of him and didn’t ask for a single thing in return. She kept assuring him that his lost love was important to him, and he should remember and honor her. And bit by bit, he forgot about his human and fell in love with Kate. They lived together until Kate died of old age, and then Salomon mourned her as the greatest love of his life.” Victoria smiled dreamily. “I would love to meet him one day. I heard he is with the hall in Thailand now and they don’t mix with the others as much, but they do come to Council, so if I was with the Second Hall, I might see…. Charlee, what’s wrong?”

  Charlee gripped the table hard, trying to clear the dizziness in her head. She heard Victoria’s quick, concerned question, but couldn’t answer. She could barely draw breath.

  “Silia!” Victoria called. “Quickly, something’s wrong with Charlee!”

  Charlee shook her head in denial, or thought she did. White noise was booming in her head, making sounds around her ebb and fade in waves. Strong hands were on her arms, lifting her, keeping her on her feet. People were talking, but she couldn’t hear them.

  Finally, she closed her eyes and gave up.

  * * * * *

  “If it wasn’t a faint, it was something just as alarming,” Ylva said, folding her hands over her crossed knees. “Sudden traumatic emotional upheaval can look very much like fainting.”

  Charlee tried to lift herself up higher on the chaise longue, but didn’t have the strength. She felt so tired. “I’m fine,” she said once more. “Really. I just need to find my phone. I dropped it somewhere.”

  “It’s probably still in the store. Why do you want it?”

  Charlee rolled her eyes. “I want to make a call.”

  “Clearly. I would like to know who you need to call so desperately immediately after you just collapsed with shock.”

  “It wasn’t—I didn’t collapse. I’m just tired, Ylva. It was a late night last night. Maybe I ate something at the wedding that doesn’t agree with me.”