Chapter 64 The Blue Rose Crowned by Blood and Fire
THE BLUE ROSE CROWNED BY BLOOD AND FIRE
“The flower that blooms after death is the one that will never wither. Rise, Blue Rose. Let the earth remember your wrath.”
—Láda Velé?a, Goddess of Leadership and War
Noel
Breathing feels foreign. As if the world has been reshaped in my absence. The land mourned me. I felt its roots wrap around my soul and pull me back, whispering that my task was unfinished. My crystals feel heavier. They thrum with every life lost, every drop of blood spilled in my name.
Death was quiet. A slow fade into the dark. But returning is like being thrust into the sun, seared back into existence by the cries of those who refused to let me go.
I was meant to die. I know that now. But the prophecy was never about my death—it was about what would rise from the ashes of defeat.
She who was marked for death shall not fall, but rise the flame reborn in ruin’s wake, forged not to perish, but to reign.
ávera told me the last part of the prophecy.
I am the Blue Rose, uprooted, but still I bloom. I am the flame-born heir who shall weigh a soul beneath the pyre’s glow.
I am Noel ársa, blood of the blue rose. No longer its daughter, but the bloom itself, crowned and sovereign.
Theron’s soul held on to mine, a thread of fire and fury, tethering me to the world of the living. Even in death, I was warm in his grasp.
If the tsar believes this war is over, he has yet to understand the storm building outside his stronghold.
He tried to bury me, but he did not know I was a seed my mother planted.
I have risen, and I am not the same. For every drop of our blood, I will make them bleed tenfold.
I will destroy and I will take what belongs to me.
ávera has chosen me. The goddesses watch over me. I will not fail.
I exhale and look to Theron as words slip from my lips. “Rise, my soul. Our journey has just begun.”
His chest rises. Barely, but it moves. His massive paws dig into the earth beneath him. Then, I turn around.
The nymphí. The vólkins and the orcs. They are still. Silent. Staring at me as if I am a goddess. And Elder A?na, her breath unsteady, her wide eyes locked onto mine.
A whisper of the land hums in my ears. A memory, a truth I did not know before death took me. I turn fully to her. “ávera told me you are vólkar.” My voice echoes through the land. “And so is Theron now.”
Elder A?na does not move. Does not speak.
Theron rises.
The earth crunches beneath his paws, the sound shivers across my skin. He is alive. Then, he opens his eyes. Those beautiful hazel eyes—once warm and gold—have turned pale. But he is still my Theron, my soul. We are alive.
The marks from our bonding ritual return, staining his fur as if they never left. A part of him now. Red circles and lines, the sacred symbols binding us. And there, over his heart, the mark I left on him. Mine. Forever. I turn my head.
The monsters crawl from the soil. They do not understand.
So I lift my hand, calling the vines from beneath the earth.
They obey my will and writhe toward me in a slow dance.
A single vine coils into my palm, its thorns piercing my skin and pressing deep.
My blood blooms against its dark edges as it drinks from me.
With a twist of my wrist, I direct my hand toward the creatures.
A single drop of my blood, and they burn.
Blue fire erupts from their flesh and devours them whole. Their limbs flail, their bodies convulse, until they crumble into nothing. Silence falls.
Not a single monster remains.
Now, at last, I have the time to savor Gregor’s death. He trembles, drowning in terror, his wide eyes fixed on me. He knows. There is no more mercy. No more pleading. I never make the same mistake twice. He will die.
The tsar’s men allow their cowardice to win out and abandon Or?on’s bound body to dart away into the darkness. I barely shift my gaze toward Theron before he’s moving—a blur—lunging after them like death itself. Faster than before. Stronger. But just as he reaches them—
“If you kill me!” a voice rings out. “You kill her!”
My gaze snaps toward the sound. One of the men yanks someone from the shadows. A woman, her body limp, her face obscured by tangled brown hair, her knees shaking.
Theron skids to a halt mere steps away from them. His body is ready to strike, but he does not move.
They have a hostage. The Healer.
A broken cry erupts. Gregor. He collapses to his knees, his fingers clutching at his hair, his entire form racked with something beyond fear. “STOP!” he screams. “JUST STOP! I CAN’T TAKE THIS ANYMORE! KILL HER! KILL ME! KILL EVERYONE!”
It is the desperate, unhinged wail of a man who has lost all grip on reason.
“Gregor!” The woman’s voice shatters the night. She thrashes in her captor’s grasp, struggling against his hold.
The gleam of my blue flames flickers over her light brown hair, similar to his.
A relative, perhaps? A sister? It doesn’t matter.
She is the healer from the prophecy, and no more related to this dead man.
I pulse through my crystal to Theron. In a blink, it is done.
Three men. Gregor. Or?on. Kneeling before me.
Theron stands behind them, a shadow of judgment. The nymphí understand without words, and they dart forward to cut the healer free. She screams Gregor’s name. Her cries echo through ávera’s forests.
“Three ways to go against me, and all of them kneel at my feet.” I raise my bleeding hand and close it into a fist. The chains around Or?on shatter, and he collapses to the ground, gasping, freed at last. Gregor shudders.
Tilting my head, I consider him. He looks so small now.
My boots are silent against the bloodstained earth as I step forward to grab him by the throat and lift him to his feet.
His pulse thrashes beneath my palm. “I will take your life for all the lives you stole.” My voice is ice, my grip tight.
I tilt my head to the other side, and whisper, “And for mine as well.”
Gregor’s hollow, defeated eyes stare into mine, veins bulge from his skin. He swallows. A broken, pitiful sound escapes him. “I . . . I never wanted any of thi—” Crack. His body goes limp. I let him fall. The earth swallows him whole.
Now, the others. I turn to the three men still kneeling. “Which one of you killed me?”
The man in the center draws my attention, his lips stretching into something like a smirk, arrogant and too wide. “I did.” He tilts his head, studying me like a child amused by a toy he’s already broken. “And you’re even more of a tyrant than your father.”
“ándor wasn’t a tyrant, you fool.”
At that, he laughs. A wild, fractured sound that echoes across the silent land. “Look at you!” he gasps between chuckles, his shoulders shaking. “A vólkin whore, exactly like your mother was!”
Theron’s growl rumbles behind him. His claws flex, his breathing sharp.
The man doesn’t stop. He doesn’t care. He leans forward, spitting poison with every word.
“You think ándor was your father?” He snorts and his voice turns cruel.
“Eyleen didn’t tell you? What a poor, lost child.
Eyleen could’ve had a lavish life, the tsar’s cock buried inside her every night.
Instead, she ran pregnant into the forest like some pathetic wretch! ”
A snarl tears from Theron as he grips the man’s head, but the man just grins, his teeth bared like a wolf scenting blood.
“How dare you speak with such hatred for females?” Theron growls, clenching his claws and drawing blood from the man’s forehead.
“No. He doesn’t hate. He’s afraid,” I answer my mate.
“He’s afraid of women. All of them are.” I study the man’s face.
“That’s why you try to make us small, keep us in the kitchen or in bed.
Make us whores or mothers. And when we express our feelings, you call us hysterical.
When we are strong, you call us whores. And when we seek power, you say, ‘No, that’s not feminine.
’” I lean in, and my voice drops. “But what truly scares you . . . is not that we won’t be feminine.
It’s that you will not be masculine enough.
” My crystals pulse, and I see my own pale eyes reflected in his.
“Come on, little girl! Kill me!” His voice rises, mockery and madness laced in every word that comes out of his mouth. “A child playing god with vólkins at her feet. Did you really think you were different? You think you stand against the tsar?!”
His smile stretches even wider. Unnatural. His eyes gleam as he delivers his final words. “You’re going mad.” A pause. A breath. “You are just like him. Or even worse.”
My heart pounds, fury roars through my veins. The earth stirs. Blood pools beneath his knees, a crimson bloom spreading through the dirt.
He chokes on his laughter.
Thorned blue roses sprout from his own blood, curling out of his body, tearing his flesh. They twist, wrapping tight, tighter, until they snap his spine like a brittle twig. Eyes bulging, mouth frozen in an unfinished laugh, his head tilts back—
Then, it detaches.
His body collapses. The other two men follow, their screams hardly leaving their lips before the roses claim them too. And then silence. I lift my gaze, staring into nothing.
The battlefield fades, the blood, the bodies, the silence, all of it slips into the background as the pieces fall into place. I see it now.
She was pregnant. That’s why she ran. That’s why she fled the stronghold. To protect me. Two mates can’t be unbonded for more than six moons.
The truth settles in my bones, a revelation so simple—so obvious—and yet, it shatters everything. It all finally makes sense.
I was born from the blood I vowed to destroy.
The battlefield is quiet now. The blood has dried, the ashes settled. What remains is only what has been lost. And what has been won.
I stand before them, the warriors who fought, the spirits who watched, the land that chose me. Vólkins. Orcs. Nymphí. The very essence of ávera. This is the moment that will shape the future. Our future.
With an inhale, I calm the storm inside me, then lift my voice so all may hear. So that every unseen creature will know who will shape this world.
“We have lost. We have bled. We have suffered. But we are still here.”
The wind carries my words, the spirits whisper their approval, their presence felt in the rustling of leaves, in the gentle pulse of the glowing blue roses that now bloom across the battlefield.
“The tsar sought to break us. To burn us. To erase us from this world. But look around you.” Spreading my arms, I motion to the warriors standing, to the land reborn beneath us. “He has failed.”
I lock eyes with each of them—the vólkins, the nymphí, the orcs who knelt before me but now stand as brothers.
“For centuries, we have been hunted. We have been called monsters.” My voice hardens, the fire burning deep in my chest. “And yet, it was they who were the true monsters. The ones who ravaged our lands. The ones who took our homes. The ones who sought to turn us into nothing but whispers of the past.”
A growl rumbles through the gathered warriors. Fists clench. Claws flex. Fangs gleam in the moonlight. Good.
“But we are not whispers.” My crystals glow, my power pulses through the air.
“We are the storm that will carve a new world. No longer will we kneel. No longer will we hide. No longer will we let the tsar dictate our fate. From this day forward, we stand as one—orc, vólkin, nymphá, and woman.” I place my bloodied palm against my torn gown over my heart.
“We will build and rule. We will thrive. Not as the forgotten, but as the rightful heirs of this world.”
And then Theron steps closer as a few nymphí move aside for him. His pale eyes burn, his body still covered in the remnants of battle. He holds something in his paws. A crown.
But not of gold.
A crown of blue roses. Long, dark thorns stand tall around the circle. Theron lowers his head, presses his forehead to mine, and my soul sings. Feeling his touch and his crystals, makes me want to rise to the skies. He lifts the crown.
And places it atop my head.
A hush falls. The warriors, the spirits, and the land hold their breath. Theron takes a step back, his voice reverent as he says, “Lidé?en.”
My birthright.
And then, they kneel. All of them. Vólkins. Orcs. Nymphí.
The land itself bows to me. The ancient trees curve to me, the moon blesses my soul.
A wind rushes through ávera, carrying the scent of roses and blood. Eyes closed, I feel the weight of the crown on my head, the weight of every life lost, every sacrifice made, and the world that awaits me to be claimed.
And I swear, this is only the beginning.
“Noel ársa, my husband,” Theron says, and the only thing I can do is smile.