Rose (in dream)
I should have known by the smoke.
We crested the hill just past the old mill road, but the valley below didn't stretch the way it should have. It twisted, dipped too deep, like a wound torn into the land.
And the sky… wasn't right.
It bled gray-black spirals that rose without wind, thick and slow, like smoke. The scent followed, ash, and woodsmoke… and something else. Something human, sweet and coppery.
I ran.
Ivar called out to me but I ran further still ignoring his voice in the wind.
The path changed beneath my feet, stone giving way to splintered glass, to nothing. But I didn't stop.
I knew that smell. Rosemary. Mint. Bread.
Memories.
They were burning.
Our cottage was no longer a home. Just a cage of charcoal and jagged shadow. The garden gate curled like blackened fingers. The well yawned open, dry and cracked. The stone path was scattered with things that should not burn, silverware twisted, herbs scorched, bodies blackened beyond recognition.
I stumbled.
Ivar caught me but his face was wrong. Blank. His mouth opened and closed but made no sound.
I fell to my knees in the ruins of the hearth.
My hands dug through ash that felt like hot snow and then I found her ribbon.
My mother's.
Still red. Too red. Red like blood. Red like a warning that something terrible would happen and it had.
I held it close and it beat, like a heart and then the ribbon caught fire in my hands.
Rose (waking from sleep)
I gasped in the darkness.
The stillness taking me off guard.
Ivar was asleep beside me, his breathing slow and real.
The fire crackled low in the hearth. Not wild or threatening to spill over.
I pressed a hand to my chest. My skin was damp from sweat.
My hands trembled, as I remembered the dream.
But it wasn't just a dream.
It was a warning, I was sure of it.
A thread of fate unfurling in fire and blood.
I turned to Ivar, my voice raw.
"Cast the spell," I said.
He blinked, still groggy. "Rose?"
"Cast the spell to protect my mother and father. The house and our land."
His eyes widened, waking fully now. "That kind of magic… it's dangerous. It's binding."
"I don't care," I said. "I won't let them burn. Not because of me."
He stared at me, then saw the fear on my face and slowly, he nodded.
"I'll need your blood."
I held out my hand without hesitation.
"Take what you need."
Ivar
The blood beaded at the tip of the blade, dark against her pale palm.
She hadn't flinched. Not once.
The firelight carved shadows along her cheekbones, her hair tumbling like gold silk around her shoulders. There was no fear in her eyes.
Only firm resolve and a glint of something older than either of us.
I set the silver bowl between us, etched with runes from a tongue only whispered in dreams. It had not been used in centuries.
"It will bind to your name," I said.
Rose nodded. "Good."
I traced a sigil in the ash around the bowl, one for each of the old elements: fire, water, earth, and air. The lines glowed faintly, reacting to the heat in her veins.
"The spell is not just protection," I warned. "It is memory. It will remember who you are and who they are to you."
Her voice was quiet. "I want them remembered."
I drew the knife again. This time, across my own palm.
Our blood mingled in the bowl.
The flame in the hearth flickered then stilled.
A deep hush fell over the room so thick the air itself seemed to shudder.
Rose
It felt like the world held its breath.
The circle flared once then dimmed, as if the fire had turned inward.
Ivar whispered in a tongue that scraped against the edges of my mind. Words that didn't sound like sound. They moved like thought. Like truth given shape.
My blood stirred in response. Warm, then hot, then burning.
I gasped.
Not from pain but from the knowing.
My mother's laughter in the garden.
My father's callused hands guiding mine over the well.
The weight of bread dough, the weight of safety.
It all poured through me, a river of memory turned molten.
Ivar
The earth beneath the cottage groaned quiet and deep.
I saw the sigils lift from the ground like fireflies, hovering, spinning, anchoring themselves in place.
A protective net of ancient fire.
A ward woven not of walls, but of remembrance.
"They are tied now," I said. "To this place. To you."
She swayed slightly.
The spell had taken more than it should have.
"Rose....."
But she held up a hand.
"I'm fine," she whispered. "Just… tired."
And no wonder her magic wasn't dormant anymore.
It was awake.
The bowl cracked.
A clean, splintering sound that echoed like a bell tolling far too late.
The spell was done.
But something in the air had shifted like fate had noticed we had intervened.
Rose
Outside, the wind rose.
But it didn't rattle the shutters.
Didn't touch the garden gate.
It circled us once, curious. Testing.
And then, with a final whisper, it left.
I sank to the floor, my knees folding beneath me.
"I won't let them take it from me," I murmured. "Not again."
Ivar knelt beside me, his voice low. "They'll try. Even harder now."
"I hope they do," I said. "Let them come."
I pressed my bloodied palm to the hearthstone. It pulsed once with light, soft and red, like a heartbeat under stone and then it faded.
But the protection remained.
Unseen, unyielding and unbreakable.