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    Tales From Olympus: Odyssey
    Tales From Olympus: Odyssey
    Tales From Olympus: Odyssey
    Ebook189 pages3 hours

    Tales From Olympus: Odyssey

    By Erik Schubach

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    The United Races have become stronger in the centuries after losing their greatest beacon of peace and gentleness. Olympus has moved the palace and capitol City Tree of Alfheim into the citadel in case the Jotunn reach the Olympian's host world.

    The daughter of Queen Jania Sure Step, the All Mother of the Ljósálfar and Dökkálfar elves, is at a crucial juncture in her life as she becomes an adult. She must choose from three paths before her, yet she feels none of those are her calling.

    Crowned Princess of the Elves, Arin, named for the fallen Hero of Asgard and Olympus, finds a path lost to her people and restarts old traditions so that she may stand as the Iron Wall for her Elvish heritage.

    But when both Titan and Frost Giant Star Killer vessels threaten her world, will her resolve be enough? And what are these flashes and visions she has been seeing since she was born?

    This final chapter of the Tales From Olympus holds the key to a universal peace, or Alfheim's fiery end.

    (The Tales From Olympus are the continuation of the Valkyrie Chronicles)

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherErik Schubach
    Release dateMay 26, 2020
    ISBN9780463327852
    Tales From Olympus: Odyssey
    Author

    Erik Schubach

    I got my start writing romance novels by accident. I have always been drawn to strong female characters in books, like Honor Harrington. And I also believe that there is a lack of LGBT characters in media. So one day I came up with a story idea that combines the two... two days later I completed the manuscript for Music of the Soul.My writing style may not be the most professional nor grammatically correct, but I never profess to be an English major, just a person that wants to share a story. I maintain that my primary language is sarcasm.Each of my books features strong likeable female characters that are flawed. I think that flaws and emotional or physical scars make us human and give us more character than simply conforming to some "social norm".I have also started a SciFi series, The Valkyrie Chronicles which features a Valkyrie, Kara, who was left behind on Earth five thousand years ago to help the Asgard race escape the onslaught of the Ragnarok horde. With the aid of a human, Kate, she holds the line in battle to herald the return of the Asgard!If you like magic, paranormal romance and witches, then my new series Fracture might tickle your fancy. In the first book Fracture: Divergence, Alex King must stop magic from destroying reality. The problem is that Alex must solve the case in parallel universes where in one Alex is male and female in the other.There is even a modern shapeshifter paranormal series, Drakon. Featuring a fiery Irish woman with a sharp wit and sharper temper who finds out she is a dragon of legend.

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      Book preview

      Tales From Olympus - Erik Schubach

      Tales From Olympus: Odyssey

      By Erik Schubach

      Copyright © 2020 by Erik Schubach

      Published by Erik Schubach on Smashwords

      P.O. Box 523

      Nine Mile Falls, WA 99026

      Cover Photo © 2020 Serhii Bobyk / Depositphotos.com license

      ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, blog, or broadcast.

      This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      FIRST EDITION

      Prologue

      The United Races mourned and bore witness to the absence of the light. Those were doleful days indeed, and the age which followed has come to be known by all as the Dark Times.

      Even after all these centuries, I remember the loss of the beacon of peace of the Asgard, the day that Arina the Whispering Breeze was lost to the ages performing her final selfless act of heroism.

      We had been here on Alfheim, forging a peace with the Elves, securing permission to space fold our ancestral home, the Citadel of Olympus, to their planet to evade the incoming Titan Star Killer vessel that was moving in on Olympus to end the song of our people, remembered only by the Tree of Ages and the United Races of this realm.

      The Titan, Thea, who was a good friend to all after her eyes were opened by Kara the Wild One, that all sentient beings deserved to live their lives in peace, and that their war with the Jotunn had consumed them and had become the exclusive focus of their entire beings.

      Time was not on our side. The citadel had evacuated, leaving only Arina and Thea as they raced against time they did not have to fill the massive Jump capacitor reservoir of our home in order to escape certain destruction.

      There were only a handful of seconds left and we knew it was inevitable, the great Citadel of Mount Olympus would be lost. Our home would be gone but Olympus would live on in us Olympians, our race would survive and rebuild.

      But it was clear that Thea and Arina would not leave until they had tried every option. I would not have them risk their lives any further, and we couldn't let the citadel or our cloaking and space folding technology fall into the hands of the Titans, so I blurted out over the Bifrost communication channel, Just set the Citadel self destruct and get to Asgard while you can ladies!

      Arina had responded thoughtfully, telling me her mind was working on the problem at a level, not even our greatest scientists or theorists could even contemplate, I was actually thinking on attuning the temporary scale shield dome to shunt the power from the Titan main weapon into the jump drive core when it strikes. There would be bleed through since the resonance would be modified, but I think it would be negligible.

      The First Valkyrie of Asgard, and my sister, Kara, had snapped back at her, Are you insane? Taking a hit without properly attuned shields is suicide, Little One. You and Thea get out of there now.

      Arina looked my way in the holographic projection and said, No... I will not leave Artemis without her home. I will not leave the Olympians without a home.

      I started to protest as I watched the seconds tick down too quickly. Arina, you don't...

      But she had already turned to Thea, and said to the giant woman, There's no need for both of us to be here in case it fails. Get through the Bifrost so I can shut it down so they don't get any blowback.

      Thea had simply glided her eight-foot-tall frame over to her and argued, I will not leave you here to attempt this on your own, you'll need me to monitor the transfer while you maintain the shields.

      At that, Arina simply stepped up to her, the gentle and loving look we all adored on her face as the countdown in my vision started flashing red with fifteen seconds remaining, and data started streaming in showing the approaching vessel was already charging its main canon. She hugged Thea and said, I thought you might say that. Then the Little One sprang backward with the strength of a Valkyrie of Asgard, clearing thirty yards as I saw what she had done while distracting the Titan with the embrace. Their emergency jump pack was dangling from Thea's belt.

      The Titan's eyes had widened just as space folded around her. Then in a whump of displaced air that knocked loose items to the floor, Thea was standing at the far end of the room with us, the walls steaming and smoking from the energy of the space fold. Thea was lurching toward the hologram, calling out in alarm, Arina, you can't alone!

      That was when we all stared in horror at the screen as a five-second countdown appeared on the display as the most selfless woman I have ever known said, Well here goes nothing. In her typical adorable fashion, Arina crossed her fingers then hit the control to disconnect the Bifrost.

      The Three Embers looked at the empty space in distress with us, at that point in space where Arina's hologram had been a moment before. I had not known that it would be the last time I would ever see Arina.

      The Asgard nanites that were rewriting my genetic code, blending Asgard and Olympian DNA to make me... more, than I had been. Forging me into the First Valkyrie of Olympus at the molecular level, shared the ghost of the feeling of the communication between the Three Embers, and we all ran as a group out the door to the veranda balcony which looked out over the ridge and toward the front gates of the great Elven capitol tree city of Allrbus.

      A few moments later the entire planet of Alfheim felt as though it were shaking down to its core, and we were all hit with vertigo as we physically experienced the edges of a massive amount of space being folded by so closely. Smaller trees shook down to their roots and tumbled from the force of that shaking. Then in an explosion of displaced air, hurricane-force winds barreled through the ancient Tanalus trees, tearing leaves and branches from those mammoth sentinels of the forest, and we all had to anchor ourselves with the nano-lattices of coherent energy which our nanites produced and leaned into the raging tempest, being bombarded by debris caught up in the swirling chaos of dirt and dust.

      Then it was simply over, like it had never been, the destruction around us being the only evidence to the contrary, and we dropped our arms. We had all blinked in disbelief, for there, towering over the massive wood gates in the distance, beside the Asgardian Bifrost Terminal was half of a mountain, the other half flickered back and forth into existence until the photonic hologram projectors of the city died.

      My heart stuttered and my breath had caught, for there, in the middle of it was the Citadel of Olympus, a third of it was destroyed or burning under a patchwork of shimmering and shorting Asgardian shields, demonstrating just how many had failed against the main weapon of a Star Killer. As we looked on, an explosion was heard in the distance, and one of the buildings near the perimeter collapsed into a fireball.

      My mind was locked up in incomprehension. Arina the Whispering Breeze had done it, she had saved our home. But at what cost? I stopped breathing as I noted that the shield right above the courtyard where Arina had been, with the temporary Bifrost gateway, was gone and I couldn't see the courtyard itself at this angle.

      I fought off the panic that seized my heart in my chest with the knowledge that nothing unshielded could have survived a hit from the main cannon of a Star Killer...

      I remember my mouth was working, as I tried to say her name, but my throat was raw, and I turned when the Three Embers ran from the balcony, Brunie screaming in anguish, Mother! as Inatra dropped to her knees in shock, whispering, Arina?

      Before I could grab her, Inatra had just launched herself off the balcony and plummeted to the ground so far below. I dove after her. I hadn't fallen half the distance when I saw her hit the ground below, her lattice flaring to take the impact and she was running toward the gates.

      I winced, knowing it was going to hurt, but putting my faith in the nanites, the Verr, to protect me. I figured that if Inatra felt she could do it, then I could too. And it hurt when I hit, even with the nano-lattice flaring and taking most of the impact, converting the kinetic energy into power for the lattice itself.

      As an Olympian, our musculature and bone density is like that of heavy worlders like the Asgard and Ragnarok, and even being mostly Asgard now, it still felt like I had landed on plasticrete and I rolled to absorb the rest of the energy of the fall.

      Then I was up and running after Inatra, who was roaring like the enraged Ragnarok she was. Even being small for a Ragnarok female, she was one of the most dangerous warriors of the Ragnarok race, even before she had accidentally been exposed to the Asgard nanites like me.

      The Three Embers: Essa, Brunie, and Samantha had caught up with Inatra just as I did, and the trees were swarming with Elves as they tried to keep up. The Queen, Nerthus of the Ljósálfar elves, and the crowned princess, Jania Sure Step, were the only ones who were just barely able to keep up with us as we pulled slowly ahead as they dove from branch to branch in the trees beside the path.

      Jania called out, Sam!

      Samantha hesitated only a half step as the woman who had just professed her love, called out. I could feel the overwhelming panic that seemed to resonate between all three Embers, building upon itself, centered around Brunie.

      I swallowed, understanding the panic because I had just started to be able to feel the presence of the others who possessed advanced nanites like me. It was just something the girls saw as normal since they were the first Asgard children to ever be born with nanites already a part of them. And this hole, this absence where the warmth of Arina had resided in the back of my mind was empty, like a void.

      We all knew what that meant, but none of us wanted to believe it. I heard over coms, in a detached portion of my mind, that the Valkyrie of Asgard was making an emergency transport to the Bifrost Terminal. I swear I could hear Kate's scream in my head.

      As we reached the gates of the burning Citadel, we slowed. They were at the fringe of one of the scale shields that had failed and the mammoth hetrocillium alloy gates were fused together at the molecular level, blocking our way.

      There was no sound, not even the impression of movement except a streak in our vision, and a familiar war cry echoed through the decimated forest around the Citadel as Kara, the Wild One, First Valkyrie of Valhalla, Right Hand of Kenatar, Demon of Ragnarok struck gates that were designed to withstand the impact of a meteor.

      With a screeching of protesting metal, the alloy tore and gave way to the massive nano-lattice blades of raw compressed magnetic force that crackled with blue power which extended from her arms. Even in the blinding grief and desperation flooding me from all the woman present, it was sobering and terrifying to witness the rage and power of a true Valkyrie of Valhalla.

      Inatra and Kate were there an instant later as the two leaned their backs into it with Kara, and slowly, with metal protesting, spread the two-ton gates enough to pass through. It was as if they were thinking with one mind like the Three Embers did all the time. Was this crisis pushing their connection to new levels?

      And this just led to the place where part of my heart had been taken from me forever when we ran through the gates to the main courtyard, Valkyrie and Elves streaming in behind us just to find a fifty-foot diameter crater of molten stone and alloy, thirty feet deep, where once was the temporary Bifrost terminal and control center for the emergency crash jump equipment Arina had been standing at just before the Citadel jumped.

      And we wept.

      Arina the Whispering Breeze, First Valkyriefrior... Valkyrie of Peace, was no more, torn from our collective awareness.

      I have mourned all these centuries since her passing, but this is not my story, this is the story of the Crowned Princess of Alfheim, daughter of Queen Jania of the United Elves of Alfhiem. Princess Arin, named for our lost sister.

      Chapter 1 – Infuriating

      Mother was calling again, Arin? I sighed as her voice took on an exasperated tone.

      Arin Swift Strider, get out here this instant.

      I huffed and looked from my door to the open window that overlooked the Citadel and across the tops of the Tanalus trees which soared hundreds of meters into the air like giants reaching for the sun. From this vantage point, I could see the massive gates of Allrbus, the ancestral home that sang to the Ljósálfar, Light Elf of Alfheim half of my blood.

      Those trees were works of the heavens themselves, whose branches when mature, were tens of meters thick, stretching out hundreds of feet and created those living half domes of wide green leaves. With the unaided eye, I could just make out the tree that stood above all others, dwarfing even some of the cities on other planets I have seen in my short four hundred years. The City Tree of Allrbus, where the first palace resided high in its branches.

      The new palace we lived in now in the Citadel of Olympus was by necessity, the great enemies of all the races were out there, and the Elves had nowhere to flee if they turned their sights on Alfheim. With the new palace residing in the city of the Olympians, our people could flee with them if the time of a culling came to us.

      My other mom prodded me gently through our nanite link. I swear she relies on it more than talking. How could such a shy and vulnerable person be my mother? I caught myself smiling warmly, I loved her so very much and that was

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