Mystic High ✓

MH │57

Happy Easter!

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

"I knew there was something about the damn bird," cursed Uilliam quietly, heaving with effort from exhaustion.

He hadn't expended this much effort for a very long time. Like unused muscles, his powers were raw and especially difficult to control. Quite unlike the Morrigan's, who clearly actively used her powers and was highly skilled.

If it weren't for Oriane breaking the circle and causing that brief moment of distraction, he doubted he would have lasted much longer.

In a way, the little mortal had saved his life.

Upon breaking the circle, the other congregants had re-materialised, even the Chancellor had passed out cold. If they didn't dwell on the situation, they would be seen as conspirators, and hopefully, the Council will overlook the suspicious destruction all around them. It wouldn't do anyone good if it was found that gods were involved.

On the cold stone ground, now cracked unevenly, the crow had transformed into a woman. The original Morrigan had crumbled into a pile of ashes amid the dress and staff. This one was not wearing a sheer dress but a dark mauve battle armour that covered her from head to toe. At the centre of her breastplate was an engraved sigil of a sword's hilt, perched on it was a crow.

Yes, this was the real Morrigan.

Laying on her side, she gurgled blood and spat it out. Uilliam had hit her right where it would do the most damage ― the heart. While the shadows could hardly be compared to a real blade, the shadows sapping away at her energy straight at the source could hardly be thought of as mild.

He looked down at her and pondered whether he should kill her.

"Well played, Ahriman, to have found my true form. Now, do it," she rasped from her blood stained lips. "I have lived for centuries to escape my prison and I beg you do not send me back there. I would rather die!"

Uilliam can understand that sentiment. He would much rather live as a mortal and in hiding for the rest of his life than be isolated. However, he could understand where this rogue goddess was coming from. He was certain that had he not been saved by Macha O'Connacht all those years ago, he would have become exactly as the Morrigan had: dark, vengeful, and unjust. Her reputation in the virtues had surpassed her.

It would be easy to kill her but why all the slaughter? Would he want to die just as he had escaped his prison?

The answer was no. He hadn't yet lived.

"If you vow never to seek the god fire, I will let you go," he said menacingly, crossing his arms over his chest. "You will vow it in the name of the Aeon."

"The Aeon..." The Morrigan chuckled, only to choke on her own blood. "Yes, sure, it's not as if it's a real thing." She rolled onto her stomach and pressed her palms to the ground to hoist herself up to a kneel. "I vow," she began, her tone deadly. "I vow in the name of the Aeon that I will never again pursue the god fire nor its hosts, past, present, and future. Does that suit you?"

Reluctantly, Uilliam nodded, even though he felt like he had missed something. According to legend, a vow to the Aeon can never be broken. As the source of all life and universe, he believed it existed, even if no one had ever spoken of it. Not even the gods themselves. Ahura Mazda, his brother, was too stubborn to think there could be anything else more powerful than their pantheon.

"Anything else, Ahriman?" she crooned. "I have places to be."

"Leave and never return here," he ordered.