ROD - Chapter 127 (Mira POV)

Chapter One-Hundred-Twenty-Seven – Mirathane Stormborn – Darling – Part Two

If you travel through the portal, you shall find what you seek. A love that will bind past time and adversity alike. One that was born in magic itself and breathed by the fracturing of fate. Mirathane Stormborn, do not take this path lightly, for the fates do not take kindly to those who defy them. Even more so to those who break their laws. The choice is yours descendant of Drakaroth.

-Eradel the witch of the wild flame-

My feet bound fast across the forest’s soft embrace. This world, Earth, it’s so much more hospitable than most I have traveled. Even the plants offer padding for your feet. Where I run is unknown to me. But I feel him, like he is becoming part of the planet’s core, his magic sweetens the air of this world. It traces the heartbeats of magic, expanding each breath.

I did not know he could do such things. My darling is quite impressive indeed.

Intermixed with the beautiful melody of his magic’s symphony is one that I would know in the darkest of darks. A magic so tainted with bitch syndrome that I could smell it in another universe.

Jaledi, the one who took me after I left my world as a girl and forced me to be her blade. She is on Earth somehow, and she is expending an insane amount of divinity to do so. Someone on Earth has become her disciple and reaped the benefits.

Revenge is her pastime. Is she here for me? Or because darling pissed on her holy fire? A smile crests my lips thinking about it. My darling is a brazen one. One that would kick the doors of the heavens off their hinges for those he cares for.

If only I was one he truly cared for…

Sorrowful thoughts fall away as the anger rises to match the tempo of my footsteps. Grass becomes stone roads with lines drawn upon them. Metal boxes that carry people move across them.

Cars I think they call them. Interesting contraptions. Slow for my taste. Though I suppose for them, a car is quite fast.

“Sylfie, you’re being slow again!” I yell back, loud enough that she can hear me hundreds of paces away where I know she’s trying to hunt a squirrel for a snack. Every little thing that crawled along her path has been gobbled up. Her body has shrunk from the System balancing her levels, but it didn’t take her appetite away.

Another surge of Jaledi’s whore magic ripples in the vortex of magical circuits that run the planet’s body.

She is doing things she ought not.

Does Earth not have a deity of its own to stop her? There is much confusion in the authority of Earth’s magic. Like someone has tampered with it greatly. An old magic of some kind is sunk deep in the roots of this world. I’ve never quite seen anything like it.  

Explosions ripple the air as I bound through a city of stone. They build so tall these Earth humans. It reminds me of the termite people of Garadan, they built homes that touched the clouds. My brow furrows as I remember Jaledi torching that peaceful world. They were not beautiful people by her standards, more insectoid than most. But they loved. That is enough to be beautiful in spirit.

The magic is wild and chaotic as I approach, like it is being composed to a new symphony that it’s never heard before…

My feet slow as I take it in, so many runes, so many I’ve never seen before. I’ve never seen magic weaved in such a way. Darling is stepping off the path and carving his own.

A pulse of divine energy rattles the sky as a portal of light opens, there is a person floating from it. A person swathed in Jaledi’s dung magic. My fingers twirl the ring that he gave me to keep her from me.

As soon as the portal opens fully energy ruptures the air and a beam of light vaporizes the person. Within a breath, another portal opens a hundred paces from the last. Again the same result. A beam of light vaporizing Jaledi’s disciple.

This must be darling’s doing. I can feel the tremble of angry divinity in the portal’s energy. She’s beyond pissed. She’s livid.

A smile crests my face as my eyes grow wider. Perhaps I don’t have to convince him to kill her, perhaps she’ll throw herself on his wrath.

The smell of his magic becomes intoxicating as I approach him. He’s moving swiftly on the street, directly toward where the magic is more concentrated. Like arteries of a heart it pulses.

My own heart flutters as his eyes trace into mine. Time slows as he measures me, a small smile crests his lip.

Is he… is he happy to see me? My heart flutters more as I dare to rush toward him.

“Stormborn,” he says with a nod.

A portal opens above us, darling doesn’t turn to look, he just extends his middle finger at it. A brilliant beam of light shatters reality and destroys the whorespawn instantly.

Darling flicks his bangs to the side as he says, “Welcome to the party.”

“Is that what we’re calling it?” Clayton asks with a wary smirk, “I guess Ajax has become like a pinata.”

Zero, the silent one, she smiles at this but doesn’t laugh out loud. Such a quiet woman. Dark hair and dark brown eyes that drink the light and give little back. She is a reserved woman. But a very observant one I’ve noticed.

“So, you broke out?” Clayton asks me.

“They weren’t giving me enough root beer, so I decided to stretch my legs.”

Darling grins but doesn’t reply as he strides faster, both his hands look to be moving with his body as he walks, but I see micromovements in his fingers, ones that ripple the magic around us.

What is he doing?

“Darling, you know that it’s the bitch?”

“Yes.”

Unsurprising, darling is quite clever. Still, it makes me smile that he knows she’s the bitch.

“Which bitch?” Clayton asks, jogging to keep up.

“Jaledi, my old goddess.”

Clayton tilts his head, “Why would she be helping the Marauders?”

“Darling put out her most holy fire,” I grin, “With his piss.”

Clayton raises an eyebrow, “You know how to piss them off, Godslayer.”

“To be fair, I was debuffed at the time,” Jimmy replies, then turning to look over his shoulder, “Almost to the Ley Line, once we get there, we can head to New York, their flight will be landing soon.”

I’ve heard of this York place before. A veritable concrete jungle they say. I think the one they call Tran said that Jimmy’s family used to live near there. Family… I wonder how my mother is. It’s been so long since I’ve seen her. Would she recognize me? My eyes lower, she would not be proud of what I have done in the name of an evil goddess. Nor could I blame her for it.

Another beam of light pulls my focus back to the present.

“How many times does that make?” Clayton asks.

“Thirty-nine,” Jimmy replies, looking down at the ground, “We’re here. Get ready.”

“You’d think they’d just fuck off,” Clayton sighs, it’s a worried sigh though.

Darling is here, so there is no worry in my bones. He has slain a god, something not meant for mortal hands to do. Yet he has. My eyes turn up toward the clouds as the next portal opens. I pray he will kill her too.

Foolish of her to have messed with his world.

Darling waits this time, no beam of light like all the other times. The man above in the sky holds his arms over his face, as though scared like a fly for the inevitable swat that comes. But it doesn’t come.

Clayton gives Jimmy a worried glance, “Godslayer?”

The sky tremors with manic laughter as the man they call Ajax booms down, “I knew you couldn’t keep doing it forever! She told me you’d run out! You’re so fucked now!”

Darling blinks lazily at him, but doesn’t do anything else.

“Your dragon, is she coming with us?” Jimmy asks, ignoring the man.

“She’s almost here, sorry, darling, she was eating fucking squirrels.”

Ajax lowers from the sky, but doesn’t dare to approach, still hovering, as though ready to run again.

“Mirathane Stormborn,” Ajax growls, cracking his neck, “Your goddess is very displeased with you.”

“She’s not my goddess,” I growl back.

“She owns you!”

Jimmy raises his middle finger which causes Ajax to shriek suddenly and cover himself, the finger moves to his nose as he scratches it, then with a yawn he says, “Tell Jaledi that Mira is mine, she belongs to Earth now, she’s a member of my team, if she wants her, she’s got to come and fight me for her.” Darling’s eyes narrow, “No more bullshit middlemen, come and fight me yourself.” Then he turns and sighs, “Unless you’re too afraid of a mere mortal.”

My heart crashes wildly in my chest as my breath becomes uneven as I look at darling… he… he claims me as his own. He’s made a pact to have me as his… he said he’d fight a god for me. He… he… my lips explode in a smile as wide as my face.

“Darling…” I whisper.

Clayton and Zero give me a strangely uneasy look.

“Your eyes are glowing pink,” Clayton remarks at me.

I don’t care, darling said he’d fight for me… which means I’m important to him. He’s choosing to protect me. He… he cares about me.

Joy like the first light in spring cascades through my chest. There is hope that I can call him mine someday. That’s all I need… just a little hope.

Thunder booms in the sky and I see light fracturing… is she… is Jaledi really going to answer his summons?

Jimmy blinks as though surprised she might be answering it. His hands move faster as he swallows. Micro movements that blur as strange magic spindles and threads.

Whatever darling is doing, it’s changing the laws of magic on this world. I’m not quite sure how he’s doing it though. These people of Earth, they have no idea how lucky that darling loves them unconditionally. The laws he is writing… I think they dampen the System’s control of the world. Obscure it.

Forbidden magic, my head tilts at it. Yet somehow, technically this magic has never been classified as such. I remember a world where someone tried to eject the System using a god called Raka’s chaotic rune set. The world was purged.

“Darling, the System doesn’t take kindly to people rejecting it.”

His eyes shift into mine for a moment, “I’m counting on it.”

Counting on it…  

This is not normal magic… it’s something unfamiliar, something new. My eyes look down at my hands, they’re shaking. The weave of his magic is vibrating the core of Drakaroth that I carry, that all of my people carry.

What is he doing?

My eyes widen… is he trying to get an admin to fight him too?

My mother told me that Drakaroths are attracted to those that defy fate and shatter destiny. It creates a sweetness in the magic around them. Because we Drakaroth are the embodiment of fate being defied. As I feel the fluttering in my chest, I can’t help but think that maybe that old witch who told me I’d find true love was right. Maybe she wasn’t just some old cunt.

Darling… are you the one for me?