94.

-HER-

I was still very much surprised by everything. I was finding it hard to believe all the things that had happened today.

“She’s gone,” Celeste spoke, making my eyes drift to her. She was still looking up where the goddess had been floating moments ago. Now what remained as the evidence of her existence was nothing. The gold specks were now disappearing.

The place where the enchantress’ body laid before was now covered with ashes. Everything seemed so normal all of a sudden. It was as if they hadn’t been fighting an evil enchantress just a few moments ago.

The only thing that seemed out of place was the opening to the portal. It still had to be closed. We couldn’t leave it open because something bad could come out of it. Everyone seemed to have noticed the same thing all at once.

“Do you know how to close it?” A man asked me who looked very similar to Ares. I knew it was his brother. Although, I couldn’t remember his name at the moment.

I hesitantly shook my head in response. This made him exchange a look with the other two wolves before Ares spoke up, “Can you try something, Celeste?”

I looked back at the tall and dark she-wolf with pale blond hair. I tried to not stare at her because her features were fascinating in some way.

“I am not sure, Ares,” The she-wolf spoke as she hesitantly shifted on her feet, “But I can try something,”

“Alright, go ahead,” Ares encouraged.

“Wait!” It was Ares’ brother who interrupted, “What if something goes wrong and instead of closing it, she ends up doing something bad?”

I found his words very reasonable but for some reason, the other wolves rolled their eyes at him. This only bewildered me.

“Let her try. I am sure she can do something,” It was the other wolf who spoke this time. While they were still contemplating whether it was alright for Celeste to take care of the portal or not, the she-wolf had already stepped by it and was examining the portal.

“This looks manageable,” The she-wolf commented after some close inspection before her grey eyes fell on me and she asked, “I would need some of your powers,”

“Alright,” I spoke and stepped forward, “What do I need to do?” I asked as I looked at her keenly. She nodded at me as if accepting me in some way before telling me to do some basic spells and form a ball out of it.

After that, she took the ball and rolled it on the corner of the portal. For one moment, I thought that it was going to fall inside the portal but to my surprise, it somehow maintained its balance and rolled over the portal’s corner. As the ball rolled over the portal’s corner, it almost erased the corners, making it smaller.

This continued happening as the ball continued to erase the portal smaller and smaller before and moving inside. There was still a lot of it left to be erased when we heard some noises just outside the ruins. Everyone instantly froze as soon as a voice echoed through the ruins, asking, “WHO’s THERE?”

“It’s a mortal,” Ares’ brother commented before Celeste spoke, “Split,” With that, everyone went running into different directions while I was still bewildered.

Although it was Ares who wrapped his arm around my waist and rushed me out of the courtroom before moving deeper inside the ruins. Meanwhile, we heard angry footsteps following us.

“SOMEONE’S THERE!” I heard someone comment, making my heart race. Ares’ arm tightened more around my waist before he was pulling me into a dark corridor. We waited there for some time while we heard the footsteps approach us.

I could hear my heart pounding inside my chest while we waited for them to go away.

“I think they are in the ballroom,” A voice spoke before the footsteps walked away. We waited for some time before Ares moved deeper into that dark corridor.

“Where are we going?” I whispered but his glowing eyes were too focused in the front that he seemed to have failed to hear my question. We kept walking and took several turns. At this point, I was absolutely clueless because everything around us was dark.

I tripped several times in the dark and our walking speed was starting to slow down because of me so Ares scooped me up and almost ran through the rest of the place. He put me down when we reached a wall. He knocked it down to reveal what seemed like the back of the ruins.

A frozen forest stood behind the ruins. Ares scooped me up again before he walked straight into the woods, not caring about the depth of the snow. My heart was still racing due to this whole new and thrilling experience.

In the distance, I could hear some wolves howl in the daylight and I instantly knew that it wasn’t a good thing. The intense look decorating on Ares’ face also proved the same so I decided not to distract him with more question.

I didn’t know how deep we walked into the woods but at one point, I could finally see Celeste and the other two men. They were waiting beside what seemed like another portal which would presumably teleport us to Zaeris.

Ares walked into it with me first and the other followed. I squeezed my eyes shut at the sensation of being squeezed took over me. I hated travelling through the portals because they always made me dizzy.

When the feeling of being squeezed finally went away, I opened my eyes, feeling very dizzy. For a moment, my vision was blurred and my head was spinning. Although Ares didn’t seem to have the same effect because he was holding me steadily.

When my vision finally focused, I noticed that we were inside a stone room which looked very similar to some back in the ruins. Although what set the difference apart was the rooms in ruins were covered with thick blankets of dust and spider webs and here, they were clean. Also, the room here had the Royal couple waiting for us unlike the one in the ruins.