The Taste of Seduction

No!" Meredith cried out, clearly distracted by the loss of Atlas. Her momentary mourning was interrupted when one of the hands of a cleric beast closed in on her, she turned her gaze to the distraction and shot a large army of death wyrm made from her energy, and combined with the rage of her loss. With a loud shriek, the cleric beast was down, and she was faced with the basilisks.

"You damned wench! I will kill you if it's the last thing I do!" Austin cried and tugged hard on the reins of his saddle, willing the dragon to fly upward, and then he released and pushed forward, the dragon obeyed, charging towards Meredith with its mouth open, getting ready to launch a ball of flame in her direction.

Marcus took the next quick step, moving at lightning speed in the direction of the dragon. He leapt on a basilisk, and then on a wyvern, and the next moment, he was on the dragon with Austin.

With one swift move of his claws, he slashed Austin's neck, ripping out his veins and grazing his face against the sharp scales of the skin of the dragon. Austin was dead, and the battle was over.

"He's not even strong," Marcus whispered as he stood unmoving on the back of the dragon. Without a second glance, he leapt off and landed on his feet in front of a herd of slaughtered centaurs.

The beasts began to assemble before Gwen who stood in an open space with her hands held out before them. Austin's dragon was the last of them to appear. When it landed, she walked towards it with her hands still outstretched.

The dragon settled on the ground in a sitting position, as though awaiting her command.

She walked to its side, where Austin's dead body was, bloodied and splattered from the impact with the ground. She reached underneath his cloak and retrieved a pouch and a small, leather-bound book and walked back to the large herd. She sat cross-legged in a bed of grass, and poured the content of the pouch into her left palm.

A number of onyx crystals glowed in the valleys, darkened by the night clouds.

She rose her other hand above the small volume, her palm facing downward, and then she began to chant.

Roused by an unseen force, the volume levitated towards her eye level and opened before her. Pages flipped until they stopped.

Her eyes lit up like the sun as she peered into the book, reading the words written on the pages. Suddenly, she lifted her gaze at the creatures gathered around her. A wave of energy pulsed from her mind, causing the beasts to stir and vocalize. Their grunts and moans filled the air, echoing across the landscape.

The heavy tome hit the ground with a thud, scattering dust in the air. Gwen's eyes returned back to their normal shade, and she slowly turned towards the lifeless body of Austin. Marcus stepped closer, his footsteps barely making a sound. "What are you going to do with him?" He asked, his voice hushed. She gave no reply. Instead, she made her way towards his crumpled form.

With a deep breath, she pressed her palm onto his body, as if trying to absorb any last shred of life left within him.

"Soderis ackhinum ech sund"

A tear slipped out of her eye as she chanted the words repeatedly, after what seemed like the fifth time, she waved her hand towards the sky. Like ashes flying into the wind, his body dispersed, leaving no trace of his existence.

"He was my very good friend," She whispered as she wiped the tears that had wellled up in her eyes. "All this was a result of his jealousy and anger. I still remember what he was like when he hadn't been consumed with so much - hatred."

Marcus closed the distance between them and placed his hand on her shoulder. She acknowledged him with a smile, sniffed, and turned in the direction of Meredith. The whole time that she had been sending him off, Meredith was lost in her grief, crying uncontrollably and waving her hand in a desperate attempt to encounter a spell to unlock the portal that Atlas had been transported into.

"No, Meredith, stop, you'll harm yourself."

"I don't care!" She cried as she continued to wave her hand in unsynchronized patterns. Gwen caught up with her and seized her wrists in a tight grasp, and they started a stifling grapple for control.

"Leave me alone, I need to find Atlas," Meredith cried out again, struggling to free herself from Gwen's grasp.

"Meredith, if you keep doing this, you might cost us an entire cosmos; you are that powerful, never ever forget that," Gwen hissed her warning through her teeth. Meredith fell to the ground in defeat, allowing her sobs to render her powerless in another fight.

Gwen settled on the ground with her, pulling her head towards her chest and caressing her tresses in an attempt to calm her down.

"I'm sorry, my love," she whispered, placing a kiss on Meredith's hair. She heaved deep sighs as her sobs died down.

The entire time, Marcus watched helplessly. There was nothing he could do to ease Meredith's pain, and it pained him to know that.

"Do you know how to unlock the portal?" Meredith's voice was laced with helplessness as she spoke. It cut through Gwen's heart as she processed her daughter's request.

"No, my love, all that I know about the portal is that he was sent off through the same portal that your father was sent to," she replied solemnly.

"Is the spell in his book?"

"I looked through the book already, Meredith. There was no spell for opening portals. I destroyed everything."

Gwen whispered as she laid her head against Meredith's, rubbing her palm in circles against her back. It was all she could do to ease her daughter's aching heart.

Both of their loved ones were trapped in a portal, and they had no way to access it or figure out how Austin conjured the spell by himself. But it hurt her to know that her daughter was feeling the same pain that she felt when she first lost her husband.

Together, they sat in the quiet darkness, finding solace in each other's presence, their minds filled with determination to find a way to bring their loved ones back from the unknown realm beyond the portal.