She tapped the next stone.
Knock, knock.
The sound was hollow.
Cyrene stopped in her tracks. She was roughly halfway down the wall. Her eyes scanned the stone before her. It looked no different than the stone she had just been touching. And yet…it was hollow. The stones were wrong.
She tapped her way for another half-dozen steps before the hollow sound disappeared. Then, she reassessed the space. If she was correct, the doorway was about six feet wide, and she was standing directly in front of it.
She chewed on her lip. Was she supposed to do something? She pushed against the stone. Just as solid as the rest. There was no doorway. No hidden keyhole. Nothing that she could discern in the dim light of the hallway. How was she supposed to get through? Why hadn’t Serafina told her?
“Oh,” she whispered and then again, “Oh.”
With a swallow, she dropped the hood of her black cloak. Then she reached behind her and pulled forth Shadowbreaker. Her hand shook as she stared at the razor-sharp edge of her sword in dismay.
She sliced open her palm with the blade, cringing as pain lanced up her arm. She had endured worse, but Creator, it hurt. Carefully replacing her sword, she took a deep breath, hoping this would work, and then pressed her cut hand against the center of the hollow stones.
As her hand touched the stone, she felt the blood on her palm begin to burn. She jumped in shock at the horrible sensation. As if the stone was…corroding the blood. She almost jerked her hand away when, suddenly, the place where her hand had been was gone.
She stared at her arm. But no wrist. No hand. No fingers.
It was no physical door at all. But a portal of sorts.
She hesitantly pushed forward, up to the elbow. When nothing horrible happened, she took a step, bracing herself for the worst, and left the hallway behind.
Cyrene appeared on the other side of the hallway, facing a long, dark room. She turned around, expecting to see the hard stone doorway, but it was gone. She cursed under her breath. Had she completely opened the doorway? Could anyone follow her now?
She narrowed her eyes in frustration and then tried to walk back out. She practically bounced off of a solid wall.
“Creator,” she groaned, rubbing her arm. Was it closed behind her, too?
She put up her bloodied palm that was still pulsing in pain and tentatively pushed it against the wall. It went straight through.
All right then. Blood in and blood out.
At least she wouldn’t have to keep looking over her shoulder.
No, she had to move forward into a room that no one had been in for two thousand years. She frowned before lighting a Doma Fire and holding it aloft before her. It illuminated what she’d thought was a room, but it was actually a tunnel. Great.
She found a torch bracketed against the wall to her right and yanked it from its rusty position. She lit the fire so that she could drop her magic and then began her descent into the darkened tunnel.
It was about as creepy as she had anticipated since no one had been in here in so long. Apparently, the banishment of anything from getting in here only went as far as humans. Because creatures skittered across the ground. Something hissed at her from an alcove that she did not want to meet at night. She found the spiderwebs covering the path the hard way by walking straight into one. She was almost certain a rat ran over her foot. She barreled on to escape thinking about it. She had taken on a full-fledged Nokkin and won, but a rat? She shuddered. Gross.
A sense of rightness fell over her as she approached the opening. Anticipation shot through her. This was it. This was finally when she would get to walk into the room that had housed the Doma court all those years ago. She’d seen it in her visions for years now. And now, she was finally going to step foot into it.
She crossed the final threshold and then used her fire magic to light the braziers around the perimeter of the room. As it illuminated, she took in the incredible space. The sheer capacity that proved Doma power. This, this right here, was her history.
As the final brazier lit, the dome captured the light from around the room, slid across the rounded ceiling, and then sent the light back down. It was so bright that it might as well have been full daylight out. She was amazed by the incredible engineering of it. Or perhaps…the lasting magic.
But when she looked around the new illuminated room, she frowned. It was…dirty.
It was stupid of her to feel disappointed that it wasn’t as beautiful, spotless, and grandiose as she had seen in her dreams. It was just what she had been expecting. This room had been in disrepair for two thousand years. The floors were covered in dust. The seating was warped around the perimeter. The Domas’ chairs at the head of the room were breaking down. Everything was dingier and more disgusting than she had hoped.
Not that there was a thing she could do about it. The room had belonged to the Doma. It was proof of their power. Proof of her heritage. That was all that mattered.
One day, she swore she would return it to its former glory.
With a tilt of her chin, she stepped into the chamber, her steps echoing off of the ceiling. She moved to the center of the space. Exactly where she had stood when she watched Serafina go through the Doma ceremony.
It was also the place that Sera had told her she had left the diamond. Serafina had told her how to place and withdraw objects from the in-between. Then, Cyrene had spent every spare minute practicing. Not with anything as important as the Domina diamond. She’d started out with a rock. Lost it a couple of times, unfortunately, but she’d kept trying. Only when she had been able to put a rock away and retrieve it again did she feel confident enough that she could do this.
But now that she was standing here, she worried that she’d never be able to get this right. This wasn’t a rock. Something of no consequence. This was the most important magical artifact in the world. It was the diamond that had brought Malysa and Benetta to Emporia in the first place. It had been passed down from Domina to Domina throughout history. Serafina had sacrificed her life for it.
She couldn’t mess this up.
With a slow breath out, Cyrene drew her spirit magic to her. It was always easier when she had Sarielle, but she hadn’t exactly been able to fly her dragon here for this. She had to do it herself. And she would.
She concentrated on the space in front of her. At the evenness of the center and the shape of the air around it. Then she pushed her spirit magic into the core. Felt, more than saw, the center split. She held her hand out in midair toward that fracture that said she had moved from one space to the next. Though she remained standing.
She twisted her hand, letting each finger curl inward one at a time as she turned her palm up to the ceiling. Sweat beaded on her forehead from the exertion as she then opened her hand.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then, as if in slow motion, a large diamond hovered in midair above her palm. Cyrene gasped.
“It worked,” she breathed. “Oh Creator, it worked!”
Her hand shook as she held the diamond suspended before her. This diamond, this precious thing, that people had given their lives for. That had proven who the true ruler of the Doma was. And now…she had it.
Cyrene stared at it in awe. It was about the size of an egg and perfectly pristine. Not touched by the two thousand years since it had last appeared in this world. The diamond had so many facets that it glittered multi-rainbows all around the room. Showing off for her.