Viktor Dremylon strode into the room then. Serafina didn’t even turn to greet him. She just clenched her heart as if she could feel the ache of his betrayal and wondered why she still loved him.
“Sera, darling,” Viktor said, “have you made a decision, my love?”
Serafina cringed at the words. The words meant to make her work for him, for his affection again. “No.”
“No, you haven’t come to a decision?”
“No, I will not work with you any longer.”
“I don’t understand why you keep refusing me.” He touched her arm, but she jerked away.
“You don’t understand?” she growled low. She whipped around to face him. “You betrayed my trust. I thought we were working toward equality between Doma and humans. Not genocide!”
“There was never going to be equality,” he spat back. “The Doma never wanted to work with the humans. They never gave a shit about us, and you know it!”
“So, the answer was to slaughter them all?” she shouted back.
“It’s no more than they would have done to us.” He reached for her again.
“You are infected. It’s disgusting,” she said, pulling away. “Don’t touch me.”
“Just work with me here, Sera,” he pleaded. His eyes were round and the blue-gray that Cyrene knew too well were from the Dremylon line. “I want you to rule at my side.”
Serafina laughed. “This old line? You already have a queen and several children in line for your throne. I will never rule by your side, and I no longer want to.”
A darkness rose up in Viktor at the words. Inky black at his fingertips. His eyes darkening right before her eyes. The whole room seemed to be filled with his dark energy. “I love you, Sera. Why do you doubt that?”
Serafina shook her head in despair. “What have you become?”
He straightened. “Powerful.”
“If you love me, Viktor, then release me,” she told him.
“I can’t release you, Sera. We’re meant to be. I just need your cooperation. I need you to give me the Domina diamond. I know that you have it.”
Ah, so that was what he had been after all along. The realization flickered across Serafina’s face. “The diamond is lost.”
“No, it’s not,” he said. “I know that you have it.”
She swished the bottom of her long red gown and turned her back on him. “It’s gone, Viktor. You couldn’t use it anyway.”
“Don’t turn your back on me.” He gripped her arm, and Cyrene saw the glow of Serafina’s magic rise up within her in response.
“Release me,” she snarled.
And, to Cyrene’s surprise, he did.
“I hate you in that color. Why must you wear that insufferable red? Why don’t you wear the white of your position?” he sneered.
Serafina turned to him then with a look of pure sadness on her face. “I failed my people. There are no more Doma left for me to rule. I might have access to all four elements as well as ether, but I am no longer the Domina. So, I shall never wear the white again. I take the red for all the blood you have spilled in your conquests, Viktor. For the blood of my people. And the lives you have taken. Red is the only thing I will ever wear again.”
He glared at her. “I will forbid it. Ban the color.”
She laughed at him. “Do it. No one shall ever wear red again because a Dremylon boy can’t face the blood on his hands.”
“I am a king!”
“To me, you used to be,” she said sadly.
“Give me the diamond, Sera.”
“You will never get it.”
“Then, you will never leave this room,” he ground out and then marched back out of the chamber.
Serafina followed him with her steady dark blue gaze. A tear slipped down her cheek. “I love you, too,” she breathed. “So much that I hate you for this.”
Then, with a wave of her hand, the diamond appeared, suspended in space. Cyrene’s eyes bulged.
“How did you do that?” Cyrene gasped.
The spirit Sera sighed. “There is much about the spiritual…the ether…that you do not understand. I hid it in the in-between.”
Cyrene turned back to watch Serafina do something to the diamond and then looked up once more in pain. As if she had come to a decision then and there.
“I’m sorry, Viktor,” Serafina whispered. “I gave you everything else, but you can’t have this.”
Then she began to glow, brighter and brighter. So bright that she was blinding. Until there was no difference between the woman and the diamond and the shining light.
Cyrene could feel it then. The sheer amount of energy Serafina was pulling into her. Too much. Way, way too much.
“Oh Creator,” Cyrene breathed.
Then the energy exploded. Cyrene ducked as if the magic could hurt her, even here in the spiritual plane. A wave hit every surface in the chamber, and then, when Cyrene looked back up…Serafina was gone. And the diamond with her.
Cyrene rematerialized in a cottage on the water. Serafina stood over the crib where her daughter, Anne, lay fast asleep. Her best friend had sacrificed her own child so that Anne could live. So that Cyrene could one day be born. So that this could all be ended. And after watching Sera’s last act, they had come back here. To the one place she had known true happiness.
“You…sacrificed yourself to destroy the diamond?” Cyrene asked.
Serafina smiled and shook her head. “No, I sacrificed myself to save the diamond.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The diamond is still in that chamber.”
“But…how?”
“I sealed the room and put the most powerful spell in existence on both entrance to the room and the diamond. No one but my blood can access it. No one but those worthy of the Domina can hope to get in. Sacrifice is powerful. It will remain there into perpetuity.” She glanced at Cyrene. “Unless you go get it.”
Cyrene blinked. “You want me to get into the Byern castle? The place where Kael Dremylon resides? Where Malysa’s dark forces have always found a foothold? Where I would die if anyone saw me?” She sighed in exasperation. “I used to live there, you know. You could have sent me then.”
Serafina shook her head. “You weren’t ready.”
“And I am now?” Cyrene asked in disbelief.
“That’s what you have to find out, isn’t it? If you’re truly ready to not just lead”—Serafina affectionately touched Cyrene’s cheek—“but to rule.”
9
The Break-In
This is a very bad plan, Sarielle mused on the banks of the Keylani River three days later.
“Do you have a better idea?” Cyrene asked. “Because I’m all ears.”
You ride on my back into the heart of the city, and we burn any who stand in our way.
Cyrene rolled her eyes. “Any ideas where we don’t end up destroying my home or killing innocents?”
You didn’t give specifics.
“Well, not everyone in Byern is deserving of your enmity. Kael Dremylon is responsible for the problems here. He has given Malysa access to our people. His blood magic is what draws out his insanity, just like it did Viktor. He will pay for what he has done in time. But not today. Not at all if it means the destruction of Byern.”