Syrce had been very tight-lipped about how they were going to get to the underground tunnels, and after watching Helie dig for a long time, Noble wondered if they were just going to use brute force to breach the inside of the hill.
But looking at the round object on the ground, Child of Promise realized that this location had not been chosen because it was closest to their goal, but instead because it held the entrance.
And what a strange entrance it was!
The round half sphere was composed of one stunning piece of reflective glass. It sat like a bowl in the ground, looking ready to hold a bathtub of water when the rains came through. Yet there was no water in it.
Likely, it had been shielded from the weather by the debris of the palace. Noble lifted something from the edge and brought it into her hand. It was also made of glass, but this piece was crystal clear and nearly invisible in the darkness.
She lifted it to get a better look at it in the moonlight. The glass shimmered, pulling the moonlight through it with a mystical force. Before Noble could react, the moonlight disappeared and the group was encased in a stone dome.
Calling forth a light-producing Memory, Helie smiled.
"Not even the dragon should be able to hear us through that much stone."
Noble pushed down her panic. Her mind always instinctively looked for an exit. The lack of one was difficult for her to bear.
"I told you it was here!" Syrce nudged Roan playfully with her elbow. "It's even more spectacular than they said it would be! Can you imagine the time and care it took to craft this?"
"It is wonderful," Aether agreed, "But what are we supposed to do now?"
The Saint laughed lightly. "What else? We need to open it!"
"There's no handle," Flint noted.
Nodding Syrce dug her fingers around the edge. The stone adjoining the glass left no room for a handhold.
"That is a bit of a setback. Can you lift it, Bel?"
Noble focused on the large, round object, but immediately let go with a gasp.
"I would have to lift the entire hill to move it."
Even the small tug had cost her a huge amount of essence. She was glad she had not tried in earnest to pull it free.
"Aurelia?" Syrce turned to the brunette Master.
Helie frowned. "We've reached as far as I can go. The ground below us is enchanted. I think only a stronger enchantment or brute force will allow us to get deeper without figuring out how to open the door."
"Then we will get the door open," Syrce said definitively. Her smile turned strained. "We just have to figure out how."
"Bel's already halfway figured it out," Flint startled his companion with the news.
"I have?" Noble answered, looking up from the object in her hand.
"You've got that pinched face going on." Flint waved his hand in front of her. "It usually means you have something cooking in that brain of yours."
"Do you?" Roan rubbed his hand along the large, curved door, careful not to slide into the bowl.
"No…At least not yet." Noble held out her hand. "Aurelia cleared the stone, but there is still quite a bit of glass lying around. All of the pillars around tell me that this was the center of a building, so why would there be windows?"
The others looked at the clear shards on the ground in a new light. Noble was right; they weren't part of the pristine door. Sure, they could have been thrown from another part of the palace during the Doom War, but there was too much of it to make that the most plausible option.
It was far more likely that the glass was used for something nearby.
"Perhaps the window was actually…"
Noble looked up.
Flint followed her gaze.
"A skylight?"
"You think the key to this door is light?" Helie rubbed her cheek. "It would explain the shape and its reflective surface."
"It's worth a try." Roan stood and brushed off his hands. "Back up and I'll give it a little jolt."
The others moved to the walls—or as close to them as they could inside the stone dome—and held their breath.
Roan's power worked better when he was in the open sky, but he could conjure lightning in enclosed spaces, too.
The air crackled with electricity.
The beam gathered at the ceiling of their small hovel before flying directly at the center of the door.
The lightning hit its mark, touching the center of the reflective bowl.
The lightning reflected on itself a thousand times over before being spat out at the humans with gusto. Noble felt the shock run through her body, then arc into the ground around her.
She hissed.
It stung horribly, but she had endured much worse.
"Blast it, Roanie, at least offer me a last meal before you try to execute me!" Flint cooled the air around them, helping the others closest to him recover more quickly by touching their shoulders.
"Forgive me." Roan was aggrieved. "I did not intend for the lightning to touch the door at all. I had not anticipated the magical pull of the glass. The ground above was much closer and should have absorbed the sparks."
"Everyone is fine," Syrce assured him, "and if it is light we want, my Transcendent form puts off a ton of it."
The Saint changed into the galaxy of energy, and Noble raised her arm to block her eyes from the brightness.
She looked down at the large bowl.
The place did seem to be collecting the light, and not in the same way it had reflected the lightning before.
The group held their breath.
But after many minutes of collection, the door still wouldn't budge.
Syrce turned back into her human form with a sigh.
"I could feel it pull the light, but I knew I couldn't give it what it wanted."
"What did it want?" Aether stared down at the dissipating light.
"Something special…" the Saint shrugged.
"The moon." Noble felt the pieces fall into place. "Maelys insisted it had to be the full moon, correct?"
Syrce ran her fingers along the chain at her neck. "She did. She said it was the best conditions for the plan to work."
"Maybe because the moon was the way to open the door," Roan caught on. "The moon should be almost directly overhead right now. I think it's worth a try."
Aether's eyes widened slightly.
"But the dragon…"
"Will be none the wiser," Flint pointed out, "As long as we stay quiet, nothing should change with the Prince."
With no other plan, the group members resigned themselves to losing their protective barrier. It was the only way to test the theory.
Helie slowly peeled away the dome. The rock melded back into the wall as if it were never there.
At first, nothing seemed to happen, but then the first ray of moonlight pierced the hole and hit the reflective glass.
The air around them reacted to the change.
Maelys had been right. The moon made all the difference in three worlds.