The words hung in the air for a moment, and then, slowly, the stone door began to glow. A pulse of energy spread outward from the center, filling the hall with a soft radiance. The golden-masked figure watched in silence, offering neither approval nor disapproval.
Jude braced himself as the door shifted, sliding open with a sound like distant thunder.
Beyond it lay darkness. Not an empty void, but something deeper, something alive.
Jude turned to Lyara. "You ready?"
She gave him a smirk, though he could see the tension in her eyes. "Was I ever not?"
Together, they stepped through.
The moment they crossed the threshold, the world around them collapsed.
It was not like before, not the shattering of glass or the shifting of time. This was something else entirely. One moment, they were in the grand hall, and the next, they were somewhere new.
Somewhere impossibly familiar.
