I’d just surfed down one particularly large dune when a small sound caught my attention. A tiny, sharp wail in the stone around me. I held out my glowing palms. A flash of light caught my eye, and I peered at the ground. And I realized I was standing on the diamonds.

They littered the ground under my muddy shoes like dull, frozen tears. Most of them had been pulverized to small bits, slivers, and glints that caught the silvery light emanating from my palms. Still beautiful, even in their ruined state. Too bad they were of absolutely no use to me. Definitely not a girl’s best friend, in this case.

I walked on until I came to the far side of the cavern, but the earth and stone had fully blocked the exit. Which meant I had to find another way to get out of here—now.

So I surfed back in the direction I’d come from, stopping long enough to take off my stilettos and toss them into the darkness. The broken heels were doing more damage to my feet than going barefoot would. I’d just reached the recess where I’d originally hidden when a spot of white caught my eye against the gray stone. What was that? Another diamond?

I crept closer and realized it was a hand—Tobias Dawson’s right hand, sticking out of a mound of earth, fingers stretched wide. I crawled over the earth and stone to get a closer look. But it was just a hand sticking out. Nothing else.

I checked for a pulse, but the dwarf didn’t have one.

The cold chill of death had already settled into his flesh.

Still, I picked up a jagged piece of rock and slashed his wrist just to be sure. I sat there, resting and watching his blood soak into the turned earth and shattered stone.

When his wrist quit oozing, I moved on.

I walked deeper into the back of the cavern to the part I hadn’t seen while Tobias Dawson had been challenging me to a duel. The cavern narrowed to a small corridor barely big enough for a person to squeeze through.

I stood before it and peered into the darkness, wondering what lay at the end of the midnight rainbow. Only one way to find out. I couldn’t go back, and I had to get out.

So I stepped forward into the waiting darkness.

———