Page 140 of The Fifth Heir

The exact phrase my father used.

Simultaneous exposure.

The petition had reached Malcolm before I returned to the tower.

I went to the common room.

Talia stood beneath the matching notice forming there. Her hand covered the scale at her wrist.

“This is about me,” she said.

Rafe rose.

Torren’s flames filled the hearth.

Sebastian looked toward me.

He saw something in my face.

I could have explained.

Instead, I said, “It appears so.”

The wall runes turned cold white.

Chapter 19

Talia

The demonstration was not private.

By midday, the Hall of Prism was full again.

Candidates occupied the lower gallery, academy officials filled the upper rows, and representatives from every elemental territory sat behind the headmaster’s dais. My parents had returned to their original seats. Camilla sat between them wearing the slate gray of Stone.

A week earlier, I had stood against the eastern wall in a keeper’s robe while the Prism chose my sister’s future.

Now I stood at the center of the Hall in an heir’s uniform while everyone waited to learn whether my power made me dangerous.

The four men surrounded the demonstration circle.

They were confined to separate points, each several strides from me, yet their presence changed the shape of the platform. The officials had placed me at the center of a test. The heirs made it feel like the center of a formation.

Torren stood at Fire, Sebastian at Shadow, Rafe at Storm, and Leander at Frost. Each position contained a control pillar designed to restrict the amount of elemental power entering the central platform.

My clear rune had been recreated inside it.

The original had appeared only when the fifth beam selected me. This one had been cut into the stone overnight.

I could tell where the runemasters joined the final line.

The incision was newer than the others, its edge too sharp and pale against the older floor. Protective runes surrounded the platform in three rings, but several sections had been repaired with dark metal that did not match the Hall’s silver channels.

I crouched beside the nearest one.

“Do not touch the containment seal,” Malcolm said.

I withdrew my hand. “This section was replaced.”