Page 16 of The Fifth Heir

“You had no authority to expose it.”

“I was cleaning the Hall.”

“And in doing so, you may have redirected residual Choosing magic.”

The explanation reached the audience.

Whispers spread through the chamber.

Not chosen.

An accident.

A discharge.

The words were not shouted, but the Hall’s acoustical runes carried them farther than their speakers intended.

Relief passed through me so quickly that my knees weakened.

An accident made sense.

The Prism had awakened dormant markings I happened to be standing near. Light had followed the newly opened path and struck the first person at its end. I had caused the beam by disturbing something I should have left alone.

No one had to explain why the Prism would choose a twenty-four-year-old junior keeper who had never shifted.

No one had to ask me to become something I could not be.

“Keeper Malcolm is right,” I said.

The headmaster looked at me. “We have not established that.”

“I touched the rune. The light followed it.”

“After passing through the candidates.”

“It was looking for somewhere to go.”

A few nervous laughs came from the gallery.

The headmaster ignored them. “The Prism is not water spilling from a broken channel.”

Heat rose into my face. “I didn’t mean—”

“You believe the Choosing made a mistake.”

I looked down at my gray robe, my keeper’s badge, and the dust still caught beneath my nails.

“Yes.”

The beam brightened around me.

Color flashed across the wall on either side of my body. The hidden runes beneath the lamp responded with a matching pulse.

The pressure under my ribs answered.

The headmaster’s eyebrows lifted.

Malcolm returned to the dais. “The Prism is unstable. We should clear the Hall and conduct a complete examination before assigning meaning to an unprecedented magical reaction.”