Page 18 of The Fifth Heir

“No.”

“Unusual heat? Cold? Shadow response? Electrical discharge?”

The colors beneath my skin had felt like all of them and none of them. I did not know how to explain that without making the Hall even more interested in me.

“No.”

“Scales?”

My hand rose automatically toward my bare throat.

Nothing covered the skin. Nothing ever had.

“No.”

“Have you ever shifted partially?”

The question should not have embarrassed me. My status was recorded in the academy archives, along with the name of every dragon-born child who failed to manifest by twenty.

“No.”

Malcolm turned toward the headmaster. “She has no known elemental affinity and no dragon form. The Prism does not choose humans.”

“I’m not human,” I said before I could stop myself.

Malcolm’s expression did not change. “You are unshifted.”

“I was born to two dragons.”

“As were others who never manifested.”

The distinction was one I had lived with for years.

Dragon-born.

Unshifted.

Wingless.

Never heir.

The headmaster looked from Malcolm to me.

Then he stepped into the beam.

The galleries erupted in alarm.

Light passed over his mantle and separated into seven narrow colors. It did not strike or repel him. He continued forward until he stood directly in front of me.

The pressure across my chest vanished.

I dragged in a breath and pushed away from the wall.

My knees buckled.

The headmaster caught my forearm before I fell.

The moment his hand closed around me, the beam withdrew. It moved back across the Hall, passing over Camilla and the rows of candidates before disappearing into the Prism.