Page 184 of The Fifth Heir

“In with me.”

His lungs expanded beneath my palm.

I tried to match him.

The first breath hurt. The second reached deeper.

By the third, the pressure behind my shoulders had stopped increasing.

Color continued moving beneath my skin, but the lines no longer spread.

Torren breathed with me until the torc loosened.

The pain faded.

Not all at once. It withdrew along the same path it came, leaving my spine first, then my shoulders, arm, and wrist.

The clear light disappeared.

Only the single transparent scale remained.

I waited for another surge.

None came.

“What happened?” I asked.

Sebastian lowered the rune lamp. “A magical discharge.”

“I know that.”

“No transformation occurred.”

“I know that too.”

Torren gave him a look.

Sebastian stopped explaining.

The healer arrived with two assistants. She examined my back, eyes, hands, torc, and scale. No physical shift had begun. My body temperature remained elevated but stable, and the pressure did not return.

“A pre-shift surge,” she said. “Your dragon attempted to manifest power without changing form.”

“So it could happen again.”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“I don’t know.”

Malcolm would have used the answer as another reason to classify me as dangerous.

The healer did not.

She ordered rest, water, and observation. Someone needed to remain with me until morning. Sebastian, Rafe, and Leander were due to meet the headmaster with copies of the stolen channel evidence, leaving Torren as the obvious choice.

He did not describe it that way.