Page 210 of The Fifth Heir

For generations, four heirs had entered the final Trial and one had emerged as king. The academy taught that the others survived their defeat, but the earliest records were incomplete. Names disappeared from family histories. Some defeated heirs were never mentioned again.

Now there were five of us.

Talia stepped away from the table. “All this time, we thought the hidden truth meant there was supposed to be a place for me.”

“There is,” Rafe said.

“And only one of us still comes out.”

“No,” Torren said immediately.

“The inscription says—”

“I can read.”

“Then don’t pretend it says something else.”

Torren moved in front of her. “I’m saying I won’t accept it.”

“That has never stopped the Trials from doing whatever they want.”

“The Trials nearly killed us because we followed the objectives they gave us,” he said. “We survived because we stopped competing.”

“The next Trial may not give us that choice.”

“Then we make one.”

Talia’s face tightened. “You don’t know that we can.”

“I know I won’t kill you for a crown.”

Rafe came to stand beside him. “Neither will I.”

Leander closed the Crown Accords he still carried beneath one arm. “There is no crown law that can compel one heir to kill another.”

“There is no crown law acknowledging that five heirs can exist,” Talia replied.

“There will be.”

She looked toward me.

I did not offer comfort I could not support with evidence.

“The inscription tells us what someone wanted later generations to believe,” I said. “It does not tell us what the words meant when they were carved.”

Her gaze returned to the page. “Five enter. One emerges. How many meanings can that have?”

“I don’t know yet.”

A deep metallic note sounded through the wing.

Every torc activated at once.

Torren’s fire stone glowed red. Rafe’s sparked silver. Frost-blue light spread beneath Leander’s collar, and violet shadow filled mine.

Talia’s transparent torc blazed white.

The study doors opened on their own.