Page 227 of The Fifth Heir

And all of us gave her everything.

Chapter 29

Talia

Four powers waited for me.

Torren’s fire burned closest, red-gold and steady. Rafe’s storm circled it in silver currents. Sebastian’s shadow flowed beneath both, dark without being empty, while Leander’s frost enclosed the others in a thin blue-white ring.

They should have destroyed one another.

Instead, they held their positions around me.

Waiting for one direction.

I looked through the transparent barriers at the four men who had surrendered their claims to the crown.

For me.

No—not for me alone.

They had chosen one another too. Torren had surrendered rather than strike Leander. Rafe had trusted Sebastian’s shadows not to consume him. Sebastian had placed his power beside men he had spent his life studying as rivals, and Leander had used the law he revered to reject the victory he had been raised to pursue.

They had not given me their power so I could defeat them.

They had given it to me because none of us could survive alone.

I lowered my hands.

The elemental streams touched my palms.

Pain came first.

Fire entered my right arm, frost my left. Storm struck my chest, and shadow closed around my spine. Each power demanded a different response. My body tried to separate them, but there was nowhere for them to go.

The clear light beneath my skin intensified.

I gritted my teeth and held on.

“Talia,” Torren called.

I could hear the strain in his voice. He would take the fire back if I asked. All four of them would.

The Trial expected me to contain their power. The altered Stone runes had been designed to make that impossible. The convergence shaft beneath me was already cracking as the combined pressure built.

I could not hold four elements inside one body.

But Refraction had never been about holding them.

It changed direction.

I let the powers pass through me.

Fire crossed frost without extinguishing it. Storm entered shadow without dispersing it. The streams divided inside the clear light, breaking into dozens of smaller currents that moved through my arms, ribs, and spine.

Every color appeared beneath my skin.

My awareness expanded with them.