Page 232 of The Fifth Heir

Evidence.

The chamber convulsed.

Large sections of the ceiling collapsed around us.

Torren looked up at the open shaft. “We need to move.”

I lowered one wing toward him.

He understood first.

Torren stepped back and called his dragon.

Fire enclosed him. His human form expanded, becoming the burnished bronze-gold dragon I had seen in training. Molten red traced the edges of his scales, and his dark red wings opened across the chamber.

Rafe shifted next. Silver lightning surrounded his gunmetal body, running along the ridges of his smoky-gray wings.

Shadow folded around Sebastian. When it withdrew, a black-amethyst dragon stood in his place, his deep-purple wings absorbing the light before returning it in violet flashes.

Leander’s transformation filled the chamber with cold. White-silver scales formed beneath a layer of frost, and pale icy-blue wings spread behind him.

Four dragons surrounded me.

Not opponents.

Mine, my dragon thought.

The instinct startled me.

It did not mean that I owned them. It carried recognition, protection, desire, and belonging in equal measure.

The bond returned the same feeling from all four directions.

Ours.

The tower gave another violent shudder.

Torren launched into the vertical passage first, burning away falling debris. Rafe followed, lightning breaking the larger stones before they could strike us. Sebastian’s shadows caught the fragments, and Leander froze the unstable walls long enough to hold them in place.

They created an opening.

I drove my wings downward.

For the first time, my feet left the ground by my own power.

I had entered the Choosing hoping only to witness dragons. Now I flew among them.

The force of it carried me too quickly into the shaft. One wing struck the crystal wall, and pain jarred through the joint.

Rafe dropped beneath me at once.

Torren circled back from above.

Their presence steadied my dragon. I adjusted the angle of my wings the way I had felt Rafe do during our flight in the garden.

The next stroke lifted me cleanly.

We climbed together.