Page 37 of The Fifth Heir

The room turned white again.

Leander looked at the five flames in the hearth.

Then he looked at me.

“Until the investigation proves otherwise,” he said, “the academy recognizes five heirs. These rules apply to all five.”

It was not acceptance.

It was more than I had expected.

The runes softened from white to clear.

Rafe glanced at the wall and smiled.

“They like her answer better than yours.”

“That wasn’t her answer.”

“No,” he said. “But the room still knows who needed to hear it.”

Chapter 6

Torren

Talia was gone when I woke.

Her crystal bed stood empty across the sleeping chamber, its blankets folded back with more care than anyone should manage before dawn. The clear frame gave off a faint glow, enough to show the indentation her head had left in the pillow.

I sat up and listened.

Leander’s breathing remained slow and even behind the blue curtains around his bed. Sebastian had fallen asleep with one arm hanging over the side of his mattress and a book open on the floor below him. Rafe lay facedown with his blankets twisted around one leg.

No one appeared concerned that the Fifth Wing’s newest heir had disappeared during our first night inside it.

They had not spent years waking at the smallest change in a camp.

An empty bed did not always mean danger. Sometimes a soldier needed water or air. Sometimes they had drawn the early watch and forgotten to wake their replacement.

Sometimes an empty bed meant the enemy had crossed the perimeter without making a sound.

I pulled on my trousers and boots, then followed the light beneath the wall runes.

The common room was empty. The five flames in the hearth burned low, each no larger than my thumb. Clear light extended from the doorway on my right, leading toward the study.

The tightness between my shoulders eased when I found her.

Talia sat at one of the desks.

Three cabinets stood open around her. She had arranged their contents in precise rows: blank ledgers, sealed ink bottles, pieces of chalk, measuring cords, and small metal tools I couldn’t identify. Her brown hair had been twisted into a loose knot, though several strands had escaped and fallen around her face.

She still wore her keeper’s robe.

She had removed the badge and placed it beside her notebook. The crystal torc remained around her throat, nearly invisible except where the study lamps passed through it and cast narrow bands of color across her skin.

She looked completely at home.

That did not make this safe.