Page 68 of The Fifth Heir

I called the others. No one answered.

The outer Crown Gate remained closed behind me. I pressed both hands against its center seam, searching for a release rune, but the stone held no visible marks. The crystal torc warmed against my throat when I touched the gate, then cooled without opening it.

If the scrying crystals were working, the officials could see me trapped inside. The headmaster knew the Trial had violated Malcolm’s instructions. He would attempt to reopen the entrance.

Until he succeeded, I needed to keep myself alive.

And find the others.

I returned to the clear floor rune.

The four elemental symbols surrounding it had gone dark. Each pointed toward one of the sealed passages, their lines disappearing beneath the doors.

I crouched and brushed my fingers across the center.

Clear light spread over the floor.

Four thin channels appeared beneath the stone, so faint that I could only see them where the glow from my torc touched. They extended from the central rune and followed the elemental paths deeper into the mountain.

The Trial had not given me a path.

It had given me a view of all four.

I pressed my palm to the Fire channel.

The floor vanished beneath it.

Not physically. My hand remained against stone, but the surface became transparent within a narrow circle, opening a view into Torren’s route.

He stood on a black bridge suspended above a trench of flame. Three stone braziers waited along the far side, each marked with a Fire rune. The first already burned. Torren crossed toward the second while pieces of the bridge collapsed behind him.

“Torren.”

He did not react.

I pressed harder against the channel. “Can you hear me?”

The fire in the trench bent toward my voice, but he continued across the bridge.

The view clouded when he reached the second brazier.

I pulled my hand away and touched Frost.

Cold bit into my fingertips.

Leander appeared beneath my palm.

He stood inside a chamber filled with moving water. A narrow ice shelf extended from his feet toward a blue-white gate on the opposite wall. He froze another section and stepped onto it.

The water level dropped.

At the same moment, heat flashed through the central chamber.

I jerked back.

Red light moved through the Fire channel.

Torren had ignited the second brazier.