Page 69 of The Fifth Heir

I touched Frost again.

Leander’s ice shelf was melting.

He had crossed half the chamber before the surface beneath him cracked. Water rushed over his boots. He drove both hands downward, reforging the ice before it could break completely.

The heat diminished.

The Fire channel flashed.

I returned to Torren’s view.

His second brazier had gone out.

He stood beside it with one hand raised, staring at the dead flame as if it had personally offended him.

Leander freezing the water had extinguished Torren’s fire.

Torren’s flame had melted Leander’s bridge.

Neither could see the other.

The Trial had placed them in competition without telling them that every advance damaged another path.

I moved to Storm.

The instant my palm touched the silver channel, wind tore through the central chamber. It lifted me from my knees and threw me against the floor several feet away.

Pain struck my injured shoulder hard enough to blur my vision.

I rolled onto my back and waited for the gust to pass. The medical wrap pulled tight beneath my uniform, and something warm spread under it.

Not blood. I hoped.

Above me, silver light pulsed through the carved ceiling. The Storm channel continued glowing.

I crawled back and touched it more carefully.

Rafe stood on a circular platform surrounded by open air. Four metal vanes rose around him. He directed wind into the first, spinning it until silver electricity traveled from the platform toward a distant gate.

He moved to the second vane.

Behind him, the darkness thickened.

I shifted to Shadow.

Sebastian stood in a corridor lined with lamps. His instructions had apparently been simple: extinguish them. Shadow spread from his hands, swallowing one pool of light after another.

Every extinguished lamp increased the darkness gathering around Rafe’s platform.

Rafe spun the second vane.

The wind carried Sebastian’s Shadow deeper into his corridor, covering two lamps he had not yet reached.

At first, that appeared helpful.

Then the darkened floor disappeared beneath Sebastian’s next step.

He caught the wall before falling into a newly concealed opening.