Page 90 of The Fifth Heir

The headmaster signaled the medical team.

They separated us before anyone could argue further. An examiner took Sebastian’s hand. Two others led Leander toward a warming tent, and Rafe allowed himself to be inspected only after claiming three times that the blood on his sleeve belonged to the mountain.

Torren stayed beside me.

A healer reached for my injured shoulder.

I stepped back automatically.

Torren put one hand between my shoulder blades and kept me in place, his palm warm enough that I felt it through the torn training uniform.

“Let her look.”

“I’m fine.”

“Of course you are.”

The healer removed the wrap and examined the bruise. It had spread farther across my shoulder during the Trial.

I waited for Torren to say something.

He didn’t. His jaw locked, and heat gathered beneath the hand against my back.

That was worse.

“We don’t know what the academy will decide,” I said.

His hand remained steady against my back. “About the Trial?”

“About me.”

He looked toward Malcolm, who stood beneath the inscription arguing with the runemasters.

“The Prism chose you,” Torren said. “The wing recognized you. The Trial needed you.”

“It didn’t give me a path.”

“No.”

The simple agreement hurt more than denial would have.

Then his fingers pressed lightly against my back, the anger in his touch becoming something steadier.

“It gave you all four of ours.”

Chapter 13

Talia

Torren refused to train me until the healer cleared my shoulder.

I learned this after appearing on the Fifth Wing’s terrace at dawn in my new training uniform and finding him halfway through a set of sword forms.

He stopped the moment he saw me.

“No.”

“I haven’t asked anything.”