The Fifth Heir (Crown Wing Academy #1)

Chapter 1

Talia

By the time the first candidates arrived at the Hall of Prism, I had already polished the eastern display case twice.

It did not need a third pass. The glass held no fingerprints. The silver hinges shone, and every relic inside stood precisely where the Hall records said it belonged.

Still, I ran my cloth along the bottom edge once more.

Outside the sealed bronze doors, hundreds of boots crossed the entrance court. Voices gathered beneath the high arches, rising and falling with the restless energy of dragons waiting to learn which four among them would be given a chance at the crown.

Inside, everything had to remain perfect.

I folded the cloth and slipped it into the pocket of my gray keeper’s robe.

The case contained four ceremonial torcs, one for each heir the Prism would choose before the day ended. They appeared identical: silver bands set with clear stones, each waiting to take on the color and character of whichever elemental line the Prism selected.

Four torcs.

Four heirs.

One future ruler.

No one knew which four of the seven elemental lines the Prism would select until the Choosing.

That uncertainty had drawn scholars to the ceremony for centuries.

Treatises had been written about the order of the beams, the duration of their light, and whether the Prism favored certain bloodlines after war, famine, or unusually long reigns.

It was also the only uncertainty anyone appeared willing to acknowledge.

Camilla would be chosen, of course.

Our parents believed the Prism would select Stone as one of the four elemental lines, then choose Camilla from its candidates. Her instructors believed it. Half the candidates assembling outside had probably accepted it as well.

Camilla belonged to the Stone line. She had first shifted into a granite-gray dragon at sixteen and spent the following fourteen years proving her early transformation had not been an accident of blood.

She was powerful, disciplined, and accomplished in every area the royal histories considered important. She could hold her dragon form longer than most members of our line, withstand blows that would fracture another dragon’s scales, and recite every law governing succession.

At twenty-four, I had never shifted at all.

My parents had waited through my sixteenth year, then my eighteenth, then my twentieth. Healers had examined me. Instructors had tried fear, exhaustion, meditation, and exposure to elemental magic. Nothing had called a dragon from beneath my skin.

Eventually, everyone stopped calling me a late bloomer.

I had spent the years since learning how to preserve the histories that would someday record Camilla’s reign.

“Talia.”

Master Orin’s voice carried down from the gallery.

I looked up to find the senior relic keeper leaning over the carved stone rail. His white hair stood away from his head as if he had dragged both hands through it, which he probably had. The Choosing had made him distrust work he had personally inspected three times.

“The western lamps,” he called.

“I filled them.”

“The lower row?”

“Filled and tested.”

“And the ceremonial oil?”

“In the cabinet beside the dais, with the seal intact.”

His brows drew together as he searched for something else I might have forgotten.

Master Orin had supervised the Hall for forty-three years and trusted its relics to no one.

Three months earlier, he had begun allowing me to handle the less valuable pieces without direct observation.

Last week, he had handed me the key to the eastern cases without reminding me that skin oils could damage ancient metal.

It was the closest he had ever come to praising my work.

“Check the western lamps again,” he said.

“Yes, Master.”

He disappeared from the railing.

I waited until his footsteps faded before crossing the circular chamber.

The Hall of Prism had remained closed for most of my life.

The Choosing came only once each century, when the reigning dragon’s rule neared its end and the Prism named the heirs who would compete for the next crown.

During the long years between ceremonies, a small team of keepers tended the dormant relics and maintained the records.

Most of that work was quiet. Controlled temperatures. Regular cleaning. Careful inspections for decay. I had spent entire afternoons documenting a new hairline fracture in a stone tablet or comparing translations of a single damaged rune.

Preparing for a Choosing was different.

Every lamp had to burn. Every known rune had to be exposed.

Every object used in the ceremony had to be awakened in the proper order, including several whose purposes were no longer fully understood.

The Hall had begun humming three days ago, a sound too low for most visitors to hear but strong enough to vibrate through the soles of my shoes.

For the past six weeks, I had arrived before sunrise and left after the evening bells. Master Orin credited diligence whenever he assigned me more work, but I didn’t mind.

This was the first Choosing I had ever witnessed.

It was also the only one I was likely to see. By the next, even the youngest dragons currently alive would exist only in academy histories. My own name, if it appeared anywhere, might survive in a keeper’s notation beneath a repaired date or corrected translation.

The western lamps were burning evenly.

I adjusted one wick by less than the width of my fingernail and stepped back.

That was when I noticed the line beneath the lowest bracket.

It was too straight to be a crack.

I crouched and ran my thumb across it. A thin layer of pale residue flaked away beneath my touch, revealing a shallow cut in the black stone.

A rune.

My pulse quickened.

I glanced toward the gallery, but Master Orin had not returned. The candidates’ voices remained beyond the bronze doors as attendants checked invitations and directed them into formation. I had time to mark the location. Perhaps even enough to determine the shape.

I pulled the cloth from my pocket and rubbed the stone more firmly.

One line became three. Another mark emerged beside them, then the curved edge of something larger. Dust filled the cuts, packed so tightly that it had concealed the carving entirely.

That should not have been possible.

We had cleaned every exposed rune in the Hall. I had checked the diagrams myself, matching each carving on the floor and walls to the master inventory.

This one was not recorded.

I lowered myself to both knees. The marks continued behind the lamp stand and disappeared beneath its base. I could not move it alone; the carved pedestal was nearly as tall as my waist and anchored to the floor by its own magic.

A faint pulse touched my fingertips.

Not heat.

Recognition.

I jerked my hand back.

The sensation vanished so quickly that the word seemed foolish the moment it formed.

Runes sometimes retained traces of old magic, particularly during an awakening cycle.

Master Orin had warned every junior keeper to expect heat, vibration, and even brief sounds from inscriptions that had lain dormant.

He had never mentioned a rune feeling like a second pulse answering my own.

I pressed my fingers to the first mark again.

Nothing happened.

“Talia, what are you doing?”

I stood too fast and struck my shoulder against the lamp bracket. The iron frame rattled, sending a thin line of oil sloshing against the glass.

Camilla crossed the Hall before I could answer.

Unlike me, she wore no keeper’s robe. Her fitted ceremonial uniform was slate gray, the color traditionally worn by Stone candidates, with bronze fastenings running from her collar to her waist. Her dark hair had been braided and pinned high enough to expose the protective scales along the sides of her neck.

Those scales had appeared during her first shift. Mine had not.

She stopped in front of the lamp and steadied its frame.

“Did you damage it?”

“No.”

“Are you hurt?”

The questions came in that order, but her hand had already lifted toward me before she asked the second.

I rotated my shoulder. Pain spread down my upper arm, but nothing felt broken. “No.”

Her gaze lingered on me before moving to the floor. “What were you looking at?”

“I found another inscription.”

Camilla bent slightly. I moved aside so she could see the marks, although they were difficult to distinguish unless the light caught them at an angle.

“Those are scratches.”

“They’re too regular.”

“Then they’re probably decorative.”

“They were packed with residue.” I crouched again and pointed to the first line. “See how deeply that one is cut? I think the lamp was placed over part of it.”

“Talia.”

The single word held the patient warning I had heard throughout childhood. Camilla never needed to raise her voice. She could end an argument by making the other person feel unreasonable for beginning it.

“I’m not suggesting it’s important,” I said. “But it should be entered in the maintenance record.”

“Today?”

“If we don’t record it now, we might lose track of where it was found.”

“Then make a note and examine it after the Choosing.”

I looked toward the sealed doors. “That was what I intended to do.”

“While kneeling behind a lamp when the candidates are about to enter?”

“I still have time.”

“You always believe you have time for one more task.”

She reached for my shoulder before stopping herself. Camilla knew I disliked being fussed over, particularly where other people could see it. She lowered her hand and inspected my robe instead.

A streak of dust crossed the front where I had leaned against the pedestal.

“You can’t remain in the Hall dressed like that.”

“I have another robe in the records room.”

“Good.” Her attention returned to the hidden marks. “Do you want me to tell Master Orin?”

“No.”

The answer came too quickly.

Camilla’s mouth tightened. “If you believe you found something significant—”

“I don’t know what I found. That’s why I need to examine it.”

“Later.”

“Yes. Later.”