Chapter 1 #2
The tension eased from her face. She looked toward the four torcs displayed across the chamber, and for the first time that morning, her composure slipped. Her fingers curled once at her side.
“Are you nervous?” I asked.
“Of course not.”
“You checked the entrance three times before you came in.”
“I was making certain Mother and Father had received their seats.”
“They arrived an hour ago.”
“And Mother has probably spent that hour telling everyone within reach how certain she is that the Prism will select me.”
I smiled despite myself. “She only says it because she believes in you.”
“She says it because she has already ordered a portrait gown.”
That sounded exactly like our mother.
Camilla’s lips curved, but the expression disappeared when the outer doors began to move.
Bronze scraped across stone. The deep sound rolled through the Hall, and the waiting voices beyond it fell silent.
My sister straightened.
The change in her was immediate. The woman who had worried about our mother’s boasting disappeared beneath the discipline of the candidate who had prepared for this ceremony most of her life.
She looked every inch the future heir.
Pride warmed my chest. Something smaller and less generous tightened beneath it.
I hated that feeling. Camilla had never caused my dragonlessness. She had defended me when other candidates whispered, argued with our parents when they wanted to send me to yet another healer, and even found reasons to visit me in the archives even though she disliked the dust.
Loving her did not prevent me from wondering, sometimes, what it would feel like to enter a room and have everyone believe I belonged there.
“You should go,” she said.
“I still need to check the southern cases.”
“Master Orin has three other assistants.”
“He asked me to oversee the final inspection.”
“And you have finished it.”
The first candidates entered in two silent lines.
Their formal uniforms created bands of elemental color against the Hall’s black walls: red for Fire, white for Frost, white and gold for Sky, slate gray and bronze for Stone, deep green for Forest, black and silver for Storm, and violet-black for Shadow.
Magic entered with them.
Heat stirred the air near the Fire delegation. Frost silvered the floor beneath one northerner’s boots before vanishing. The scent of rain followed the Storm candidates, while shadows gathered too deeply in the folds of violet-black uniforms.
I felt none of it inside myself.
Some candidates carried themselves with obvious confidence. Others stared at the central Prism as if it might pass judgment before the ceremony began.
The Prism rose from the middle of the Hall in a single clear column taller than three men. No tool had ever scratched its surface. No scholar had determined where it came from or why it awakened at the end of each reign. The lamps reflected within it without producing even a hint of color.
Today, four beams would leave that crystal and change four lives.
Camilla stepped closer to me.
“Go change your robe,” she said quietly. “Then stand with the other keepers along the eastern wall. Once the ceremony begins, don’t move unless Master Orin instructs you.”
“I know the procedure.”
“I know you do.”
Her gaze shifted toward the half-hidden inscription. “But I also know what happens when you notice something no one else has recorded.”
“I look at it.”
“You forget everything around you.”
“That happened once.”
“It happened last week.”
“The archive classification was wrong.”
“And you missed dinner.”
“I corrected the classification.”
Camilla exhaled slowly. “Today is not the day to prove that you are the most observant person in the room.”
I glanced at the gathering candidates. “I don’t think anyone is in danger of noticing me.”
Her expression softened, which somehow made the words sting more.
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“You don’t have to worry. I’m working the ceremony, not participating in it.”
I could not have participated if I wanted to. Candidates were proven dragons, shifted and trained. An unmanifested woman in a gray robe did not belong among the most powerful dragons of her generation.
“No, you’re witnessing it.” Camilla touched my sleeve, avoiding my bruised shoulder. “I want you here. I’m glad you’ll see it.”
There had never been any question that I would watch my sister be chosen.
Even if Master Orin had refused to assign me to the ceremony, our parents would have found a place for me in the family gallery.
They had spoken for months about the moment the beam would find Camilla and confirm what all of us already knew.
I covered her hand with mine.
“You’ll be brilliant.”
For once, Camilla did not dismiss the praise or tell me the Prism cared nothing for preparation. She simply nodded.
An attendant called her name from beside the central dais.
She withdrew her hand. “Eastern wall, Talia.”
“I’ll be there.”
“And clean your robe.”
I watched her join the other candidates.
People made room for Camilla without being asked. Several greeted her; one offered a respectful inclination of his head. She moved into position near the front, shoulders straight and chin lifted, as comfortable among the realm’s most accomplished dragons as I was among shelves of aging records.
I touched the dusty streak on my robe.
The candidates began filing into the hall, more than I could count at a glance. Most were strangers to me, but along with Camilla, four men had appeared so often in Academy announcements—and in whispered predictions about the Choosing—that nearly everyone knew their names.
Leander entered among the northern delegation in the white and silver of Frost. Pale-haired and severe, he stood tall and lean beneath the formal coat, its icy-blue embroidery catching the light whenever he moved. A trace of frost followed each measured step before melting against the black floor.
Torren wore the deep red of the military training grounds rather than his family’s more elaborate Fire regalia.
Gold edged his collar and cuffs like banked flame.
He was broader than the men beside him, with close-cut dark hair and a narrow scar through one eyebrow.
While the other candidates studied the Crown Prism, he surveyed the exits first.
Rafe was already earning a reprimand for whispering to the candidate beside him.
His dark uniform was slashed with silver, the storm markings flashing like lightning whenever he shifted.
Black hair fell in careless waves around a face made for trouble, and his easy, crooked smile suggested he considered the reprimand an achievement.
Storm-gray light flickered once beneath his skin before disappearing.
Sebastian nearly walked into the man ahead of him because he was studying the inscriptions above the dais.
Deep purple threaded the black of his formal Shadow robes, almost invisible until the light touched it.
He was dark-haired like Rafe and Torren but leaner, his features more refined and his attention entirely claimed by the runes.
A lock fell across his forehead. He pushed it back absently without taking his eyes from the ancient writing.
More candidates continued through the doors behind them, dressed in the colors of every element and every region of the kingdom. By the time the last of them took their places around the dais, the hall seemed crowded with possible futures.
Any four of them might leave the hall today as heirs.
Camilla would be one of them, I had no doubt about that. The only question was which of the others would be chosen to stand beside her.
I returned my attention to the marks beneath the western lamp.
From where I stood, the exposed lines appeared to form the edge of a larger pattern.
Four prominent runes already surrounded the Prism, positioned at equal distances around the circular floor.
Scholars believed they represented the heirs summoned to the Trials.
The hidden marks sat outside that arrangement.
Not outside, I realized.
Between.
I took one step toward them.
Then Camilla looked across the gathering crowd and found me.
Eastern wall, she mouthed.
I folded my cloth, slipped it into my pocket, and turned away from the unfinished inscription.
Whatever it meant, it had remained hidden through countless ceremonies. It could wait until this one ended.
I went to change my robe.
Behind me, beneath the western lamp, the buried rune pulsed once.