Chapter 7
Talia
The assessment chamber had been designed to measure dragons.
I understood that before the first examiner asked me to place my hand beneath a stone press calibrated for partial shifts. I understood it more clearly when Torren lifted the weighted mechanism one-handed and I failed to move it with both arms.
By the time we reached the flight platform, understanding had become humiliation.
“You may skip this portion,” the examiner said.
Every person in the chamber heard her.
The headmaster and Keeper Malcolm watched from the observation gallery, along with six academy officials responsible for recording the heirs’ results. Sebastian, Rafe, and Leander stood beside Torren near the strength apparatus. They had already completed the basic tests.
Leander’s scores approached academy records. Torren had exceeded two of them. Rafe had treated each instruction as a suggestion and still performed well enough to earn reluctant approval. Sebastian lacked their physical power, but his control during the Shadow assessments had been exact.
I had not completed a single test at the minimum heir standard.
The flight platform rose forty feet above the chamber floor. Candidates normally shifted after stepping from its edge, giving examiners a clear view of wingspan, speed, and control.
A net had been stretched below for young dragons attempting their first academy examination.
It would not make falling from the platform less pointless.
“I’m aware that I may skip it,” I said.
The examiner held her writing slate against her chest. “Then you may come down.”
I looked over the edge.
Even with the net, my stomach tightened. I had climbed higher ladders in the Hall to clean the upper displays, but those ladders had rungs and solid flooring beneath them.
“Is there a human-form equivalent?”
A brief silence followed.
“We can test your balance and landing strength from a lower height,” she said.
“How low?”
“The first ledge.”
It stood perhaps eight feet above the floor.
Rafe looked up at me. Whatever careless remark he had been about to make disappeared when he saw my face.
“I can jump from higher than that.”
“The test is intended to evaluate the transition from human to dragon form,” the examiner explained. “Without a transition, increased height would only create unnecessary risk.”
I climbed down.
No one laughed.
That made it worse.
The examiner directed me to the lower ledge. I jumped, landed with bent knees, and held my balance despite the pain that traveled through my bruised shoulder when I straightened.
She recorded the result.
“Human-standard landing completed.”
Not passed.
Completed.
I left the padded area and took my place beside the others.
Torren handed me a cup of water.
“I don’t need—”
He continued holding it out.
I accepted the cup.
He had placed eggs and bread in front of me before we left the Fifth Wing. I had eaten half to end the argument and the rest because every time I tried to rise, he moved between me and the door without saying a word.
Now he watched until I drank.
“You know I survived twenty-four years before meeting you,” I said quietly.
“Your methods were questionable.”
“I was fine.”
“You cataloged cabinets at dawn with an injured shoulder.”
“I completed the inventory.”
His mouth moved slightly at one corner.
Rafe leaned toward us. “Is this what living in the Fifth Wing will be like every morning?”
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” Torren said at the same time.
Rafe’s grin returned. Leander looked away with the expression of someone already reconsidering the shared quarters.
The assessment examiner called us to the central circle.
Seven large runes had been embedded in the floor, one for each known element. Fire, Frost, Forest, Storm, Shadow, Stone, and Sky surrounded a smaller unmarked disc.
Keeper Malcolm descended from the gallery.
“The elemental resonance test will determine whether the fifth beam awakened a dormant affinity,” he said. “Each heir will stand at the center while the examiners activate the runes.”
“Will it determine her dragon type?” Sebastian asked.
“If she has one.”
I pretended not to hear the final qualification.
Leander went first.
When he stepped onto the center disc, the Frost rune illuminated immediately. Pale blue magic traveled across the floor and coated the disc beneath his boots. The temperature dropped fast enough that my breath became visible.
The other elemental runes remained dark.
“Primary Frost affinity,” the examiner announced. “No secondary manifestation.”
Torren produced the same clean result with Fire. The chamber warmed, red light surrounded him, and the metal clasps on his training uniform became too bright to look at directly.
Storm responded to Rafe before he reached the center. Silver light snapped between the floor markings, raising the hair along my arms.
He glanced at me as lightning curled around his wrist. “Try not to look too impressed.”
“I’m trying.”
The examiner ordered him to stop encouraging the discharge.
Sebastian’s result spread farther.
The Shadow rune illuminated beneath him, but thin violet lines reached toward several others before fading. Malcolm leaned forward to examine the pattern.
“Secondary resonance?” Sebastian asked.
“No,” Malcolm said. “Shadow searches for available space. It does not indicate affinity.”
“You sound disappointed,” Rafe said.
“I prefer accurate records.”
The center disc cleared.
My turn.
I handed the water cup back to Torren and crossed the floor.
The crystal torc was the only visible proof that I belonged inside the assessment circle. I touched it before stepping onto the disc. The surface felt warm where it rested against my neck.
No rune responded.
Malcolm waited until I stood at the center, then signaled the examiners.
“Begin with Stone.”
Camilla’s element.
A low vibration traveled beneath my feet. The Stone rune glowed bronze, and weight pressed down across my shoulders. My knees bent before I forced them straight.
The center disc remained dark.
“No resonance,” the examiner recorded.
I kept my gaze away from the observation gallery.
“Forest.”
Bronze light changed to green. The pressure disappeared, replaced by the scent of wet earth and growing things. The magic passed around me without touching my skin.
“No resonance.”
“Sky.”
A current of air lifted my hair and tugged at my training uniform. Nothing answered inside me.
One by one, the remaining runes awakened.
Frost chilled the disc until my toes went numb. Shadow darkened the air. Storm made the torc tingle against my throat, but the examiner recorded no measurable response.
Each failure went onto the slate.
Each one felt less surprising and more final.
Fire came last.
Torren shifted his weight beside the circle.
The red rune awakened.
Heat rose through my boots and moved along my legs. It felt different from the flame in the Fifth Wing hearth. That had become clear and almost gentle when I approached. This heat pressed into me, searching for something that was not there.
My torc flashed.
The examiner leaned closer.
“Again,” Malcolm ordered.
The Fire rune brightened.
A narrow band of color appeared inside the crystal around my throat, then vanished.
Sebastian stepped forward. “The torc responded.”
“The torc is made of an unidentified material,” Malcolm said. “Its reaction does not establish elemental affinity.”
“Neither does ignoring it.”
Malcolm’s attention moved to him. “Return to your place.”
Sebastian did, though the expression on his face made it clear the order had not ended his interest.
“Fire resonance inconclusive,” the examiner announced.
Malcolm looked at the recording slate. “Repeat at greater strength.”
Torren moved before I could speak.
“The chamber has already registered no affinity.”
“We have registered an unidentified response.”
“She’s completed the test.”
“We are determining whether the fifth beam awakened dormant magic, Fire heir. Your discomfort does not alter the procedure.”
Heat stirred around Torren’s hands.
“It isn’t his discomfort,” I said.
Both of them looked at me.
I kept my hand away from my shoulder. “Repeat it.”
Torren’s jaw tightened.
I knew that expression now. He was deciding whether to argue with me or the man controlling the assessment.
“I need to know,” I said more quietly.
He did not step back, but he stopped objecting.
Malcolm signaled the examiner.
The Fire rune blazed.
Heat struck hard enough to take my breath. I remained inside the circle as long as I could, waiting for the torc to respond again.
Nothing happened.
No colored light.
No dragon magic.
No sudden discovery that the first twenty-four years of my life had been an error.
Only heat.
“Stop,” Malcolm ordered.
The examiner lowered both hands.
The rune continued burning.
She tried again.
Red light surged across the floor, spreading beyond the carved Fire mark and filling the channels surrounding the central disc.
“The control isn’t releasing,” she said.
Torren stepped toward the circle. “Move away from it.”
I tried.
The fire rose before I reached the edge.
A wall of flame surrounded the disc, high enough to block my view of the others. The heat became painful against my face and hands.
I backed toward the center.
“Extinguish it,” Malcolm ordered.
“We’re trying.”
The examiner nearest the Fire rune pressed both palms to the control stone. Another official joined her.
The flame bent toward them.
“Get back,” Torren shouted.
The officials did not move quickly enough.
Fire left the circle in a concentrated arc.
It crossed directly toward the two examiners.
Torren thrust out one hand. His power struck the escaping flame from the side, but the assessment rune had already fed it beyond the level used for resonance testing. The fire twisted under his control without stopping.
One official fell backward.
The other remained pinned against the control stone.
I saw the moment the flame would reach her.
I lifted both hands.
There was no reason to do it. I possessed no element to call and no training that could help. My body moved before thought caught up with it.
The torc tightened around my throat.
Clear light passed across my palms.
The flame struck it.
For one impossible second, the fire flattened into a bright sheet in front of me. Red divided into orange, gold, white, and colors I had only seen inside the Prism.
The separated colors moved across my vision like light through cut crystal.
Then the entire arc changed direction.
It curved around the examiner, crossed the chamber, and struck the empty containment wall.
Protective runes absorbed it with a deep flash.
The Fire circle went dark.
Silence filled the chamber.
Smoke rose from the floor channels, but the stone beneath my feet remained unburned. The official who had fallen pushed herself upright. Her partner stood frozen beside the control stone, staring at the black mark where the fire had passed less than a foot from her body.
Torren lowered his hand.
“Are you hurt?” he asked me.
I looked at my palms.
The skin was pink but unburned. “No.”
He entered the circle before Malcolm could stop him and checked my hands himself. His fingers were hot and rough around mine.
“I said I’m not hurt.”
“You’ve said that before.”
He turned my hands over, checking the backs and each wrist. The fire in the surrounding channels had gone out, but warmth remained where his skin touched mine.
The runes in the assessment chamber did not change color to reveal my reaction.
After a night in the Fifth Wing, their silence felt almost private.
Leander moved to the fallen official and helped her stand. Frost spread from his palm across a scorched section of floor, smothering the last embers.
Rafe remained between the damaged control and the other examiners, lightning snapping once along his forearm before he forced it still.
Sebastian had not moved.
He was staring at my hands.
Malcolm approached the failed Fire control.
“What did you do?” he asked Torren.
Torren’s grip tightened once around my fingers before he released them.
“I redirected it.”
Malcolm’s gaze moved to the containment wall. “That degree of control should not have been possible once the rune overloaded.”
“I didn’t say it was easy.”
His answer came without hesitation.
The two examiners nodded, relieved to have an explanation that fit something they understood.
I let out the breath I had been holding.
Torren had stopped the flame. Of course he had. I had seen light on my hands because I was surrounded by fire and wearing a crystal torc. Fear had made the moment feel stranger than it was.
Except Torren had been looking at my hands before Malcolm asked the question.
And Sebastian was still looking at them now.
I pushed the thought away.
The assessment had proven exactly what I expected.
I possessed no recognized element. I had no dragon form, no flight capacity, and no chance of meeting the physical standards required of an heir.
The headmaster descended from the gallery.
I removed my hands from Torren’s grip, though he had already released me.
“Headmaster, I would like to request—”
“Not now,” he said.
“But the results—”
“Will be reviewed after the chamber is secured.”
He turned toward the examiners, ending the conversation.
I looked at the four men waiting outside the circle.
Leander’s expression was unreadable, but he had positioned himself between Malcolm and the damaged control. Rafe no longer appeared amused. Torren remained close enough to catch me if my knees failed, which they would not.
Sebastian traced the path of the redirected flame through the air with one finger.
Not the path Torren’s fire had taken.
The path from my hands.
Then he looked at the crystal torc around my throat.
He had seen something.
I didn’t know what.