Chapter 9
Talia
The First Trial began before sunrise.
I woke to clear light moving across the ceiling of the Fifth Wing. It formed five lines above our beds, one leading to each torc. The four men were already stirring when my crystal ring tightened around my throat.
A message appeared on the sleeping-chamber wall.
THE CROWN GATE OPENS AT DAWN.
Rafe read it from his bed and pulled a pillow over his face.
“Tell the crown to return at a reasonable hour.”
Leander opened his curtains. He was fully dressed beneath them.
I stared at him. “Did you sleep in your uniform?”
“No.”
“You changed before the message appeared?”
“I knew when dawn would occur.”
Rafe lifted the pillow enough to look at him. “He didn’t sleep.”
“I slept.”
“He paced for half the night.”
“I heard you too,” Torren said.
Leander ignored both of them and fastened the last clasp at his wrist. “We have less than an hour.”
Sebastian was already gone.
I found him in the common room with the First Trial instructions spread across the table. He had copied the visible inscription onto a separate sheet and drawn the sealed marks he remembered beneath the archive text.
“Did you sleep?” I asked.
“Adequately.”
“That means no.”
“It means the amount was sufficient for my current needs.”
I sat across from him. “You and Leander could save time by sharing answers.”
His attention remained on the page. “The alteration begins beneath the first word, but I can’t determine how many runes were sealed.”
“Does it matter now?”
“It mattered enough for someone to conceal it.”
“But the Trial begins in less than an hour.”
“That makes it matter more.”
He folded the page and slipped it inside his coat.
I touched the crystal torc. “What am I supposed to do?”
Sebastian finally looked at me.
The official instructions assigned one path to each of the four elemental heirs. Fire, Frost, Storm, and Shadow. Every man had been given a starting position and an objective.
My name did not appear anywhere.
“The entrance required all five of us to open the Fifth Wing,” he said. “The Trial may do the same.”
“That doesn’t answer what happens after it opens.”
“No.”
“Do you have any reassuring theories?”
“None supported by evidence.”
“Thank you.”
“You prefer false reassurance?”
“This morning, I might.”
His gaze held mine for a moment.
“If the Trial requires your torc,” he said, “then you belong at its threshold. Whatever the written rules claim.”
It was not reassurance. Not exactly.
It steadied something inside me anyway.
Torren entered carrying a tray from the dining room. Bread, sliced fruit, cheese, and five cups had appeared in the kitchen sometime during the night.
He placed a plate in front of me.
“I can serve myself.”
“You didn’t.”
“I just arrived.”
“You’ve been sitting here for several minutes.”
Sebastian checked the wall clock. “Four minutes.”
Torren gave him a look.
I picked up a piece of bread before the discussion became another argument about whether I could feed myself.
The wall runes turned gold.
Rafe entered behind Leander and pointed upward. “They approve.”
“The runes respond to emotion, not behavior,” I said.
“Torren is happy because you’re eating. Same result.”
Torren’s expression remained serious, but the flames in the hearth burned brighter.
I ate the bread.
Rafe grinned.
Torren did not, but he pushed the fruit closer.
The First Trial occupied the oldest structure on the academy grounds.
The Crown Gate stood beyond the training fields, built into the side of the black mountain rising behind Crown Wing. Its outer arch was large enough for a full-grown dragon to enter without lowering its head. Weather had worn the surrounding stone, but the inscription above it remained sharply cut.
FOUR ENTER.
ONE EMERGES.
The words had never seemed threatening when I copied them into archive catalogs.
Now they hung above the four men walking beside me.
Dozens of officials waited outside.
The First Trial was supposed to be public, but spectators would not enter the mountain. Scrying crystals had been arranged around the field to project the heirs’ progress into the Hall of Prism, where candidates, families, and representatives from every territory would watch.
My parents would be there.
Camilla too.
They would watch four heirs prove what they were born to become.
And they would watch me stand wherever the academy found room for its mistake.
The thought tightened my stomach more than the gate.
Keeper Malcolm stood beneath the inscription with the headmaster. He wore his white ceremonial mantle again, the golden crown bright over his heart. Four runemasters waited beside him.
Only four.
A medical team had been stationed near the field, along with academy guards carrying suppression weapons in case an heir lost control while shifting. No one had prepared for a wingless participant.
No one seemed certain whether I was a participant at all.
Malcolm watched our approach.
His gaze moved across the four elemental torcs before stopping on mine.
“The Trial has not been altered to accommodate an unverified fifth selection,” he said.
The headmaster’s mouth tightened. “She has a torc.”
“Which was found outside the official Choosing inventory.”
“Inside a wing built for five.”
“The wing will be investigated separately. The First Trial has operated in its current form for centuries.”
I looked at the closed Crown Gate. “Am I entering?”
“You are required to activate the threshold,” Malcolm said. “Once the gate responds, you will remain on the observation platform.”
He indicated a raised stone area beside the arch.
Relief came first.
It was followed by shame that I felt relieved.
The four men would enter an active Trial while I stood outside and watched. I would be safer. I would also prove to everyone in the Hall that the fifth heir had no place among them.
Torren looked at the observation platform.
“She stays alone?” he asked.
“She stays with academy officials.”
“While we’re inside.”
“That is how observation works,” Malcolm said.
Torren’s jaw tightened.
“The fifth beam selected her,” Rafe said. “Perhaps the Trial has an opinion.”
“The Trial is not sentient.”
“The Fifth Wing seems to be.”
Malcolm’s expression hardened. “The purpose of this morning is to assess the four elemental heirs under established conditions, not to encourage speculation about dormant architecture.”
Sebastian looked up at the inscription.
“The rules state that four enter.”
“Yes.”
“But you require five torcs to activate the threshold.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
“Then why summon Talia?”
“Because excluding any recognized heir before the investigation concludes would violate academy law.”
Leander stepped between them before Sebastian could continue.
“We activate the gate,” he said. “If it opens for four, Talia remains outside. If it requires five, she approaches long enough to complete the sequence.”
Malcolm inclined his head. “Correct.”
Leander looked at me. “Do you agree?”
No one had asked me that since the beam struck.
The choice was narrow enough to barely deserve the name, but it was still mine.
“Yes.”
Malcolm directed the four men to stand before the gate.
Their starting positions were marked by elemental runes. Torren took Fire, Leander Frost, Rafe Storm, and Sebastian Shadow. Each torc lit when its wearer stepped into place.
The mountain remained closed.
The runemasters activated the threshold.
Four lines of magic traveled from the men’s feet toward the gate. They met in the center of the arch and stopped.
Nothing moved.
Malcolm signaled for the runemasters to repeat the command.
The result did not change.
Sebastian looked toward me.
“The sequence is incomplete.”
Malcolm did not answer him. He turned to the headmaster, and the two men spoke too quietly for me to hear.
The headmaster ended the conversation by motioning me forward.
I left the observation platform.
No fifth position had been marked on the ground. I stopped several feet behind the four heirs, uncertain where the Trial expected me to stand.
If it expected me at all.
The crystal torc warmed.
A clear rune appeared beneath my boots.
It had been invisible against the pale stone.
The moment I stepped into its center, the four incomplete lines changed direction. Instead of meeting inside the arch, they bent toward me.
Fire, Frost, Storm, and Shadow reached the clear rune.
Their power struck together.
For one breath, every color blazed beneath my feet without mixing.
My torc flashed.
The Crown Gate opened.
Stone separated down the middle and withdrew into the mountain. A large entry chamber waited beyond it, illuminated by four distant colors. Red glowed from one passage, icy blue-white from another, silver lightning split the darkness of a third, and violet shadow breathed from the last.
Five smaller floor runes appeared between the outer threshold and those paths.
Malcolm addressed the men.
“Enter together. Once the gate seals, proceed to your assigned routes. Your objective is to reach the Crown Gate at the opposite side of the mountain. The first heir through it will complete the Trial.”
He looked at me.
“Talia will cross the threshold to finalize the activation. She will then return to the observation platform before the outer gate closes.”
“How long will she have?” Torren asked.
“Enough time.”
“That isn’t a measurement.”
“The closing sequence will not begin until all four elemental heirs reach their inner paths.”
Leander examined the entry chamber. “She’ll be behind us. We proceed to our marks, then wait until she is outside before entering the paths.”
“That delay will affect your result,” Malcolm said.
“Equally,” Leander replied.
Malcolm’s displeasure showed, but he did not forbid it.
We crossed the threshold.
The change in pressure made my ears ache. Air inside the mountain was cool and dry, carrying the mineral smell of sealed stone. The outer gate remained open behind me. Beyond it, the headmaster and runemasters watched from the field.
The five floor runes illuminated as we approached.
One responded to each torc.
Torren’s red mark stood nearest the Fire passage. Sebastian’s violet rune appeared across from it. Storm and Frost occupied the other two sides.
Mine waited in the center.
Again.
I stepped onto it.
The entry chamber awakened.
Four inner doors rose at once, exposing the elemental paths. Heat rolled from Torren’s. Wind tore through Rafe’s. Frost silvered the stone around Leander, while Sebastian’s passage remained completely dark.
“Charming,” Rafe said.
The men took their positions without entering.
Torren looked back at me. “Go.”
I turned toward the outer gate.
The clear rune held my feet.
I pulled against it.
Nothing visible covered my boots, but my body would not move beyond the edge of the mark.
“Talia?” Sebastian asked.
“I can’t leave the circle.”
Torren stepped away from his Fire path.
The red rune beneath him flashed in warning.
“Stay there,” I said. “It may release me once you’re all in place.”
“We are in place,” Leander said.
A low grinding sound came from the outer entrance.
The Crown Gate began to close.
“Malcolm!” Torren shouted.
The Keeper stood outside the narrowing opening. He struck his staff against the threshold, but the gate continued moving.
The headmaster ordered the runemasters to stop the sequence.
Their control stones lit without effect.
I pulled harder against the invisible hold.
The gate was already halfway closed.
“Talia, get down,” Rafe said.
Lightning struck the floor beside the clear rune. The magic passed over it without breaking its hold.
Torren left his position despite the warning flash and reached for me.
The Fire path erupted.
A wall of flame rose between us, forcing him back.
“Talia!”
His hand remained stretched toward mine through the fire.
The four inner passages brightened. Their runes pulled at the men, drawing each toward his assigned route.
The outer gate narrowed to several feet.
Then one.
I saw the headmaster moving toward the opening. Malcolm caught his arm before the stone could close on him.
The gate sealed.
The clear rune released my feet.
Darkness filled the entry chamber for one breath before the four elemental passages illuminated again.
Torren stood behind the Fire barrier. Frost had formed between Leander and the center. Wind forced Rafe toward the Storm path, and shadow climbed around Sebastian’s legs.
None of them could reach me.
No fifth path appeared.
The First Trial had admitted all five heirs.
It had only been prepared for four.