Chapter 10
Talia
The four paths took them.
Torren disappeared first. Fire closed around him without touching his body, forming a solid red barrier across the entrance.
Rafe shouted something I couldn’t hear as the wind dragged him backward.
Frost covered Leander’s boots and pulled him into the icy passage, while Sebastian vanished beneath a wave of Shadow.
Then the elemental doors slammed shut.
I stood alone in the center of the entry chamber.
“Torren!”
My voice returned from the sealed stone.
I called the others. No one answered.
The outer Crown Gate remained closed behind me. I pressed both hands against its center seam, searching for a release rune, but the stone held no visible marks. The crystal torc warmed against my throat when I touched the gate, then cooled without opening it.
If the scrying crystals were working, the officials could see me trapped inside. The headmaster knew the Trial had violated Malcolm’s instructions. He would attempt to reopen the entrance.
Until he succeeded, I needed to keep myself alive.
And find the others.
I returned to the clear floor rune.
The four elemental symbols surrounding it had gone dark. Each pointed toward one of the sealed passages, their lines disappearing beneath the doors.
I crouched and brushed my fingers across the center.
Clear light spread over the floor.
Four thin channels appeared beneath the stone, so faint that I could only see them where the glow from my torc touched. They extended from the central rune and followed the elemental paths deeper into the mountain.
The Trial had not given me a path.
It had given me a view of all four.
I pressed my palm to the Fire channel.
The floor vanished beneath it.
Not physically. My hand remained against stone, but the surface became transparent within a narrow circle, opening a view into Torren’s route.
He stood on a black bridge suspended above a trench of flame. Three stone braziers waited along the far side, each marked with a Fire rune. The first already burned. Torren crossed toward the second while pieces of the bridge collapsed behind him.
“Torren.”
He did not react.
I pressed harder against the channel. “Can you hear me?”
The fire in the trench bent toward my voice, but he continued across the bridge.
The view clouded when he reached the second brazier.
I pulled my hand away and touched Frost.
Cold bit into my fingertips.
Leander appeared beneath my palm.
He stood inside a chamber filled with moving water. A narrow ice shelf extended from his feet toward a blue-white gate on the opposite wall. He froze another section and stepped onto it.
The water level dropped.
At the same moment, heat flashed through the central chamber.
I jerked back.
Red light moved through the Fire channel.
Torren had ignited the second brazier.
I touched Frost again.
Leander’s ice shelf was melting.
He had crossed half the chamber before the surface beneath him cracked. Water rushed over his boots. He drove both hands downward, reforging the ice before it could break completely.
The heat diminished.
The Fire channel flashed.
I returned to Torren’s view.
His second brazier had gone out.
He stood beside it with one hand raised, staring at the dead flame as if it had personally offended him.
Leander freezing the water had extinguished Torren’s fire.
Torren’s flame had melted Leander’s bridge.
Neither could see the other.
The Trial had placed them in competition without telling them that every advance damaged another path.
I moved to Storm.
The instant my palm touched the silver channel, wind tore through the central chamber. It lifted me from my knees and threw me against the floor several feet away.
Pain struck my injured shoulder hard enough to blur my vision.
I rolled onto my back and waited for the gust to pass. The medical wrap pulled tight beneath my uniform, and something warm spread under it.
Not blood. I hoped.
Above me, silver light pulsed through the carved ceiling. The Storm channel continued glowing.
I crawled back and touched it more carefully.
Rafe stood on a circular platform surrounded by open air. Four metal vanes rose around him. He directed wind into the first, spinning it until silver electricity traveled from the platform toward a distant gate.
He moved to the second vane.
Behind him, the darkness thickened.
I shifted to Shadow.
Sebastian stood in a corridor lined with lamps. His instructions had apparently been simple: extinguish them. Shadow spread from his hands, swallowing one pool of light after another.
Every extinguished lamp increased the darkness gathering around Rafe’s platform.
Rafe spun the second vane.
The wind carried Sebastian’s Shadow deeper into his corridor, covering two lamps he had not yet reached.
At first, that appeared helpful.
Then the darkened floor disappeared beneath Sebastian’s next step.
He caught the wall before falling into a newly concealed opening.
My pulse jumped.
“Sebastian!”
His head turned.
I froze.
He had heard me.
I pressed both hands against the violet channel. Shadow-cold climbed my wrists.
“Don’t move forward. There’s a break in the floor.”
He looked down, though darkness covered everything beneath his boots.
“Talia?”
His voice came through the stone, faint and distorted.
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“The center chamber. I can see your path.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. The clear rune is connected to all four.”
A burst of wind drowned his answer.
The Storm channel brightened beside me.
Shadow rushed over Sebastian’s legs.
“Rafe is feeding wind into your corridor,” I said. “It’s spreading your darkness faster.”
“The Trial is linking the paths.”
“Yes. Leander and Torren are affecting each other too.”
Sebastian lowered one hand. Violet light gathered at his fingertips, but he did not release more Shadow.
“Can you speak to the others?”
“I haven’t tried through their channels.”
“Do it.”
The connection vanished.
I pressed the Fire line.
Torren had relit the second brazier. He stood before the third, studying the flame carved into its base.
“Torren.”
He turned immediately.
“Talia?”
“I’m in the central chamber.”
“Are you hurt?”
“My shoulder is fine.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“I’m not trapped under anything, bleeding, or on fire.”
His expression darkened. “That list is too specific to be reassuring.”
“The paths are connected. When you light the braziers, you melt Leander’s bridge.”
Torren looked toward the third.
“His Frost extinguished my second flame.”
“I know.”
“So the Trial expects one of us to disable the other.”
“That’s what the rules say.”
Four enter. One emerges.
Competition was not a hidden flaw in the Trial. It was the stated purpose.
“Can Leander hear you?” Torren asked.
“I’m going to try.”
“Tell him to stop freezing the lower channels. The second brazier feeds the bridge beneath me.”
“I thought the bridge was over fire.”
“It is. The stone is supported by heat. When he killed the flame, part of it collapsed.”
I touched Frost.
Leander stood near the center of his water chamber, rebuilding the ice shelf faster than Torren’s heat could melt it.
“Leander.”
His head lifted.
“Talia. Where are you?”
“I can see all the paths through the central rune. Your Frost is extinguishing Torren’s braziers and collapsing his bridge.”
“His fire is destroying mine.”
“I know. He needs you to stop freezing the lower channels.”
“The lower channels supply water to this chamber. If I stop them, the level rises.”
I watched water push over the edge of his ice shelf.
“How quickly?”
“Quickly enough to drown anyone without gills.”
Dragons could hold their breath much longer than humans, but Leander had nowhere to shift. His full Frost form would not fit inside the chamber.
“What happens if you freeze the upper water instead?”
“The heat melts it before it stabilizes.”
“Can you redirect the meltwater toward the lower channels?”
He examined the walls. “Possibly.”
“Torren can delay lighting the third brazier.”
“I need more than a delay.”
“I’ll tell him.”
Leander’s gaze fixed somewhere beyond the connection. “Talia.”
“Yes?”
“If the routes are designed to hinder one another, helping him may prevent me from reaching the gate first.”
The words landed harder because he said them without cruelty.
Every one of them had been raised for this. Trained to win it. Expected to put the crown ahead of the men beside him.
“I know,” I said.
The Frost view blurred.
He had not agreed.
I moved to Storm.
Rafe had activated the third vane. Shadow covered most of his platform now, leaving only a narrow ring of visible stone around his feet.
“Rafe.”
“Talia.” Relief crossed his face before his usual expression returned. “If you’ve found a comfortable observation room, I’m going to be offended.”
“I’m sitting on a stone floor.”
“Better than falling off this platform.”
“Stop the vanes.”
“Then the gate doesn’t open.”
“Your wind is spreading Sebastian’s shadows. He nearly stepped into a hole.”
Rafe glanced at the darkness around him. “His shadows are covering my platform.”
“Yes.”
“So he stops putting out lamps.”
“His gate requires him to extinguish them.”
Rafe looked toward the fourth vane.
The first had already begun slowing. Silver light dimmed along his distant gate.
“If I stop, I lose my progress.”
“If you continue, Sebastian may fall.”
“He can shift.”
“Not in that corridor.”
Rafe’s mouth lost its careless curve.
“How much time does he need?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find out.”
I returned to Shadow.
Sebastian had created a small pool of violet light around his feet. It exposed the break in the floor, but the gap extended from wall to wall.
“I stopped Rafe from activating the last vane,” I said. “How do you cross?”
“The lamps retract the bridge sections when they go dark.”
“Then relight one.”
“The Trial requires all of them extinguished.”
“The last one you extinguished—can you restore it long enough to cross?”
“Shadow does not create light.”
“No, but you said it searches for available space. Pull it away from the lamp instead of adding more.”
He looked back at the nearest dark fixture.
“It may relight on its own,” I said.
“And if it does, I lose part of my progress.”
Everyone said the same thing.
Torren needed his fire. Leander needed his ice. Rafe needed his wind, and Sebastian needed his darkness. Each path taught its heir to use more power, move faster, and disregard the damage spreading beyond his own route.
Exactly as a contest should.
Except none of them could complete it without destroying another man’s way forward.
“There’s no other bridge,” I said. “Try.”
Sebastian drew his Shadow back.
The lamp flickered.
A stone section extended from the wall, covering half the gap.
“The opposite lamp,” he said. “There must be one across from it.”
I could not see through the darkness on the other side.
“Rafe’s wind carried your Shadow ahead. Pull everything back toward you.”
“That may relight several lamps.”
“Do it.”
Shadow moved through the corridor.
One lamp ignited, then another. More bridge sections extended across the gap until the path became whole.
Sebastian stepped onto it.
The central chamber shook.
I pulled my hands from the channels.
All four elemental lines blazed at once.
Fire roared beyond Torren’s door. Frost spread across the wall beside Leander’s. Wind tore at my hair, and Shadow covered the ceiling.
A new inscription appeared around the clear center rune.
I leaned closer.
Four commands had been carved into the stone.
FIRE MUST RISE.
FROST MUST HOLD.
STORM MUST TURN.
SHADOW MUST FALL.
Each described an individual objective.
Together, they formed a mechanism.
Torren’s third brazier fed heat into Rafe’s vanes. Rafe’s wind carried Sebastian’s Shadow. Sebastian’s darkness cooled Leander’s water, and Leander’s Frost contained Torren’s bridge.
They were not merely sabotaging one another.
Their paths required one another.
And the only person who could see the whole mechanism was the heir without a path.
I touched Fire.
Torren stood before the final brazier with both hands raised. A sphere of flame gathered between them, bright enough to ignite the stone from several feet away.
The third brazier connected directly to the Storm path.
Rafe stood near the edge of a platform already weakened by Shadow. If the final vane turned before Sebastian withdrew enough darkness, the combined wind and fire would break it beneath him.
“Torren, stop!”
The flame remained between his hands.
“I’m one strike from the gate.”
“If you light it now, Rafe’s platform collapses.”
His eyes lifted toward me through the connection.
The fire grew brighter.
The Trial shook around us.
I had no assigned objective. No elemental path. No power anyone could name.
But four lives had been placed where only I could see them.
“I need you to trust me,” I said.
Torren looked at the final brazier.
Then he looked back at me.