Chapter 15
Talia
The scale disappeared in ordinary light.
I knew where to look and still had trouble finding it.
By morning, I had turned my wrist beneath every lamp in the Fifth Wing. The scale appeared only when light struck at a narrow angle, and even then it looked like a brief distortion across my skin.
Rafe thought Sebastian and I were playing a joke on him.
Leander found it after several minutes and immediately requested a magnifying lens. Torren saw the flash once, caught my hand, and held it still until the color appeared again.
None of them touched the scale itself.
I appreciated that more than I said.
Leander responded by searching his memory for comparable manifestations.
Sebastian began listing every light source capable of revealing it.
Torren watched my face instead of my wrist, and Rafe announced that invisible scales were an unfair advantage in any future argument about whether I was becoming a dragon.
The headmaster arrived shortly after breakfast with Keeper Malcolm and a senior healer.
Malcolm entered the common room first. His attention went directly to the clear torc around my throat.
“We were informed that a physical manifestation appeared last night.”
Sebastian stood beside the study entrance. “Talia has a scale.”
“I would prefer to hear the account from her.”
Every person in the room looked at me.
The four heirs had spread through the common room without discussion—Torren at my right, Leander behind the table, Rafe near the outer door, and Sebastian guarding the study entrance. They left Malcolm an unobstructed path to me while making it impossible for him to forget I was not alone.
I pushed back my sleeve.
The scale remained invisible.
“It’s here,” I said, pointing near the pulse at my wrist. “Sebastian noticed it under concentrated rune light.”
Malcolm approached. “When did it appear?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you examine the area after the assessment?”
“No.”
“After the Trial?”
“The healer checked my hands and shoulder.”
“Not your wrist?”
“I don’t remember.”
The senior healer joined us. She was the same woman who had examined me outside the mountain. Her gray-streaked hair had been braided tightly against her head, and a leather case hung from one shoulder.
“I inspected both arms for burns,” she said. “There was no visible scale.”
“It isn’t visible now,” Torren said.
The healer opened her case and removed a small light crystal.
“May I examine your arm?”
“Yes.”
She placed one hand beneath my wrist and directed the crystal over it. White light moved slowly across my skin.
The scale appeared.
Color spread over the healer’s fingers.
She stopped breathing for a moment.
Malcolm leaned closer. “Increase the light.”
The healer did.
The scale became easier to distinguish but remained completely transparent. Its curved surface split the white beam into several thin bands that traveled up my forearm.
The headmaster watched from the other side of the table.
“Is it dragon scale?” he asked.
“It has the structure of one.” The healer shifted the light. “The edge is rooted beneath the epidermal layer. There is no wound, foreign material, or sign that it was attached externally.”
“Could the torc have produced it?” Malcolm asked.
“I cannot determine cause from a single scale.”
“Could prolonged contact with the Prism have altered her skin?”
“The fifth beam lasted less than five minutes.”
“That was prolonged compared with the elemental selections.”
The healer looked at me. “Have you experienced any other physical changes?”
“No.”
“Heat beneath the skin?”
“Only during the assessment and Trial.”
“Pain along your spine?”
“No.”
“Changes in vision, hearing, appetite, or sleep?”
I thought about waking after three hours and going directly to the study.
“I haven’t slept much.”
Torren made a quiet sound.
I kept my attention on the healer.
“That may be stress,” she said. “Any pressure in the jaw or shoulder blades?”
“My shoulder is bruised.”
“The other one.”
“No.”
She released my wrist and took a measuring cord from her case.
Malcolm remained close enough that his mantle brushed the table. “When a dragon begins a first shift, scales normally appear in clusters.”
“Yes,” the healer said.
“Not one isolated formation.”
“Usually not.”
“I am standing here,” I reminded them.
The healer looked at me immediately. Malcolm did not.
“Does this mean I’m beginning to shift?” I asked.
“It may be a precursor.”
“Does that mean more scales will appear one at a time?”
“No.” She answered firmly enough to ease a fear I had not admitted.
“A first shift is a complete transformation. Early manifestations can include isolated scales, changes in the eyes, talon formation, heat, or instinctive elemental discharge. They usually appear hours before the shift, sometimes days.”
“I’m twenty-four.”
“I’m aware.”
“Could it still happen?”
The healer examined the transparent scale again.
“I have never treated a first manifestation this late.”
That was not an answer.
I waited.
She set down the measuring cord. “But this is living dragon scale. Unless the manifestation is being produced artificially, something inside you is attempting to emerge.”
Hope came too quickly.
For eight years I had trained myself not to want the impossible. One transparent scale shattered that discipline. I wanted wings. I wanted the body that had failed to appear when everyone said it should. I wanted the Prism to have recognized something real in me.
I tried to contain it before Malcolm could dismantle it.
He did not disappoint me.
“An unidentified dragon form presents a greater risk than an unshifted heir.”
Torren stepped closer. “To whom?”
Heat gathered in the room with him. Frost filmed the edge of Leander’s untouched glass, a draft stirred the papers beside Rafe, and Shadow darkened beneath Sebastian’s boots. None of them shifted. None needed to.
“To Talia and everyone housed with her. First shifts are volatile under normal circumstances. We do not know what element she carries, whether she can control it, or whether the torc is forcing a transformation her body cannot sustain.”
“It isn’t forcing anything,” Rafe said. “She found one scale.”
“One scale that refracts every elemental color.”
“Light,” Sebastian corrected. “It refracts light.”
“The assessment fire did the same.”
“We haven’t established that she redirected it.”
Malcolm’s gaze moved to him. “You submitted a report arguing precisely that.”
Sebastian said nothing.
I looked at him.
He had not told me he submitted it.
The headmaster interrupted before I could ask.
“What precautions do you recommend?”
The healer closed her case. “Daily examinations. Immediate reporting of pain, heat, additional manifestations, or involuntary magic. She shouldn’t be left alone if symptoms begin.”
Malcolm looked toward the shared sleeping chamber. “That final condition is already satisfied.”
The wall runes turned orange.
Rafe glanced upward. “They don’t care for you.”
Malcolm ignored him.
The healer wrapped a clear protective band around my wrist. It did not cover the scale completely, but it would prevent clothing from scraping against it.
“Don’t attempt to remove it,” she said.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Don’t test its strength.”
“I wasn’t planning that either.”
Sebastian looked away.
He had warned me not to damage it last night. Apparently, everyone assumed I would begin prying at my own skin the moment I was unattended.
“Return to the infirmary tomorrow morning,” the healer continued. “If you experience heat or pressure before then, send for me.”
“What if I begin to shift?”
“Move to the training terrace if you can do so safely. It is large enough to accommodate a dragon form.”
“If I have one.”
The healer’s expression softened. “You have a scale.”
She left with the headmaster.
Malcolm remained.
“The review of the First Trial is not complete,” he said. “This manifestation does not alter your provisional status.”
“I didn’t expect it to.”
“Your training will be restricted until we know whether physical strain could trigger an uncontrolled shift.”
Torren folded his arms. “The healer cleared her for light training.”
“That clearance was issued before this development.”
“Then ask the healer to revise it.”
“I intend to.”
Malcolm looked at my wrapped wrist once more before leaving.
The wall runes faded from orange to clear when the outer door closed.
Rafe watched the change. “We should invite him more often. The wing has never communicated so clearly.”
I looked at Sebastian.
“You submitted a report?”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me.”
“You asked whether I intended to report the fire redirection. I said not until I could prove it.”
“And now you can?”
“I can prove Torren did not complete the turn. I can prove the final change originated at the center circle. I cannot prove how you caused it.”
“That sounds like a distinction Malcolm will honor.”
“No,” Sebastian said. “It sounds like accurate evidence he cannot easily dismiss.”
I wanted to remain angry.
The answer made it difficult.
“I would still like to know when information about me is being given to Malcolm.”
“Agreed.”
He offered no excuse, which helped more than one would have.
Camilla arrived that afternoon.
The academy guard posted outside the Fifth Wing announced her before opening the door. She entered carrying a covered basket and stopped when all four men looked toward her.
“I came to see my sister.”
Rafe leaned back in his chair. “We assumed the basket was for us.”
“It isn’t.”
“I’m prepared to reconsider my disappointment if the contents are good.”
Camilla’s expression barely changed. “Mother sent honey cakes.”
“My disappointment is considerable.”
I crossed the common room before he could ask for one.
Camilla hugged me carefully, avoiding my shoulder. When she drew back, she looked at my throat first, then my wrapped wrist.
“They told us in the Hall that you manifested a scale.”
News had traveled faster than the healer.
“Yes.”
“May I see it?”
I led her into the study and activated the rune lamp.