Chapter 20
Talia
The four elements struck the central platform together.
Fire hit first.
Heat traveled up my right side, followed by Frost along my left. Storm entered through the floor, filling my legs with electrical pressure, while Shadow climbed from beneath my boots and covered everything below my knees.
The opposing forces should have torn through one another.
Instead, the clear rune pulled them toward me.
I tried to step back.
The barrier stopped me.
“Talia!” Torren’s voice reached me through the roar of fire.
“I’m still standing.”
It was the only useful answer I had.
His power continued pouring from the control pillar. Flames surrounded his arms as he fought to drag them away from the channel. The positional ward held him several yards beyond the platform.
Rafe had partially shifted. Silver scales covered his hands, and talons tore at the Storm circle beneath his feet. Lightning struck the floor each time he moved.
Sebastian’s Shadow spread across the containment barrier, searching for an opening.
Leander stood motionless inside his Frost rune.
His lack of movement frightened me more than the others’ struggle. He had closed his eyes and placed both hands around his torc, concentrating on containing power the demonstration had taken without his consent.
“I can slow the Frost,” he said through clenched teeth. “Not stop it.”
“Hold what you can.”
The order came naturally.
Inside the Trial, they had needed my reading of the channels. Here, with the Hall breaking around us, Leander accepted my direction before either of us could question what authority I had to give it.
His eyes opened.
For one moment, he looked surprised.
Then the cold around my left side eased.
The healer struck the outer containment ring with her control stone.
The clear barrier remained between us.
“Talia, your body temperature is fluctuating too quickly.”
“I know.”
“Are you experiencing pain along the spine?”
“Not yet.”
“Pressure behind the shoulders?”
“No.”
The scale beneath my wrist wrap began to burn.
I grabbed the band and pulled it loose. The transparent scale appeared without concentrated light. Fire and Frost divided across its surface, sending red and blue lines over my arm.
The medical slate chimed faster.
“Her scale is drawing power,” Malcolm said.
“No,” Sebastian called. “It’s dividing it.”
Malcolm pressed his staff to the blackened return channel.
The metal sparked.
“Reverse the flow,” the headmaster ordered.
“The return is no longer responding.”
“Then break the inner ring.”
“That would release four uncontrolled elements into the Hall.”
The audience heard him.
People left their seats. The gallery exits opened, but hundreds of spectators could not clear the chamber before the containment failed. Candidates pushed toward the stairs while academy guards tried to maintain order.
My parents remained in their seats.
Camilla had risen. Her Stone scales covered her neck and forearms, ready for a shift the crowded gallery could not safely accommodate.
“Go,” I called.
She could not hear me through the barrier and the noise.
The Fire line surged.
Torren dropped to one knee.
His flames had begun flowing backward through the control pillar, stripping power from him rather than accepting what he intentionally released.
The same thing happened to the others.
Rafe’s lightning became brighter and less controlled. Shadow covered Sebastian’s arms to the elbows. Frost spread across Leander’s uniform and climbed toward his chest.
The demonstration was no longer testing whether I drew from them.
The mechanism had begun doing it for me.
Malcolm had named me a possible thief before the test began. Now someone’s reversed channels were forcing his accusation into reality, using my body as the place where four stolen powers met.
“Disconnect the pillars,” I said.
The nearest runemaster shook his head. “The channels are locked.”
“Break them.”
“The resulting discharge—”
“Will be less than whatever happens when that ring fails.”
Malcolm struck the black return line again.
A section of metal split.
Fire escaped through the opening.
The outer ring caught it, but the impact sent red cracks through the containment barrier.
The audience screamed.
Torren forced himself upright. “Everyone out of the Hall.”
The headmaster repeated the order through the acoustical runes.
The exits filled faster.
I looked at the four elemental channels.
They appeared brighter than the stone between them, each carrying power toward the clear rune in a separate line. Fire did not mix with Frost. Storm did not scatter Shadow.
All four remained distinct until they reached me.
The pattern matched the Fifth Wing hearth.
It matched the First Trial.
Four powers moving toward one center.
Not to disappear.
To change direction.
I lowered both hands to the clear rune.
“Talia, don’t,” Torren said.
“I know how the channels connect.”
“That doesn’t mean you can control them.”
“I did inside the Trial.”
“You directed us. You didn’t take our elements into your body.”
“I’m not going to.”
The clear rune pulsed beneath my palms.
Light entered the crystal torc and traveled down both arms. It reached my hands, then spread across the floor in thin transparent lines.
The elemental channels became clearer.
I could see where each joined the center. I could also see the sealed path each should have followed into the return ring.
The new metal repairs had reversed them.
They were not merely blocking excess power. They had turned the return channels inward.
This was not a random failure.
The conclusion steadied me more than it frightened me. Accidents had no intention to read. Sabotage did. Whoever reversed the channels had wanted the elements driven inward—and expected the result to be blamed on me.
Someone had built the demonstration to feed all four elements into me.
“Malcolm,” I said.
He looked through the barrier.
“The repairs are backward.”
His gaze dropped to the channels.
“No.”
“They reverse the return flow.”
“The runemasters tested them.”
“They tested simulated power. Not four live elements.”
The distinction had been his argument before the demonstration.
His face changed.
The headmaster heard me. “Can you restore the original flow?”
“Not from outside the containment.”
“What can be done from inside?”
I examined the pattern.
The four elemental channels ended at my rune. Their original return lines had been cut. The outer ring still had the capacity to absorb power, but no direct path reached it.
I would have to create one.
“Tell the others to stop resisting,” I said.
Torren stared at me. “No.”
“Fighting the pillars increases the pressure.”
“You want us to let them drain us?”
“For a few seconds.”
“No.”
“Torren.”
His Fire circle flared.
“I promised to help keep you alive.”
“Then trust me again.”
We had stood on opposite sides of a burning bridge when he made that choice the first time. Now Fire was being torn out of him, and trusting me required him to stop fighting the thing trying to hurt us both.
The words reached him.
I saw the moment he remembered the final brazier.
He looked at the flames being pulled from his hands.
Then he lowered them.
Fire surged toward me.
The scale at my wrist burned hotter.
I kept both palms against the clear rune.
“Rafe.”
His silver eyes met mine.
“This is the part where I make a terrible decision because you asked nicely?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I understand those.”
He stopped tearing at the positional ward.
Lightning filled the Storm channel.
Sebastian released his Shadow next. Leander was last.
“You said the system is taking power without consent,” he said.
“It is.”
“And your solution is to give it more.”
“My solution is to control where it goes.”
“If you’re wrong—”
“I know.”
He closed his eyes.
Frost flowed from his torc.
All four elements reached the center.
Pain struck my wrist and traveled up my arm. The torc tightened until breathing became difficult. For one instant, the elemental colors covered my vision completely.
I did not absorb them.
I held the pattern.
That was what I knew how to do. Not create Fire or command Frost. Not become Storm or disappear into Shadow. I read where each power wanted to travel, kept their structures separate, and refused to let the broken system decide their destination.
Fire remained red. Frost remained blue. Storm remained silver, and Shadow remained violet.
I drew a line toward the outer containment ring.
Clear light followed my hand.
The line reached the first red crack in the barrier.
I pushed Fire through it.
Flame struck the outer ring and spread around the Hall in a controlled circle. The silver channels absorbed it.
I drew a second line.
Frost followed, cooling the overheated containment without extinguishing the Fire inside its proper channel.
Storm came third. I divided the lightning across dozens of silver paths so no single section carried enough force to break.
Shadow resisted.
It spread across my clear line instead of following it.
“Sebastian.”
“I can feel the connection.”
“I need you to narrow it.”
“Where?”
“The center of the violet channel.”
Shadow contracted.
I guided it into the outer ring.
All four elements moved around the containment circle.
The barrier stopped cracking.
The positional wards released.
Torren ran toward me.
“Stay back.”
He stopped at the edge of the platform. “The inner ring is failing.”
I looked down.
The blackened metal had started breaking apart. Power still traveled from the control pillars faster than I could direct it outward.
I needed more paths.
The transparent scale on my wrist divided the light into colors. My torc did the same.
I lifted both hands.
The clear lines rose from the floor.
They formed a curved surface around me, not a solid barrier but a lens. Fire, Frost, Storm, and Shadow entered it from four directions.
Each element split.
Red became gold, orange, and white. Blue separated into pale silver and clear cold. Storm spread into fine lines of electricity, while Shadow divided into shades of violet so deep they approached black.
Color filled the Hall.
It moved over the four men first—gold across Torren’s flames, silver-blue through Leander’s ice, white lightning over Rafe’s scales, and violet radiance inside Sebastian’s Shadow—before climbing the galleries like dawn through cut crystal.
It crossed the walls, the emptying galleries, and the central Prism. The crystal caught every divided beam and sent it across the ceiling in a brilliant spectrum.
The audience stopped running.
For several seconds, everyone looked up.
I redirected the separated power into the outer ring.
This time, the channels held.
The black repairs shattered.
The control pillars went dark.
The four elemental connections withdrew.
Torren reached me as the clear lens disappeared. His hands closed around my waist before my knees hit the platform.
The inner containment barrier collapsed.
Air rushed into the circle.
Rafe, Sebastian, and Leander crossed behind him. The healer reached for my wrist, but Torren kept me upright until I could stand without his help.
Rafe’s wind cleared the remaining heat from my face. Sebastian drew the last clinging Shadow away from my boots, while Leander cooled the swollen skin around my torc without touching the crystal. They worked around one another as if protecting me were another pattern all four already understood.
“I’m fine,” I said.
His eyes flashed red. “Don’t.”
The scale no longer burned.
It remained visible, clear and hard against my skin.
The crystal torc held all four elemental colors for one final breath before becoming transparent again.
Silence filled the Hall.
Most of the audience remained near the exits. My parents stood at the gallery rail. Camilla stared at the divided light fading around the Prism.
Malcolm stepped through the broken containment ring.
He looked at the black metal scattered across the platform, then at me.
“You drew power from all four heirs.”
“No,” Sebastian said.
Malcolm did not turn.
“She redirected it,” Sebastian continued. “The mechanism drew the power. Talia prevented the discharge from reaching the galleries.”
“She manipulated four elements without possessing any of them.”
“She saved everyone in this Hall,” Torren said.
Whispers spread through the audience.
Not accident.
Not wingless.
Dangerous.
I heard all three.
Malcolm raised his staff, and the acoustical runes carried his voice through the chamber.
“The demonstration is concluded. The fifth heir’s status will be reviewed immediately.”
The headmaster stepped onto the broken platform.
“No.”
Malcolm looked at him.
“The fifth heir will receive medical treatment,” the headmaster said.
“The reversed containment channels will be investigated, and every person responsible for their installation will be questioned. No review of Talia’s status will occur until we know why a controlled demonstration became an attack. ”
The word moved through the Hall.
Attack.
Malcolm’s face revealed nothing.
Behind him, Leander looked at the shattered black metal.
Then he looked toward the gallery where his family representatives had been seated.
His expression changed.
He knew something.
Whatever it was, he had not told me.