Chapter 24
Talia
The evidence lay across the study table beneath four steady rune-lights.
One unused outward return channel. One storage note documenting the return of all eight. A fragment of blackened metal cut with the reversed pattern that had nearly killed us.
It should have made me feel safer.
Instead, every time I looked at it, I remembered the power tearing through my body in the Hall of Prism. Fire, frost, storm, and shadow had struck me together. I could still feel the place where they had met beneath my skin.
“We should take everything to the headmaster tonight,” Leander said.
“No.” Sebastian stood on the opposite side of the table, turning the damaged channel between two gloved fingers. “We take copies tonight. The originals remain here until we know who had access to the Trial stores.”
Rafe leaned against the shelves with his arms folded. “I’m the one who stole them.”
“Recovered,” Leander corrected.
“I removed a ventilation grate, picked one lock, and climbed back out through the same shaft.”
“You recovered them unlawfully.”
“Thank you. That sounds much more respectable.”
Normally, I would have smiled. Tonight, even drawing breath required too much concentration.
A sharp pressure had been building beneath my breastbone since we returned to the Fifth Wing. At first, I had blamed exhaustion. Then the ache spread beneath my ribs and down both arms, settling into every joint as if my bones had been packed too tightly inside me.
The single transparent scale at my wrist began to burn.
Then the pain traveled beneath my skin.
I dropped the pen.
Torren caught my wrist before it struck the table.
“What happened?”
“The scale.”
Clear light spread beneath his fingers.
Everyone moved at once.
Sebastian reached for the rune lamp. Leander gathered the evidence from the table, while Rafe opened the outer door and called for the academy guard.
“Not the infirmary,” I said.
Torren looked at me. “The healer said to report heat or pressure.”
“She also said to move me to the terrace if I begin shifting.”
The pain reached my elbow.
My hand curled around Torren’s.
“Terrace,” he ordered.
He lifted me before I could object.
I gripped his shoulder with my uninjured arm. “I can walk.”
“You aren’t.”
“Torren.”
“Save your strength.”
The others cleared the path.
He carried me through the study and onto the training terrace. Cold night air struck my face. The open stone platform gave me room to shift if the transparent scale truly signaled a dragon ready to emerge.
Torren set me on my feet near the center.
“Everyone back,” he said.
Rafe remained beside the door. “We’re not leaving.”
“I said back, not gone.”
Leander moved several yards away. Sebastian joined him but kept the rune lamp aimed toward my wrist.
The concentrated beam caught the scale.
Color spread across my arm.
The pain followed it.
I gasped and folded forward.
Torren caught my waist. “Where?”
“Arm. Shoulder.”
“The injured one?”
“Both.”
Pressure formed beneath my shoulder blades.
Fear replaced everything else.
“It’s happening.”
Torren lowered himself in front of me, keeping his hands at my waist.
“Look at me.”
“I might shift.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Your body does.”
“What if it doesn’t?”
“Then we stop whatever comes next.”
“You can’t stop a first shift.”
“I can keep everyone away from you until it finishes.”
The pressure spread down my spine.
Clear lines appeared beneath the skin of my hands. They looked like cracks until light separated through them in small bands of color.
Sebastian moved closer.
Torren turned his head. “Back.”
“I need to see whether scales are forming.”
“You can see from there.”
“Torren,” I said.
He looked at me again.
“He’s trying to help.”
His jaw tightened, but he allowed Sebastian two steps closer.
“No additional scales,” Sebastian said. “The light is beneath the skin.”
“That is not reassuring,” Rafe called.
The crystal torc tightened.
I pulled at it.
Torren caught both my hands. “Leave it.”
“I can’t breathe.”
“You’re breathing.”
“Not enough.”
He put one of my hands against his chest.
“In with me.”
His lungs expanded beneath my palm.
I tried to match him.
The first breath hurt. The second reached deeper.
By the third, the pressure behind my shoulders had stopped increasing.
Color continued moving beneath my skin, but the lines no longer spread.
Torren breathed with me until the torc loosened.
The pain faded.
Not all at once. It withdrew along the same path it came, leaving my spine first, then my shoulders, arm, and wrist.
The clear light disappeared.
Only the single transparent scale remained.
I waited for another surge.
None came.
“What happened?” I asked.
Sebastian lowered the rune lamp. “A magical discharge.”
“I know that.”
“No transformation occurred.”
“I know that too.”
Torren gave him a look.
Sebastian stopped explaining.
The healer arrived with two assistants. She examined my back, eyes, hands, torc, and scale. No physical shift had begun. My body temperature remained elevated but stable, and the pressure did not return.
“A pre-shift surge,” she said. “Your dragon attempted to manifest power without changing form.”
“So it could happen again.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
Malcolm would have used the answer as another reason to classify me as dangerous.
The healer did not.
She ordered rest, water, and observation. Someone needed to remain with me until morning. Sebastian, Rafe, and Leander were due to meet the headmaster with copies of the stolen channel evidence, leaving Torren as the obvious choice.
He did not describe it that way.
“I’m staying,” he said.
The healer’s instruction made staying necessary. The finality in Torren’s voice made it a choice. He was not accepting the task because the others had somewhere to be; he had already decided no one else would take his place.
No one argued.
The others left after making me promise to call them if the pain returned. Rafe kissed my forehead. Sebastian touched my uninjured hand, and I called him Bastian quietly enough that only he heard.
Leander stopped in the terrace doorway.
Our eyes met.
He inclined his head and left without speaking.
Torren waited until the Fifth Wing’s outer door closed.
“Bath or bed?”
“I’m not a child.”
“Those remain the available choices.”
“I can sit in the common room.”
“After the healer ordered rest.”
“Sitting is rest.”
“You catalog artifacts while sitting.”
“I don’t have anything to catalog.”
“You’ll find something.”
He knew me too well already.
“Bath,” I said.
The bathing-room water warmed when Torren entered. He tested it with one hand, adjusted the temperature, and placed clean towels beside the private alcove.
“I can bathe myself.”
“I know.”
“Are you leaving?”
“I’ll be outside the curtain.”
“That is not leaving.”
“The healer said observation.”
“She didn’t mean while I’m naked.”
The wall runes turned gold.
Torren looked at them.
“They have questionable timing.”
“They learned from Rafe.”
His mouth curved.
“I’ll be in the common room. Call if the pain returns.”
“I will.”
He closed the bathing-room door behind him.
I sank into the warm water.
My body ached, but nothing felt damaged. I traced the transparent scale with one finger. It remained solid and smooth. No others had formed around it.
A dragon existed inside me.
It had attempted to reach the surface and failed.
The thought should have frightened me.
Instead, it made me impatient.
I had waited eight years beyond the age when everyone agreed my dragon would appear. One interrupted manifestation could not erase that hope now.
For the first time, the failed shift felt less like another verdict and more like a beginning. My dragon had reached for the surface. Next time, I intended to be ready to meet her.
I washed, dried myself, and pulled on a soft gray robe from the crystal wardrobe.
Torren sat beside the common-room hearth.
The flames had become clear at the center. Red remained around their edges, reflecting against his bare forearms. He had changed into loose black trousers but kept the sleeveless shirt from earlier.
A cup waited on the table beside him.
“Water?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“I was hoping for something stronger.”
“After a magical surge?”
“Water is fine.”
He handed me the cup.
I drank half before sitting in the chair beside his.
Torren watched until I finished.
“You can stop checking whether I’m alive.”
“No.”
“I’ll tell you if anything changes.”
“You said that before the scale started burning.”
“I told you immediately.”
“You dropped a pen.”
“That was communication.”
The hearth brightened.
I looked at his hands.
They rested loosely between his knees. The right bore an old burn across the palm, pale against his skin. I had felt it against my waist during training.
“Did you mean what you said?” I asked.
“About what?”
“When you almost kissed me.”
His attention fixed on me.
“Yes.”
“You wanted me to choose when I wasn’t standing because you caught me.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sitting now.”
He did not move.
The room grew warmer.
“Talia.”
“I know what I’m saying.”
“You had a painful magical event earlier tonight.”
“The healer examined me. I am not injured.”
“You’re exhausted.”
“I’m tired. I’m not confused.”
His eyes moved over my face.
I set the empty cup on the table.
“I kissed Rafe.”
“I saw.”
“And Bastian.”
Torren’s expression changed slightly. “Bastian.”
“Sebastian.”
“I know who you mean.”
“I kissed him tonight.”
“Do you want me to object?”
“I don’t know.”
“Would it change what happened?”
“No.”
“Would it change what you want?”
“No.”
“Then I don’t object.”
The answer came without hesitation.
“I don’t want you to misunderstand what this is,” I said.
His attention sharpened. “What is it?”
“I don’t know yet. But choosing you tonight doesn’t mean I’ve chosen against them.”
Torren’s jaw tightened. “There is a part of me that wants to lock this door and keep every other man in the academy away from you.”
“That sounds inconvenient.”
“Extremely. Rafe would come through the window.”
Despite everything, I smiled.