Chapter 30
Talia
Flying had felt different on Rafe’s back.
Then, I had experienced the sky as a passenger. I had trusted his strength, followed the movement of his body, and tried not to look too long at the ground below.
Now the air answered my wings.
Each downward stroke lifted my crystal body higher. Wind moved over the ridges of my scales and beneath the violet membranes stretched between the delicate bones of my wings. The sensation should have overwhelmed me.
Instead, instinct guided every adjustment.
Rafe flew below me, his storm creating a steady current beneath all five of us. Torren remained to my right and slightly ahead, close enough to intercept anything that approached. Leander held the opposite position while Sebastian guarded the rear.
The formation felt natural.
Ancient.
The Crown Wing circled the Hall of Crowns once before descending.
People scattered across the courtyard as five dragons approached. Academy guards cleared the center, and the headmaster shouted orders I could not hear over the beating of our wings.
Torren landed first.
His bronze-gold body struck the stone with enough force to shake the courtyard. He turned immediately, creating a barrier between me and the guards.
Leander landed to my left. Frost spread beneath his claws, giving me a clear place to set down. Rafe and Sebastian touched the ground behind us.
I lowered my feet.
My rear claws made contact first. One slipped against the stone, and my left wing struck Rafe’s shoulder.
He steadied me with his body.
Amusement moved through our new connection.
I swung my head toward him.
Rafe showed me every pointed tooth in his dragon mouth.
I had the distinct impression he was grinning.
My first landing lacked elegance, but I remained upright.
For three breaths.
Then my legs gave way.
Torren moved before I hit the courtyard. His dragon body pressed against mine, taking my weight as I folded my wings.
Exhaustion settled into every muscle. The power that had carried me from the Trial drained too quickly, leaving me unable to support the size of my transformed body.
My dragon knew what to do.
The shift reversed in one swift rush.
Crystal scales dissolved into clear light. My wings collapsed into my back without pain, and the courtyard expanded around me as my body returned to its human shape.
Cold air struck bare skin.
Before I could react, Torren shifted.
He landed on one knee beside me in human form and caught me against his chest. A dark academy cloak appeared from somewhere and closed around my body.
Sebastian’s shadow, I realized. He had pulled it from one of the guards without leaving his dragon form.
Torren wrapped it securely around me, then lifted me into his arms.
“I can walk,” I whispered.
“No.”
“I only fell because shifting is tiring.”
“You collapsed.”
“Temporarily.”
“You can argue after the healer examines you.”
The connection between us carried his fear beneath the firm words. It had not diminished since the Trial. He held me carefully, but his arms were locked around me as if he expected the ground to open again.
I rested my head against his shoulder.
“Fine.”
Rafe shifted behind us. “That was disappointingly easy.”
“She’s learning,” Torren said.
“I liked her better when she argued.”
“I’m conserving my strength,” I told him.
Rafe came around Torren’s other side, naked and unconcerned until a guard hurried forward with another cloak. “There she is.”
Sebastian and Leander shifted next. Once all four men were dressed enough for the increasingly crowded courtyard, the headmaster approached.
Camilla walked beside him.
Malcolm remained near the Hall entrance with six academy guards surrounding him. His torc and authority chain had been removed, but his hands were free.
He watched me from across the courtyard.
No surprise marked his face.
He had seen my dragon before.
Not me specifically, perhaps, but something like me. A picture. A description. An account hidden in the Keeper’s archive while the rest of the academy was taught that Crystal Dragons were a myth.
The headmaster stopped before Torren.
“Heir Talia, are you injured?”
“I don’t think so.”
“She collapsed after shifting,” Torren said.
“I’m still here,” I reminded him.
“And doing an excellent job of it.”
The headmaster glanced at Torren’s hold on me but did not ask him to put me down.
“The infirmary staff are waiting inside,” he said. “Before you go, I need to know what happened beneath the Hall.”
Sebastian handed him the fragment he had torn from the Trial floor.
“The final chamber had been altered,” he said. “The Stone runes were reversed to direct all four elemental powers toward Talia’s platform. This authority mark was embedded beneath the alteration.”
The headmaster accepted the stone.
The crown-and-gate seal remained visible inside Sebastian’s shadow ward.
His expression hardened. “Keeper authority.”
“An office held by many men,” Malcolm called from the entrance. “That seal proves nothing against me.”
Torren turned toward him.
Heat moved across the courtyard.
I felt his dragon ready itself beneath his skin, and the other three responded through the connection. Silver current snapped around Rafe’s fingers. Sebastian’s shadow darkened, while frost whitened the paving stones beneath Leander’s boots.
The guards near Malcolm drew their weapons.
“Put me down,” I told Torren.
“No.”
“Torren.”
“You can confront him from here.”
“That is not the point.”
He looked at me.
I pushed enough annoyance through the bond to make my position clear.
His jaw tightened, but he lowered my feet to the ground. He kept one arm around my waist beneath the cloak.
The other men closed in around us.
We crossed the courtyard as one group.
Malcolm watched our approach with the same controlled expression he had worn through every test, accusation, and inquiry.
I had once found that composure reassuring.
Now I understood what it concealed.
“You knew there should be five heirs,” I said.
“I knew the Prism had exhibited undocumented behavior in the past.”
“You knew about Crystal Dragons.”
“I have studied references that scholars later classified as allegorical.”
“And the Fifth Wing?”
“An abandoned structure of uncertain purpose.”
“The torcs?”
“Relics.”
“Convenient answers,” Sebastian said.
“They are accurate answers.”
Camilla moved from beside the headmaster.
“They’re lies.”
Malcolm looked at her for the first time.
She seemed smaller than she had before the Choosing, but she held his gaze.
“You knew exactly what questions to ask me,” she said. “You asked whether Talia’s scale reacted to elemental exposure. You asked which heir’s power she redirected first. You asked whether her pain grew worse when she moved away from the four heirs.”
“You came to me voluntarily.”
“Yes.”
The admission traveled through the gathered crowd. Students and instructors had filled every walkway around the courtyard. I saw Master Orin near the front, still wearing his archive robes.
Camilla raised her voice.
“I gave Keeper Malcolm private information about my sister because I believed he would prove her selection invalid. I believed the Prism might reopen and choose me.”
A murmur spread through the crowd.
Her face reddened, but she continued.
“I was jealous. I was angry, and I told myself I was helping Talia escape a position she never wanted. The demonstration tested every weakness I described to him.”
Malcolm regarded her without sympathy. “You are attempting to redirect blame for your own ambition.”
“No.” Camilla swallowed. “I’m accepting mine.”
The distinction mattered.
It did not restore my trust, but it mattered.
She turned toward the headmaster.
“I also found the altered foundation plan and warned the heirs before the Trial took them. The repair order was issued under Keeper authority.”
“Without my signature,” Malcolm said.
“Because the signature page was removed.”
“Then you cannot establish who authorized it.”
The headmaster examined the fragment in his hand. “Keeper Malcolm, you will remain confined to academy grounds while the crown council conducts a formal inquiry.”
“On the strength of a disgraced candidate’s accusation and a piece of broken stone?”
“On the strength of five heirs nearly dying inside a Trial altered by someone using the authority of your office.”
Malcolm looked past him to me.
“This is not finished,” he said.
Torren’s arm tightened around my waist.
“No,” I agreed. “It isn’t.”
Malcolm expected fear.
I let him see that he had failed to produce it.
The guards escorted him across the courtyard. He walked between them without resistance, still carrying himself like the Keeper of Trials rather than a man under investigation.
He would deny everything.
The removed signature page, the inherited authority mark, and Camilla’s testimony created a pattern, but none proved that Malcolm had ordered the altered channels or reversed the Final Trial’s Stone runes. The inquiry would suspend him. It might strip him of office.
It would not uncover everyone who had helped him erase the fifth heir.
The headmaster waited until Malcolm disappeared inside the eastern tower.
Then he turned toward us.
“The academy witnessed five dragons emerge from the Final Trial,” he said. “The Choosing named five heirs, and the Trial has now confirmed them.”
His words carried across the courtyard.
“Talia of the Crystal Line, you are recognized as the fifth heir of Crown Wing Academy.”
For twenty-four years, I had possessed no dragon line.
Now an entire crowd repeated the title.
“Crystal heir.”
The words moved from one voice to another. Students bowed. Instructors followed. Even the guards lowered their heads.
Camilla stood among them.
She did not bow immediately.
Our eyes met.
Pain, shame, and something that might still become pride crossed her face. Then my sister placed one fist over her heart and lowered her head.
I could not forgive her today.
But for the first time since her confession, I believed I might someday want to.
The headmaster faced all five of us.
“The Crown Wing has returned.”
Silence followed.