Page 217 of The Fifth Heir

I touched it instinctively.

Clear light raced around the metal.

The other torcs answered.

“Something’s happening,” I said.

The summons disappeared from the wall.

For one second, the stone stood blank.

Then new words formed.

THE FINAL TRIAL ACCEPTS ITS HEIRS.

Leander went to the communication panel. He pressed his palm against the central rune.

Nothing happened.

“The line is dead.”

Sebastian tested the door wards. “So are mine.”

A heavy mechanism engaged beyond the Fifth Wing.

The entrance doors opened.

The corridor outside was gone.

In its place stood a circular stone passage descending into darkness.

“No,” Camilla whispered. “That passage leads beneath the Hall of Crowns.”

“We aren’t going,” Torren said.

The fire stone in his torc flashed.

He staggered toward the opening.

Rafe caught his arm, but his own torc ignited with silver light and pulled him forward. Frost spread across Leander’s collar. Sebastian’s shadows stretched toward the passage as if drawn by a force he could not resist.

My torc remained still.

The Trial was calling the four of them first.

“Take them off,” I said.

Torren hooked his fingers beneath his torc and pulled. The metal did not move. Rafe tried his clasp. Leander pressed both hands against the frost-coated band, but it had fused into a solid ring.

Sebastian reached for the shadows binding his.

They tightened.

“Go to the headmaster,” I told Camilla. “Tell him the Trial has opened early. Show him the map.”

Camilla rolled up the diagram with shaking hands. “What about you?”

I looked at the men fighting to remain inside the wing.