Page 219 of The Fifth Heir

The fifth bore no symbol at all.

Directly ahead of me, the altered Stone runes began to glow.

The Final Trial had not waited for first light.

And it had separated us exactly as the altered design intended.

Chapter 28

Torren

Fire struck before I finished standing.

It poured from the walls in two solid streams, crossing above my head and slamming into the gate behind me. The impact drove heat through the chamber and turned the iron bars red.

I rolled away from them and came up on one knee.

The passage was narrow, barely wide enough for me to spread my arms. Black stone enclosed me on three sides. The gate blocked the fourth, separating me from a circular chamber beyond.

Talia lay at its center.

She pushed herself upright, one hand pressed to her ribs. Blood marked her lower lip. I could see her, but three barriers stood between us: the heated gate, a wall of transparent magic, and a ring of Stone runes surrounding the platform beneath her.

“Talia.”

Her head snapped toward me.

Relief crossed her face. “Torren.”

I hit the gate with both hands.

Fire moved eagerly through the metal, recognizing my power. The bars softened beneath my palms but did not break. Every measure of heat I fed into them traveled downward, disappearing into channels cut through the floor.

The runes around Talia brightened red.

She cried out.

I tore my hands away.

The light faded.

Across the central chamber, another passage flashed silver. Rafe appeared behind a gate marked with a storm rune. Frost shone to my left, where Leander pushed himself up from the floor. A section of the chamber to my right remained dark until Sebastian stepped close enough for violet light to catch his face.

Five passages.

Five heirs.

Four of us stood outside the circle. Talia had been placed directly above the convergence shaft.

“Talia, get off the platform,” I said.

“I tried.”

She lifted one foot. Clear light bound her ankle to the stone. A matching restraint encircled the other.

I called more fire, intending to cut through the transparent barrier without touching the gate.

The torc around my throat constricted.