Page 222 of The Fifth Heir

My dragon slammed against my control.

Fire filled the passage. The bars of the gate bowed away from me, but the magic behind them held. I struck it with my shoulder.

“Talia.”

She did not move.

Every protective instinct I possessed became a single demand: reach her.

I hit the barrier again.

The torc responded by tearing more power from me. Flames poured through the red channels and joined the force pressing into Talia’s body.

I stopped.

My fire vanished.

The truth was simple and unbearable. Every attempt to reach her hurt her. Every defense fed the Trial. The harder we fought, the faster the chamber would kill us.

Protection that ignored the harm I was causing was not protection. It was only another kind of force.

Or kill her first.

Talia lifted her head.

“I’m all right,” she said.

She wasn’t. Her words were barely audible, and clear light flickered erratically beneath her skin.

A new inscription formed above the central platform.

ONE POWER SHALL PREVAIL.

The torcs tightened together.

My knees struck the floor.

Across the chamber, Rafe fell against his gate. Leander gripped his torc with both hands. Sebastian vanished beneath a mass of shadow pulled from his body.

The Trial wanted one power.

It would force us to fight until one remained.

There had to be a way to choose which.

The objective above my gate still burned.

BREAK THE FROST SEAL. CLAIM THE CROWN.

I could do it.

Leander was already weakened. One concentrated strike would shatter the frost anchor controlling his passage. The Trial would recognize my victory, release my gate, and bring me one step closer to Talia.

The thought felt foreign as soon as it formed.

Not because it was irrational.

Because it was exactly what the Trial wanted me to believe.