Page 24 of The Fifth Heir

Curiosity pulled me forward before I remembered what happened the last time I moved away from the others.

“Talia,” Malcolm warned.

I stopped.

Sebastian approached the arch from the opposite side. “Do you recognize the inscription?”

“Some of it.”

His attention shifted to me completely. His eyes were a dark gray that had appeared almost black across the Hall.

“What does it say?”

“I can’t read the entire phrase. The dialect predates the earliest academy catalog.”

“You recognized the fifth rune in the Hall.”

“I uncovered it. I didn’t translate it.”

“But you knew it belonged within the pattern.”

“I guessed.”

His gaze held mine. There was no disbelief in it now, only concentration intense enough to make me feel as if I had become another inscription he meant to decipher.

“What can you read?” he asked.

I studied the carving without stepping any closer.

“The first mark means crown, but not the physical object. Authority, perhaps. The second is usually translated as wing or flight.” I pointed without touching. “The middle signs are positional. This one might mean beyond, although it can also mean hidden.”

“And the final mark?”

“Fifth.”

Rafe came to stand beside Sebastian. “Hidden fifth crown wing.”

“That is not a translation,” I said.

“It has all the important words.”

“In an order that changes their meaning.”

His eyes brightened. “So you admit it has meaning.”

Leander joined us but maintained more distance from the sealed opening. “There is no Fifth Wing.”

The last rune lit beneath my pointing finger.

I dropped my hand.

One after another, the other marks awakened. Clear light filled their carved lines, dividing into red, violet, silver, blue, and a fifth color that seemed to contain pieces of all four.

The four heir torcs responded.

Torren’s fire opals burned red. Violet light passed through Sebastian’s dark stones, silver flickered across Rafe’s, and frost formed around Leander’s pale blue gems.

Clear light gathered against my sternum where a torc should have rested.