Page 34 of The Fifth Heir

No one answered.

I reached toward the invisible torc.

Torren caught my wrist.

His grip was careful, but it stopped me immediately. “Sebastian warned us not to touch anything.”

“I know what it is now.”

“You know what it resembles.”

“The support is made for a torc. The others are wearing theirs. This is the fifth position.”

“And we don’t know what happens when you lift it.”

“I didn’t know what would happen when I cleaned the rune either.”

“That isn’t an argument in favor of touching it.”

The room brightened around us. Clear light gathered in the wall carvings and split into color where it passed over his hand on my wrist.

Torren looked at the runes.

His thumb rested over my pulse. I wondered if he could feel how quickly it had begun to beat.

He released me slowly.

“If I don’t touch it,” I said, “we remain sealed inside.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No. But every part of the wing has responded to all five of us, and the outer entrance disappeared before I was recognized as anything more than a magical accident.”

“You believe this will recognize you.”

I looked at the empty place on the stand.

“I think that’s what it was made to do.”

The four men exchanged glances.

Sebastian’s expression gave away nothing, but he did not tell me to stop again.

I placed both hands around the invisible torc.

The surface was cool and perfectly smooth. It weighed less than the silver relics I had handled in the Hall, yet the shape felt substantial beneath my fingers.

I lifted it from the stand.

Light entered the crystal.

Red appeared first, followed by violet, silver, and pale blue. The colors separated across the torc, then turned inward toward an empty place at its center.

A fifth color formed there.

It was not one I could name. It changed when I moved, flashing through every shade before returning to clear.

The torc opened in my hands.