Page 5 of The Fifth Heir

She looked every inch the future heir.

Pride warmed my chest. Something smaller and less generous tightened beneath it.

I hated that feeling. Camilla had never caused my dragonlessness. She had defended me when other candidates whispered, argued with our parents when they wanted to send me to yet another healer, and even found reasons to visit me in the archives even though she disliked the dust.

Loving her did not prevent me from wondering, sometimes, what it would feel like to enter a room and have everyone believe I belonged there.

“You should go,” she said.

“I still need to check the southern cases.”

“Master Orin has three other assistants.”

“He asked me to oversee the final inspection.”

“And you have finished it.”

The first candidates entered in two silent lines. Their formal uniforms created bands of elemental color against the Hall’s black walls: red for Fire, white for Frost, white and gold for Sky, slate gray and bronze for Stone, deep green for Forest, black and silver for Storm, and violet-black for Shadow.

Magic entered with them.

Heat stirred the air near the Fire delegation. Frost silvered the floor beneath one northerner’s boots before vanishing. The scent of rain followed the Storm candidates, while shadows gathered too deeply in the folds of violet-black uniforms.

I felt none of it inside myself.

Some candidates carried themselves with obvious confidence. Others stared at the central Prism as if it might pass judgment before the ceremony began.

The Prism rose from the middle of the Hall in a single clear column taller than three men. No tool had ever scratched its surface. No scholar had determined where it came from or why it awakened at the end of each reign. The lamps reflected within it without producing even a hint of color.

Today, four beams would leave that crystal and change four lives.

Camilla stepped closer to me.

“Go change your robe,” she said quietly. “Then stand with the other keepers along the eastern wall. Once the ceremony begins, don’t move unless Master Orin instructs you.”

“I know the procedure.”

“I know you do.”

Her gaze shifted toward the half-hidden inscription. “But I also know what happens when you notice something no one else has recorded.”

“I look at it.”

“You forget everything around you.”

“That happened once.”

“It happened last week.”

“The archive classification was wrong.”

“And you missed dinner.”

“I corrected the classification.”

Camilla exhaled slowly. “Today is not the day to prove that you are the most observant person in the room.”

I glanced at the gathering candidates. “I don’t think anyone is in danger of noticing me.”