Page 60 of The Fifth Heir

Hope flickered across her face.

Then fear extinguished it.

“And if I didn’t?”

“Then we still need to explain the second turn.”

Talia straightened. “Are you going to report this?”

“Not yet.”

“Why?”

“Because I haven’t proven it.”

That was true.

It was not the entire answer.

Until I understood what the Keeper feared, I would not place Talia—or evidence of an unknown power—in his hands.

The archive door opened before she could question me further.

An academy messenger entered carrying a sealed black envelope.

“All five heirs are ordered to return to the Fifth Wing immediately.”

Talia accepted the envelope and broke the seal.

Her eyes moved across the page. The color left her face.

“What is it?”

She handed the message to me.

By order of the Keeper of Trials, the First Trial would begin at dawn.

The official rules occupied the lower half of the page. Four elemental paths. Four assigned objectives. One Crown Gate.

Nothing addressed a fifth heir.

At the bottom, the familiar inscription had been written in heavy black ink.

FOUR ENTER. ONE EMERGES.

I looked toward the sealed archive volume.

The visible words matched.

Whatever waited beneath them remained hidden.

Chapter 9

Talia

The First Trial began before sunrise.

I woke to clear light moving across the ceiling of the Fifth Wing. It formed five lines above our beds, one leading to each torc. The four men were already stirring when my crystal ring tightened around my throat.