Page 63 of The Fifth Heir

The First Trial occupied the oldest structure on the academy grounds.

The Crown Gate stood beyond the training fields, built into the side of the black mountain rising behind Crown Wing. Its outer arch was large enough for a full-grown dragon to enter without lowering its head. Weather had worn the surrounding stone, but the inscription above it remained sharply cut.

FOUR ENTER.

ONE EMERGES.

The words had never seemed threatening when I copied them into archive catalogs.

Now they hung above the four men walking beside me.

Dozens of officials waited outside.

The First Trial was supposed to be public, but spectators would not enter the mountain. Scrying crystals had been arranged around the field to project the heirs’ progress into the Hall of Prism, where candidates, families, and representatives from every territory would watch.

My parents would be there.

Camilla too.

They would watch four heirs prove what they were born to become.

And they would watch me stand wherever the academy found room for its mistake.

The thought tightened my stomach more than the gate.

Keeper Malcolm stood beneath the inscription with the headmaster. He wore his white ceremonial mantle again, the golden crown bright over his heart. Four runemasters waited beside him.

Only four.

A medical team had been stationed near the field, along with academy guards carrying suppression weapons in case an heir lost control while shifting. No one had prepared for a wingless participant.

No one seemed certain whether I was a participant at all.

Malcolm watched our approach.

His gaze moved across the four elemental torcs before stopping on mine.

“The Trial has not been altered to accommodate an unverified fifth selection,” he said.

The headmaster’s mouth tightened. “She has a torc.”

“Which was found outside the official Choosing inventory.”

“Inside a wing built for five.”

“The wing will be investigated separately. The First Trial has operated in its current form for centuries.”

I looked at the closed Crown Gate. “Am I entering?”

“You are required to activate the threshold,” Malcolm said. “Once the gate responds, you will remain on the observation platform.”

He indicated a raised stone area beside the arch.

Relief came first.

It was followed by shame that I felt relieved.

The four men would enter an active Trial while I stood outside and watched. I would be safer. I would also prove to everyone in the Hall that the fifth heir had no place among them.