Page 75 of The Fifth Heir

“Torren, stop!”

The flame remained between his hands.

“I’m one strike from the gate.”

“If you light it now, Rafe’s platform collapses.”

His eyes lifted toward me through the connection.

The fire grew brighter.

The Trial shook around us.

I had no assigned objective. No elemental path. No power anyone could name.

But four lives had been placed where only I could see them.

“I need you to trust me,” I said.

Torren looked at the final brazier.

Then he looked back at me.

Chapter 11

Torren

I had one brazier left.

The first burned behind me. The second had required three attempts after Leander’s Frost extinguished it. The third waited several feet ahead, close enough that I could see the fire rune carved into its base.

Beyond it stood the Crown Gate.

I could finish my path with one strike.

Flame gathered between my hands, dense and controlled. I had already measured the distance, the amount of power required, and the angle that would keep the heat from spreading across the bridge.

Then Talia’s voice came through the fire.

“If you light it now, Rafe’s platform collapses.”

The flame brightened.

“I’m one strike from the gate.”

“I need you to trust me.”

Trust was easier when I could see the danger myself.

It was also easier when the person asking for it had rank, experience, or a plan she could explain.

All I saw was the final brazier.

The gate behind it had begun glowing around the edges, ready to open the moment I completed my objective. Every instruction we received said the first heir through would win the Trial. Leander, Rafe, and Sebastian had accepted the same rules.

Talia had not been given any.

She had still found a way to see what none of us could—not because anyone had prepared her for the Trial, but because the Trial had placed her where the rest of us refused to look.