Frost Prisms (The Broken Prism Book 5) (10 page)

It was a powerful spell that consumed his prisms visibly, and Hayden only realized he had been turned upside down as he fell from the sky; he was barely able to turn in time to avoid landing on his head.

Kiresa attacked immediately, and Hayden threw out a barrier so strong that he heard the magic slam against it and bounce back upon its caster, who was forced to dodge his own attack. Hayden rolled quickly to his feet, ignoring his growing sense of fatigue and casting Clone on himself as fast as he could, over and over again. Like a mirage, he was suddenly standing in the midst of a dozen perfect copies of himself, and Kiresa blinked and took a step backwards in surprise. Hayden reached within himself to find his tie to each of the copies, giving them all the command to spread out and attack Kiresa with their imaginary prisms, because there were way too many of them for Hayden to give them each individual commands.

His plan had the desired effect. Thirteen Haydens were now fanning out in all directions, forming a wide circle around the Prism Master and casting through their prisms at him. Since Kiresa didn’t know which Hayden was the real one, he was forced to dodge all of the attacks, not knowing which would have actual magic behind it.

The Prism Master started casting Dispel upon the clones, which caused them to disappear one by one, while the real Hayden seized his opportunity, compounded his prisms, and cast Drain at Kiresa.

Unfortunately, Drain was a powerful enough spell that his opponent felt it coming and reacted instantly with Reflect, trying to force the spell back at the caster. Hayden was pleased to see the note of fear in Kiresa’s eyes as their magic clashed, because Drain would pull the Source power right out of his Foci if he allowed himself to get hit. It would take all day for him to recover from the loss, a feeling Hayden remembered all too well from his second year of schooling.

The force of their wills collided as the magic got stuck halfway between them, pushing against some invisible midpoint and waiting for one of them to give way. Hayden channeled all of his willpower into the cast, pulling Source power from his charms and back into his core so that he could draw upon it—which left him virtually defenseless. Kiresa’s eyes widened as clasped his Mastery Charm and used it to amplify his power.

Cheat all you want. We’re matching Sources now, and I have the largest Source anyone has ever seen.

This was the one area that he knew he had the advantage over Kiresa—over anyone, probably even his father. Hayden felt his lips pull into a smile as he put the full weight of his Source power behind his cast and pushed with all his willpower. He felt the invisible melding point between them give way as Kiresa’s magic was dispersed. The Prism Master was thrown backwards by the onslaught of Hayden’s power as the magic was wrought from his body.

The Prism Master of Isenfall hit the ground with a soft
thump
and stirred feebly. As Hayden approached, he recognized the effects of a mage with an empty Source, who was trying furiously to keep himself conscious.

Standing over him and smirking, Hayden said, “Don’t ever try to match Sources with me. Even with three-inch correctors on each of my arms, you will always lose.”

He might have said more, but the Prism Master passed out at that point. It was only then that Hayden felt the full effect of how tired he was as well, slumping onto the ground and rubbing his eyes, only barely aware that his prisms had been fully expended during his last cast.

“Well, well,” the voice of Magdalene Trout floated into his ears from somewhere nearby. “It seems that Asher wasn’t just talking you up after all.”

Hayden blinked open his eyes and forced his brain to re-engage. His hostess was standing beside Oliver, who was glancing around at the ruins of his back yard with a neutral expression on his face.

“How long were you two watching?” Hayden asked dumbly.

“Since Kiresa arrived,” Magdalene answered smoothly. Hayden was just as glad that he hadn’t realized he had an audience any sooner, because it might have thrown him off of his game.

He got to his feet and staggered into Oliver, who caught his arm in a pincer-like grip and steadied him.

“You look drained,” he observed blandly.

“I am,” Hayden replied with a yawn, too tired for sarcasm. “Do you two want to stand around chatting, or can I go take a nap?”

He didn’t really wait for an answer before tugging his arm from Oliver’s grasp and walking away. Belatedly, he remembered that he hadn’t put the Trouts’ lawn back in order from all the fighting, but he was too tired to deal with it right now and resolved to come back outside later. As it was, he barely managed to stay conscious for the walk to his bedroom, occasionally banging off of walls and nearly crushing Bonk as he collapsed heavily into bed with his shoes still on. His last, satisfied thought, was that at least he had wiped the smug grin off of Kiresa’s face for a few days.

When he woke up, six hours later, he stretched his back and got to his feet, feeling refreshed and hungry. Deciding that business should come before pleasure, he motioned Bonk onto his shoulder and returned to the back lawns with the intention of fixing them up before going to seek food. To his pleasant surprise, they had already been put to rights by the time he got there, and he turned towards the kitchen instead. He was surprised by the sound of cutlery clinking together as he passed the large dining room, and stopped to consider that perhaps it was actually dinner time.

Pushing open the doors and stepping inside, he realized he was correct. Oliver was eating with Masters Asher, Reede, and Laurren. All four of them looked up at the sound of his arrival, and the latter motioned him over to join them.

“Good, you’re awake. We were just discussing whether to send someone to check on you,” he said by way of greeting. Oliver made some subtle gesture with his hand that obviously cued the housekeeping staff to bring dishes and food for Hayden.

“I didn’t mean to sleep so long,” Hayden responded, motioning for Bonk to hop off of his shoulder and settle into an empty chair beside him. “I also meant to fix the damage I did to your back yard,” he said to Oliver, “but someone beat me to it.”

“My mother and I took care of it after you stumbled off like a drunkard,” he replied coolly.

The usual spread of different sized plates, bowls, and glasses were placed in front of Hayden by the deft hands of a staff member, who came back only moments later to load them up with the food from whatever course they were on right now. She even set out a small glass dish containing stewed bits of meat for Bonk, which he gobbled down gratefully.

“Where are Magdalene and Laris?” Hayden glanced around the room as though expecting to see them hiding nearby.

“They’re still at work,” Oliver remarked. “Not everyone gets the benefit of being able to sleep the day away after a few quick fights.”

“
Quick fights?
” Hayden made a face at him. “You try dueling half our Masters for hours on end and tell me how good
you
feel afterwards. Speaking of which…how’s Kiresa doing?”

Asher tried and failed to conceal a grin as he said, “He woke up eventually and hauled himself home. I’m surprised he declined the generous offer to join us for dinner tonight.”

“I think that you repeatedly rubbing his face in it had something to do with that decision,” Master Reede remarked dryly. “You shouldn’t antagonize the man any more than necessary; little though you like him, he
is
an ally of ours.”

Asher sighed and looked mildly repentant as he said, “I know, I know. So,” he regarded Hayden with professional interest, “how did you find fighting him as compared to fighting me?”

Aware of the attention of the others, Hayden answered as diplomatically as possible.

“Well, he was more aggressive than you usually are, but his casting was a little slower. Even though he obviously knows more spells than I do, I managed to get him locked in a battle of wills, because I knew I could win if we were matching Source power directly.”

Asher inclined his head and said, “I did try to warn him that you have more raw power than anyone I’ve seen, but I suppose it was a lesson he had to learn for himself.” For a moment Hayden thought he was going to receive a compliment, but then Asher changed tracks abruptly and said, “Willow tells me you were wasteful with your wands during your duel with him. You know you can’t afford that.”

Not used to being publicly criticized by his mentor, Hayden pursed his lips and said, “I know—he pointed it out to me as soon as we were done dueling. I’ll work on it.”

The Prism Master seemed to accept him at his word and let the subject drop for the time being.

“Not that it matters terribly at the moment,” Hayden spoke into the silence, “but how did I do on my final exams?”

It was Master Laurren who answered.

“Willow told me to lie to you if you asked about your exams; he thought the truth would only upset you and distract you from your lessons.” His voice was so light that at first Hayden chuckled, thinking that the Master was joking with him. When none of the others cracked a smile he said, “Wait, I didn’t actually do badly, did I?”

Reede shrugged and said, “Wil said that if he was going on exam results alone, he’d have to demote you to level-four wands. Not only did you botch half the exam, you even forgot how to spell ‘cherry’ at one point—it took him two pages to realize you weren’t actually talking about ‘sherry.’ ”

Hayden’s mouth dropped open in horror as Oliver chuckled in amusement. Master Asher shrugged consolingly and said, “It’s true that Kilgore thought you suffered a traumatic brain injury that you failed to report after grading your exam, but everyone realizes that you’ve had more important things on your mind recently. Forget about your classes for now and just focus on what matters; the rest can be sorted out once all of this is over.”

Hayden was still trying not to die of shame over his poor performance in most of his subjects, while Oliver continued to laugh at his mix-up with cherry wands with a complete lack of sympathy.

“Are you all here for some kind of official business, or just mooching off of the free food?” Hayden turned his attention back on the Masters, his sarcasm getting the better of him because he was still embarrassed.

Reede leveled his gaze at him and said, “For your information, Frost, the rest of us continue on our assigned duties even when you’re resting—including, sadly, making reports of our progress. Since this has become our unofficial base of operations, that means you’ll be seeing a lot more of us.”

Master Asher shrugged and said, “I’m just here for the food,” earning a flat stare from his colleague.

Bonk had finished all of his portion and half of Hayden’s by the time he turned back to his meal, and he chivvied the dragonling away and watched with ill-concealed delight as his familiar attempted to cadge food off everyone else’s plates instead.

“Who’s on your docket for dueling lessons tomorrow?” Master Laurren asked, after sacrificing his smashed peas to a relentless Bonk.

“Mandra, Kilgore, and you, sir,” Hayden replied. “I’ll need more materials before then though, since I used up all of my wands and prisms today.” He admitted the last part reluctantly, wondering if he was about to receive another rebuke for his wastefulness of wands. Fortunately it appeared that the others considered him chastised enough for the time being, because no one brought it up again.

“One of us will drop supplies off tomorrow morning,” Laurren waved a dismissive hand and got to his feet. “Since Bonk has cleared my plate for me, I’m going to call it a night and go relieve Kilgore at our post. Hayden, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Hayden bid him farewell and watched the Master of Abnormal Magic leave, soon followed by the others as they finished their meals as well. It was just him and Oliver left in the dining room now; his host apparently had manners enough not to abandon him there, or maybe he just didn’t trust Hayden alone with the good silverware.

“Where’s Lorn?” Hayden asked as the two of them departed the formal dining room, making their way past the library and in the general direction of Hayden’s guestroom.

Oliver arched an eyebrow at him and said, “Mother has decided that this is too dangerous a place for him to be, in the event that either Calahan or the Dark Prism catches us all here. He’s spending the indeterminate future at our cousin’s house in Wynir.”

“Ouch, I’ll bet he doesn’t like that one bit,” Hayden observed, recalling how little Lorn liked being excluded from the action in years past.

“No, he doesn’t, but it’s for the best.” Oliver shrugged and turned down the hallway. “Keep training, Frost. I don’t want to think that my family has put itself at risk for nothing.”

Grimly, Hayden nodded and watched his erstwhile enemy walk away until he had disappeared from sight entirely. He wondered what Tess and Zane were doing right now, and if they had guessed where he was hiding out.

I’ll see them again before it’s time to fight my father. I know I will.

It was what he told himself before bed every night, because otherwise he might lose the nerve to do what had to be done. And tonight, just like every other night, he wasn’t sure whether he believed it.

6

Aleric’s Helping Hand

For the next three weeks, Hayden’s life seemed to be on a repetitive loop: wake up, eat breakfast, duel a few Masters of the arcana, eat lunch, study magic in the library, eat dinner, go to bed. A few evenings a week were punctuated with meetings, which made things mildly more interesting, though there was rarely exciting news to report by any of the principal attendees. For once in his life, Hayden found himself jealous of Oliver Trout; at least he could leave the estate whenever he wanted to, and had businesses to run now that he had assumed control of some of his mother’s work.

He was sitting in another one of their biweekly status meetings, twirling a laurel wand idly around the fingers of one hand while he listened to the others give updates.

“Calahan is getting close to the breaking point,” Laris reported with ill-disguised delight. “He’s officially stripped Hayden of all honors and awards, and he’s almost prepared to declare him an enemy of the Nine Lands. As soon as that happens, we’ll be ready to begin the counteroffensive and have him removed from office.”

Master Willow was apparently not prepared to take his word for it because he raised an eyebrow and said, “Magdalene, do you concur?”

“Yes,” Oliver’s mother confirmed solemnly. She at least did a better job of appearing unhappy about tearing down one of her colleagues than Laris. “He’s convinced that Hayden must be hiding out with his father, or he would have been found by now.”

It felt odd to hear that he had officially had his medals and awards revoked, as though the events that earned them had been erased from history.

And yet, the Medal of Heroism and the Opalline Medallion are still laid out on the shelf in the guest bedroom. He can’t
really
take them away from me until he finds me.

“The Nine Lands are a big place,” Hayden pointed out mildly. “How can Calahan draw the conclusion that I must be hiding out with my father, just because his cronies haven’t tracked me down anywhere else yet? I could be living in a cave in Osglen for all he knows.”

Master Graus, who was typically quiet during these meetings, said, “He’s got Wanted posters out for you all over the continent, right next to the ones of your father, offering up a hefty reward for anyone who provides information that leads to the capture of either of you.”

“Oh,” Hayden raised his eyebrows in surprise. “It’s a sad commentary on my life that I just turned sixteen and this is the second time that I’ve appeared on Wanted posters, alongside the most corrupt mage of the century, no less.”

Asher half-smiled at the dry amusement in his tone.

“Since Calahan has made a big show of calling for you to come out in the open and meet with him to discuss tactics against your father, and obviously you haven’t shown, it gave him the ammunition he needed to declare you must be working with him to destabilize the government.”

Hayden rolled his eyes.

“If I
had
met with him like he wanted, he would have just locked me up in the Crystal Tower, told everyone I was using it as my base of operations while cooperating with the Council, and no one would ever hear from me again.”

“That’s an eerily close guess,” Laris said, looking faintly impressed with his powers of deduction. “You must have spent more time in Calahan’s company than I realized.”

Hayden shrugged and said, “No, he’s just not that hard to figure out once you get the measure of him.”

A few moments of silence followed this, and then Magdalene said, “Wallis reported in the Council meeting this morning that he laid eyes on the Dark Prism.” She turned to Hayden. “He claims that your father was at the outskirts of Locleth.”

“Where’s that?” Hayden asked with interest.

“I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of it. Locleth is a very poor town in southern Sudir; the residents there are lucky if they can keep a fresh supply of water and a roof over their heads. Few mages would choose to settle there, for obvious reasons,” Magdalene explained patiently.

“Then why on earth would my father be there?” Hayden wondered out loud. Surely the man wasn’t vacationing in a place that didn’t even have fresh water…

“We were hoping you could tell us,” Laris piped up, leveling his gaze on Hayden, who frowned.

“For the tenth time, I don’t know my father well enough to unravel all of his evil plans just because I’m related to him by blood,” Hayden explained. “Nor did we discuss his nefarious goals while inside the schism together, as I was suffering from insanity at the time and didn’t even know who he was until we left.”

No one looked surprised to hear this, though Laris and Magdalene did look disappointed. The latter opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the double doors of the dining room being pulled open by one of the staff. Magdalene raised her eyebrows at the tall, thin man who entered hurriedly and said, “I’m sorry to intrude, but you have a visitor in the entryway who demands to be seen.”

Obviously caught off guard by the unexpected arrival, Mrs. Trout asked, “Who is it?”

“It is Mrs. Isla Strauss, and I directed her to the sitting room and had Liss offer her refreshments while she waits. She seems most flustered and anxious to speak with you.”

“Isla?” Magdalene looked astounded. “I haven’t seen her in years, and she chooses
now
to bring her silly problems to me?” she was clearly speaking more to herself than to anyone else.

“Should I send her away?” the man offered, taking a step backwards across the threshold.

“No,” Magdalene decided at the last second. “Send her in, and I’ll see what she wants,” she sighed and addressed the others as the man left. “Isla and I used to be friends during school, but we grew apart after we left Mizzenwald. I can’t imagine what she wants to see me for now, but it’s best to have done with it.” She looked at Hayden. “I would not count her as an ally in what we are doing, so you all need to hide before she comes in.”

On cue, everyone at the table got up and began moving. Everyone with a Mastery Charm—which was everyone except for Hayden—gripped their Charm and cast a spell of invisibility upon themselves, standing silent and still along the walls where they wouldn’t be in danger of getting run into by Isla Strauss. Hayden, not having the ability to vanish himself at will, was forced to duck behind the red velvet curtains that were pulled shut over the massive windows. He felt foolish flattening himself against the windows and trying to prevent the curtains from fluttering when he breathed, while everyone else simply used magic to conceal themselves.

Isla was ushered into the room about two minutes later, where she found Magdalene Trout waiting, apparently alone.

“I’m sorry to just barge in like this,” she began before Mrs. Trout could open her mouth. “You know I wouldn’t presume to just show up at someone’s home uninvited, but I wasn’t sure who else I should tell; the rest of the Council members are such old sticks, and I hate talking to them unless I absolutely have to.”

Hayden could imagine Laris, who was standing hidden in the room near a tall potted plant, pursing his lips at this assessment.

“Calm down, Isla, you know I’m always happy to see a friend,” Magdalene replied in a falsely pleasant tone that didn’t really suit her, but it must not have seemed strange to her old friend, because Isla relaxed immediately. “I do admit that I was a little surprised to hear you came to see me this late in the evening…”

“I know it’s late, and again, I’m sorry—but I didn’t think it should wait until morning, and I still count you as one of my dearest friends, so I thought you should know what happened before anyone else.”

“Please, sit down and tell me what’s going on,” Magdalene gestured her towards a chair, glancing casually around the room at the hidden mages, who she could obviously still see.

Stupid Mastery Charms,
Hayden thought ruefully.
One day I’ll have one of my own and then I won’t have to stoop behind curtains anymore.

Isla fussed around for a moment and then settled into a seat, fidgeting with her thumbs and bouncing lightly in her chair.

Does that woman never sit still?
Hayden couldn’t imagine how someone so bouncy and chatty could have ever been close friends with someone as self-contained as Magdalene Trout.

“It was
him
, Mags,” Isla blurted out at last. “The one they call the Dark Prism.”

Several of the Masters flinched noticeably, which Hayden only became aware of because it caused their invisibility spells to momentarily flicker out. Fortunately, Isla’s attention was wholly focused on Mrs. Trout and she didn’t notice the room full of hidden people. Hayden felt like a lead weight had settled into his stomach at the mention of his father.

“
What?
” Magdalene clasped her friend’s hand, eyes wide with shock. “Do you mean to tell me that you’ve seen Aleric Frost? Where? When? Tell me everything,” she commanded in her usual tone.

“I didn’t just see him, Mags, I talked to him—he helped me.”

Now Magdalene released her friend’s hands and leaned backwards. “I think you must be confused. Few people who speak to Aleric Frost live to tell the tale these days, and he certainly hasn’t proven himself to be a friend to mage-kind.”

Isla shook her head and said, “I know it sounds crazy, but it was him, I swear it.”

Pursing her lips, Magdalene said, “Explain.”

“You know how I damaged my right Focus ten years ago in that stupid experiment in Powders? I haven’t been able to cast magic through it at all since then, and the imbalance was even making it painful to channel magic through my left Focus…”

“I remember,” Magdalene waved a hand to hurry her along. “What does that have to do with—”

“I was planting peas out in the garden today when he found me,” she interrupted. “He just walked up the garden path around the side of the house like he was taking a stroll. Nearly gave me a heart attack, seeing him after all these years and after hearing all the stories about what he’s done. I thought I was dead for sure.”

Magdalene frowned and said, “You mean to tell me that you were gardening at home, and
Aleric Frost
just happened upon you in your backyard?”

“I told you, it sounds crazy, but it’s what happened,” Isla explained defensively. “Anyway, for a minute we just looked at each other—I was too scared to even move in case it set him off—but then he just introduced himself, calm as can be. He took my hands and looked at them like there was something interesting on them, and then he said, “Your Foci are badly damaged.”

Magdalene was watching her friend in silence, a look of utter shock on her face. Hayden understood how she felt; none of this made any sense, but he couldn’t imagine why this woman would make things up for no reason.

“I told him I had broken the right one in an experiment gone wrong, years ago, and he asked if I wanted him to fix it for me.”

“WHAT?” Magdalene practically stood up in her agitation, barely restraining herself at the last moment.

“I know, and I was terrified—I mean, there was his circlet just resting on his head with the Black Prism in it.”

“You saw the Black Prism?” Magdalene interrupted, eyes wide. “How do you know? It would look like any other prism unless you were gifted in that area and happened to be looking through it.”

“Well, yeah, but it was the only prism he had on him, and why would he only carry around one regular prism when the whole world is searching for him?” Isla shrugged. “Anyway, I said I didn’t want to take part in dark magic, and he just smiled and said there was nothing dark about it. You wouldn’t believe how normal and sane he seemed, Mags—I know that the posters all say he’s mad and evil, but he seemed completely normal to me.”

“Go on,” Magdalene prompted softly, apparently beyond anything more complex right now.

“Well, it wasn’t like I had a lot of choice—what am I going to do, fight the Dark Prism off when I can’t even do magic properly?” she asked of no one. “Anyway, he looked through his prism, aimed at my hands, and…” she held up her hands as though presenting them as evidence. “He
fixed
them, Mags. He fixed my Foci.”

Now Magdalene did stand up.

“I don’t believe it,” she said flatly. “Why would he fix your Foci? Aleric Frost has never been one to help others, nor would he just show up, fix your magic, and then leave. That’s completely at odds with his personality: he doesn’t go anywhere without a purpose.”

For the first time, Isla looked flushed and indignant.

“I’m not lying! Here, let me borrow some powders and I’ll show you.” She held out her hand defiantly.

Looking skeptical, Magdalene reached into one of the slots on her robes and withdrew a pouch of magenta powder. Reflexively, Hayden held his breath to avoid sneezing, coughing, or vomiting—as he was wont to do all three in the presence of powders.

Isla took a pinch of the magenta powder and sifted it through her fingers for a moment as though savoring the effect. Then she snapped her fingers together so loudly that it seemed to echo around the room, and with a spark the powder ignited, coming together and transforming into a white, long-stemmed rose. Isla caught the flower in mid-air and held it lightly between two fingers, while Magdalene looked on in amazement.