Frost Prisms (The Broken Prism Book 5) (13 page)

“Tess,” he said with emphasis, his voice nearly cracking from strain. “She’s my other friend—my girlfriend—and the Council has been watching her the way they’ve been watching Zane, only Zane’s run away. They were threatening to magically-interrogate him about me, so what’s going to happen to her now that he’s gone? Have we done anything to get her out? Kilgore or Sark have to help her—she’s a double-major in Powders and Elixirs, so if anyone would know, it should be—”

“You’re rambling,” Zane cut him off. “Stop talking for half a second so the man can answer.”

Annoyed, Hayden shut his mouth and unclenched his fists. He felt taut as a bowstring and ready to snap at any moment.

She has to be okay…please, don’t let her be suffering because of me…

“I wish I could tell you where she was, but I honestly don’t know,” Mandra admitted, and Hayden was pretty sure he felt his heart stop beating. “Magdalene only told me that something had happened and that I should make sure to keep you here and focused while the others try and sort things out, but there wasn’t time for her to explain properly. The rest of them are in various meetings and appointments—Magdalene was late for hers just from the few minutes she stayed behind to update me. I’m sure we’ll hear something more concrete when people start returning later in the day.”

Hayden didn’t want to hear that he would know later. He wanted to know
now
.

“Don’t do anything stupid, like try to leave the estate,” Mandra seemed to read his mind, or else his face was just that obvious. “I’ve been given explicit instructions by both Magdalene and Asher to keep you here by any means—the latter actually told me to ‘beat the stuffing out of you’ if necessary.”

That sounds like my mentor.

“Asher told you keep me here too? Did he say anything else?” Hayden had often disagreed with what the Prism Master advised, but he had to admit that the man was rarely wrong and always had his best interests at heart. If anyone understood how important Tess was to him, it was Asher.

“He said to tell you to stay put and keep yourself occupied or he’d sic Kiresa on you.” He shrugged. “The man’s apparently been dying to exact his revenge on you for defeating him in battle.”

“Whoa, you beat a Master in combat?” Zane looked impressed. “Wait, isn’t Kiresa that Prism Master from Isenfall that hates you and creeps you out?”

“That’s the one,” Hayden agreed dully.

“Oh, weird, he’s here too?”

“Sometimes.”

Hayden exhaled heavily and tried to let go of his impatient desire to run from the room screaming and barge into the Crystal Tower with weapons blazing, demanding to know where Tess was. He didn’t think that would bode well for their plans to convince the world he was really a good guy and that Cal needed to be fired.

“Alright, fine, I’ll be a good boy and stay put,” he conceded at last. “But if someone doesn’t give me a proper update sometime today then you all are going to regret training me so well in magic, because it’ll take every last one of you to keep me here.”

Mandra inclined his head and said, “I’m sure we’ll have some sort of information by tonight.”

“Fine, then I’m going to shower. Zane, feel free to stay here and have some breakfast; I’ll be back in a little while.”

He stalked off, desperate to be alone with his thoughts for a little while, not caring that he’d rudely abandoned his friend with someone he hardly knew for company. He spent much longer in the shower than was normal, letting the hot water wash over him even after he was clean, as though it could burn away some of the feelings inside of him. It was all he could do not to imagine what sorts of horrible things might be happening to Tess right now: maybe she was alone and scared and crying somewhere, or maybe she was praying for him to come rescue her…

This isn’t productive.

Hayden turned off the water, dried and dressed himself in clean clothes, and returned to the informal dining room in search of breakfast, properly hungry now. Master Mandra was nowhere to be seen, but Zane was still there, accompanied now by Master Laurren.

Zane looked like he felt awkward and out of place, casually dining in a mansion with one of their Masters, though that might be partly because he didn’t take Abnormal Magic, and Laurren had that otherworldly aura about him that could make others uncomfortable even if you knew him well.

“Are you my first partner for the day?” Hayden greeted his instructor, sitting down across from him and Zane and motioning that he was ready to eat. The hand signal was read by a waiting staff member, who was standing unobtrusively in the corner, and she went to get him a plate of food. Less than a year ago, the concept of waving his hand and expecting adults to wait on him was hard to conceive of.

How times change.

“So it would seem,” Laurren replied smoothly.

“I don’t suppose
you
know where Tess is?” Hayden asked without any real hope of an answer.

“Nope, sorry kid. Try not to work yourself into a frenzy though; even Calahan isn’t demented enough to harm innocents just for being your friend. It would start a wave of outrage throughout the magical community that would be impossible to contain.”

“If people actually found out about it. Why would he tell them the truth when he can just lie and say whatever he wants?”

“Because some of us know the truth, and we would see justice done on her behalf,” Laurren explained coolly. “No one wants to see the day where our leaders capture and abuse people without just cause.”

Hayden did feel marginally better after that, but he would still worry horribly until he could verify for himself that Tess was alright.

She’s tough, and far from defenseless,
he assured himself. Remembering her knife skills, perhaps it was the Council members he should fear for.

“Hurry up and eat your breakfast; we’re already late for our training as it is, and I actually have other things to do today,” Laurren motioned Hayden along as soon as the plate was set in front of him.

Hayden shoveled food into his mouth as fast as possible without choking to make up for lost time, abandoning his plate when it was half-empty and asking Zane if he wanted to watch him get his butt kicked by Laurren.

“Sure, I haven’t seen a really good fight in a while,” he answered with enthusiasm, tagging along as they moved towards the back lawns.

“Don’t be so pessimistic,” the Master said fairly. “You may not get your butt kicked this time around; you’re really getting much better these days.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hayden said with a raised eyebrow. “You’re one of the strangest people I know, and weird people always win fights.”

Laurren and Zane both laughed at that, though the former said, “Thank you for the compliment—I think. What about Asher?”

“He’s also one of the weirdest people I know, which is probably why I’ll never defeat him in a duel either,” Hayden admitted.

Hayden checked his belt for weapons and then moved to the opposite side of the makeshift arena to prepare himself. He tried to push his worries to the back of the mind and ignore the fact that his best friend was going to watch him fight one of their teachers. He wanted to be impressive and instill confidence in everyone that he was going to be a real asset in the battle against his father, so he needed to be on top form at all times.

Ultimately he didn’t do terribly against Master Laurren, though he did technically lose the bout. The Master of Abnormal Magic could no longer use prisms due to his color-blindness, but he was still deadly with the other arcana, and courtesy of his new area of expertise, he knew a lot of obscure magic that Hayden had never heard of or encountered before. Hayden limped over to the bench where Zane was sitting after their time was up, desperate for a drink of water and a short reprieve before his next bout with Master Kilgore—who was already here and waiting for him.

“Wow, you don’t get much of a break between rounds, do you?” Zane remarked in sympathy, squinting against the brightness of the rising sun.

“Not until I’m done with fighting for the day. I’ve got Kilgore and then Mandra before I can take a break. Apparently it’s supposed to help me build up stamina, on the off-chance I find myself dueling my father for three hours straight at some point.”

He drained a glass of water and set it aside, getting back to his feet and preparing to meet the Master of Elixirs in battle.

“I don’t suppose
you
can answer any of my questions about Tess?” Hayden greeted the gruff Master, who looked strange without his red Mastery robes on. Hayden had always been of the opinion that Master Kilgore looked more like a blacksmith than a Master of the arcana, and today the effect was highlighted, as the man was dressed entirely in black.

“As a matter of fact, I
do
know a little bit about her whereabouts,” he explained evenly.

“What?!” Hayden perked up immediately, fresh energy flooding him. “Where is she? Is she okay? Is she coming here? Tell me!”

Kilgore held up a hand to silence him and said, “Knock me off of my feet and I’ll tell you what I know.”

Stunned with disbelief, Hayden said, “You’re holding information about my girlfriend’s wellbeing as
ransom?
”

That was the sort of petty behavior he expected from the Council of Mages, or Master Sark, perhaps, but he had always gotten along very well with Kilgore.

I must have done
really
badly on that Elixirs final for him to be this angry at me…

“I want to see how much willpower you can bring forth when the occasion calls for it,” he explained easily. “Asher says you hold back as long as you don’t feel you’re actually in danger—or unless you have a reason to go all out. I want to see what you can do when you flex your willpower to its fullest.”

Nettled, Hayden said, “I don’t hold back on purpose. I’ve been giving it my all this entire time, just ask Kiresa.”

“Your training with Kiresa is the one time I believe you actually
did
give it your all since you got here,” Kilgore countered flatly. “And that only because you genuinely believed he was trying to hurt you. Since you know I have no intention of inflicting permanent damage upon you, I need something else to draw your power out. So, if you want to know how Tess is doing, show me what you’ve got.”

Hayden attacked without warning, charging straight at the man—who probably outweighed him by double—and casting Push on himself as he lunged. The result was that he tackled Kilgore much harder than he would have been capable of unassisted, the Push spell giving him the force and momentum of a large boulder.

The Master of Elixirs was caught off guard by the physical attack, but managed to slap Hayden with a scripture as soon as they hit the ground together, which caused Hayden to soar up into the air like he had been shot out of a slingshot.

Weightlessness, of course.

He used one of his wands to slow his fall, watching the Master coughing and trying to catch his breath from having the wind knocked out of him.

You want to see how much willpower I have? Fine, let’s play.

Hayden cast Bind, hoping to freeze Kilgore in place and win the fight early, but the Master reacted quickly and threw a cloud of powder at him as he fell, which not only made him choke as he fell through it and got a lungful of dust, it also exploded and changed his trajectory, launching him backwards through the air.

Hayden was deafened by the sound, only the ringing of his own ears echoing around his head as he flew backwards. Furious, he twisted his prisms around and compounded Stop to halt his fall. In his anger, the spell was so powerful that it dimpled the ground in a crater around him as he alit gently on the grass, turning his focus back to Kilgore, who consumed two elixirs in rapid succession from his belt.

Hayden cast Break at his remaining elixirs but the spell was deflected at the last second. He followed immediately with Stun, not waiting to see if the spell connected. He was already turning his prisms around to compound Pierce. Both of his spells were blocked, but he was casting so quickly that Kilgore didn’t have time to retaliate; he was barely able to protect himself from Hayden’s spells as is.

Determined to beat him and find out what happened to Tess, Hayden cast compound alignments as soon as he saw them, not even caring about strategy or planning. His Heat compound was so powerful that Kilgore was only able to partially-deflect it; his shirt began to smolder and the grass around him shriveled up and died. Kilgore threw another cloud of blue powder to absorb Hayden’s next spell as he downed a third elixir and drew some scriptures from his robes.

Hayden tried freezing him, binding him, launching him through the air, and causing him unendurable pain within the next minute, but Kilgore managed to shield himself from the worst of the attacks.

Stupid Mastery Charm. If I get close enough I’m going to rip it off of his throat and then we’ll see how good his defenses are.

Blind with rage, ears still ringing and possibly bleeding, Hayden looked through his compounded prisms and felt his eyes take a foreign path, scanning and interpreting and reacting to an alignment more complex than anything he had ever tried to use before, so complicated that he didn’t even register what colors he was processing as the arrays entered his eye. With a burst of raw power, Hayden screamed and felt his body subtly transform, his skin becoming hard and unyielding, like diamond. The sun reflecting off of it caused a weird halo effect around him so that it looked like he was glowing, or on fire, and he felt invincible, impenetrable, like stone.