The Other Prism (The Broken Prism) (21 page)

He continued his inspection
until he was satisfied and then gestured for them to follow him out to the lawns. By the time they got there the Wand trials were about to begin, and Hayden broke away from the group to find his friends, who he would much rather be sitting with right now.

Conner waved to him and he h
urried over, watching the four Wand majors space themselves out across the lawns in the distance.

“What do they have to do?” he asked immediately.

“Willow is going to loose about a hundred conjures against them,” Zane explained, “and each time they get a hit that would be critical if the monsters were real, a number gets added above their heads. The person with the least number of critical injuries by the time it’s over is the winner and the one with the most is out.”

Hayden grimaced at the thought of fighting so many monsters at one time with a limited number of weapons.

“Hopefully Reya and Farrah make it through alright…” he trailed off quietly.

“Who’s Farrah?” Mira asked with shrewd interest, popping up beside Tamon and bravely taking hold of his hand. Tamon looked mildly puzzled, albeit pleased, by the gesture.

“The Wand from Creston, with the ponytail.” He pointed to her for good measure. “We were talking in the holding area for a while and she seems pretty nice, so I hope she does alright.”

“Wow, she’s a looker. Nice going Hayden, nabbing yourself an older woman already.” Zane clapped him on the back. Tess frowned and
turned to watch the trial as Masters Willow and Reede summoned the conjures.

Hayden needn’t have worried, because both
Reya and Farrah made it through the round with relative ease, since the competitor from Branx lost his head at the beginning and was swarmed by a dozen conjures right away. He pulled himself together later on but wasn’t able to recover, and his Resonator bracelet was removed at the end of the challenge.

Farrah caught Hayden’s eye and grinned at him, and he gave her a thumbs-up by way of congratulations, distracted only when Oliver shoved him out of the way to walk past him for the Powder trials.

“Get your head in the game, Frost, or I
will
hurt you,” he said without turning back, and Hayden sighed and looked at his friends.

“Is it just me, or has Oliver gotten nicer this year?”

Zane laughed so hard that he snorted.

11

The Violet Web

Oliver won the second Powder trial just as he had won the first, remaining at the top of the rankings. Conner was tactless enough to point out that Oliver’s apparent skill with his major of focus meant he was more than capable of carrying out
all of his dire threats against Hayden if he really wanted to.

As Hayden made his way through the crowds to join the other competitors for the Prism challenge, he overheard the Powders Master of
Isenfall berating his champion for losing to Oliver a second time.

“…were you thinking, dropp
ing focus when you were on the brink of victory?” the man lectured the red-faced boy. “When he fumbled with that drawstring I thought you had him beat. He left himself wide open and you choked!”

“I didn’t choke,” his student insisted through clenched teeth. “I tried to use Strength and crush him before he could recover, but it didn’t work!”

The Powders Master scoffed.

“Don’t be ridiculous. If you had cast correctly then the spell would have worked;
you must have panicked and miscast.”

“I’m telling you,” the boy insisted, “I didn’t
panic! I’ve been casting Strength for years—it
didn’t work
!”

Hayden continued past them, pitying the competitor from
Isenfall who was getting reamed even though he was still in the running for the championship.
At least Master Asher doesn’t give me an earful when I mess up.

He found the others standing in front of a large dome that he had barely taken notice of earlier that day. The domed area had been opaque while the other competitions were going on, giving it the appearance of a forty foot black bubble. Hayden s
tood with the other three prism-users and Master Asher as the black siding detached itself and sank into the ground, revealing the interior.

Now that the bubble was clear as glass, Hayden could see that the interior of the dome was trisected by three narrow corridors of red-tinted glass that converged in the center of
the circle. In the open space between each corridor was nothing but the grassy ground, as far as he could tell. He had no idea what they would be doing in there.

“Alright, Prisms, pay attention to the instructions for this challenge or you’ll be out very quickly,” Master Asher greeted them, waiting until he had their attention before continuing. “As you can see, the four of you are going to enter the domed arena.
When the competition begins, the three red-tinted corridors will drop and you will have the entire area inside the dome to compete.”

“What do we have to do, just knock each other out?” Davis sounded disappointed that it was so straight-forward.

“Not quite,” Master Asher corrected, and Davis’s eyebrows lifted with renewed interest. “It’s true that you’ll be free to fight each other while the safe-zones are gone, but after five minutes they will reappear, equidistant from each other but not in the same place that they are right now.”

Hayden glanced at the corridors with renewed interest after hearing them called ‘safe zones’. They were really only wide enough for one person to stand inside comfortably, though they ran from the perimeter of the circle all the way to the center.

“When the safe zones ascend, your task will be to get inside of one as quickly as possible, before the walls go up. When they do, if you’re inside a safe zone you are—well, safe, for the time being.” Asher frowned thoughtfully. “If you are outside of a safe zone, you will have to confront whatever challenge appears for the next five minutes, until the safe zones are lifted once more.”

Hayden didn’t like the sound of ‘whatever challenge appears’, and saw the others’ gazes sharpen along with his.

“Sir,” Hayden raised his hand tentatively. “There are only three safe zones and four of us…”

“Ah, yes,” Master Asher continued, “An excellent point. Only three of you will be able to enter a safe zone on the first round, which means one of you will be stuck outside.
If you manage to make it to the next round, then there will be three safe zones once again. However, if you are incapacitated or opt out, then the next round will only have two safe zones.”

Hayden understood the game now. They were always going to be short by one safe zone, and it was his job to make sure he got to one no matter what. If that meant knocking out one of his competitors during the transition time then so be it.

“You said something about opting out?” the prism-user from Valhalla asked.

“Yes. This trial will be
very dangerous at times, so you have the option of tapping out—so to speak—if you feel you are unable or unwilling to continue in the competition. You must knock on the glass three times in rapid succession and the wall will come down to allow you out. Of course, this will forfeit you from the entire competition if you are the first one to leave.”

Hayden’s heart began to race with terror. He had thought tha
t the trial in Valhalla was pretty dangerous, but no one had offered them the chance to opt out of it. This one must be so awful he might die…

“Also, don’t waste your time attempting to break the glass; it ha
s been magically-reinforced by yours truly, and you won’t be able to crack it no matter what you try, so don’t waste your prisms,” Asher continued pleasantly, as though daring each of them to attempt to overpower his spell. Davis looked tempted.

By now the crowd had migrated over to the large dome, sitting on the grass and surrounding it from all sides so they could watch the spectacle. Hayden felt his heart
jump into his throat when he saw his friends sitting in the front row, though they gave him an encouraging wave. Tess looked terrified for him.

Oh great, all my friends will have a front-row view of my doom.

He exhaled heavily and tried to let his nerves go. He needed to have his wits about him for this.

“Everyone understand the rules?” Master Asher glanced at him briefly, his expression neutral, until everyone nodded their assent. “Good, then in you go.”

The Prism Master tapped the glass wall of the dome nearest them and a panel swung inwards to admit them. This must have been some magical cue, because the walls of the safe zones dropped down into the ground and out of sight.

Master Asher explained the rules to the crowd much more generically than he had a moment ago, while the four competitors filed inside and the access panel closed itself behind them. The door was indistinguishable as soon as it closed, the glass appearing as smooth and continuous as ever.

The four of them naturally spread out to opposite quadrants of the circle, as far away from each other as they could go. Hayden equipped his clear prism and waited for the signal to begin.

The five Masters were sitting in fold-out chairs that they must have conjured up from somewhere, with clear views of the arena. Asher’s voice was amplified inside of the dome when he said, “You may begin.”

Davis immediately went for Hayden, as the latter had expected. Hayden cast Slow on his opponent to put some distance between them, barreling past the prism-user from Valhalla and nearly knocking him to the ground. He felt his sleeve catch fire but extinguished it quickly with the Water spell.

The boy from Creston tried to attack Davis while the latter’s attention was focused on Hayden, which diverted him for a couple minutes as the two exchanged attacks. Hayden lifted his eyepiece and held the rose-tinted prism in front of his eye, casting Repel and knocking his opponent backwards so hard that the boy from Valhalla slammed into the glass and crumpled to the floor.

Unfortunately, Hayden had knocked him right into the narrow strips of bright red light that lit up the grass all of a sudden, flashing to indicate where the safe zones were about to appear. The boy from Valhalla rolled into the space between the two lines and the wall shot up immediately around him.

Hayden scrambled to run to the other safe zones, but he was the farthest from them and he slammed into the tinted-red glass as the wall shot up around Davis, who had claimed the last one and was now grinning evilly at him from safety.

Hayden heard a groan from the crowd, and his eyes briefly met Asher’s. The Prism Master didn’t show any emotion other than a brief compression of the lips, and Hayden turned his attention to the open space around him, sandwiching him between two of the safe zones.

One of the other danger zones was filling rapidly wi
th water, and the other now had a real warg in it, pacing back and forth between the two safe zones that confined it. Hayden turned his focus back to his own problems when he saw a beam of violet light shoot from one edge of the space to the other. He expected the beam of light to disappear, but it remained, like a strand from a violet spider web.

He had no idea what the light was, but was pretty sure that he didn’t want to touch it. Another beam of light appeared just behind him, and Hayden gasped and took a few steps away from it. He had no warning as to where the strands of light would appear, so it was impossible to know where to move next.

Soon they were coming more rapidly. There were a dozen of them bisecting his wedge of free space, bottling him in. He ducked down and crawled beneath one, popping up where there was more room, but soon it was impossible to find a safe place to stand. Davis was grinning like a loon, but he couldn’t see his friends’ faces clearly because of the zone full of water made things blurry in that direction.

A beam of violet light shot straight at him and Hayden rai
sed an arm reflexively to shield himself. The light caught him in the forearm, and it was pain beyond imagining. It felt like he was being burned by the sun itself, the pain radiating through every nerve in his body that was even remotely connected to that point on his arm. Hayden screamed in agony and threw himself to the ground, crawling desperately in search of somewhere safe while the burned spot on his arm turned white and bubbled and his eyes brimmed with tears.

Even the ground wasn’t free of the rays of light, and he had to crawl very carefully around the violet beams while more appeared every second. He had no idea how long he’d been in here, but prayed that five minutes had elapsed so that the arena would clear. The prospect of fighting Davis was nothing next to the terror he was in right now.

Another beam of light hit him in the calf, and he doubled up and screamed again, head swimming with pain. He could try to crawl to a wall and tap out…save himself from any more blistering burns before he died from it…

I’ll be out of the competition forever though. I’ll be remembered as the boy who quit.

Asher probably wouldn’t hold it against him, or he wouldn’t say so to Hayden’s face even if he did, but everyone else would be a nightmare. Oliver would pummel him, his friends would try to hide their disappointment, Master Sark would throw a party…

If Asher could win this stupid tournament when he was eleven
, then I should be able to do it at thirteen.

Another dot of light
hit his chest, burning a hole in his robes and shirt and nearly making him vomit from pain as he struggled to find a safe spot. Hayden had no idea how to fight burning rays of light with his prisms, but he had to try.

He looked through his clear prism, blinking tears from his eyes because they blurred his vision, but nothing came to him. Davis was laughing hysterically at his agony, and before Hayden could move another beam of light hit him.
Then another.

There was nowhere left for him to go without crossing through a dozen more violet rays. He screamed and writhed in agony as the lights burned him, searing holes in his clothing and making his skin boil. Hayden grabbed a prism from his belt at random and held it in front of his clear one, desperate for anything that might save him
before he passed out or died. Master Asher was getting to his feet; he was about to come pull him out of the arena….

Hayden had no idea what spell he cast with his
compounded rose and clear prisms. He didn’t remember seeing a specific array of power, or of any coherent thought or will on his part, but the next thing he knew, the violet beams of light weren’t touching him anymore. Hayden blinked through the pain and struggled to sit up.

The lights were still coming towards him, but for some reason
they weren’t making contact. Not only that, but where the violet beams got too close to him, they broke away and scattered into hundreds of tiny strands of light in every shade of purple imaginable. It was as though light suddenly bent around him, and he was untouchable.

Master Asher was standing just outside the dome with an arrested look on his face, and even Davis no longer appeared smug. Hayden forced himself to his feet, leaning against the wall while he suppre
ssed the urge to puke and trying to ignore his burns. When he moved, the rays of light moved with him, bending around him but never touching him. His rose-tinted prism was being consumed very slowly in his hand, almost too slow to notice, and he tucked it back into its slot around his belt. His clear prism was also being consumed microscopically in his eyepiece, and he cast Heal on several of his worst burns to relieve the pain. It took a monumental amount of energy from him and left him exhausted.