The Other Prism (The Broken Prism) (6 page)

It was fascinating to watch the
sixth-and-seventh years competing with wands (students past their first year of Mastery weren’t allowed to try out), and Hayden couldn’t wait until he was as skillful as the people he watched. They were casting so rapidly that Hayden lost track of their spell-work more than once, and couldn’t even keep count of how many times they changed wands within the span of a minute.

It took an hour to complete the first half of the wand competition, and the five students that were selected to move on to the second day of testing looked exhausted as the crowd applauded them for advancing.

The conjury tryouts began soon after, and Zane enthusiastically narrated what was happening for the others, who weren’t able to get a very good view of the paved section of courtyard that the older students were drawing their circles on.

Watching the tryouts was great
fun, right up until Master Asher appeared and called for the prism-users to come forward. His friends all patted him on the back and cheered when Hayden stood up, but he still felt like he had swallowed something wriggly as he stepped around groups of people to make his way to the paved courtyard.

His four classmates were spaced out around him, and from this perspective he was uncomfortably aware of just how many people were sitting and standing around the lawns to watch them. Even the other Masters had prime seating on the stone benches around the edge of the pavilion.

They’re either about to be really impressed or really underwhelmed…

Hayden truthfully had no idea which was more likely, as this was the first time he had ever
been compared to another prism-user. He was also the youngest competitor on the field today by a long-shot. No one else under sixth-year had tried out in any of the other majors so far.

Master Asher stood up and confirmed that each of them had the four prisms they were permitted to use, announcing that the first test was going to be speed. He had Master Reede conjure up five bright white targets with bulls-eyes in the center
s, and set them hovering in the air at eye-level, one in front of each of them.

Hayden was a little embarrassed to note that his target was a f
ew inches lower than the others due to their height difference. A few of the onlookers chuckled and pointed it out to their friends.

“Here’s how this is going to work,” Master Asher began speaking
, and the crowd fell silent. “When I tell you to start, a word will appear in black on your target, telling you which spell to cast. You must equip the correct prism and cast at the target. If you execute the spell properly, the writing will change to the next spell and you will repeat the process. There are thirty spells you must get through to complete this challenge, and your objective is to finish as quickly as possible.”

Hayden closed his eyes and began to
mentally run through a list of spells and which prisms they were associated with.

“Everyone got it
?” Master Asher waited for them to nod, and Hayden opened his eyes and focused on his target, lowering the eyepiece of his prism-holder into position. “Alright then…begin!”

The word “break” appeared in black on Hayden’s target and he almost smiled as he pulled out his amber prism and twisted it into place, because after using it against a dragon who was trying to eat him and Zane
, it was a spell he would never forget.

He heard a thump,
the target swayed as though he had physically hit it, and the word changed to “light.” Hayden hurriedly swapped out his amber prism for his clear one, twisting it around in the eyepiece to find the right orientation for the light array. After “light” came “summon”, which he had only discovered the night before in his rose-tinted prism.

And so it continued, with Hayden swapping out prisms as quickly as he could and twisting them around the eyepiece to find the right arrays, occasionally hearing the sounds of the other competitors’
targets being hit, but too busy to turn and see how they were progressing. His nerves were getting the better of him, and by the time he hit the target for what felt like the fiftieth time, he was mentally chiding himself for doing some of his slowest casting ever.

After his “focus” hit the mark the target remained blank, momentarily confusing him. Then he realized he must have finished the task
, and looked around to see how the others were faring.

His fou
r classmates were still casting. Oliver was squinting through his blue-tinted prism on Hayden’s immediate right and struggling to find the array for Sleep. He had forgotten about the crowd while he was working, but now Hayden could hear the chatter, as though someone had suddenly turned the volume back up on his ears. A group of mastery-level students had seats near the paved part of the courtyard, and one or two of them were clearly impressed with his casting.

Master Asher
was leaning casually against a cherry-blossom tree, eyes darting between the remaining competitors’ targets as they were hit, taking mental notes. Willow was speaking quietly to Master Kilgore behind his raised hand, and Master Sark—who hated Hayden on principle—was staring at him with an expression Hayden couldn’t interpret.

It
took the others at least two minutes longer than it took Hayden to finish the task, and he felt awkward standing around the courtyard watching them, but wasn’t sure what else to do. He searched the crowd sitting on the lawns and saw where his friends were still sitting. Zane gave him a thumbs-up.

Kevin was the last to finish, and at that point Master Asher jotted down some quick notes on a piece of paper—probably their scores—and came forward to give them their next test.

“Your second and final test of today will be of endurance.”

While he was speaking
, Master Reede was drawing some quick circles on the ground near the benches and using them to summon five heavy-looking blocks of metal. Hayden had no idea what they were supposed to do with them, but hoped it didn’t involve physical strength, because they looked like they weighed two-hundred pounds apiece.

“Each of you will use your rose-tinted pri
sm to cast Suspend on one of these four-hundred-pound weights and hold them at least four feet over your head,” Master Asher continued calmly. Hayden suppressed a grimace, though he was eager to point out the fact that as soon as they tired, those ridiculously heavy weights were going to fall on their heads and crush them.

Perhaps the Prism Master could see the question on his face because
he added, “I’ll be ready to intervene when your weights drop, though if you feel yourself fatiguing to the point of failure, I’d appreciate a hand signal ahead of time.”

Not entirely reassured, Hayden watched in silence as Master Asher equipped one of his diamond prisms and moved the five weights so that they rested in front of each of them. Hayden couldn’t help but wonder if the block of metal in front of him was going to be the thing that killed him in a minute or two.

“And…begin!”

Hayden eyed the deceptively small metal block through his rose-tinted prism and cast Suspend on it, immediately feeling the weight of it as it rose off of
the ground. It was chest level…eye-level…now over his head….When he felt like he couldn’t raise the block another inch, Master Asher called out that he was at an acceptable height to hold.

He had his
head tilted back as far as it would go in order to keep the block in sight for the casting, every muscle in his body locked as though he was actually carrying the weight by hand. Suspend was a slow-burning spell in terms of prism-consumption, so he was bound to tire and give up long before his prism ran out. It was impossible to look at his classmates to see how they were faring, but he heard someone groaning audibly under the strain and assumed they weren’t doing any better than him right now.

Every second was torture, like havin
g the wind knocked out of him over and over again without getting a chance to catch his breath in between. He took to counting time in his head, setting small goals for himself like,
Ten more seconds,
just to give his brain something to focus on other than the strain on his body and mind. At one point the metal block wavered dangerously overhead, and he had to sharpen his focus and hone his willpower to recover in time.

He had no idea how long he was standing there since he was counting in ten-second intervals; hours perhaps, or maybe days. He could see the rose-tinted prism gradually being consumed inside his eyepiece, the edges drawing inwards so that the colors came into sharper and sharper focus through the remaining glass. Sweat trickled unpleasantly down his face and neck, saturating his shirt. He determinedly ignored it.

Ten more seconds…ten more seconds…

His throat felt dry and he was beginning to get light-headed.

Six…seven…eight…nine…

Patches of color were wavering in front of his vision and he felt his body sway to one side as he lost balance.

…ten.

He must have blinked
, because when he returned to awareness he was sitting down, slumped forward on the warm pavement with his legs splayed out in front of him. He blinked rapidly to focus his vision and looked around, momentarily confused by his surroundings.

The metal block that had been hovering over his head was now resting beside the others near Master Reede. His classmates looked as exhausted as Hayden felt, their faces lined with fatigue and their hair matted with sweat. Most of them were drinking from large bottles of water, which Master Asher was presently handing him.

Realizing how parched he was, Hayden gulped down half of the bottle before he came up for air, painfully unclenching his fists (which he didn’t realize had been tightened until just now). He could hear all the excited chatter around him, but it was impossible to distinguish individual words from the general noise. Every one of the Masters—with the exception of Asher—were giving him a strange look right now.

He had no idea why they were all staring at him
, and before he could ask Oliver grumbled, “What kind of monster
are
you?”

Stunned by the question, Hayden just gaped up at him stupidly until Master Asher offered him a hand to help him to his feet.

Hayden swayed unsteadily until he found his balance, deciding that he was in desperate need of sleep. It was hard to believe that he had woken up only a few hours ago, because it felt like he had been awake for days.

“Well, I think that about sums everything up for today,” the Prism Master said cheerfully, brushing his shaggy curls out of his eyes. “All of you get some rest and pr
epare for tomorrow. Your scores will be posted in the foyer before dinner.”

Master Kilgore began clearing the courtyard for the Elixirs
challenges. A dozen students hurried forward with quart-sized cauldrons or carrying tables and ingredients to set up.

Hayden stumped
off wearily to find his friends—the crowd seemed to part around him as he trudged across the lawns. Bonk, who had been perched on Tess’s shoulder while he was competing, flew out to meet him and took his usual place on Hayden’s sweat-soaked shoulder. He knocked his head against Hayden’s several times in what was probably meant to be a show of support, but only succeeded in giving him a mild headache.

Most of his friends were staying behind to watch the Elixirs competition, but Zane followed him back to the castle.

“How’d I do?” Hayden asked wearily, blinking hard several times in an effort to keep himself awake.

“Seriously?
You don’t know?”

“I wasn’t exactly paying attention to what was going on around me; I just know I finished the speed trial first, which is surprising because that was some of my slowest casting
ever.” He was so tired that his words were slurring. He’d never used enough magic to fatigue himself like this before.

Zane saw him yawn and copied the gesture reflexively before answering.

“Dude, you
annihilated
the others. That was the fastest prism-casting I’ve ever seen, aside from Master Asher himself. Oliver did the next best after you, but Kevin and Cindy looked like clumsy apes in comparison.”

Hayden groaned weakly as they started up the stairs, because his energy was flagging more by the minute and he wasn’t sure he was going to make it up all five flights without collapsing.

“What about the endurance? I guess I managed to edge out the others on that one too, but I don’t know how close it was.”

Zane snorted so loudly it sounded painful, startling a group of first-years who were walking past them
in the opposite direction.

“Are you kidding me? You crushed everyone else and then proceeded to mop the floor with their remains. There was nothing close about it at all,” Zane grinned at him. “The Masters were starting to get really freaked out
, and Tamon started taking bets with all the people around us on how long you’d hold out. He made twenty-two credits off of it, by the way.”

Hayden glanced at him in alarm. “How long did I make it?”

“Almost fifteen minutes,” Zane said in awe. “The next closest was Oliver and he only lasted five. Hayden,” he continued seriously, “you lasted three times longer than
seventh-year
students. You’re a beast.”