Forest of Illusions (The Broken Prism) (5 page)

Hayden frowned. “It was weird. There were a lot of arrays in it, but it also made my head hurt a little just looking at them all.”

“That’s normal, and will get better with practice. It’s a lot for your brain to process if you’re not used to it yet,” he replied. “So, you’ve probably been eagerly wait
ing to see what I intend to teach you this year.”

Hayden nodded eagerly.

“I plan on spending roughly half of our time together reviewing the basics of trigonometric and geometric formulas, the building blocks of prism-based research—if you decide to do any in the future,” he explained. “The other half of our time together will deviate slightly from my original lesson plan.”

“Oh?” Hayden asked with interest.

“We’ll be focusing heavily on spells for combat, both against magical creatures and against other mages. It occurred to me that while you’re very sharp and quick-thinking, you’re still not adept at combat scenarios yet.”

Hayden grimaced, remembering his time in the I.S.C. last year. He had made it through mostly on luck or the errors of others, but he had to admit that the sixth-and-seventh year students he was up against were vastly more skilled at actually fighting other mages than he was.

“That’s true…” he admitted shamefully.

“Don’t beat yourself up over it; it isn’t anything you’ve done wrong. Actually, you’ve improved steadily every year that you’ve been here, which is the entire point of the challenge arenas. Being in the Inter-School Championship improved your skills as well, just not as much as I’d like. You’re on par with other fourth-year students right now, but you need to be better than that.”

“Why?” Hayden asked curiously.

“Because,” Master Asher said seriously, “I’m still not convinced this war is going to go in our favor. There has already been talk of pulling you into the fray if the fighting escalates, though my colleagues and I have been doing our best to keep you out of it.”

Hayden’s eyes widened in surprise.

“The Council wants me to fight fully-trained sorcerers?”

“They see it as a win-win for them. They haven’t seen you in action, only hearing about it after the fact. Imagine the picture your story paints to someone who wasn’t there.”

Hayden frowned and said, “I don’t know what you mean, sir.”

“Hayden Frost, the boy who topped the arena rankings in his first year of school, despite starting in the third-year rosters; the boy who took down a fully-grown dragon during the summer, who survived a den of wargs at the end of the year; the boy who entered the I.S.C. at thirteen and defeated other natural prism-users who were four years ahead of him in schooling.”

“But that was just because—”

“The son of the Dark Prism, one of the most powerful mages in living history,” Asher cut him off. “A boy with an enormous amount of Source power and ambition to prove himself; someone that few people outside of this school will truly mourn, should he die in combat defending our homeland. Hayden, you’re their ideal candidate for this war.”

“But…” he began, suddenly worried. “It all sounds impressive when you say it like that, but I had help with most of those things, or I just
stumbled through them with a combination of allies and dumb luck. Like you said, I’m no good at fighting.”

Master Asher still looked grim when he said, “But that is ho
w the Council chooses to hear it. If things take a turn for the worse, they’ll be screaming for you to join the battle, and we aren’t legally allowed to refuse them access to you. If you had a legal guardian they could deny permission, but your parents are both dead and there are no other Frosts to claim custody of you, which officially means that you are alone in the world. It’s an awkward sort of no-man’s land to be left in, legally, and it leaves you vulnerable until you come of age.”

Hayden let that sink in for a moment.

“So you’re going to teach me how to fight this year…”

“In case you find yourself in a position that requires it, yes,” Master Asher finished for him. “As I said, it’d be best if we can avoid it entirely, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

Hayden nodded slowly in agreement, and the Prism Master looked satisfied.

“Alright then, let’s begin.”

4

Lessons Learned

By the end of the day, Hayden was spent. He’d noticed a definite increase in the difficulty of his lessons this year and wondered if he’d be able to keep pace with it. Master Willow had sprung a quiz on them as soon as they entered the room, he got two reading assignments in Healing, and even Prisms was hard to make sense of by the time he finished taking notes on all the formulas Asher showed him.

His roommates complained similarly when they were working on their homework that night.

“Are you sure the Masters aren’t confusing us with sixth-year students?” Conner grimaced, flexing his hand to shake out the writing cramps.

“I don’t know, but you’d think they’d have better things to do than assign us piles of homework with a war going on,” Tamon frowned and reread the essay he’d just completed.

“Guess they want to make sure we didn’t forget how to use magic over the holiday,” Zane suggested.
“Maybe they’ll be so busy that they won’t actually have time to grade all of this stuff, and they’ll just pass us anyway.”

“Are you kidding me?” Tamon countered. “I’ve always thought that the Masters greatest joy in life came from making big red X’s all over parts of my essays that are wrong, and scribbling in the footnotes about how they’re not certain I’m actually literate.”

Hayden laughed and stretched out in bed, setting up a pillow for Bonk since the bed was large enough this year to accommodate both of them.

It’ll be nice not having Bonk steal my pillows or roll over on me all night.

His familiar watched him work patiently, but as soon as Hayden was finished setting up Bonk’s new sleeping space, the little dragon dragged it over closer to his own pillow and curled up to go to sleep. Apparently he liked rolling onto Hayden and waking him up at all hours of the night, and had no plans on stopping now.

With a r
esigned sigh, Hayden got ready for bed and went to sleep.

When Hayden realized that he didn’t have any classes with Lorn Trout this year, his first thought was,
Finally!
Then it occurred to him that since he wanted to ask Lorn to be in his arena group again this year, he was going to have to go out of his way to look for him.

He spent the better part of the week searching for hi
m in the hallways between lessons, but the only time he actually laid eyes on his target was during mealtimes in the dining hall. On the last day before the team requests were due, he swallowed his displeasure and went to sit beside Lorn at dinner.

Judging by the way half the hall stared at him, you’d think he’d walked up to
Lorn and punched him in the jaw. Even Masters Sark and Asher raised their eyebrows from their respective tables before they resumed eating.

“What are you doing here?”
Lorn greeted him with the customary bite of derision in his voice.

“I go to school here too, remember?” he answered automatically, unable to temper his sarcasm
when he was this hungry and uncomfortable.

One of Lorn’s rat-faced cronies
scowled and said, “What’s the matter, Frost? Did your loser friends get tired of you already?”

Hayden ignored him completely, continuing to focus on Lorn. “I wanted to know if you’ll be in my arena group again this year. I know I’ve left it a bit late to ask, but I never saw you in the hallways between classes.”

Lorn stared at him as though he’d just grown another head, and Hayden noticed that Oliver was watching the pair of them from a nearby table with an unsettling look on his face, like he was preparing to come over and pound Hayden into the floor if necessary. Reflecting on Oliver’s performance in the Inter-School Championship last year, that was a very real possibility.

“Are you joking, Frost?” Lorn recaptured his attention.

“I wish people would stop asking me that,” Hayden sighed.

Lorn stared
at him for a moment and then said, as though compelled, “You do remember that we’re not friends, right?”

Hayden snorted in amusement. “Thanks, I’d nearly forgotten.” He rolled his eyes.

“Then why do you want me to be in your group again?” For the first time since Hayden had sat down, Lorn sounded genuinely curious instead of annoyed.

“As obnoxious as I find you, there’s no denying that you’re good at what you do. You pulled your weight last year, and I have a better feel for where your strengths and weaknesses are now. I think if we have another go at it, we could top the rankings.” He shrugged.

“Get lost, Frost,” another of Lorn’s friends snapped at him. “No one is interested in being in your arena group.”

Again, Hayden ignored him. Lorn looked unusually pensive but said nothing for a long moment.

“There’s another reason,” Hayden continued mildly. “The Masters threw us together last year as a challenge for both of us—I’m sure you figured that out as soon as I did. They wanted to see if we would be able to man up and get past our differences, and we mostly did that last year.” He took a breath to let that sink in. “This year, if we work together by choice, it’ll send a message to the Masters that not only can we take whatever they throw at us, but we can go one better. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got something to prove.”

Lorn narrowed his eyes and looked around the dining hall with interest, focusing briefly on each of the Masters as he found them. He spared Sark a slightly longer consideration than the others.

Finally he said, “Alright, Frost, I’ll give it a go. I suppose we didn’t disgrace ourselves in the rankings last year, so why not?”

His friends looked at him like he said something dangerous and alarming, but Hayden smirked and held out his hand. Hesitantly, Lorn shook it.

“Now go away before people start to think we’re friends,” he said with his typical amount of disdain, wiping his hand on his trousers as though Hayden had soiled it.

Hayden left withou
t complaint, eager to be back with his real friends at their table across the hall. No sooner had he sat down and begun to tell the others about his conversation with Lorn, when Master Willow motioned for Tess to make room for him to join them.

She slid over obligingly and moved Mittens off of the table, and the Master of Wands sat down across from Hayden and greeted the group of them as one.

“I hope you don’t mind me dining with you today?”

Like any of us would dare say ‘yes’, even if we did…

“Not at all, Master Willow,” Zane answered automatically.

For a few minutes they made idle conversation while the Master buttered some bread and worked his way steadily through his plate of food with flawless etiquette. Tamon was in the middle of telling them how his boa constrictor almost fell out the window of the fourth-story dormitory, and how ridiculous he must have looked trying to drag the snake back inside
without getting pulled out himself, when Master Willow turned to Hayden and said, “I noticed that you haven’t submitted any requests for your challenge arena partners this year. Registration ends tonight.”

“I know, sir,” Hayden answered around a mouthful of
stewed lamb and peas. “I was just checking to make sure Lorn was willing to give it another go before I turned in my request form.”

The Master of Wands arched one eyebrow momentarily, though he didn’t look wholly surprised. “Last year you seemed quite opposed to having him on your team.”

“Yeah, well, I’m trying to get better at dealing with people I don’t like.” He shrugged. “I still think he’s a jerk, but he’s decent with powders, and he thinks pretty quickly when we’re in a bind.”

“That’s a very reasonable and mature decision to make,” he sounded mildly impressed, and Hayden felt mollified.

“Thanks, I’ve got a goal this year to do less shouting at people, and also not to get my butt kicked so much,” he admitted, and Master Willow actually chuckled.

“Both worthy objectives,”
he conceded lightly, before turning to Zane. “Were you able to understand the reading on yew wands last night after I tried to clarify it?”

Zane nodded and said
, “I think so…but there are one or two parts I’m still a little sketchy on…like what happens if you put a permanent bend in it? Does it still work or does it shoot magic sideways?”

Hayden finished his dinner while listening to Zane and Master Willow discuss the properties of yew, and Tess and Conner had a quiet dis
cussion about their Scriptures class that they both found mutually engrossing.

When everyone was dismissed, Hayden stood up to leave with the others, but Master Willow surprised him by saying, “A moment, Hayden.”

Glancing back at him curiously, the others left the dining hall. When their table was clear Master Willow said, “Asher tells me he’s planning to train you in combat this year.”

Surprised by the change in subject, Hayden nodded.

“Good, you need to be prepared for whatever comes your way,” he finished cryptically, frowning. “Might I recommend that you pay particular attention during these lessons and practice outside of class? I also intend to focus more heavily on defensive and offensive magic this year with my classes, in case the worst should happen.”

“You mean in case the sorcerers make it to Mizzenwald?”

“That thought had crossed my mind,” he admitted. “I’m sure my worries are baseless, but it is better to be safe than sorry in these instances,” The Master of Wands looked down at his steepled fingers.

If you really think
your worries are baseless, why are you all training us to fight?

“Well, either way, I’ll try my best to learn everything you all teach me,” Hayden assured him, and the Master looked up.

“Good, that’s really all I wanted to say to you.” He got to his feet and smoothed his red Mastery robes. Hayden had already turned away when he said, “Oh, one more thing.”

Hayden looked back at the Master once more.

“Keep your friends close, Hayden.”

Hayden nodded and walked away, unable to ignore how ominous Master Willow’s parting words sounded.

As luck would have it, Hayden’s arena team came up late in the drawings and
they didn’t have to face their first challenge for three weeks. This was fine with him, as they were having a hard time arranging practices with all of the homework everyone had to contend with each night, and were mostly restricted to weekends.

Lorn had even started to be nicer to Tess during these training sessions
. Well,
nice
was probably stretching things, but at least he didn’t call her Tess the Mess anymore.

Unfortunately, Hayden’s resolve to
not get his butt kicked this year was going poorly, though not in the way he’d originally anticipated. Every-other day he and Master Asher switched between mind-boggling calculations and all-out war with prisms, which the Prism Master—predictably—always won. Not only did he win, but he was fairly merciless about stomping Hayden into the ground each time.

“Is anything broken?” Asher asked him for the third time that day, lift
ing his eyepiece so he could watch Hayden with both eyes. His Mastery robes were draped over the branch of a pear-blossom tree behind him as he surveyed Hayden from across the lawn with his arms folded. They’d taken their sparring sessions outdoors at the insistence of Master Willow, to avoid destroying the castle. Hayden was just grateful that they were behind the school near the cliffs that overlooked the Gawain Sea, instead of displayed prominently in the main courtyard where everyone could see him get beaten.

“I don’t think so,” Hayden groaned, testing his arms and legs and climbing slowly back to his feet, rubbing his backside where he’d landed hard. “I don’t suppose you could try to avoid throwing me off the cliffs? That last one nearly had me.”

Given that the Prism Master was wearing a faded blue t-shirt and loose-fitting black pants, he looked strangely impressive standing there with the wind whipping through his hair and the prism circlet on his head. The effect was lessened when he snorted and said, “Your enemies won’t hesitate to throw you off a cliff if they get the chance. I’d be doing you a disservice to spare you the effort of accounting for it in your training sessions.”

“
What
enemies?” Hayden snapped in exasperation. “You act like the sorcerers are invading the continent for the sole joy of hunting me down and lobbing me off of tall objects. Is there something I should know about?”

Asher relaxed his posture slightly and said, “No, I doubt you’re even on their radar right now, but we have to face the reality of the situation. If the Council attempts to call you into service, you
will
come to their attention, and they are fully-trained adults who have come here to murder anyone who gets in their way. Also, if your father knew any sorcerers—which seems possible given the sigla you found in his bathroom—it stands to reason that they hate him by now and would love to take their aggression out on his only living descendant.”