Frost Prisms (The Broken Prism Book 5) (21 page)

“And Calahan?” Oliver piped up from his position near the door, looking to his mother.

“Dead as well,” she answered flatly, looking neither sorry nor relieved by the fact.

“Who’s running the Council of Mages then?”

“I am,” Magdalene said without hesitation. To Zane’s surprise, neither of her colleagues argued the point. Oliver nodded as though expecting this and fell silent once more.

“Did anyone survive the attack that can confirm what happened?” Willow asked. He had apparently not been part of the initial investigation, or he would have already known the answer to his question.

Reede shook his head and said, “Not that we could find—and we did a fairly exhaustive search.”

“It was Aleric. I know his magic,” Asher spoke up, leaning against the wall as though propping it up.

A long moment of silence passed during which everyone just looked at each other, until Zane couldn’t take it anymore.

“No one has said his name yet, which doesn’t seem like a good sign,” Zane spoke up loudly, “but I’ll go ahead and ask the question. What about Hayden? Did you…did you find him dead too?”

Tess blinked and tensed slightly, which Zane only noticed because he was standing directly beside her. His own palms felt suddenly cold and sweaty.

“No, we did not,” Asher said heavily. “He is currently the only thing unaccounted for in the Crystal Tower, and likely the reason for his father’s visit.”

Zane wasn’t sure whether he felt better or worse upon hearing that. He was thrilled that Hayden wasn’t dead—or probably wasn’t, at least—but if the Dark Prism had him alone and unarmed, Hayden wasn’t going to last for long.

“And you’re certain you don’t know why your old friend wanted to collect his son?” Laris looked pointedly at Asher when he asked the question, a bit of his old arrogance coming back to him.

“That’s always been the question, hasn’t it?” Asher answered seriously, which was surprising because Zane had expected him to be sarcastic.

“I still say he wants an ally and is planning to train Hayden on broken prisms as well.”

Zane opened his mouth to interject but Asher beat him to it by saying, “Aleric has never needed allies before, and he feels no paternal affection towards Hayden.”

“We don’t even know that Hayden is still alive,” Magdalene pointed out casually. “We did find blood in the room, and I doubt it came from Aleric.”

Tess gasped, but Laurren shook his head and said, “Not enough blood to account for a corpse—unless it was a head wound. Besides, if he simply wanted to kill Hayden, why take his body away afterwards? No, he must be alive…for the moment, at least.”

Zane didn’t feel quite as confident as the Master of Abnormal Magic after hearing that there was blood in the room where Hayden was being kept, but he tried to keep a positive outlook.

He can’t be hurt that badly…Laurren’s right, the Dark Prism would never drag away a corpse.

“So if he’s got Hayden, then where are they now?” Tess asked delicately, like she wasn’t sure that she actually wanted to know the answer.

Asher shrugged and said, “My guess is the Frost estate. It’s where he set up last time and he’s bound to still have weapons and notes hidden away somewhere.”

“I don’t suppose we can just walk in and knock on the door?” Zane offered, sure that it was a dumb idea or someone else would have already suggested it.

“Not likely,” Willow sighed. “In the past weeks we’ve already sent out scouting parties to see what the defenses look like. Whatever magic he has guarding the place must have come from his corrupt prism, because we’ve never seen anything like it. No one is getting into that house without being invited by its owner.”

For a moment Zane was tempted to point out that Hayden was its legal owner, in which case they shouldn’t have a problem getting an invitation, but he didn’t think the humor would be appreciated right now.

Magdalene changed the subject by saying, “Down to what we can control…I’m in need of some new Council members. The government must continue to function, and the people must be protected to the best of our abilities. I’ve made several nominations already from around the Nine Lands, and I intend the last one to go to Kirius Sark.”

A few eyebrows raised at the announcement. Zane was just amazed that the woman was able to worry about practical things like a working government after most of her colleagues were brutally murdered mere hours ago.

“A logical choice, and I’m sure he’ll be pleased by the nomination,” Willow said neutrally. “It leaves a hole in our staffing, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to find a replacement.”

“Actually, it shouldn’t be difficult at all,” Master Reede interjected, turning to Oliver. “Are you ready to step up and shoulder some responsibility?”

Oliver’s lips parted in surprise and he said, “You want
me
to take over as Master of Powders?”

“Why not? You
are
a Powders major, and Kirius’s most valued apprentice. This is why we have understudies in the first place, to groom the next generation of leaders.”

Magdalene looked as though this wasn’t part of her mental calculations.

“You can’t take Oliver for the school; he’s the heir to a Great House and has responsibilities that supersede—”

“We can select whoever we want to replace Kirius,” Reede cut her off unrepentantly. “The Council has no voice in the selection of Masters.”

“Besides,” Asher interjected pleasantly, when it looked like Magdalene was getting ready to object, “He is only the
heir
to a Great House, not its ruling member. If you die, we promise to release him from his duties here if he requests it, otherwise Lorn can wear the mantle in Oliver’s place.”

She glowered at the group of them but could obviously brook no further argument. Zane was impressed that the Masters had obviously considered the possibility of Sark being taken by the Council and had this replacement planned out in advance. Oliver didn’t look at his mother as he said, “If you’re all sure about the nomination, then I accept.”

“Good, now that that’s settled…”

“Nothing has been settled yet,” Tess interrupted Master Laurren, looking livid. “No one has said a thing about Hayden! Who cares who teaches Powders or takes orders from Mrs. Trout? What’s the plan to get Hayden away from his father before something horrible happens to him?”

The room fell silent, probably because everyone was equally stunned at the typically soft-spoken Tess getting truly angry. It was like encountering a unicorn during a camping trip: it’s theoretically possible, but you never really expect it to happen.

“We’ve just said we can’t attack the Frost manor without all of us dying horrible deaths,” Laris pointed out at last, annoyed with the interruption. “We might as well hurl ourselves off the cliffs behind Mizzenwald if that’s all we’re trying to accomplish.”

“So that’s it?” she countered hotly. “The scouts we’ve sent said it’s too hard so we’re just going to give up on Hayden and hope he finds a way to kill his father single-handed and escape the house?” When no one commented immediately she said, “You’re all pathetic. Hayden worked his tail off doing everything you people asked of him to prepare himself to fight his father, and you all swore you’d be there to help, right up until things got hard and now you’re just willing to write him off as a casualty and move on.”

“No one’s writing Hayden off for dead,” Willow interrupted gently, before she could begin shouting at them, which she seemed very close to doing. “We’re still working on a plan for extracting Hayden and defeating Aleric, but it is going to take time for us to unravel all the defensive magic around the place or we’ll be throwing our lives away to no purpose. One failed attempt will set us back enormously, because he will fortify his defenses even further if he sees us break through any of them.”

Tess calmed down and folded her arms across her chest, still glaring daggers at Laris.

“So until we can figure out everything guarding the estate, there’s nothing we can do at all? There has to be some way to get to him—to send word to him that we’re not abandoning him, if nothing else,” she said a little desperately.

“Believe me,” Magdalene began, “if there was any way for us—”

“Oh, I think there is a way to get Hayden some help on the inside,” Master Asher interrupted, looking suddenly cheerful.

“What?” several of the others blurted out in unison, turning to face him. “Have you finally lost your marbles? No one can get inside that house or this would be much simpler!”

Still smiling and looking out the window, Asher said, “Oh, yes, I believe there
is
someone who can get in.”

Zane moved a little to the side so that he could see what Asher was looking at, and then he too felt a smile tug at his face.

There may yet be hope.

12

The Lost Memory

Hayden groaned weakly as he returned to consciousness, shifting uncomfortably on the hard floor. At first he wasn’t alarmed, because it felt like the same unyielding floor he’d been sleeping on for weeks in the Crystal Tower, though he wasn’t sure where his pillow had gone. It wasn’t until he blinked open his eyes and focused his vision that he felt a spike of adrenaline surge through him and lurched upright.

“Whoa, take it easy…” a girl he didn’t know—maybe nineteen or twenty years old—was standing nearby, holding out her hands in a placating gesture. He noticed that upon sitting up, he had dislodged a blanket that had been draped over him, by her, presumably.

Now that he took in his surroundings, it became immediately apparent that he was no longer inside the Crystal Tower, though he wasn’t entirely sure when he’d left or why he was lying on this disturbingly-familiar marble floor…

“Who are you, and why are we in a place that looks hauntingly similar to my family’s estate?” he asked out loud, hoping upon wild hope that this stranger was about to tell him he was in a stunning replica of the Frost estate, which was actually a museum of some sort…

“I’m Harriet—Hattie, and you’re, um, in the Frost family home…” she said in a lowered voice, eyes darting occasionally to the stairwell behind him as though expecting to see something horrible come down it at any moment.

Still not sure how he came to be here, Hayden reached up and touched the side of his head reflexively, hoping to conjure up the memory. There was something dry and flaky stuck to the side of his head and face, and he scraped a few fragments off with one fingernail, studying the brown-red flakes with interest.

“What is this stuff?”

“That’s…that’s your blood, sir. You were still bleeding a lot when he brought you here,” she explained, still on edge. Hayden was afraid to make any sudden movements for fear that she might sprint away and leave him with no one to answer his questions.

“My
blood?
When was I bleeding from the head?”

It hit him even as he asked the question: the sound of alarms echoing through his cell in the Tower, his father trailing bloody footprints behind him as he entered the room, hearing that Calahan and however-many others were dead, having his head slammed against the wall over and over…

“Did he really bash my head against the wall until I passed out, without so much as a warning beforehand?” he asked himself out loud. “It’s a miracle I’m still alive, let alone coherent…”

He shuddered at the casual brutality that his father was comfortable using on him, realizing that he had never encountered anyone so terrifyingly whimsical with their cruelty. It made his father frightening on a whole different level than he was accustomed to.

“I think he healed you once he brought you back here…” Hattie supplied helpfully, still nervously glancing towards the stairs.
My father must be up there somewhere, or else she just hates stairs.
“He carried you in and dumped you on the floor there, but then he did something with his prism and all the bleeding stopped. I wasn’t sure what else to do, and he didn’t leave instructions, so I put a blanket over you so you wouldn’t get cold…”

Well, my father plainly cares nothing for me, but for some reason he wants me alive…

“Do you work here or something?” for the first time, Hayden registered the uniform of a housekeeper, and only because he had become accustomed to seeing them around the Trout estate.

Hattie frowned and looked down at her garb.

“Yes, me and about ten others; well, nine, ever since Jack tried to escape.” She grimaced at some memory that Hayden could only guess at.

“Please don’t tell me that you actually volunteered to work for the Dark Prism,” he raised an eyebrow, suddenly wary of whether this was an ally or an enemy he was speaking to.

Hattie scowled and said, “Of course not; none of us did. He just showed up in town and grabbed a bunch of us one day. He said he needed servants to run his estate while he did his work.” She frowned again. “He told us that there were defensive spells to keep people from crossing through the gates, but Jack tried anyway a few days ago. It was…horrible.” She shuddered and grabbed her arms as though trying to warm herself.

“He died?” Hayden winced in sympathy when she nodded.

Well, so much for just walking out of here and calling the man’s bluff…

“I’m a little surprised that he has so many people here,” Hayden changed the subject. “I mean, I guess he needs to eat, so I understand a cook or two…but ten people? For living here by himself, that’s almost a full crew.”

Hattie nodded and said, “He’s
very
serious about maintaining protocol, even though it’s just him and you’d think he has more important things to worry about than whether the table is set properly for a formal dinner every night.” She shrugged, relaxing as she grew more comfortable talking to him. “But everything has to be
just so
, and in line with how a Great House should run, or he gets furious and…bad things happen.”

Hayden raised an eyebrow at that. It seemed an odd thing for his father to focus on, especially since he wasn’t exactly entertaining friends and business partners, but reflecting on all the stories Asher had told him about Aleric’s father and what a stickler for rules he was…maybe it made sense.

I wonder if that helps keep him from going totally insane,
Hayden considered thoughtfully.
Keeping some of the fundamentals from his life before he became the Dark Prism must act as an anchor of sorts.

He filed away that piece of information, along with every other scrap of knowledge he had been amassing about his father, in the hope that understanding him better would help him win the fight against him. He was suddenly thankful for all the time he’d spent at the Trout estate, having etiquette beaten into him by Magdalene.

I’d rather be lightly slapped by her than beaten to a pulp from my father for accidentally using the bread knife instead of the cheese knife.

Finally, Hayden forced himself to his feet.

“Well, I suppose I should go find him and see if he’ll tell me anything useful, since apparently he doesn’t want me dead just yet.” He said this much more calmly than he felt for Hattie’s benefit. “Is he upstairs?”

She nodded and then asked, “Are you going to fight against him and set us free?” very softly, not meeting his eyes. “The others—we were wondering…all that stuff we’ve heard about you these last few years, the medals you got for bravery and heroism and everything…”

Hayden felt an unpleasant tightening sensation in his chest at the thought of all these people counting on him and the knowledge that he was woefully overmatched and weaponless at present.

“Well, I certainly intend to try my best,” he answered truthfully. “I’ve been training with some of the best mages in the Nine Lands to prepare me to fight him, but of course I can’t promise I’ll win.”

Hattie nodded slowly, though she looked heartened.

“We all believe in you, and if there’s anything we can do to help…even if it gets us in trouble or—or worse…” she trailed off, frightened but determined.

That’s all I need, the deaths of ordinary people who shouldn’t be involved in this at all on my hands…

“Thanks, I’ll keep it in mind,” was what he said out loud, though he privately decided that he wouldn’t be asking anyone else to risk themselves unless he thought it was the only way to defeat his father once and for all.

Not sure whether he should report to his father immediately or get cleaned up first, he decided to err on the side of caution and check in before trying to do anything else. Trying not to let his fear rule him, he began walking up the stairs along the back wall of the foyer, winding gradually around to the upper level.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this,
he told himself for the second time as he walked.
All of that time and training, it was all so that I’d have a belt-full of prisms, wands, and anything else my heart desired, and about a dozen more skillful mages alongside me. It was never supposed to me alone and unarmed…

Well, so much for well-laid plans.

From the sound of things, it didn’t seem possible for anyone to escape the grounds without dying a horrible death, which probably also meant that no uninvited guests would be getting in either. Hayden was locked in a mansion with his super-powerful, mostly-psychotic father and ten—nine—unlucky victims who had been abducted from their homes to make sure the fires stayed lit.

He rounded the top of the stairwell and continued down the main hallway more slowly, peeking into every room he passed to see if the Dark Prism was inside. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if the man was in the bathroom….Wait outside the door? Knock and announce himself? Leave and pretend to still be unconscious and come back later?

Fortunately, when he finally found his father, it was nowhere near a restroom. In fact, the man was in a large library-turned-workshop at the very end of the hall. The room was by far the largest on the floor—possibly in the entire house, with shelves of books that ran from about halfway through the room all the way to the back wall, lining three sides of the space, with free-standing bookshelves in between. The part of the room closest to the door was open floor space, and while Hayden suspected chairs and tables used to be set up here in the past, currently there was only a row of four tables put end-to-end. There were no chairs in the room at all, except for a pair of armchairs near the fireplace on the far end, and Aleric Frost stood in front of the worktables on the opposite side with his back to Hayden, making notes on a diagram of something Hayden couldn’t see properly from where he was standing. The rest of the table space was filled with neat rows of prisms and organized stacks of notes and drawings.

Shame that none of my father’s organizational skills rubbed off on Asher while they were friends.
The Prism Master’s office was regarded by most right-thinking human beings as a paper-filled fire hazard.

Taking a breath to calm himself, he raised a hand to knock on the open door to announce his presence, but his father said, “I wondered when you would awaken,” without turning to look at him.

Frowning slightly, Hayden said, “How did you know I was behind you?”

“Blood calls to blood, especially at this proximity. Given sufficient time and energy, I could find you anywhere,” he answered simply, still filling in an alignment with colored pencils without looking up.

“I’m not sure what that means,” Hayden admitted, wondering how far he could push his luck before the man stopped answering his questions and knocked him unconscious again. “I don’t feel your presence at all.”

His father set down his red colored pencil and turned to face him at last. Hayden felt a lurch of fear when he saw the circlet on the man’s head, the Black Prism currently tilted upwards so that it faced the ceiling. Of all the things his father couldn’t remember, he had hoped that the location of the Black Prism was one of them…

Otherwise he looked much the same as when Hayden had met him inside the schism. The clothing was different, of course; he’d traded the leathers and animal hides from the schism for well-tailored slacks and a high-collared shirt that seemed less formal than his House robes but more formal than normal daywear. He was still muscular and handsome and didn’t look the least bit insane or fatigued—actually, he looked more well-rested than Hayden had felt for months.

“I have a much more powerful connection with magic than you do,” he answered Hayden’s question at last, sounding completely matter-of-fact. It was strange hearing him sound so emotionless; Hunter had been much more animated.

Hayden didn’t point out that a lot of his father’s vaunted connections to the world had been grounded in corrupted magic and distortion, since it was something they both knew and he obviously was still reaping plenty of benefits from it. It didn’t seem fair that there could be so many rewards for someone who used forbidden magic, like a sort of cosmic joke that punished the good and lauded the wicked.

No wonder he was tempted by broken prisms. He has powers that no other mage will ever have.

Hayden pushed that unproductive thought aside and said, “I wasn’t sure whether to get cleaned up or come and see you first.”

Without changing expression, his father asked, “Why would you think I needed to see you?”

Thrown by the question, Hayden said, “Uh, I don’t know…I assumed there was a reason you brought me here, so it logically follows that you might want to speak to me now that I’m conscious.”

“I didn’t bring you here because I lack company and good conversation,” the withering look he graced Hayden with let him know that his father thought he was a complete idiot.

“Since we’re on the subject…” Hayden began hopefully, “why
did
you bring me here?”

“Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to; I have no patience for it.”

Hayden flinched at the tone of warning, remembering how much it hurt to have his brains bashed out…yesterday? The day before? He wasn’t sure how long he had been unconscious in the foyer, just that it was now sometime during the day and he’d been knocked out sometime at night.