The Other Prism (The Broken Prism) (23 page)

Hayden didn’t remember standing up, but suddenly he was on his feet and his half-eaten meal tray was on the floor. The healer was trying to force him to sit back down in bed
, but he wasn’t moving.

“If you don’t tell me what you’re talking about
right now
, I’m going to—”

“You’re going to what?” Now the other girl was on her feet, looking scared but resolved. “Hit me in the face? Shout at me some more? Or are you going to equip one of your prisms and prove to everyone you’re just like them?”

“Like WHO?!” Hayden balled his hands into fists, smacking the healer’s hands away from him because she kept trying to pull on his arms. She was yelling something at both of them, probably trying to get them to calm down, but Hayden couldn’t hear her over the blood raging through his head.

“Oh please!” the girl from
Branx shouted. “You can’t tell me you’ve spent all this time learning from the Dark Prism’s best friend without knowing it!”

It took maybe ten seconds for the meaning of those words to sink in, and during that time Hayden felt the blood drain from his face and his extremities, like his heart was determined to pull it all back in until it exploded in his chest.

Hayden took a hazy step to the side, blinking hard to balance himself as he turned the thought over in his mind, trying desperately not to pass out. Something in his chest was extremely tight and painful all of a sudden, but he couldn’t remember what it was.

The girl from
Branx looked genuinely stunned.

“You mean you really didn’t know that your mentor was your father’s best friend?”

Hayden took off running.

12

The Other Prism

He had no idea why he was running, or even where he was going at first. Hayden wouldn’t be surprised if he was unable to form a coherent thought for the remainder of the school year; his mind was too saturated and disjointed. It wasn’t until he yanked the door to Master Asher’s office open without knocking that he was aware of having left the infirmary.

The Prism Master was leaning over an intricate diagram on his desk, fingers smudged with ink marks and his hair tousled as though he’d been running his hands through it in frustration. His red metallic robes were hanging over the back of his chair, along with his belt of prisms. If not for the circlet around his head and the violet diamond positioned in front of his left eye, it would have been impossible to tell he was magically-inclined at all.

Master Asher startled at the sound of the door flying open and hitting the wall, though his expression cleared at the sight of Hayden.

“Oh, good, I’m glad you’re al—” something in Hayden’s expression must have been worrying, because he changed tones mid-sentence and said, “What’s wrong?”

Hayden was staring at the Prism Master in a new light, trying to incorporate what he had just learned into the image of the mentor he had known for nearly a year and a half. There was a chance that the girl from
Branx was lying, that the people he’d overheard bad-mouthing Asher in the third-year common area were mistaken…

“You were friends with my father,” he blurted out without preamble. He wasn’t capable of anything smoother or more subtle right now.

Master Asher’s expression changed minutely, his eyes widening slightly in surprise. Then he sighed and moved his eyepiece out of the way so that the violet prism was pointed at the ceiling from the top of his head.

“Sit down, Hayden, you look like you’re about to pass out.”

The resignation in his voice was all the confirmation Hayden needed.
It’s true…Asher was friends with my father…best friends….

The room swayed alarmingly and Hayden grabbed the doorframe for balance until it stopped. It only belatedly occurred to him that perhaps the office wasn’t the thing that had moved.

The Prism Master was on his feet, and in the time it took Hayden to blink, Asher was helping him into another chair in a corner of the room. Once he seemed fairly confident that Hayden wasn’t going to faint, Asher returned to the chair behind his worktable.

“Who told you?” he asked calmly, as though he didn’t have a care in the world.

“A girl from Branx who was in the infirmary with me,” Hayden’s voice sounded strangely distant to his own ears.

“I see.” A long moment of silence elapsed before the Prism Master spoke again. “Truthfully, I’m a bit surprised it has taken this long for word to
reach you.”

Hayden felt a stab of anger at this and said, “So you were hiding it from me on purpose?”

Asher exhaled heavily. “Not really.” He removed the violet prism from his eyepiece and began fidgeting with it. “My friendship with Aleric has always been the worst-kept secret in Junir. I’m sure people whisper about it—at length—but ever since I became the Prism Master here it’s been sort of tabooed to discuss it openly; respect for the Masters and all that.” He actually rolled his eyes at the politics.

“I still don’t understand,” Hayden said numbly. “I just don’t see how you could have known my
father, how you could have been friends with him all this time and I didn’t know…” he trailed off, his voice cracking on the last word. “I’ve overhead people saying bad things about you—that you were evil like him…but I thought they were just jealous…”

Asher frowned minutely.

“Anyone who was associated with Aleric before his descent into madness has been subject to the hatred of the magical community—myself more than anyone else.” He was still twirling the violet prism around in his hand, his fingerprints smudging the crystal. Hayden felt an insane desire to point out that Asher was going to have to clean his prism before he could use it again if he kept handling it like that, but suppressed the urge.

“But,” he began hesitantly, “you’re so young. How could you have been in school with my father?”

The Prism Master raised an eyebrow at him in genuine surprise. “Aleric and I are the same age—or we were.” He frowned. Before Hayden could mentally adjust the image of his father in his mind’s eye (he had always pictured him as being much older), Cinder seemed to melt through the solid wall, flying over to perch on Hayden’s shoulder with dignity. A new thought struck Hayden then, and he felt stupid for not realizing it before.

“Cinder is my father’s familiar.”

“Yes, he was,” Master Asher confirmed. “Familiars will only ever choose one master. Since most creatures don’t live as long as humans, it’s not really an issue, but dragonlings live for several hundred years. When their master dies, they simply return to the wild and live as they choose.”

“Then why is Cinder here?”

“After Aleric died, Cinder came to me. I’ve no idea why he hasn’t gone back to the wild, but he seems to remember me as a friend of his master, and occasionally he assists me magically.” Asher shrugged. “As you can see, he is more fond of you; doubtless he can sense your father’s blood and is drawn to it.”

Hayden turned his head and gave Cinder a thoughtful look, trying to imagine the dark purple
dragonling perched upon his father’s shoulder just three years ago.

“To answer your earlier accusation,” Asher continued without prompting, “I wasn’t trying to hide my association with Aleric from you intentionally, but there didn’t seem to be a good way to bring it up. As I said, it’s something that people don’t
really talk about. Most of your classmates may not even be aware of it if their parents are smart.”

“That’s why you didn’t come to speak for me with the Council of Mages during winter break.” The thought came to Hayden at random. So many things were beginning to make sense to him now.

“I didn’t think it would do you any favors to have me there. Most of the Council still considers me as little better than Aleric. They think I must have known what he was becoming, that I should have been able to stop him.”

“All this time…” Hayden closed his eyes wearily. “I’ve been wondering about my father ever since I learned who he was, only no one will ever tell me about him except to say he was evil and deserved to die. And all this time you were right here.” He couldn’t keep the sense of betrayal from his tone.

“What do you want to know?” Master Asher asked it as casually as he might inquire as to what was for dinner.

Hayden opened his eyes. “I don’t know…everything. What was he like? Where did he come from? Do I look anything like him or not, because people never seem to agree…?”

The Prism Master smirked at the last.

“You don’t share his coloring or most of his features,” he explained. “The resemblance is more in your expressions, in your bone-structure.” He was silent for a moment. “I had a hard time believing you were descended from him until
the first time I saw you set your jaw in frustration. The number of times I’d seen Aleric look like that when he was struggling with a new array…” he trailed off almost wistfully and shook his head. “Despite the fact that he was very arrogant and that you are very humble, there is something similar about the way you carry yourselves, the way you say things.”

This was more than Hayden had heard about his father in the entirety of his life.

“Aleric was born and raised in Junir, as you likely know by now. The Frost family was fairly affluent—almost all of his relatives were magically-gifted. His father was on the Council of Mages, his grandfather ran a series of very lucrative apothecaries throughout the Nine Lands, and so forth. There were other prism-users in his family, though not for several generations.”

Master Asher paused for so long that Hayden was beginning to think he was waiting to be asked another question, before finally saying, “I was different.”
Another brief moment of silence. “I was born in Sudir, as far from here as you can get without leaving the continent.”

Hayden would never have guessed that Asher was from the other side of the continent; he had no noticeable accent. He was beginning to realize that even though he’d always thought he understood the Prism Master fairly well, that he
didn’t really know the man at all.

“Torin, my father, has a bit of magic, though not much. My mother was…well, that doesn’t matter.” He tensed, then relaxed. “Suffice it to say that Torin and I decided on a change in scenery, so we moved to
Junir when I was nine. I tested into Mizzenwald as a Prism major a year later, which caused quite a commotion since another ten-year-old boy had been declared a natural prism-user only the day before.”

“My father,” Hayden said quietly.

“Yes. You know how rare that is, and how isolating this major of study can be.” Master Asher sounded sympathetic now. “Aleric and I were destined to either be best friends or mortal enemies. Fortunately we got along quite well, though there was always an unspoken competition between the two of us to be the best. In our first year I beat him for a spot on Team Mizzenwald as the school’s Prism for the I.S.C., and again I out-shone him for the spot in our third year. I should note that that was the last time I ever beat your father in competition.”

Hayden raised his eyebrows in surprise, because Master Asher was the most powerful person he knew, and couldn’t imagine him losing to anyone.

“Aleric was always a shade more skillful than me, and his family put immense pressure on him to be the best at everything, so he was constantly studying. I worked hard as well, but my father never set store by how much magic a person had, as you might have noted by now.”

“So he was always trying to beat you? That can’t have been fun…”

“It didn’t really bother me, since I was always trying to beat him as well.” Asher smirked. “It must be hard for you to relate to, but we were wildly popular at school. Good-looking, powerful, quick-witted…we were the Oliver Trouts of our day, though better-liked.”

Hayden couldn’t mask the flicker of displeasure that crossed his face at hearing his mentor and his father compared to his nemesis, though it perhaps explained why Master Asher could tolerate Oliver’s arrogance better than anyone else.

“We eventually took research positions in our sixth year of school, already more knowledgeable and powerful than the Prism Master we apprenticed with. We were so secretive about our work that it took me a long time to realize that Aleric was playing with imperfect prisms—much longer than it should have.” He looked momentarily furious with himself.

“How did you find out?”

“Small personality changes eventually began to add up. I confronted him about it and he made no attempt to deny it, insisting that his work was academic in nature and that it would benefit all of magekind. I told him to stop, that it was too dangerous, that it was changing him already, but he didn’t listen. He overestimated the progress I was making on my own projects and was determined to outshine me. Suddenly our competition became less friendly, more barbed, though neither of us acknowledged it openly.”

“Didn’t you tell anyone that he was playing with broken prisms?” Hayden couldn’t help but ask the question.

“Not as early as I should have, but I could not have imagined what he would become, or I would have said something much sooner. I tried to get him to abandon his projects until he was tired of listening to me, but he was making too many incredible discoveries to be swayed. Finally, I went to our Prism Master, who took immediate action to have him removed from Mizzenwald and arrested. Unfortunately, Aleric escaped capture and seemed to vanish, though word of his doings trickled back to me at Mizzenwald as time passed: his family had been murdered…he was gathering a following…the Council was deploying forces to find him and capture him…there was a bounty put on his head…towns were burning throughout Wynir…”

The Prism Master exhaled heavily. “It went on like that for years. I dropped all of my projects and turned my entire focus to finding a cure for his madness, a spell that would make him sane long enough for me to convince him to turn himself in and seek help. The magical world began turning rapidly against those who had ever claimed an association with him,
Kirius and myself included, but the Prism Master pitied me and fought against having me exiled from Mizzenwald or brought up on charges.”

Hayden had never heard such a depressing story in his life, and was torn between wanting to know everything and wanting to stop before the inevitable bad ending.

“Sark—and many others—have always hated and blamed me for the way Aleric turned out. They thought I must have been colluding with him from the beginning and gotten cold feet when I saw what he was prepared to do. They also remembered that I had once beaten Aleric with prisms, and entertained the thought that I might do so again.”

“They wanted you to fight him?”

“They wanted me to kill him,” Asher explained in a detached way. “Mages were being deployed from all over the Nine Lands to hunt him down and end him, and they were all dying in the attempt. Rumors emerged that Aleric had created a prism so monstrous and unnatural that it could defeat any other, that it was never consumed no matter what was cast through it.”