The Other Prism (The Broken Prism) (38 page)

“But…but…” Hayden was having a hard time forming thoughts and words. “Why would you give me your Mastery Charm and leave yourself without it? How could I have used it all year without it amplifying my power?”

“I told you, Hayden, I’m your mentor and I’ll do everything I can to have your back. I was worried that you would encounter foreign mages who might try to hurt you while I wasn’t around, and I needed a way to get to you quickly if you needed help. I didn’t exactly have
this
in mind…”

He stopped long enough to watch Cinder, who flew a quick circle around the forest above them and then descended once more, leading them to the right.

“But how come it didn’t amplify my power all year?” Hayden persisted.

“It did, to some extent, or your defensive power at least,” Asher explained. “That’s unavoidable, and probably the only thing that saved you from the ill effects of the Resonance Crystal.” He sighed. “A Mastery Charm provides the wearer with a constant shield of protection from most magical attacks that would enter through the Foci. It’s good to know that it’s strong enough to resist even the Resonance Crystal.”

Hayden frowned and said, “It made my charm really hot against my skin, and my Focus-correctors got very cold.”

“Then you were at the limit of the Mastery Charm’s shielding powers, and it’s fortunate that I got to you when I did.” He turned to follow Cinder once again, as the dragon appeared to turn around and lead them back the way they came, though the scenery had changed somehow. “Your Focus-correctors would have shattered if any more strain had been put on them; they were doing all they could to keep your channels open and functioning properly
against the defective Resonator.

“Anyway,” Asher returned to his earlier question, “the reason I told you not to grab the charm and tap into your Source all year was because I kne
w it would undo the mask and that it would amplify your power hugely. It would be impossible to conceal the fact that I gave it to you at that point, and we’d both be in a lot of trouble. Speaking of which,” he stopped and looked at Hayden. “I think it’s safe for us to swap charms again, as you’re no longer wearing the bracelet.”

Hayden reached up numbly and removed the Mastery Charm from around his neck, exchanging it for the charm he had made at the beginning of the year.
He didn’t know if it was his imagination or not, but he thought he could feel the aura of protection leaving him. He wondered briefly what else it had saved him from this year that he didn’t even know about.

“If anyone asks why you were immune to the crys
tal’s effects—and I’m sure they will—just tell them that you have no idea, and that it probably has something to do with your Foci being so badly warped,” Master Asher coached him.

“That’s what I told Davis back when we were fighting the chimaeras,” Hayden intoned dully.

“Good, then stick to that story like glue.”

They found the Resonance Crystal with no difficulty at all, along with Oliver and Darren, who were both slumped unconscious beside it. Asher hurried forward and removed the bracelets from their wrists, and some of the color began to return to their faces. Hayden watched him check for a pulse before standi
ng up and saying, “It’s alright: they’re weak, but they’ll survive. Here, help me carry them.”

He tossed Hayden a rose-tinted prism from a pocket on his robes (not from his belt, where his own mastery-level prisms were stored) and rotated the prisms in his combat circlet until he found one that would cast Suspend. Together, they levitated Darren and Oliver into the air and Hayden pulled them away from the giant red crystal that Asher was considering closely now.

“Follow Cinder; he’ll take you out of the Forest,” the Prism Master instructed him without looking away from the crystal.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to destroy the crystal—I think. Best to get you out of harm’s way before attempting anything though, in case I’m wrong.”

The doubt in his voice wasn’t very reassuring, and Hayden said, “But how will you find your way out without Cinder?”

“I’ve got a Mastery Charm. Worst case, I can translocate myself back to Mizzenwald if necessary.”

Hayden nodded and held his teammates and Davis by the wrists, tugging them along like human balloons as he followed Cinder through the trees, always keeping the blue boundary lights on their left, no matter which direction they were walking in. He had about a million questions about the Forest of Illusions and everything that had happened here today, but none of them seemed very important at the moment.

In less than a minute Hayden was back in the copse of trees, walking towards the crowd from Branx. No one was cheering and smiling anymore. In fact, three of the Masters were tearing around in a hurry, rapidly working their healing powers on the unconscious or flailing bodies of the other competitors. All of their bracelets had been removed, so they must have figured out what the problem was, but Hayden wasn’t sure if it had come too late to do any good.

At the sight of Hayden, the Master of Powders grabbed his Mastery Charm and said, “We’ve got Team Mizzenwald and Davis of
Isenfall. All accounted for except the Wand of Creston.”

Hayden had no doubt that he was talking to the other two Masters through his charm. They were probably out se
arching the Forest still, looking for someone they would never find.

“Farrah isn’t coming,” Hayden said dully, his voice sounding distant to his own ears as he guided Davis, Oliver
, and Darren onto the grass so they could be looked over. “She died fighting a chimaera to protect Davis and I. She was a hero.”

The Master’s eyes widened and he called off the search of the Forest. Mastery-level students from
Branx were running about with stretchers and elixirs, loading the injured onto the former and carrying them over to a sort of field triage tent that was being erected away from the crowd. The Master of Wands was commanding the rest of the spectators to take the Arc back to school and remain in their dormitories until further notice.

The Prism Master of
Branx emerged from the Forest looking disheveled and approached their group. He seemed surprised to find Hayden up and moving, and indeed, his first words were, “Frost, how did you escape unharmed?”

Hayden would hardly call himself ‘unharmed’, but rather than argue the point he replied, “I don’t know, sir. I think maybe the crystal didn’t affect me as much as the others because my Foci are so damaged,” he held up his wrists with the three-inch Focus-correctors on them to emphasize the point.

The Prism Master narrowed his eyebrows for a moment, but all he said was, “I see,” and crouched down to check Oliver’s vital signs. Cinder perched on Hayden’s shoulder and managed to look regal and unaffected by the chaos around them. Hayden reached up and stroked his back affectionately with his left hand (which had the least amount of blue blood on it).

He slumped down in the grass, suddenly exhausted and a little dizzy. The Master of Powders turned towards him and opened his mouth, probably to ask if he was alright, but was interrupted by the muffled explosion from inside the Forest of Illusions and the column of red light that shot up through the sky, penetrating the clouds and disappearing into the atmosphere.

“What in the holy arcana was that?” he said instead.

“Master Asher got the crystal,” Hayden smirked, feeling a little giddy for some reason. He was lying flat on his back in the grass and couldn’t remember how he got there.

“
Who
?” the Master of Powders demanded, but Hayden was too tired to answer. He closed his eyes for a moment to shield himself from the sunlight, thinking that he’d answer the Master’s question in just a minute, when he had more energy.

21

The Last Trial

When Hayden opened his eyes
he found himself lying on a stretcher in the triage tent with Master Willow checking his pulse. He blinked hard several times to make sure he wasn’t dreaming and said, “Is my homework late, sir?”

The Master of Wands turned to look at him and said, “No, Hayden, your homework is not late. You’ve just come out of the Forest of Illusions; do you remember?”

“Oh,” he answered gravely, struggling to sit up on his stretcher. Looking around, he saw that the tent was full of Masters from the five eastern schools. The Prism Master of Isenfall was tending to Davis and their wand-user, three Masters from Valhalla were there, all five from Branx, one from Creston, and Asher, Willow, and Kilgore from Mizzenwald.

“What are you all doing here?” Hayden asked in surprise. He’d never seen this many Masters of the major arcana in one place before.

“Asher vanished in the middle of a staff meeting and didn’t return. It’s not the first time he’s run away from the threat of expense reports, but he eventually sent a summons for aid. Elias and I came here to assist with the healing. The others are helping with crowd control and contacting the Council of Mages, as well as the injured student’s families.”

“
Oh,” Hayden frowned, knowing that he had no family to contact. Shaking the thought, he said, “Is everyone going to be alright?”

“Some of them may need Focus-correction in the future due to the effects of the Resonance Crystal, but I believe they’ll all recover, with the exception of the Wand of Creston, who I understand perished in the Forest?”

Hayden nodded wordlessly, relieved when Master Asher knelt down beside him and said, “Good, you’re awake. You were out for quite some time.”

“Is the crystal gone for good?” Hayden asked him.

“Oh yes, I managed to dispose of it…” he held up his palms, which were covered in black dust and bandaged. “I maybe should have stood back a few more feet, but who lives may learn, I suppose.”

Master Willow narrowed his eyebrows at his colleague and said, “Do I even want to know how yo
u were aware of the problem before anyone else, and how you knew exactly where to find Hayden in the Forest of Illusions?”

The Prism Master put on his most dashing smile and said, “Probably not.”

Willow rubbed his forehead and said, “I believe you’re right about that. What have you been telling the others?”

“That Hayden’s magically-abnormal and we’ll never know why he was able to resist the Resonance Crystal,” Asher replied smoothly. “As to how I found him, I told the others that I snuck down to the Forest to see how the competition panned out, rooting for Hayden and all of that. When it became obvious something was wrong, I was on the spot and managed to find my young protégé and his friends. The others were so grateful for the assistance that they haven’t even filed a complaint yet with the Council for my interference in their trial, though I suspect they’ll get to it eventually.”

Master Willow’s gaze flickered between Hayden’s defensive charm and Asher’s Mastery Charm as though a light had suddenly turned on in his head. For a long moment no one spoke, until finally he said, “Thank goodness that you happened to be well-positioned when things went wrong.”

“Can I go back to Mizzenwald?” Hayden interrupted, looking around. “I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to.”

Both men gave him sympathetic looks that he didn’t think he deserved and agreed to his request. Master Willow helped him to his feet, and Hayden wobbled a little and stumbled into the Master of Wands before steadying his balance. Something large bumped against his leg, and Hayden narrowed his eyes and tried to remember whether he’d put anything in the pocket halfway down his left leg.

I never use those pockets for anything…

Confused, he unfastened the button on the outside of his pants pocket and reached in, wrapping his hand around the solid object and lifting it up. It was a full-sized prism that looked like it had been wrought from gold, with the year etched into the surface of it on the flat end.

“
Wha—how did I get the prism trophy?” Hayden asked the Masters, eyes widening in shock.

“You don’t remember finding it during the trial?” Master Willow raised an eyebrow at him skeptically.

“No, I never found it. I saw the wand trophy but that’s it. I don’t know how it would have gotten into my pocket without me knowing…”

“Perhaps you were so overwhelmed and harried at the time that you did it instinctively, without realizing
what you were doing.”

“No, that’s not it. I never use those lower pockets on my pants; Zane and Conner explained once that only j
erks like Lorn use them to store extra powders and stuff to make themselves look cool.” He felt like he was doing a bad job explaining himself, but he couldn’t think of anything smarter to say.

Master Asher frowned thoughtfully and said, “The Forest is a strange place, Hayden. It can show you things that aren’t there and conceal things that are. For whatever reason, it clearly wanted you to have that trophy, and so you do.”

Master Willow still didn’t look entirely convinced by Hayden’s assurances that he didn’t take the trophy for himself, but he ceased arguing over it and gripped Hayden’s arm firmly, translocating them back to Mizzenwald.

The first gust of warm breeze hit him like home, and Hayden thought he could spend the rest of his life surrounded by the cherry and pear-blossoms and be content. Master Willow led him towards the school, past gawking classmates and whispering groups of older students. Hayden didn’t care about any of them right now. Bonk flew out of the castle like a miniature projectile and crashed into him hard enough to knock him back a step.

“I’m okay, Bonk. Asher and Cinder came to get me.” He patted his familiar wearily on the head and transferred him over to his shoulder.

“Go clean yourself up and get to bed,” Master Willow suggested kindly. “It’s going to take time and rest for you to feel like yourself again, and you’ll soon have to recount your experience in the Forest for a whole host of people.”

Hayden wasn’t looking forward to that at all, though he appreciated the advanced warning. He thanked Master Willow for bringing him home and trudged into the school, ignoring everyone who stared at him. The exceptions were running towards him down the main staircase.

“Hayden!” Tess was moving so quickly that for a moment Hayden was afraid she would launch herself into him the way Bonk had and knock him to the ground, but she stopped short.

“What in the seventeen tiers of the afterlife happened to you?” Zane was right behind her, eyes wide as he took in the sight of Hayden there, scraped and bruised and covered in multicolored blood.

“I think I won,” Hayden answered dumbly, holding up the trophy prism and wondering when his brain would start producing intelligent thoughts again.

Zane gave him a
quizzical look and said, “Uh…Congratulations?”

“We know
something bad happened, Hayden; everyone knows,” Tess interrupted, face paper-white with worry. “The Masters took off so suddenly, and they looked worried. There’s no reason all five of them would have left the school unless something horrible happened.”

Hayden walked past them and said, “Help me upstairs, will you? I need to lie down for a while.”

Tess and Zane each took one of his arms and half-carried him up the stairs, pausing only when Hayden overbalanced into one of them and nearly knocked them over. After the third time he did this to Tess, he frowned and said, “Sorry about your dress…I don’t know if those bloodstains will come out with soap.”

“Oh hang my dress, Hayden,” Tess looked at him like he was stupid for even worrying about it. “It doesn’t matter if it’s ruined or not.”

“I’ll buy you a new one, I promise…” Hayden said muzzily, feeling lightheaded as they finally made it to the fifth-story landing and turned down the third-year hallway.

“Fine, if it’ll make you happy, but it doesn’t matter to me,” Tess insisted, brushing a stray lock of blond hair away from her face and shifting his weight.

“How come you didn’t offer to buy me a new dress too?” Zane chuckled in between panting for breath, and for a wonderful moment Hayden was tempted to smile.

“I thought it was a given,” he answered, feeling slightly less dizzy. “I was going to buy
a blue one, to bring out your eyes.”

Zane snorted and said, “Good.
I want lace and all the trimmings too. Don’t you dare skimp on me.”

“Nothing but the best for you, dear,” Hayden mumbled, and even Tess cracked a smile.

A group of third-years were clustered around the common area trying to get a good look at Hayden as he went by, but Lorn Trout shoved his way through the crowd, knocking people to the ground as he said, “Where’s my brother?”

He looked pale and scared and somehow much younger and less obnoxious than usual. Hayden act
ually felt sorry for him.

“He was alive when I left him,” Hayden answered truthfully. “Willow said they all should come through it…sorry I don’t know more,” he ignored the gasps of everyone else upon hearing how bad things were. Lorn was the color of porridge.

“Like hell you don’t know anything more! I want answers, Frost!” Lorn balled his hands into fists.

“And I want to wash up and lie down before I pass out,” Hayden replied, feeling woozy again. “It looks like neither of us
are going to get what we want today.”

Lorn pushed Tess out of the way and grabbed Hayden’s other arm, dragging him towards the washrooms at the end of the hall.

“You’re going to take the fastest shower you’ve ever imagined,” he threatened hotly, “and then you’re going to sit down and tell me what happened to my brother, and if you even think about passing out before I’m done with you, I’m going to sock you in the gut.”

“Fine,” Hayden snapped, “but if you ever shove Tess like that again I’m going to have Bonk poison you for real.”

“Fine.” Lorn rolled his eyes and shoved Hayden into the washroom, slamming the door behind him.

It wasn’t the fastest shower Hayden had ever taken, and he spent most of it sitting on the floor so
that if he fainted he wouldn’t have as far to fall, but eventually he did get clean and stumbled back to his bedroom in his pajamas.

Lorn was waiting for him, along with Tess and Zane, who hadn’t changed clothes and still had dirt and blood on them because of him. Hayden sat down at his desk and closed his eyes, doing his best to summarize the championship trial without including any unnecessary detail. When he was finished, Lorn stood up and trudged out of the r
oom without saying a word, and Hayden couldn’t help but pity him.

“Get some sleep,” Tess told him softly. “It won’t be quite so bad in the morning.”

“Yes it will, Tess.” Hayden climbed into bed and pulled up the covers. “Yes, it will.”

It was late the next evening when they finally called for him. Master Asher knocked on his door and said he’d be escorting him to the dining hall to share his account of what happened.

“Why the dining hall?”
Hayden asked curiously, pulling on his shoes even though he was still wearing pajamas.

“There are quite a few people here, and the easiest place to accommodate them all is the dining hall,” Asher made a face at the thought of it.

“Oh, then maybe I should get dressed…” Hayden reconsidered.

“
Don’t bother. The more pitiable you look, the less anyone will try to bully you.”

Bonk remained on his shoulder as they descended the stairs, moving past the onlookers and gawkers as they turned through the pentagonal foyer and made their way towards the dining hall.

“There are things I want to ask you, things I haven’t really talked to anyone about yet…” Hayden said quietly.

“Then we’ll talk after this, I promise.”

“Should I tell them…should I tell them everything?”

Master Asher paused and gave the matter some serious thought before saying, “Tell them what you think they should know.”

And with that he opened the doors and ushered Hayden inside.

The dining hall wasn’t full, but there were more people than Hayden expected to see. The ten Masters from Mizzenwald were all present, as well as the ten members of the Council of Mages. A Master from each of the other four schools
was there, along with Oliver, Davis, and a trio of people Hayden had never seen before in his life. There was a woman who looked a lot like Farrah, her husband, and a girl of about nine years old.

Farrah’s family.
They’re here to find out what happened to their daughter.

Hayden’s stomach clenched painfully as he met their eyes. The little girl had been crying, and her eyes were red and puffy. Everyone seemed to focus on Hayden as he entered the room in his pajamas, and Master Reede looked like he was suppressing the urge to smile at his ensemble.