Frost Prisms (The Broken Prism Book 5) (23 page)

Hayden had no idea why he was lying on the floor in the library, but he lurched upright and leaned over a nearby potted plant, vomiting horribly. He could still feel the ghost of the light-sickness he’d just remembered, and his Foci tingled unpleasantly in an echo of the pain he’d endured back then. When he’d emptied every corner of his stomach into the poor potted plant, he blinked tears out of his eyes and stared down at his trembling hands to make sure that his Focus-correctors were still in place. The sight of the intact three-inch correctors was the most welcome sight in the world right now.

His entire body shaking horribly, Hayden stared up at his father—who was standing idly nearby, watching him suffer without emotion—and said, “You…you were trying to
take my Source?”
he now knew enough about magic to understand what that meant. The Source was the spark that was essential to life, that all living things possessed even if they lacked the Foci to channel magic with it. “You would have killed me.”

Aleric Frost looked absolutely impassive when he said, “Obviously.”

“You lied to a ten year old who knew nothing about magic,” Hayden blurted out indignantly. “You told me you’d leave us alone once you had what you wanted.”

“And so I would have,” his father answered easily.

“You neglected to mention that you were trying to rip the very life from my body.”

“That would not have made you any more cooperative.”

Hayden still felt shaky and unsettled. He wasn’t sure whether he felt better or worse for finally knowing what his father wanted from him all those years ago. He had deluded himself into thinking that maybe he had been seeking an ally, and even though Hayden would never have agreed to it, at least it would have made him feel somewhat valued by his own father…

“Why in the world were you trying to remove my Source?” Hayden suppressed a shudder at how close his father had come to succeeding. He knew what the heavy, liquid sensation being pulled through his Foci was now. It had gotten all the way to his hands before he’d somehow pulled it back inside of him.

The Dark Prism looked like he wasn’t at all impressed with Hayden’s inability to extrapolate, though Hayden was still reeling from what he had just learned and wasn’t thinking very clearly at the moment.

“I intended to add it to my own to compound my power.”

The simplicity of it made it no less breathtaking. Hayden stared up at his father for a long moment as he digested this.

“You found a way to remove my Source and add it to your own?” A normal prism would never have been capable of such a feat; why did broken prisms seem to have stupidly powerful alignments? Or was it just the Black Prism?

“I believed so at the time, though it obviously needs fine-tuning since you were able to break the spell by willpower alone,” his father admitted.

“But why me? Of all people in the world you were planning to kill, why did you track me down specifically?”

“We are related by blood, which makes us similar in some ways. I believed—still believe—that it will be easier to merge with a Source that is more compatible with mine than a stranger’s.”

All this time, his only interest in me as a son was the fact that he could loot me for parts to make his own magic more powerful.

“There really isn’t a scrap of human decency inside of you anymore, is there?” Hayden asked quietly. “I can’t believe anyone ever thought you had been healed during your time in the schism and were one of the good guys now. Laris even wanted to approach you for a partnership…”

Aleric raised his eyebrows and asked, “Who?” with faint interest.

“Laris—he’s on the Council of Mages, assuming you didn’t kill him.” He frowned at the thought, little though he liked Laris. “We kept getting reports that you were traveling the Nine Lands, healing people’s warped Foci so they could do magic again, and he thought you’d gone humanitarian. He wanted to approach you openly and ask you to share some of your magical knowledge with the Council for the good of mage-kind, even though Asher insisted that whatever game you were playing, it wasn’t for the good of mage-kind.”

His father looked vaguely amused as he said, “They should have listened to my old friend. He may be a traitor, but he was never stupid.”

Normally Hayden would argue that Asher wasn’t the one who turned traitor, but he had other things on his mind right now and let it pass without comment.

“All of those people you helped—” he gasped and slapped a hand to his forehead as understanding washed over him. “You were healing their Foci to make sure it was possible. You were experimenting on them because of me…”

Making no attempt to deny this, Aleric tilted his head fractionally and said, “When I learned that you required heavy correction due to the damages you incurred during our first meeting, I knew that your Foci would need to be straightened before I tried again. I needed to be sure I had the right sequence of alignments before I attempted such a spell on you—I have never before had occasion to attempt to repair damaged conduits, and one misstep could have killed you at the outset. Better to practice on less valuable targets.”

“You’re still determined to pull my Source out, even after your disastrous last attempt?” Hayden had to admit, the man had nerve. He had been nearly blown up, thrown into a schism and forced to spend the last five years living inside the other realm without remembering anything about who he really was, and yet he was ready to give it another go as soon as he came back.

For a moment he worried that his father would strike him for questioning him like this, but the feeling passed when it became obvious that his father had his mind engaged elsewhere up until now. He finally turned his entire focus to Hayden—not necessarily a good thing—and seemed to size him up.

“While I do intend to extract your Source and merge it with my own, my more immediate concern is with regaining what you have taken from me.”

Confused, and suddenly feeling like he was in terrible danger, Hayden cautiously asked, “What did
I
take from
you?
”

“Have you always been this unintelligent?” his father asked softly, though still in that dangerous tone of voice. “When the link was opened between us, you managed to siphon off a sizeable portion of my own Source before I was able to break contact with you.” As the full implications of this hit Hayden for the first time, he added, “Did you honestly think you came by your power naturally? No one should be able to channel magic through such heavy Focus-correction under normal circumstances.”

Holy arcana…
Hayden thought numbly.
His spell backfired on him that day. I ended up with part of his Source added onto my own—that’s why I have such a ridiculous amount of Source power, because I’ve got more than my share to work with.

It all made perfect sense, and he wondered dimly how it had never occurred to anyone before now to think of it. Then again, he didn’t even know it was theoretically possible to remove someone’s Source and transfer it to another living host, or that it would merge successfully even then. He doubted that even Asher would have dreamt of such a thing, so maybe it wasn’t so surprising that it hadn’t occurred to them before now.

“Oh,” was all he said in response to this amazing piece of information, because really, what else was there to say?

Now I know why my father wants me alive…he wants his power back.

He had no idea just how much of the man’s Source he had siphoned off for himself, but it could only be a good thing that his father no longer had it to work with. That should make his spells weaker, or make him tire faster, shouldn’t it? Maybe it was possible to beat him this time around after all…

“Is that what you’ve been working on since you got back to this realm?” he asked hesitantly.

“Yes.”

Trying not to wince, Hayden added, “Are you, um, close to having your spell perfected?”

Without blinking, Aleric said, “I believe so, though I must be certain this time. It will take me a little longer before I am prepared to try again.”

Right, so I have a little time to figure out how to destroy him, but not much…

“Um, may I be excused to shower?” He needed some time alone to process this enormous amount of information before his brain exploded, or worse, before he said anything to get him murdered preemptively.

His father waved him away like an irksome fly and turned back to his work without another word to him, as though Hayden had abruptly ceased to exist. Moving as quietly as possible to keep from drawing the man’s unwanted attention, he fled the library and put as much distance between them as he could.

13

The Black Prism

Hayden spent such a long time in the shower that under normal circumstances someone probably would have checked up on him to make sure he hadn’t drowned. As it was, his father didn’t seem to care where he was or what he was doing—or how much hot water he used.

When he finally emerged from the bathroom, skin bright red from the heat, he chose one of the numerous spare bedrooms to claim as his own, trying to decide who might have owned it before him, back when the Frost family was in its heyday. If there were any clues within the room itself, they had long been purged, because there were no pictures on the walls or personal effects of any sort to be found. Mostly he chose the room because it was as far away as it was possible to get from his father’s room on the second floor, and also because of the commanding view it had of the grounds, courtesy of the large bay windows. It almost gave the illusion of being free.

He dug through the closet until he found clothing to borrow. Judging by the size and fit, and the fact that the clothes didn’t have that dated look that spoke to fashions of an earlier era, he concluded that these must have been his father’s old things from his school days. He assumed the man wouldn’t mind him borrowing them, since he didn’t exactly give Hayden time to pack before abducting him.

Technically I own this house…so does it still count as abduction if I’ve been brought back to a place I legally own?

It seemed like a weak argument, but he didn’t know what else to call it. Sure, under normal circumstances he might be living in this exact same room right now, but he would be free to come and go at will, not being held hostage by a man who was intent on draining the life from him and casting his discarded body aside. He tried to block out the mental image that invoked.

He was startled out of his brooding by a light knock on the door. He turned around with a knot of dread forming in his stomach, expecting his father, but was pleasantly surprised to find Hattie waiting for him.

Of course, my father would never run his own errands.

“It’s time for dinner, sir,” she informed him, still with that permanently on-edge look in her eyes.

“You can call me Hayden,” he explained, hoping to put her at ease. Unfortunately, this only made her tense as though preparing to be slapped. “What?” he asked, wondering what he was missing.

“Sorry, sir, it’s just that, if
he
heard me call you by name he might get angry…” Hattie trailed off, looking distinctly uncomfortable.

Oh right, my father’s such a Great House snob that he makes Oliver Trout look humble.

Hayden sighed. “Alright then, lead the way.”

He followed her down to the formal dining room, the one that was large enough to host large dinner parties of at least forty people, though there were currently only place settings for two. Hayden was unhappy to note that he had been placed at his father’s left, which put him in close proximity to the man while eating.

Of course, because seating is done by rank, and the heir would sit on the left-hand side of the Head of House.

His father was already seated, and Hayden moved to take his place at the table, his eyes drawn to the patch of carpet that was slightly newer than the rest, where Asher had once told him he’d vomited and Aleric had taken the blame.

If Hayden had ever sat through a more awkward meal, he couldn’t remember when. His father didn’t speak a word to him during the entire four-course event, simply moving through each of the dishes with perfect etiquette and occasionally watching Hayden to see how he measured up. Hayden had never been so glad for all of the lessons from the Trouts.

For most of the meal, his father ignored him entirely. In fact, he appeared lost in thought, as though he wasn’t even registering the meal in front of him, his gaze growing abstracted. Hayden did nothing to break his concentration, but he did study the man whenever he thought he could get away with it without drawing attention to himself. He wondered what his father was thinking about, or whether his thoughts even flowed in a coherent manner anymore or just appeared as disjointed fragments that he had to sift through. He could barely remember how it had felt inside the schism when he was suffering under the effects of distortion—odd how he could forget such a horrible thing so soon—but he remembered the feeling of losing control and being helpless to stop it.

Hayden ate as fast as he could in the hopes of ending the meal sooner, but in the end it didn’t matter, since he couldn’t be dismissed until his father finished eating as well. So it was nearly an hour later that Hayden was finally able to ask to be excused, squinting against the light of the setting sun that streamed in through a partially-open curtain.

His father seemed to snap out of his reverie and turned to look at him.

“May I be excused, Father?” Hayden asked politely.

Before he could even draw breath, his father’s hand had shot out and clenched around his throat, jerking him out of the chair so that his knees crashed against the floor. Hayden coughed and tried to draw in more breath, but the hand at his throat was squeezing too tightly, and he could feel the blood pounding in his head as pressure built up rapidly.

He met his father’s eyes, panicked by the unprovoked attack. There was something dangerous there—the insanity that people had spoken so often of but that Hayden had never really seen behind the veneer of self-control until now. Hayden clawed at the back of the hand that was holding his throat, trying to break his father’s grip before he lost consciousness or died. Lights were swimming in front of his eyes and the edge of his vision was growing dark when he was abruptly released, shoved away so hard that his head struck the edge of his chair in passing before hitting the floor.

Dimly, he saw the source of his rescue: Cinder’s little clawed feet were standing nearby on the floor, and it was the dragonling that Aleric Frost was now focused on.

Cinder must have warned him off of killing me. I guess it’s not in his master’s best interest to have done with me until he gets his Source back.

“Never call me that,” his father’s voice floated down to him from somewhere above, because Hayden was now staring at a patch of carpet as he struggled to catch his breath and massage his sore throat.

Hayden tried to ask
what the man was talking about, but all that came out was another violent round of coughing and a few gasps. He tried to think back over what he had said that could have set the man off so abruptly.

All I said was, “May I be excused, Father?”

As breath returned to him, Hayden pushed his chair out of the way and sat up on the floor.

He doesn’t want me to call him ‘Father’…
he realized, his brain finally speeding back up now that the imminent fear of death was passing.
He doesn’t want to be reminded of the association between us, or maybe he just doesn’t think of himself as my father? Maybe the word ‘father’ means something unpleasant to him…triggers unpleasant memories, maybe?

From what Hayden had been told about his grandfather’s parenting style, that seemed altogether possible.

When he thought he could speak again, Hayden asked, “What should I call you?” hoping that this didn’t also set the man off in some way. He was so unpredictable it was hard to know what would trigger him into violence.

His father was staring down at him without apparent emotion, the mask of self-control pulled firmly back over his features once more. It was like nothing had happened at all, as if Hayden had simply flung himself to the ground during dinner and started to asphyxiate.

“If you must address me, ‘sir’ will suffice.”

How very formal and impersonal…

“Then may I be excused from dinner,
sir?
” Hayden tried again, making an effort not to sound sarcastic because it would likely just earn him more punishment in the form of pain.

“Come with me,” the Dark Prism instructed, ignoring his question entirely. He stood up and walked back towards the main foyer without offering any further explanation; he didn’t even look back to see whether Hayden was actually following or not, simply expecting to be obeyed.

Feeling beleaguered, Hayden followed the Dark Prism back upstairs to the second floor, keeping several paces behind him so that he wasn’t within arm’s reach. Thoughts whirled around his head so fast that he felt dizzy as they approached the library-turned-workshop.

I have to find a way to kill him while he’s still weak. I can’t let him take his Source power back from me, or no one will be able to stop him.

That only gave him a finite window of time to work within, and unfortunately Hayden had no idea how close his father was to repairing his Foci and making another attempt on his life. That brought up another interesting thought.

Why hasn’t he already straightened my Foci? He seems fairly confident that he’s perfected that spell, so why wait…?

Did that mean that his father was afraid of him on some level, despite the total lack of emotion he displayed, or was he just being cautious?

Either way, he knows I’d be exponentially stronger if my Foci weren’t warped so badly. If I managed to get my hands on a weapon he wouldn’t stand a chance…

It was a shame that his father was still sane enough and crafty enough to recognize him as a threat, or this would be a lot easier. All he would have to do is get his hands on one of the prisms on that worktable…

I
still
need to get my hands on one of those prisms, if I’m to have any chance at all. I can’t do anything against the Black Prism without being armed myself.

Surely his father wasn’t ready to rip out his Source tonight—he had said as much just this morning—though maybe he had already forgotten that conversation. For the umpteenth time, Hayden wished he knew how his father’s mind worked; it would make it much easier to predict his movements.

But why else would he want me to come to the library with him? Surely he doesn’t want my opinion on his work…

He would find out soon enough. They were back in the library, and Aleric was standing in front of his worktable once more, though his eyes were now trained on Hayden.

Cognizant of being watched, Hayden walked slowly past his father and around the other side of the table, stopping in front of a large window and drawing back the curtains so he could watch the sunset.

“You wanted to see me?” he asked after a lengthy moment of silence, turning to face his father and deliberately not touching his sore—and probably bruised—throat. The end of the worktable that was covered in neat rows of mastery-level prisms was between them, no more than a few feet from where Hayden stood, and it took everything inside of him not to lunge at them and attack.

“You’re thinking of fighting me in my own house?” his father asked with a note of condescending amusement, like an adult who humors a small child when they want to play some make-believe game.

“Technically,
my
house,” Hayden corrected mildly, wondering how the man knew what he was thinking. “And yes, the thought has occurred to me.” There didn’t really seem to be a point in denying it. The man was evil, not stupid.

“You really believe that you can win against me in open combat?” there was nothing mocking in his tone now, just genuine curiosity.

Hayden frowned and said, “You asked me a very similar question during our first meeting, in my mother’s kitchen. I don’t suppose you remember?”

The Dark Prism looked momentarily thoughtful, his gaze growing abstracted as he retreated into his mind.

Now, while he’s distracted, I should go for the table of prisms…

But before Hayden could do more than tense his muscles in preparation to move, his father’s attention was focused on the present once more.

“You threatened me with a knife, acting out of ignorance of the disparities between our abilities.”

Hayden was a little surprised that there were some things he could call up at will. He wondered if it only applied to certain pieces of information that he counted as important and could always access, or if his memories just floated around in some empty void, and it was only chance and coincidence when one moved into a place where he could access it. This didn’t seem like the time to ask about the inner workings of his mind.

“I’m not a naïve little boy anymore,” he explained calmly instead. “I now have a very clear understanding of what you’re capable of, and of what
I
am capable of.”

“And you still think you can overpower me, just because part of my Source currently resides inside you?” the hint of derision was back in his voice.

“With a decent prism in my circlet, yes,” he asserted boldly. It was easy to make such statements when he knew there was no way he’d ever be permitted to test them out.

“Speaking of circlets, where is yours?” his father changed subjects abruptly. “I noticed when I removed you from the Crystal Tower that you lacked your circlet and your belt of weaponry.”

Going with the change of subject, Hayden scowled and said, “I was caught off guard while I was sleeping, the night they brought me in. I didn’t have my circlet or my weapons belt on me, and I haven’t seen either since I went to the Tower.”