Frost Prisms (The Broken Prism Book 5) (37 page)

His father took advantage of a momentary pause in Asher’s attacks to turn to Hayden and cast some sort of squeezing spell. Hayden only knew it was a squeezing spell because in his father’s haste, his aim was off, and the upside-down armchair beside him cinched in at the middle like an hourglass and then ripped itself apart completely.

“Hayden, GO!” Asher shouted, sweat pouring down his face as he dodged attacks and switched prisms a third time. Half of the prisms in his secondary circlet had been consumed completely; he was going to have to reload soon, which would make him vulnerable to attack.

Deciding that his presence here really wasn’t helping anything, Hayden made for the door. He was only halfway across the room when he felt something slam into his back and cause him to pitch forward so hard that the air was knocked out of his lungs when he hit the ground. Coughing and gasping for breath, Hayden spit out a mouthful of blood, only then realizing that he’d cut his lip with his teeth in the fall. He also realized he couldn’t feel his legs.

A paralyzing spell!
he thought furiously. He had read about this just days ago, and if he had a clear prism on him he could actually dispel it. As it was, he was forced to pull himself forward with his arms, scraping his lower half over bits of wood, glass, and the remains of hundreds of books that were in his way.

It was as he was belly-crawling towards the door that he realized Bonk and Cinder were perched side-by-side at the exit to the second floor hallway, turned towards each other and engaged in some sort of conversation that consisted of low squeaks and clicking sounds that Hayden didn’t understand.

Well, at least Bonk is alright…

Of course, it would be nice if his familiar would stir himself to bring Hayden another prism, but at least Cinder was keeping out of the fight as well so far. Hayden hoped whatever they were talking about was really important, because they were ignoring the battle completely, thoroughly engrossed in their discussion.

Bonk’s probably asking where the nearest squirrel can be found now that the light curtain is down.

“AH!” the sound of Asher crying out in pain caused Hayden to turn his head in terror. Fearing the worst, it was actually a relief to see that the Prism Master had sustained a burn to one arm that caused the skin to bubble and turn black and not something worse, though normally a necrotic burn was about as bad as things could get.

Another spell from the Black Prism sent Asher toppling backward end-over-end, slamming his head against the wall and becoming still.

Without thinking, Hayden used all the might in his arms to fling himself towards his mentor, determined to get to him before his father could kill him, even if he was only delaying the inevitable by a few seconds. His fingers bled from clawing himself forward across the wooden floor so hard, but he flung himself close enough to grab the last prism from the circlet around Asher’s head as his father approached them both.

“Asher is dead,” his father greeted him coldly, “and you haven’t a hope of defeating me in the condition you’re in.”

“Probably not,” Hayden panted, out of breath as he held onto the prism in his hand as though it was the only thing that mattered in this world, willing himself to believe that his father was wrong about the Prism Master being dead. “But I’d rather die fighting than spend another minute in your company, and I intend to take your Source and mine with me when I go.”

A moment of hesitation while sanity flashed across his father’s features, remembering why he had been trying to keep Hayden alive all this time. Knowing this was the best opening he would ever get, Hayden cast Stop at his father’s heart once again.

And once again, his father reacted in time to shield himself from the spell.

“Damn it, Hayden,” Asher muttered weakly, still lying crumpled on the floor. “I told you to get out.”

Hayden was so relieved to hear his mentor’s voice right now that he said, “Yeah, well I told you not to bother rescuing me, so I guess we’re both terrible at following directions.”

This moment of camaraderie between them seemed to infuriate the Dark Prism more than anything else that had happened so far. The insanity burned back into life behind his eyes as rage transformed his features so that he looked like an avenging demon from a scary story.

With an inarticulate sound of raw hatred, his father turned the Black Prism once more in his eyepiece, and time seemed to slow down all around Hayden as his vision suddenly sharpened. In that moment their eyes met, and without knowing how he knew, Hayden understood exactly what his father was about to do.

He isn’t going to kill me right now. He’s going to blind me.

And not just a simple Blinding spell, which was a difficult compound of violet-violet and was only temporary. His father was going to use a corrupted version through the Black Prism, which would rip away his sight for the rest of his life, burning through the foci in his eyes as well as his magical conduits, robbing him of the ability to do any magic or even to perceive light for the rest of his short, miserable life. Somehow he had brought his father from a place of wild rage straight to bitter, spiteful hatred.

Hayden didn’t even remember looking through the prism in his hand, or what alignment he was seeking, but abruptly he found himself casting in time to intercept the Blinding spell, which stopped in front of him and sheared off into brilliant arrays of light with black streaks coiled throughout. For the second time in his life, Hayden seemed to have found the spell that made magic scatter and part around him.

He felt it tug on his Source, but he was stronger and more skillful than in his second year, and it didn’t fatigue him as rapidly this time around. The prism began to fractionally shrink in his hand as the spell continued to burn through him, making him momentarily impervious to magical harm.

Hayden dispelled the paralysis from his legs and cast a simple healing spell on himself, giving him the energy to get to his feet and face his father on equal terms. The Dark Prism cast black lightning at him, and Hayden made no effort to block it, letting the light bounce off of him and veer off at an angle, shattering the glass from one of the remaining intact windows in the room.

For the first time, his father looked worried.

“What have you done?” he asked in alarm, taking a step backwards.

“I told you, Father,” Hayden said calmly, “I’m a Frost. You should never have underestimated me.” He aimed at his father and cast Pierce, followed by Stun, Fire, and a spell that was intended to deplete the oxygen from his lungs and make him lose consciousness.

Now it was his father’s turn to be on defense, because Hayden had the upper hand. He might still be a slower caster than the Dark Prism, but for the time being, he was immune to magical attacks, so he didn’t have to worry about defending himself until the prism ran out, at which point he would be weaponless and soon-to-be murdered anyway.

His father blocked the first three spells, but the fourth caught him off-guard and he fell to his knees and gasped for breath in the moment before he was able to dispel the effects. Hayden cast a Blinding spell at him next, giving him a dose of his own medicine, but it was also blocked.

The prism in Hayden’s hand was shrinking more rapidly now, a side-effect of maintaining his invulnerability as well as channeling powerful magic. He probably only had enough time for four or five more spells before it vanished completely.

“That prism won’t last forever,” his father pointed out coolly. “Then you will be utterly at my mercy.”

And I’ve never met a more merciless man in my entire life…

A spell shot past Hayden, but not from the direction he was expecting, and it took him a moment to realize that Asher must have brought spare prisms along with him and had just reequipped his combat circlet while Hayden distracted his father.

The Dark Prism slapped the spell away in annoyance, still on his knees on the floor, and said, “I’ve told you both before: you can’t outsmart me. I always know when magic is being used against me,” in his haughtiest voice.

Then he pitched forward so that he had to catch himself with his hands to avoid falling flat on his face, as though he had been pushed hard from behind.

“Shame the same can’t be said for arrows,” Tess said coldly, standing behind him with her empty bow still raised in position to fire.

Hayden hadn’t even seen her come into the room, and had no idea how she managed to get in the back of the library without coming through the main doors, unless she had somehow translocated directly into the room with them. It was then that Hayden saw the arrow sticking straight through his father’s back, the head poking out through the front of his shirt. A scripture note was wrapped around the shaft of the arrow, which could be the only explanation for how Tess had managed enough power behind her shot to go straight through a man that muscularly built.

Aleric Frost gasped and touched the tip of the arrow that protruded through his shirt, before reaching up with one hand to adjust the Black Prism.

Of course,
Hayden thought ruefully.
Asher said that broken prisms had even better healing spells than normal ones, way back in my first year at Mizzenwald.

He raised his own prism back to dueling height and looked for anything that would prevent his father from healing himself, when a small shadow passed overhead and distracted him.

Cinder coasted gracefully to his master, alighting only long enough to snatch the Black Prism from its eyepiece and then dropping it in front of Hayden, who was probably meant to catch it, but was so stunned by the turn of events that he let it fall to the floor in front of him.

His father stared at his familiar with wide eyes as Cinder landed beside him, regarding him silently. The Dark Prism looked shocked, hurt, and like he suddenly realized he had made a horrible mistake.

“Cinder…” he choked out, as blood continued to pump out through the hole in his chest and back.

Then he looked at Hayden, who had no idea what emotion he saw pass behind his father’s eyes before the infamous Dark Prism fell to the floor, dead.

22

The Last Frost

For almost a full minute the room was utterly still. No one moved, no one spoke, and for all Hayden could tell, no one even breathed. It was as though they were all waiting for confirmation that the Dark Prism was really gone, half-expecting him to spring back to his feet and murder them all. Hayden still couldn’t wrap his mind around what had just happened.

Finally Tess said, “That was for my mother,” to the corpse of Hayden’s father, dropping her bow and stepping around the body to face Hayden. Upon closer inspection, she was covered in scrapes and bruises, clearly having been in the battle against the monsters outside. Now that Hayden listened for it, he couldn’t hear the sounds of fighting on the grounds anymore, though he had no idea if the fighting had been over for a long time, or just since his father’s magic ceased working on the magical creatures he’d subdued.

“Tess,” Hayden said dumbly, not knowing how he intended to follow that one word. “You should have stayed where it was safe,” he blurted out without thinking.

She pursed her lips at him and said, “I’ve lost enough people I care about to that man,” she gestured to the body on the floor with distaste. “I refuse to lose any more.” Turning her scowl on Hayden she added, “You should have written me instead of Asher.”

“I wasn’t planning on making it out of here alive,” he said defensively. “I, uh, didn’t think you’d be okay with that.”

Tess approached him and said, “I figured it was something stupid and noble like that.”

And then they were kissing, and Hayden’s arms were wrapped around her so tightly he worried that he might crush her against him. As far as he was concerned, they were the only two people in the world right now and he could go on like this forever.

Then Asher said, “Forgive me if I don’t greet you with quite the same level of enthusiasm,” ruining the moment.

Hayden released Tess and turned to his mentor.

“Oh, are you alright? I forgot you were here.”

“Thanks,” Asher grumbled, getting to his feet and checking himself for obvious signs of damage, casting a few healing spells on himself for good measure.

“Sorry, that isn’t what I—”

“I know what you meant,” Asher waved down his apology before he could give it. “How did you even get in here?” he asked Tess with academic interest.

“I managed to find a clear spot through the fighting and climbed the outer wall,” she replied as though this was the most obvious thing in the world. “I came in through that broken window,” she pointed to it for good measure.

“You scaled a two-story mansion from the outside while carrying a bow and arrow, and didn’t fall to your death?” Asher looked genuinely impressed with her.

“My father has been teaching me survival skills for my entire life,” she remarked casually.

Asher turned to Hayden and said, “This one’s definitely a keeper.”

“Yeah, I thought so too,” he agreed immediately.

“And here I thought Aleric would be defeated by the might of another prism-user,” Asher continued, now glancing around at the damage in the room. “I never would have thought of shooting him with a bow and arrow.”

Tess shrugged and said, “No one ever thinks of the non-magical solution, but you heard what he said: he could detect magic being used against him, but not ordinary weapons.”

Hayden frowned and pointed out that she had used a scripture on her arrow to give it more piercing power.

“Yes, but that magic was being applied to the arrow, not to your father directly.”

My girlfriend is much smarter than me,
Hayden realized in that moment. He had long suspected it to be true, but now he had actual confirmation.

“Do you realize, Tess, that you just defeated the infamous Dark Prism?” Asher observed mildly. “You’ll be a hero for the ages.”

To Hayden’s surprise, Tess blanched at this and said, “No—I don’t want that.” She hurried to the body of Hayden’s father and pulled the arrow roughly out of it, breaking it into pieces with her bare hands and tossing the fragments into the debris that was already scattered around the library.

“What? Why not?” Hayden asked, stunned by her reaction.

“When have I ever wanted to be famous?” she pursed her lips, wiping her bloodstained hands on the back of her pants. “I don’t like being the center of attention and I don’t want all the fanfare of being people’s mascot; that’s
your
job.”

Hayden had to admit that it wasn’t always very fun having strangers recognize him on sight, and dealing with all of their preconceived notions about him. And Tess
had
always been rather shy…

“Just say that you two did it,” she pleaded. “You all did most of the fighting anyway. If you weren’t distracting him when I showed up my arrow never would have worked against him,” she explained rapidly, as they heard footsteps ascending the stairs from the ground floor.

“Are you sure you want to give away the credit for this great victory?” Asher asked, a sympathetic look on his face. Hayden noticed that his mentor avoided looking at his old friend’s body as much as possible.

“Yes, please,” Tess insisted. “Besides, this way there won’t be any doubt in people’s minds that you two aren’t evil like him. No one can say anything against you now.”

The others began bursting into the room at that point, ending their conversation. Kilgore and Willow were there, along with Oliver and Magdalene Trout. Hayden was surprised to see Master Kiresa alongside them, looking a little worse-for-wear from the fight outside, though Hayden had never felt more warmly towards the man in his life.

Kilgore stopped at the threshold, took in the scene inside the library and said, “He’s dead,” in mild surprise, returning an elixir and a wand to his belt.

“Yes,” Asher agreed, “we got him.”

There were some cheers at that and exclamations of relief, as most of the group turned back the way they came to help with the remaining monsters on the grounds. Apparently there were people outside that were still fighting monsters, but these five had broken through to help take down the Dark Prism.

Only Master Willow and Magdalene Trout stayed behind, now entering the library and taking in the scene more fully.

“What happened?” the latter asked thoughtfully, stepping carefully around the body of Hayden’s father and looking around at the signs of magical damage to the room.

“Hayden and I took turns fighting him until we scored a lucky hit,” Asher explained without looking at Tess, who exhaled in relief against Hayden at this summary of events. “He might have been able to heal himself, but Cinder came in at the last minute and took the Black Prism away from him. I don’t think it was until then that Aleric realized he was in the wrong all this time.”

Master Willow raised his eyebrows and said, “
Cinder?
His own familiar took away his prism and condemned him to death?” he didn’t look like he believed this for a minute.

“I know it sounds impossible,” Hayden interjected. “But it’s true; we all saw it. I don’t know how he managed to betray his master like that, but—”

“He didn’t betray his master,” Asher put in quietly, meeting the dragonling’s gaze. “He chose to ally himself with Aleric Frost all those years ago, not the Dark Prism. His master died years ago, for all intents and purposes,” he explained, still maintaining eye contact with the familiar. “I suppose he finally decided that no trace of his old master could be salvaged, and intervened to protect the memory of the boy he served from any further desecration from the monster he had become.”

They were all silent after that, and Hayden finally thought he understood what Bonk and Cinder had been discussing while he was fighting for his life. He also thought back to the night he had asked Bonk to find a way to contact Slasher, and how he had dreamed he’d seen Cinder in the room with him then. He hadn’t been dreaming after all; it wasn’t Bonk who had found a way to contact Slasher and summon him. It was Cinder.

“I know you didn’t do it just for me,” Hayden said to the dark purple dragonling, who was so unlike his own familiar and yet somehow just as much a part of his family. “But thank you.”

Cinder inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement of this and then took flight, soaring through a broken window and disappearing over the grounds.

“Where’s he going?” Tess asked in alarm. “Do you think he’s going to leave for good?”

Asher followed the dragonling’s progression with a tired smile and said, “Oh, I expect he’ll reappear at Mizzenwald sometime. He always comes home eventually.”

Hayden hoped he was right about that, because he didn’t like the thought of Cinder going to live somewhere all alone for the rest of his years, probably in the Forest of Illusions, which was still the creepiest place he had ever been.

“Is that the Black Prism?” Master Willow asked softly, pointing to the floor at Hayden’s feet.

Hayden looked down and saw it lying there in front of him. He had completely forgotten about it in the wake of his father’s death, and he also realized that the prism fragment he had been holding in his hand had vanished at some point as well, and that the light-scattering spell he had cast upon himself had dissipated.

“Yeah, it is.” He leaned down and picked it up, ignoring the soft gasps from the others as he held it out in front of him. “Trust me, I have no desire to use this thing. My father made me look through it one day to prove a point, and just glancing at the corrupted alignments made me vomit spectacularly.”

“May I?” Asher held out his hand, and Hayden passed the Black Prism to him gently, noticing the wary looks pass over Magdalene Trout and Master Willow’s faces.

Asher held it up in front of him gingerly, as though it was fragile, closing his right eye and looking through it with his left. Almost immediately, he pulled back from it and clamped his mouth shut. Hayden recognized the look of a man who was trying desperately not to hurl.

“Mother of magic,” Asher groaned. “This thing is horrible. It’s astounding that Aleric was able to use it without his brain liquefying.”

“That’s what I thought when I looked through it, too,” Hayden observed.

“We’ll have to destroy it, but it’s going to take some planning,” Asher continued. “I suspect that this thing is going to unleash an unholy amount of magic once we break it apart, and the last thing we need is to blow a crater in the middle of the continent and inadvertently kill more innocent people.”

Hayden hadn’t even considered that, but it made sense.

“I want to help destroy it,” he put in. “After all the time I spent with my father, seeing what he was inside the schism and in this realm…it feels like something I have to do.”

Asher nodded as though this made perfect sense.

“Come,” Master Willow interrupted at this point. “We should make sure the others are alright. Further discussion about the future will have to wait.”

The others nodded, and though Hayden was so tired and sore that nothing seemed less appealing than going outside to look for more monsters to battle, he went along with the group as they walked down the stairs.

“Oh, that reminds me,” Hayden remembered as he glanced in the general direction of the kitchen. “Have you found the nine other captives my father had here? I promised them I’d do everything I could to set them free, and it seems that—thanks to you all—I may actually be able to keep my promise on this one.”

“I didn’t see anyone else,” Asher said, “but then again I was in quite a hurry to get upstairs to help you, so I could have walked right past them for all I know.”

“We certainly didn’t attack any people out on the grounds,” Magdalene added helpfully. “As long as they kept away from the monsters, they should be fine.”

Hayden exhaled in relief, following the others out onto the grounds. He noticed that Asher had tucked the Black Prism into one of his pockets and out of sight.

“Hayden, you’re alive!” Zane called out from across the lawn, limping towards him around the ruin of statuary.

I’ll have to get those rebuilt,
Hayden thought automatically, beginning to mentally add up how many house repairs he was going to have to do before he could live here again…assuming he could bring himself to drown out all the bad memories.

The library is going to have to be completely destroyed and turned into something totally different.

“Zane!” he dredged up a short burst of energy to hurry forward and meet his friend.

“They said you did it, that the Dark Prism is gone for good this time!”

“Yeah, he is,” Hayden confirmed, glossing over who exactly cast the final blow. “How did you all even get in through the light curtain? I didn’t think it was possible to bring that thing down, even knowing what it was.”

Zane pointed across the lawn to where Mistress Razelle and Councilman Sark were leaned over Master Laurren, working powerful healing magic.

“It was brilliant—and insane,” he explained enigmatically. “Asher and Laurren had this idea at the same time, which meant it was either going to be awesome or tragic.”