by V. St. Clair
“No idea,” he answered truthfully, walking beside her down the path towards the school and ignoring the strange looks he was getting from the other mastery-level students at the circle. He didn’t even look back to see if Michael was following, because honestly, he didn’t care. “Maybe I broke the arena with my spell.”
Maralynn smiled and said, “I wouldn’t be at all surprised. You’re always the one getting us out of trouble; I don’t know how you can stay so calm even when we’re being eaten alive. I should have looked for the pattern to the spikes sooner and not wasted all of my powders trying to break through them,” she scowled at her own oversight.
He inwardly glowed at her praise, pushing his empty eyepiece to the top of his head so that he could see her properly. She had the prettiest green eyes…
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” he allowed. “You’re the only one besides me who even noticed there was a pattern.”
“Yes, but you didn’t spend up all your weapons before you figured it out, and you went back to carry Tricia out with you.”
Asher smiled and said, “Yes, but if you hadn’t been trying to protect that useless lump, Michael, you would have cleared the plains before you ran out of weapons.”
“Hey,” a timid voice piped up from behind them, sounding hurt. “I can hear you, you know.”
“Good, then hurry up,” Asher glanced back at him, annoyed with the interruption. “I want to finish with the Masters while there’s still daylight out.”
The four of them entered classroom three as instructed, to find that the five Masters of the major arcana were already assembled and waiting for them. There was Sark, who taught Powders, scowling at Asher for attacking him during the arena; Kilgore, Master of Elixirs, who looked more like a blacksmith than a teacher; Willow, Master of Wands, the oldest and most even-tempered of the lot, commonly deferred to as their leader; Reede, the Master of Conjury, who had the driest sense of humor Asher had ever seen; finally, Antwar, the Prism Master, and Asher’s own mentor.
Master Antwar was looking at him and shaking his head faintly. Asher knew the man well enough by now to fill in the unspoken thought: Why must you deliberately antagonize us?
Predictably, it was Master Willow who opened the discussion by saying, “Well, that was certainly…interesting,” glancing at Asher.
“What, you mean because Michael didn’t die for once?” he asked in his most innocent voice, and Maralynn smacked him gently in the arm to rein him back in.
Kilgore suppressed a chuckle of amusement but Sark scowled and said, “Has anyone mentioned that you aren’t supposed to attack us during your challenge arenas?”
“Oh, was that owl you, sir?” Asher continued with his feigned innocence. “If only I’d known…”
“Drop the act, Masters,” the Master of Powders snapped. “You knew it was me and you attacked me deliberately.”
Unwilling to admit anything, Asher said, “I was simply trying to protect my teammates until we could clear that part of the arena. I was hoping to shatter most of the glass in the immediate area since Mara and Michael were unarmed and I was already carrying Trish on my back.”
“Well, destroying the entire arena is certainly one way to get out of it,” Reede put in drily.
See? He gets it!
“I’m afraid we have to dock a point from your entire group for not actually completing the challenge arena as assigned,” Willow explained mildly. Maralynn and Tricia let their disappointment show on their face, and Asher felt a pang of guilt for letting them down.
“That being said, we’ve decided that your collective team score is a six out of ten available points,” he continued.
Ouch, Asher suppressed a grimace. Barely more than half-credit…
Not that he cared one way or another, but the girls were so touchy about their grades…
Sure enough, Maralynn looked like she was barely holding back tears, and Tricia actually stomped her foot once in frustration and asked to be excused.
“Yes, all of you are free to go,” Master Willow informed them kindly, and Asher’s teammates all made for the door as quickly as possible. “Not you, Asher,” the Master of Wands called out lightly. “I’d like a word with you.”
Frowning at the missed opportunity to console Mara on their way back to the second floor dormitories, Asher stepped away from the door and allowed the others to pass him. Tricia paused briefly at the threshold and looked like she was about to say something to him, but then her face flushed and she just shook her head and continued walking.
The other Masters also filed past him. Sark made an ugly face—though to be fair, most of his expressions were ugly—and muttered, “Why Frost wastes his time on a clown like you I will never understand.”
Aleric Frost, Asher’s best friend, was certainly much more dedicated to impressing the Masters than he was.
That’s probably why I’ve been calling him a suck-up for the last six years…
Kilgore merely shook his head at him in passing and said, “One of these days, Masters…”
One of these days…you’ll finish a sentence? he guessed mentally.
Reede said, “Nice Shatter. Sark nearly wet himself,” and Antwar said nothing at all.
Finally, it was just Asher and Master Willow.
“You wanted to see me, sir?” he asked politely. For some reason it was hard to be obnoxious to the Master of Wands, who had a calm, respectable air about him that was impossible to ignore.
“Do you realize that you cost your team three points in the arena tonight?” he asked mildly.
Surprised, Asher raised his eyebrows and said, “Really? You would have given us a nine if I hadn’t shattered the plains?” That seemed a little unfair. “Honestly, I wasn’t trying to break the entire thing, or even to hurt Sark; I just panicked because my teammates were injured and I lost my focus, so my casting radius must have gone wide.”
“That isn’t what you lost three points for,” Willow corrected gently, scrutinizing him with sharp eyes. Asher tried not to squirm under that gaze, because he had the eerie feeling that the man could see right through him sometimes. “Most of us realized that the effect of your Shatter was unintentional as soon as you cast it, and we don’t hold it against you, Sark being the obvious exception.”
“Then what did I do wrong?” he asked, brushing his loose, shaggy curls out of his eyes with one hand. “I fought off hordes of monsters with my teammates, climbed a tree to scout out our path, floated Michael out of that hole in the ground, carried Trish on my back through that ridiculously stupid field of glass, and was the only one armed at the end of it. I would argue that I did the best out of anyone in my group, and you’re saying you would have given Michael Warren a nine if I hadn’t been there? What did he do besides fall in a hole and whine like a first-year?”
Master Willow sighed and said, “You’re right; you did all of those things, and your group would suffer notably without you in it. The fact still remains that you don’t take the arena challenges seriously, or anything else, as far as I can tell.”
While Asher was normally quite proud of the fact that he didn’t take the arenas seriously, when Willow called him out on it in that tone of voice he felt the need to defend himself.
“That’s not entirely true,” he countered. “I don’t give a fig about the arenas because they’re meaningless, but I do make an effort in my classes.”
“The arenas are not meaningless, Asher.”
“Oh come on, you and I both know that they are. When am I ever going to encounter a field full of shards of glass that randomly fling themselves at me in real life? Even if I did, I would presumably just translocate from one side to the other without wading through the stupid thing on foot. You all just build up these fake scenarios for us to test our resourcefulness and adaptability and all that.”
Master Willow sighed and said, “The arenas aren’t intended to be literal translations of real life scenarios; as you said, they are meant to test your abi
lity to respond to the unexpected, but that doesn’t make them unimportant.”
“Are you five going to travel around with me after school is over, ranking me against my peers every time I battle a monster?”
The Master of Wands sighed as though Asher was a lost cause, which was annoying because Asher knew that he was making a valid point and the man was refusing to acknowledge it.
“So what you’re saying is, you took off three points from my team just because I didn’t try hard enough in the arena tonight for your liking?” he asked flatly, seriously annoyed with the Masters, because it meant that it was his fault that Mara and the others got a six out of ten.
“That is correct,” Willow confirmed with a nod. “We both know you could have prevented Michael from falling in the hole, or done any number of other small things to benefit your entire team. You could, you just chose not to; you always choose not to.”
“Oh come on,” Asher argued. “Watching Michael die in weird ways is one of the few enjoyments I actually get from the arenas, and you want to take that from me?”
Willow inhaled deeply through his nose as though praying for strength and said, “If I didn’t know that—despite all outward appearances—you actually do place value on the lives of others, I would be in complete despair for your future.”
Nettled, Asher said, “The arenas are a joke. It’s not like I would stand by and watch Michael get eaten in real life, or anyone else for that matter. I’m not a horrible human being, sir.”
“I know,” Willow said with no trace of amusement. “That is the one reason I continue to have hope for you.”
“Can I go now, sir, or would you like to stand around and insult my character some more?”
“You may go,” Willow waved a hand airily at the door, looking older and somehow defeated by Asher’s stubbornness, which only served to annoy him even more.
How dare he give me a guilt trip just because I don’t buy into their little game like all the other good girls and boys?
He looked for the others in the second floor common area, but his teammates must have all returned to their respective rooms, because none of them were in there condoling over their poor score. Sighing at the lost opportunity to console Maralynn, he turned out of the common area and went back to his dorm room, deciding to call it a night.
2
The Great House of Frost
Aleric Frost was up at dawn, leafing idly through one of the many books that were heaped on the table in front of him. Despite the fact that it was a family day, he had been determined to get in a few hours of research before any of his relatives came to visit.
If they even show up.
It was a chancy prospect at best. His family—namely his father—never sent advanced notice of his intentions, so some months Aleric found himself besieged (and that was how he thought of it) by most of his blood relatives, while other times there was a complete—and blessed—lack of visitors.
Blinking away sleep, he attempted to focus his eyes on the page in front of him, but it was a lost cause; he just couldn’t keep his attention on research when he was facing the prospect of a family visit.
Well, at least I’m prepared for it.
He’d double-checked the arena team rankings in the Pentagon that morning, and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that not only was his team ranked the highest in the entire year, but that he personally held the highest individual score—nearly a perfect ten. At least his family wouldn’t be ashamed by him if they did grace him with their presence.
Abandoning his early morning pursuits, Aleric got to his feet and began tucking books away back on the shelves where he found them, taking care to leave his workspace in the same condition as when he arrived. Glancing out the nearest window, he could see the sun cresting over the horizon, which meant that it was probably time for breakfast.
He left the library and followed the hallway to the east, descending the eastern stairwell into the pentagonal foyer that connected all the major parts of the school. At first the asymmetry of having a five-sided foyer bothered him, but after six years he had grown accustomed to it. Each of the five major arcana was displayed on the walls, along with the current rankings for challenge arena teams. Aleric exhaled in relief upon seeing his name on top.
It’s not as though it would have changed since last night, he mentally chided himself.
“There you are,” a familiar voice broke his train of thought, and Aleric turned to see his best friend, Asher, descending the last few steps of the main stairwell that led to the student dormitories. “I was wondering if you had run away from school during the night and hadn’t even bothered to leave me a goodbye note.”
Aleric rolled his eyes, turning away from the arena postings. His friend was dressed casually, in slacks that needed to be ironed and a loose T-shirt, his dark hair shaggy and unkempt around his circlet, as though he deliberately kept it as tousled as possible. In contrast, Aleric was wearing a pair of expensive, hand-tailored dark pants that were freshly starched, and a fitted shirt that probably cost more than his friend’s entire wardrobe. His blond hair was recently trimmed and washed so he looked properly put together.
“Just admiring your middling spot on the lists,” Aleric pointed to the rankings behind him, where he had seen Asher’s group drop down three spots after their poor performance just last night. “Even factoring in Michael Warren’s complete lack of utility as a mage, I would have thought you could at least scrape an eight.”
Asher shrugged and said, “I’ll try not to lose any sleep over it. Someday, when I’ve become one of the greatest magical innovators of our time and I’ve won my umpteenth medal for it, I’ll be sure to ask the Masters how much their arbitrary ranking system mattered in the grand scheme of things.”
“I don’t know how you can stand seeing your name so low on the lists,” Aleric told him truthfully. “Especially knowing that you are better than almost every person in Mizzenwald; it would be absolutely galling to me, were I in your position.”
“Almost?” Asher asked sweetly, a hint of challenge in his eyes. “Who do you imagine is better than me?”
“Ahem,” Aleric coughed, gesturing to himself. “I believe I won our last duel.” A niggling voice at the back of his mind whispered, Assuming Asher didn’t let me win…he said he overshot the Stun alignment, but he almost never misses by that wide of a margin…
He shook the uncomfortable thought from his mind as his friend said, “That’s true. I yield to your superiority in combat,” adding a bow for effect. “So, any news on whether the Frost clan will be showing up today to belittle us all?” he changed the subject abruptly.
“Not yet,” Aleric admitted, unconsciously smoothing down his hair with one hand, though there was no need. “What are your plans? Spending the day with your father?”
Asher snorted in amusement and said, “Right, because I don’t see enough of him every day, being the keeper of magical familiars for Mizzenwald and general groundskeeper.”
Unlike Aleric, who came from a Great House, Asher had no proper magical lineage to claim association to. He was born and raised in Sudir, on the opposite end of the southern continent, by a father who was a middling mage at best and a mother who went insane and tried to kill him when he was nine. He and his father, Torin, fled Sudir after that, coming to Mizzenwald so that Asher could receive his magical education as far away from home as physically possible without leaving the continent.
Sometimes I wonder how we even became friends. We couldn’t be more different…
The answer to that was actually fairly simple. Of the five major arcana, natural prism-users were the rarest to come by, because it took a special sort of mind to translate patterns of light into usable magic. Aleric and Asher were currently the only two natural prism-users in the entirety of Mizzenwald, so they were bound to either be best friends or bitter enemies. Add that to the fact that they were both good looking, popular, and extremely talented, and perhaps it wasn’t so surpri
sing that they got along, despite the disparity in their upbringings.
“Well, if there are any sins you need to atone for and you’re looking for a way to do penance, you’re welcome to join my family,” Aleric said with a grin. “Assuming they show up, of course. Maybe we’ll both get lucky and they’ll decide they have better things to do than condescend to visit me at school.”
Asher grinned and said, “In that case we’d better go get breakfast before all the good food is gone. I can’t face your family on an empty stomach—especially if they bring the entire Frost clan like that one time last year. I worried that your lofty estate would get raided by your enemies with all of you gone at once.”
Too true, Aleric agreed mentally, turning to follow his friend through the pentagonal foyer and down the corridor that led to the dining hall. They passed a few groups of people either too old or too young to be at Mizzenwald, signaling that some families had already begun to arrive. If the Frosts could bear to leave the comfort of their estate, it wouldn’t be until at least lunch time; Aleric’s father often said the only thing that would get him out of the house any earlier was a business deal or a funeral.
Breakfast was in full swing by the time they entered the dining hall. Owing to the extra occupants, their usual seats had been taken by some third-year’s extended family. Aleric stopped in his tracks and glanced around for alternate seating, his eye catching Maralynn’s from the table on the far left of the room. She smiled and waved them over enthusiastically, and Aleric nudged Asher and gestured in her direction.
“Perfect,” his friend said with sincerity, and Aleric suppressed an eye-roll with difficulty. His friend was one of the most laidback, carefree people he had ever met, but on one subject he was stone-serious: Maralynn Branton.
Asher had been mooning over her since their fourth year at Mizzenwald—possibly sooner, though he hadn’t said anything to Aleric before then. Personally, Aleric didn’t see the appeal. She was decent looking, with her brown hair and green eyes, but there was nothing especially striking about her, and Asher was popular enough that he was the constant target of affection for many prettier, more well-connected girls at school. While his friend did occasionally go on dates whenever a girl got up the nerve to ask him out, in the entirety of their acquaintance, Aleric had never seen his friend get serious about anyone but Maralynn.
