by V. St. Clair
In his musings, he had missed four more nominations, and a nudge from Reggie brought him back into focus abruptly.
“Your mother is glaring daggers at you,” his friend murmured to him.
Aleric’s mother looked as calm and composed as ever, though he could sense her displeasure with him for letting his mind wander. He was amazed that Reggie could read the emotion in her non-expression as well.
I’ll hear about this the next time I come home…
He sighed, knowing it to be true. His mother had told him numerous times to never begin planning how to act on new information as soon as he heard it. That was a rookie mistake, which revealed one’s intentions and caused one to miss potential other critical information while the mind wandered. There was no chance of her forgetting to lecture him either; her memory was impeccable. If she didn’t see him for another month, she would lecture him a month from now…
He was getting ahead of himself, both in considering what to do about Sark’s vacant post and his mother’s reaction to him dwelling on it. Heck, Kirias hadn’t even won the position on the Council yet, and here Aleric was already trying to figure out whether or not he should take the man’s job…
But really, of the five candidates that were announced that day, Kirias Sark was the obvious best choice. He was an excellent mage, ambitious, talented, high-ranking and with several ground-breaking discoveries to his name…he also already had a Mastery Charm, and wouldn’t need the typical year of training that came along with being taught to wield it to its full potential without accidentally killing himself.
The meeting officially ended soon after, though most of the occupants hung around to talk to their fellows and congratulate the nominees for both posts. Aleric would rather return to Mizzenwald than stay cooped up in here a minute longer than necessary, but knew he had to stay and play his part, maintaining relations with his peers and attempt to glean useful information for his mother and father to use against those same peers…
“I’ll talk to you later, Reggie,” Aleric stood up and bid his friend farewell.
“Off to hobnob with the other elite, like a good little scion?” his friend asked in amusement.
“For the glory of the Frosts,” he smirked. “Wish me luck.”
Reginald waved him off with a salute and Aleric turned to Andell Prym, who was hovering awkwardly nearby, looking for someone to talk to.
“Hello, Andy…” he greeted her with a smile. “May I congratulate you on your nomination to the Council?”
Andell simpered and shook his hand with clammy fingers that trembled, betraying her nerves.
“Thank you, Aleric, though I’m not sure if I have a chance of actually winning…”
“Nonsense,” he countered smoothly. “You just have to speak to your accomplishments and keep a cool head during the interview panels in the months to come, and I’m sure you’ll come out all right.”
“You really think so?” she relaxed slightly. “Your mother said almost the same thing when I told her I was considering putting in for it…such a nice lady. She was actually the one who convinced me I should go for it after all.”
Aleric wasn’t entirely sure what his mother was up to, but knew that there was a reason she wanted Andell to run. Knowing better than to interfere with anything his mother was planning, Aleric said, “You should join us for dinner sometime at the estate. We could discuss tactics while you’re there…”
“Oh, yes!” she blurted out excitedly, before regaining her composure. “That is, I would like that very much, thank you.”
They made arrangements for a week from tonight and Aleric shook hands with her again before turning to the next person, daring a brief glance at his mother in between interactions.
Adorina Frost inclined her head fractionally in approval.
13
The Unexpected Date
Asher hadn’t been expecting Aleric back from his Important People Only meeting until after noon, so he was surprised when his friend returned to their shared room before lunch. Asher, who had been finishing an essay for Elixirs, set down his pen as soon as he heard the door open.
“That was quick,” he said by way of greeting. “I thought you would be gone until after lunch, at least. Doesn’t it take the Council of Mages at least two hours to finish naming all the reasons why they’re better than the rest of us commoners?”
Aleric pursed his lips and said, “Normally, yes, but this was a mercifully quick session, as there were only a few nominees for each post. Truthfully, I would have been home an hour ago, if not for doing my duty to the family by manipulating our peers and competition.”
Asher smirked.
“Ah, the webs we weave…”
His friend changed subjects somewhat abruptly.
“Actually, I’m glad I found you in here. I wanted to ask if you had any epiphanies overnight about my insane new research project.”
He sounded almost nervous, much like he had upon first approaching Asher with his idea. Even though he was half expecting this conversation, Asher was still completely bowled over by the concept of the great and haughty Aleric Frost deigning to ask for help.
“I wouldn’t call it an epiphany, though I have a couple ideas on where I might start, if I were you,” he admitted. Honestly, he still thought the entire project was an exercise in futility—more ambitious than anything he would attempt for a decade—but since it was the first time Aleric was really making strides to be less secretive, he wasn’t eager to crush his friend’s hopes.
“Oh?” Aleric brightened at this modest statement, which made it plain that he knew exactly how difficult this was going to be.
Asher turned around in his chair so that he was sitting backwards on it, arms resting against the backrest.
“Well, my first thought is that the difficulty is going to be similar to my own problem with casting underwater…”
“Except for a hundred times worse, yes,” Aleric nodded in concession, understanding the problem immediately.
“Yes, well…you know as well as I do that diffusion is going to be the killer on this. Even the most basic memory-related spells with prisms require the widest bands available. Of course, the wider the band—”
“The more diffuse the light channeling through it, yes.” Aleric sighed, frowning. “Ideally, what I need to find is a series of wide bands that behave like narrow ones.”
“Short of using a broken prism, I don’t see how you’re going to manage that,” Asher said with an eye roll.
Aleric got an odd look on his face, as though startled, and raised an eyebrow at this.
“Are you suggesting I turn to imperfect prisms for my research?”
Asher’s eyes widened.
“Lords, no!” he grimaced at the very thought. Every prism-user learned early in their studies about the consequences of using imperfect—commonly referred to as ‘broken’—prisms. Prisms had to be cut by certified jewelers before they could be used by a mage. An imperfect prism showed a distorted reality; while this skew allowed for a wider array of spells that weren’t available in normal prisms, using a distorted prism had a terrible effect on the mind of the caster, or so their texts claimed. Asher had never known anyone who actually tried using an imperfect prism before, as it was highly illegal, but he didn’t doubt the veracity of their textbooks or instructors at all on this point.
“Of course I wasn’t suggesting that you break the law, lose your mind, and get arrested all for the sake of a spell,” Asher continued. “I was just thinking out loud. You’re right though, you do need to find a series of wide-band alignments that you can somehow force to behave like narrow ones.”
“Any suggestions?” Aleric prodded drily.
Asher frowned. “You might try something with inverted trifectas…something highly-specialized, perhaps in blue and orange tints?”
Aleric paused to consider this, an arrested look on his face.
“I don’t know how you think of these things…” he mused
with grudging admiration. “I was thinking something with inversions, but an orange and blue combination never would have occurred to me.”
Embarrassed by the compliment, Asher shrugged.
“Don’t praise me yet. For all I know it’s a complete waste of time, but it’s where I’d start. If that falls through, I guess I’d look for something with dual green bands abutting a quad of violet, yellow, and white…”
“Oh great, and when I’ve found that, I’ll be ready to accept every medal and award the Council of Mages has ever created,” Aleric rattled off sarcastically. “Are you kidding me? Where am I supposed to find that combination of bands, let alone white? You do know how rare white bands are, don’t you?”
Asher threw his hands up in defeat.
“I didn’t say it was going to be easy, I said that’s what I would be looking for if I were you. If you’re serious about this, and I assume you are, you’re going to have to find some way to corner a rare alignment. You need something with perfect transference to pull off what you’re trying to do, which means either white or black.”
“Yes, yes, you’re right…” Aleric sighed, looking defeated. “I know it’s going to be nearly impossible to find the right combination of alignments—in the right size, no less…I’m just frustrated because it seems I’ve set myself up to fail, and Antwar is only going to support me until the end of the year unless I can show real progress.”
Asher gave a commiserating wince and said, “That’s not a lot of time for what you’re trying to do.”
Aleric looked almost mocking as he said, “What, you aren’t going to line up like everyone else and tell me that I’ll undoubtedly work it out somehow because I’m Aleric Frost and I’m supposed to just be able to do anything I set my mind to?”
Wow, he is in a dark mood today, Asher realized. He didn’t usually sound so cynical about his situation in life.
“We both know how annoying it is to have our troubles marginalized like that,” he pointed out. “So no, I don’t intend to pat you on the head with platitudes until you go away.” He sighed.
“Thanks for that,” Aleric said wearily. “So…white or black, then?” he turned the discussion back to prisms with obvious effort.
“I’m increasingly convinced that you’re going to need a modifier with perfect transference to get around the problem of band diffusivity,” Asher replied. “White yields perfect reflection, while black implies perfect absorption…theoretically either could work as a modifier.”
Aleric frowned thoughtfully and asked, “Have you ever seen black in a prism before? I know our upper-level texts mention that it’s theoretically possible to find a black band, and occasionally there are rumors of someone managing it, but on a practical level, do you think it’s really possible?”
Asher made a wavering motion with one hand and said, “Honestly? No, I don’t think black is feasible on a practical level. To achieve black, the internals of a prism would almost have to cast a shadow over themselves, and as we both know, mage-quality prisms are both transparent and flawless. It would take a notable inclusion to even give the possibility of shadow, which would add skew and distortion anyway, rendering it unusable.”
His friend nodded in obvious agreement.
“That’s what’s always bothered me about the texts that claim it can be done; it goes against every basic law of prisms to achieve full absorption on something transparent.” He sighed. “So if not black, then white.”
“Then white,” Asher agreed. “Not impossible, but rare.”
“I’d need a very strong, pure light source to even attempt finding it. Natural light would be best, but it isn’t concentrated enough to yield reliable, repeatable results. Maybe a stabilized lumen, though they are rather expensive.”
Good, he’s moved past the impossibility of it all and started focusing on a path forward, Asher smiled to himself. He knew that once he got his friend past the initial aggravation and helplessness, he would be able to start focusing on the work itself.
“You’re rich,” he observed blandly. “Don’t tell me your family can’t afford a lumen.”
Aleric waved a dismissive hand at this to concede the point.
“With a pure enough lumen, and your suggestion of compounding orange and blue tints, there might be something worth finding…”
Asher nodded, pleased with himself for being able to offer his friend some worthwhile advice. Aleric so rarely asked for help, it would be a horrible letdown if he wasn’t able to come through for him on the few occasions that he actually did.
“Well, I hate to cut and run, but I wanted to talk to Master Willow about something before afternoon classes start.” Asher stood up, pleased when Aleric simply nodded and bid him farewell in a distracted tone, mind still engaged on the task at hand.
That’ll certainly keep him occupied for a while.
He grabbed his bag and left Aleric to his thoughts, passing the mastery-level common area and turning down the main stairwell, taking the stairs two at a time to bring his energy up. At the bottom of the stairs he grabbed the banister with one hand and used his momentum to swing around towards the eastern stairwell across the Pentagon, nearly slamming right into Master Laurren, who was passing by.
“Oops, sorry, sir,” he blurted out reflexively, before realizing who he was talking to and bracing himself internally for some cryptic, bizarre comment.
“No harm done,” Laurren answered evenly, stepping to the side and moving past him without so much as a backward glance.
It seemed that the man was taking his promise seriously, and intended to leave him alone until he sought out the Master’s company.
Ha, well you can just keep on waiting…
Still, he was mildly annoyed at being so thoroughly overlooked, which only made him angry with himself because he didn’t even like Master Laurren. Whatever he thought of the man though, Asher admitted a weakness for the enigmatic, and ‘mystery’ could be that man’s middle name.
He was still ruminating on this as he crossed the Pentagon, so he nearly missed the heated argument between Tricia and a Conjury major whose name escaped him at the moment. In fact, he only noticed them at the last minute because Tricia’s voice pitched higher in frustration, which was a sound he was well acquainted with from their challenge arenas.
“—leave me alone, Gregg! I was trying to be nice when you asked, but you’re being a royal pain!” she shouted.
Gregg flushed angrily and said, “I only asked you out to begin with because my friends dared me to! As if anyone in their right mind would want to be seen with you!”
Asher stopped walking and turned to watch the exchange. He wasn’t the only one to do so; the noise was drawing a small crowd around the perimeter of the foyer, and more than a few pointed whispers.
“Fine, then leave me alone! You and your friends disgust me anyway,” Tricia said with as much venom as she could muster, though the comment obviously stung.
Gregg grabbed her arm as she tried to walk away, and she turned and said, “Let go of me right now,” with deadly calm.
Well, I can’t let this stand…
Gregg’s response was to pull her roughly by the arm so that she was forced to take a step closer to him to maintain her balance, and Asher rapidly flipped his eyepiece into place and looked for the first useful alignment. His Push spell sent Gregg flying backwards so fast that he almost dislocated Tricia’s arm before he could let go of her to try and block his fall with both hands.
He slammed against the stone wall just beneath the depiction of a conjury circle, which seemed ironic given his major, struggling to right himself and figure out what had happened. Tricia looked similarly confused until Asher approached and said, “You know, George, a lady shouldn’t have to ask you to unhand her more than once…or really, at all.”
Tricia blushed in embarrassment while Gregg scrambled back onto his feet and said, “It’s Gregg, and stay out of this, Masters.”
“Whatever,” Asher shrugge
d, deliberately getting his name wrong to annoy him. “It sounds like Trish has no desire to be seen in public with you—and really, who can blame her?” he said with mock sincerity. “Best to just run along and try to salvage some dignity, if you can manage such an enormous feat.”
A few snickers were audible from the surrounding crowd, which was fine by him. He didn’t mind an audience when he had the upper hand in a dispute.
Gregg drew his chalk and looked like he was considering whether or not to sketch a summoning circle on the nearby wall and start a fight.
“Please, do,” Asher answered the unasked question aloud. “I brought down a hundred monsters single-handedly in my last challenge arena; I’d love to see what I can do when focused solely on you.”
Gregg’s hand twitched over his chalk, his face purpling with rage even as he was forced to accept that he would lose a fight against Asher. Really, almost any of their peers would.
Instead, he turned his nastiness upon Tricia one last time, clearly perceiving that she was the less threatening target for his vitriol.
“Enjoy being alone,” he spat out hatefully to her. “You think anyone else is going to ask you out this year? You think Masters wants anything to do with you?”
Tricia blushed furiously, and Asher flattened his lips in true irritation.
“As it happens, we had plans this very evening,” he said immediately, not even looking at Tricia to see how she reacted to this. “I’m sure we’ll have a lovely time talking about the loser who couldn’t take her refusal gracefully today.”
Gregg looked absolutely stunned by this, and Asher heard a few more murmurs from the spectators. He ignored it and addressed Tricia directly.
“You coming to lunch? I’m starving.”
She looked confused, almost dazed, but she nodded and followed him wordlessly, trying to look unaffected by the entire thing. Other than moving a little more rigidly than usual, she did a fair job of it. It wasn’t until they were walking towards the dining hall that Asher noticed Maralynn was amongst the spectators, and she called out to him as they passed by.
