by V. St. Clair
Too true, Hayden mentally agreed, before adding, “She was overconfident, and it led to her downfall.”
“You’ve met her?” his father waited for him to nod before continuing. “Does she still live?”
“No, she died in the Forest while trying to bring in reinforcements,” Hayden replied. “By then we’d broken everyone out of their cages and people were fighting back, and she needed the help.”
“How did she die?”
“I killed her,” Hayden said flatly, before considering that it might be a bad idea to give his father a reason to fear him. If the Dark Prism took him seriously as a threat, his movements would be a lot more restricted, and he’d be more closely watched. “Not on purpose,” Hayden added hastily. “My Focus-correctors had shattered by then and my magic is very unstable without them. I was trying to set fire to her ships, but I accidentally blew them up instead, and her along with.”
His father listened patiently, and some of the interest faded from behind his eyes as he downgraded Hayden’s importance once more.
“What were you doing in the Forest of Illusions? Don’t tell me that the Masters and Council members have become so weak and ineffectual that they were drafting third-year mages?”
“No,” Hayden grimaced. “But Asher had gone down with the last wave, and we didn’t hear from anyone for months. Bonk started getting sick almost as soon as he left with Cinder, and after a while Torin and I figured out that Bonk was suffering because Cinder was being drained, so a few of us went to find them.”
Something about what he said genuinely surprised his father, because the man looked properly stunned for the first time in their acquaintance.
“Cinder went with Asher?”
“Well, yeah. Horace—Asher’s falcon—went too, but ever since you disappeared, Asher kind of adopted Cinder as well. He and I were the only ones Cinder much cared for.”
Hayden hadn’t even seen his father’s familiar enter the room, but suddenly the dragonling was perched on the top edge of a bookshelf, his shadow in the sunlight looming over them. The Dark Prism looked up at him and they exchanged a long look that could have meant anything. Eventually Cinder made a noise and tilted his head, which apparently meant something to his master because Aleric said, “I see,” and turned back to Hayden.
Maybe being driven mad by magic means he can understand magical creatures or something. An interesting thought.
“So, F—sir,” Hayden caught himself immediately, though he saw a flicker of that dangerous anger behind the Dark Prism’s eyes at the hint of being called ‘Father’, “would it be alright if I did some reading? I’ll keep quiet and not bother you…”
“Come here,” his father ignored him entirely, finally leaving his place at the window and approaching his work table. Wary of a trap, Hayden followed, thankful for Bonk’s presence on his shoulder, even though he knew the dragon couldn’t do a lot to help him without magic.
When they were standing beside each other—uncomfortably close, as Hayden didn’t like to put himself in arm’s reach of his father—the Dark Prism gestured to his research notes and said, “What do you make of this?”
Is he asking my opinion of his research, or is he stuck and wondering if I have any ideas?
Hayden would never cease to be surprised by the man standing next to him. Either way, he thought it was galling to be asked to contribute to something that was intended to kill him.
This is a test of some sort, he reminded himself. With his father, it was always a test, though he had no idea what he was being evaluated for this time. He was slightly ashamed of the part of himself that wanted to pass and be worthy of the man’s regard.
Silently, Hayden looked down at the notes in front of him. Unlike Asher’s handwriting, which was long and loopy and ended with flourishes that usually left ink marks all over the table as much as the paper, his father’s handwriting was very neat and precise. Block letters—all capitalized—were written in even, perfectly legible rows, so that the contrast between the two men was even more apparent.
How were they ever friends?
Hayden’s eyes scanned the mathematical models and the notes in the margins, but it was way beyond his level. He was lucky to understand a quarter of it, as it seemed to be a totally different kind of formulation than what he was accustomed to, as though his father had even managed to discover corrupted math. Then again, Hayden had always privately suspected that all math was corrupt and that no sane person could enjoy doing it, so perhaps he shouldn’t be surprised by this.
“I don’t really understand it,” he admitted, not sure whether this was the right or wrong answer. Perhaps his father was just trying to impress his authority and intelligence upon him again, and he intended for Hayden to be cowed.
“At all?” the Dark Prism prompted neutrally.
“Well, maybe this part…a little,” Hayden amended, pointing at the passage in the middle. “It looks like some sort of inverse triangulation between four alignments, but I’ve never seen it done that way, and I’m not even sure what alignments would orient themselves like that.”
He couldn’t tell if the man was impressed with his intelligence or not. If he hadn’t seen his father look surprised when they were discussing Cinder’s friendship with Asher, he would have thought his facial muscles were paralyzed in that neutral expression.
“If you have never used a modified prism, it is unsurprising that you don’t recognize the orientation,” his father explained, pointing to one of the drawings he had been working on in colored pencil. Hayden noticed how he used the term ‘modified’ instead of ‘broken’ or ‘imperfect’ when describing his work.
One glance at the drawing told him why he hadn’t recognized the alignments initially. For one thing, all of them contained a streak of black, a horrendous abomination that made Hayden queasy even though the colored pencil held no power. For another thing, his father was correct: no alignments in a regular prism would ever be positioned like that in relation to each other. On paper like this, it became glaringly apparent just how severe the distortion in the Black Prism truly was, and Hayden marveled again at how anyone could look through it without their brain melting.
His father stared contemplatively at the page for a long moment, and Hayden was just beginning to relax and let his guard down when the man suddenly pushed him away so forcefully that he tripped over his feet and crashed into the table before falling to the floor. Bonk took flight to avoid the fall, and went to perch on a green armchair a safe distance away, glaring at the Dark Prism.
Having banged his elbow on the edge of the table on his way down, Hayden winced and worked his arm a few times, scooting backwards a few feet on the floor before getting to his feet.
Apparently their father-son moment was over, and Hayden was reminded once more to never relax while within striking distance of the Dark Prism. He was tempted to ask why his father had suddenly turned on him, but that would only invite more unpleasantness. The man’s entire demeanor had changed, from his stance to the level of tension in his jaw, to the burning insanity behind his eyes. It was like a switch had flipped somewhere in his head, and the comparatively-relaxed persona had been buried once more.
Without saying a word, Hayden walked over to the bookshelves and began browsing for prism-related books, anything that looked like it might help him get out of here. He had asked for permission twice, and he wasn’t asking again. If his father wanted him out of the library then he could just kick him out, an experience the man would likely take joy from.
When he had a pile of likely-looking books, Hayden sat down in the armchair that Bonk was perched on and began to read. There was one thing he hadn’t confessed to his father while reading his notes: if Hayden was following the general flow of the research correctly, and he believed he was, then it may only be a matter of weeks before his father was finished remapping the alignments needed to rip out Hayden’s Source.
Before spring has turned to summer, I’ll either be vi
ctorious or dead.
He turned his focus back to the book in his hands, determined to study until he had a plan.
16
Dragon Delivery Service
Hayden spent the next six days in the library, sometimes staying in there so long that his father had to order him out of the room at the end of the evening, when he himself was planning on retiring to bed. Apparently he didn’t want Hayden inside the room with his notes and experimental prisms while he was asleep, because he locked and warded the door every night upon leaving.
Hayden went to bed each night with his head stuffed so full of theories, new alignments, and abstract math that his brain felt saturated with knowledge. In fact, his dreams were often riddled with the things he read during the day, so that he woke up feeling like he hadn’t had a break in studying at all.
Bonk often grew bored and flew around the house and the grounds. Hayden had watched him from the still-broken window in the library before, soaring to the limits of where his Binders would allow him to pass without magic. Hayden kept careful mental notes of where the defensive spells began, intending to put all of it into his letter as soon as he had enough information to send something useful to his friends. He still hadn’t worked out the problem of how he was going to accomplish this feat, and often found himself sitting up late into the night with Bonk in their bedroom, running through ideas with his familiar and asking the dragonling’s opinion.
He was beginning to wonder if Bonk was shaking his head ‘no’ at all of his ideas just to mess with him, or perhaps he had just forgotten how to nod ‘yes’. Either way, Hayden was desperately dreaming up wilder and more dangerous ideas in the stubborn determination that there must be some way to get a message out. No wall was impenetrable, not even one made out of magic.
On the seventh day since his studies began, Hayden was eating dinner with his father when a reckless idea seized him.
“Sir,” he set down his fork and pushed his plate to the side, “How did Jack die?”
His father waited until he was finished chewing and swallowing the food in his mouth before he asked, “Who?”
“One of the servants—” slaves, Hayden substituted in his head, “—that you have here. He died a few weeks ago trying to escape. I asked the others and they said that he made it to the other side of the gate before he grabbed his eyes and started screaming until he died.”
His father continued to eat while Hayden talked, somehow managing to sip wine without breaking his measured gaze.
“Still imagining you can escape?” he asked mildly, and Hayden scowled.
“Sadly, no, I abandoned hope of that some time ago. I was mostly just wondering what spell you’d managed to discover in your Black Prism that caused people to scream to death,” Hayden lied easily. He was becoming much more practiced at dealing with his father these days.
“The screaming isn’t what killed him,” the Dark Prism explained without emotion. “It was the agonizing pain that caused the screaming that killed him.”
Hayden raised an eyebrow in mild interest, realizing that he was copying the gesture from his father. He told himself that adopting his father’s mannerisms was simply a means of getting information out of the man, but vowed to dedicate himself to unlearning everything he’d picked up here if he ever got free. He didn’t want to carry anything from this monster away with him.
“Then it’s only a simple pain spell?” Hayden frowned in mock-disappointment. “Hmm, I’d expected something more glamorous.”
Touching on his father’s pride—ha! I knew I spotted his weakness!—was a risky thing to do, but the Dark Prism didn’t seem to be in a physically violent mood at the moment. Then again, that could change in the blink of an eye.
Oh well, Hayden sighed inwardly. If he hits me, he hits me. Cinder will stop him from beating me to death for a few more weeks at least.
“It is more than a simple pain spell,” Aleric answered dryly, his annoyance becoming evident. “It is the most impenetrable part of all of the defenses surrounding this estate. Nothing can get through that barrier.”
“Except Bonk,” Hayden pointed out. “And presumably Cinder as well, since I’ve seen him flying outside the gates.”
His father narrowed his focus on him and said, “Dragonlings are arguably the most powerful creatures on the planet. There is little that they cannot do when they exert themselves.”
So if any dragon can cross the border, except Bonk now that he’s wearing Binders…
Hayden shelved that thought for later.
“So not a pain spell,” he brought the subject back to the thing that mattered most. “Or at least, not just a pain spell. Still,” Hayden pressed lightly, “I haven’t been able to figure out how you made it affect even non-magical people. Most magic travels through the Foci, which a normal person doesn’t have—else we’d all be able to use magic.”
His father looked almost amused as he said, “Oh, it does enter the body via the Foci.”
Hayden was about to open his mouth and insist that there must be a secondary mode of entry for it to affect normal people, but something in his father’s tone of voice stopped him. The Dark Prism had sounded amused, like he was posing a riddle and wanted to see if Hayden was smart enough to figure it out on his own. His posture was even relaxed, the back of one hand resting under his chin as he watched Hayden closely.
Okay…so it enters through the Foci, but somehow it still affects normal people…
Hayden racked his brain for ideas, but it seemed completely contradictory to everything he had ever learned about magic. The only Foci that non-magical people had was in their—
“The eyes,” Hayden widened his own as understanding dawned on him, leaning forward in his chair so that his elbows were resting on the table. “That spell doesn’t just go through the Foci in our arms, it can go through the eyes as well. That’s why Jack was grabbing at his!”
He was so excited at having figured it out all by himself that it took him a moment to realize that he was enthusiastically recounting an innocent man’s gruesome death. The reminder had a sobering effect, dampening his joy so that he was able to compose himself once more.
“The Frosts have been accused of many things, but stupidity was never one of them.”
It was the first time his father had ever really associated him with the Frost family. Hayden tried not to be too pleased that the man had tangentially acknowledged their relation.
“So it’s some sort of pain spell that can go in through any Focus,” he summarized. “That still doesn’t really explain what it does.” Hayden frowned. “I mean, shouldn’t shutting his eyes have blocked whatever effect it was having on him?”
His father looked like he was changing his mind about none of the Frosts ever being considered stupid. Hayden realized his mistake even as the man said, “Does closing your fists prevent magic from traversing your magical Foci?”
“No, of course not, I wasn’t thinking,” Hayden chided himself. He couldn’t afford to make careless mistakes when he was dealing with his father, especially not when he was actually manipulating the man into telling him what he needed to know.
“You should be familiar with the effects of the spell,” Aleric continued, “having experienced them yourself.”
Now Hayden narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, thinking back through anything that made his eyes and Foci hurt like that. It wasn’t at all hard to figure it out.
“Light-sickness?” he asked cautiously, not wanting to be wrong. “You’ve put something in place to channel light-sickness into whoever passes through?”
The edge of a smirk at his father’s lips confirmed the horrible truth. Knowing just how terrible the pain was for Jack, stuck in a haze of light-sickness, dying on the lawn, made it all the worse somehow. It was a fate he wouldn’t wish on anyone—well, present company excluded.
“Ouch,” he said lamely, trying to sound unaffected. “I don’t suppose there’s any good way of getting past that,” he admitted, mis
erable at the invincibility of it all. Sure, maybe someone who was completely blind and not magically-inclined could stumble through that particular spell, but then the other spells would certainly take him out. Besides, even if a blind, non-magic person got through everything perfectly, he wouldn’t stand a chance in a fight against the Dark Prism.
“That is the general idea,” his father confirmed neutrally. “My old friend can make all the idle threats he wants, but he is not fool enough to risk his neck for you. And if he is, well…” he trailed off with an unpleasant smirk, and Hayden suppressed a shudder at the thought of his mentor writhing on the ground, dying of light-sickness.
He doesn’t know Asher as well as he thinks—not anymore at least. Hayden knew that the Prism Master was stubborn enough and honorable enough to risk his own life to rescue Hayden, if he thought there was even a slim chance of success.
I have to warn him not to try. That letter is more important now than ever.
“May I be excused?” Hayden asked abruptly, itching to get to work.
His father waved him away with a careless gesture and Hayden left without another word. He waited until he was in the foyer to break into a run, taking the stairs to the second level in twos and threes, so that he was winded by the time he made it to his room and shut and locked the door behind him.
Bonk was already buried somewhere beneath the covers on Hayden’s bed, settling in for the night, but when Hayden said, “Get up, quick, I’ve had an idea,” the dragonling popped his head up and looked alert.
Hayden sat down on the edge of the bed, feeling around the underside of his pillow for the reassuring lump that told him the violet prism was still in place. He turned to his familiar.
“The barrier that no one can cross, the one he doesn’t think anyone can break, it causes light-sickness,” Hayden summarized rapidly, still breathless from running upstairs and from anticipation at this next phase.
Bonk nodded as though he wasn’t surprised by this bit of news, and Hayden wished that his familiar could talk to humans, because then he would have known all of this weeks ago.
