by V. St. Clair
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 c
an’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.”
The look his father gave him suggested that he was losing points for allowing himself to be caught unprepared. Hayden was tempted to ask if he was expected to sleep in his circlet and belt, armed to the teeth at all times despite the discomfort of having to sleep on prisms, wands, and phials of elixirs. He refrained from asking the mocking question only because he expected his father would answer, “Yes” in perfect sincerity.
“Learning that you possess some of my stolen Source power seems to have given you a sense of overconfidence,” the Dark Prism returned to the previous topic. “Surely you were taught that Source power is not everything, especially when one does not know how to use it properly.”
“Actually, I have been taught that,” Hayden countered, betraying some of his annoyance. “I’ve also been training for years on just how to optimize my magic usage.”
A brief silence fell between them as they stared at each other. Hayden was determined not to be the first to break eye contact, though he suspected that his father could stare intimidatingly at things for hours on end without even blinking. For all he knew, the man stood around doing just that whenever his thoughts grew too blurry.
Finally, Aleric blinked and broke eye contact, reaching into his pants pocket and extracting a wad of something thin and silvery. Before Hayden could ask what it was, his father tossed the ball of fabric to him one-handed, and Hayden caught it reflexively.
He glanced at his father, unsure what this was all about.
“Put them on,” Aleric instructed. When Hayden actually looked down at the silky material he was holding, he realized what it was and became even more confused.
“Prism-handling gloves,” he said softly, recalling other pairs he had seen before. The ultra-thin, close-fitting silk gloves were used by jewelers like the one at Mizzenwald, who needed to handle prisms extensively but didn’t want to smear them with fingerprints. Hayden had even seen Asher use them a time or two during their research sessions together the year before. Hayden had never bothered having a pair made for himself yet, though he had been considering it at one point.
“Put them on,” his father said once more, less patiently than the first time, and Hayden realized he was staring at them for too long.
Not knowing what his father was up to, Hayden pulled on the Dark Prism’s custom-made gloves. As expected, the fit was a little loose, as he had smaller hands and a smaller frame than his father, but Hayden wiggled his fingers inside of the gloves anyway, appreciating how smooth and thin the material was.
Without explaining himself, Aleric reached up to his own circlet and began unscrewing the Black Prism from his eyepiece. Hayden could only stare in confusion and silent terror, because his last involvement with the Black Prism had resulted in his childhood home blowing up, his Foci warping, his brain nearly melting from light-sickness, and his mother becoming atomized in the explosion that nearly killed him.
Hayden felt his mouth drop open dumbly when his father tossed the prism to him. Again, Hayden caught it by sheer reflex, staring down at the sinister diamond in his hand.
This is the weapon that made my father nearly invincible, that killed thousands of people. This is the infamous Black Prism—the instrument that is so corrupt that it doesn’t follow the laws of magic and is never consumed no matter what is cast through it, that allegedly shows every color in the spectrum, including black. This is what killed my mother, and Tess’s mother, and most of Jasper Dout’s family…the prism that warped Asher’s left Focus and nearly killed him as well. The most notorious weapon the Nine Lands has ever seen, and I’m holding it in my hand.
On the surface it looked like any common prism. There were no distinguishing features visible to the naked eye. Hayden didn’t know what he had been expecting, maybe a different tint? Or perhaps the words ‘BLACK PRISM’ etched into the glass, so that the world would know its terrible and awesome power?
It was fortunate that Hayden was wearing gloves, because his hands were becoming cold and clammy, sticking to the silken material.
An effect of the prism, or is it just that I’m terrified and fascinated to be holding it?
With effort, Hayden tore his gaze away from it and looked back at his father. Aleric Frost was watching him with no visible sense of interest, as though he was watching a newly-painted wall dry.
“You are n
ow armed with the greatest weapon this world has likely ever seen, and I stand before you with nothing.” He opened his hands as though to illustrate the point. “If you are indeed so powerful, then attack me.”
Hayden just continued to stare at the closest living relative he had, wondering how a father and son could be so fundamentally different.
Is he joking? Did he really just give me his primary weapon and challenge me to use it against him?
Even in insanity, Hayden was fairly certain he would never have made such a bold move, but then again the Black Prism was supposed to be the most corrupt prism in existence. For Hayden to use it even once would probably ruin him beyond recovery.
This might be my only chance though. He’s calling my bluff; he thinks I’m too scared to use it because he knows I don’t want to be like him—if he remembers anything I told him inside the schism he’ll know that much.
That raised another uncomfortable thought. Just how much did Aleric Frost remember from his time inside the schism with his son? Hayden had told him his life’s story, including all of his less-than-charitable thoughts about his notorious father.
Stop avoiding the real issue.
He knew his mind was trying to put off the decision that was now before him: to use the Black Prism against his father or not. If he did, it would be the end of him; there could be no coming back from that kind of distortion. He would have to hope that he remained level-headed long enough to kill his father and then himself, or else he might simply replace his father as the Dark Prism. Well, he’d need a new name of course, there couldn’t be two Dark Prisms….The memory of Oliver and Jasper jeering and calling him the Broken Prism—way back in his first year of school—came to him then.
Well, the name would still fit…
It meant certain death, but at least it would be an honorable death…wouldn’t it? Asher would understand why he did it, that it was the only way to rid the world of the Frosts once and for all. Tess and Zane…would be less forgiving.
The hand that brought the prism up to eye-level was trembling slightly, but there was no helping that at this point. Even while confronting his impending death, he felt a strange fascination by the abhorrent thing in his hand. He had always idly wondered what it would be like to look through the Black Prism, what kind of alignments would open up to him—things that didn’t exist in any other prism, or maybe they just weren’t as easy to find…