by V. St. Clair
“Aleric was going to torture you to death?” Asher asked in a low voice, and Hayden nodded.
“Sometimes he was in perfect control of himself, but then at random he would go nuts and forget who I was or that he was trying to keep me alive long enough to rip my Source out, and he would attack me. Cinder and Bonk both had to save me on more than one occasion, until I got better at keeping out of arms’ reach when talking to him.”
They were walking while talking, and had finally reached the place where Master Laurren was slouched against the gate, resting in the shade of an oak tree while the Mistress of Healing continued casting magic on him.
“Hi sir,” Hayden greeted him first. “How are you feeling?”
“Ah, Frost, it’s good to know you survived,” Laurren greeted him brightly. “I feel terrible, but thanks to the ministrations of my capable colleagues, I’m recovering. I’ll probably get my sight back in a few days—or weeks.”
He’s blind?!
Hayden could tell it was true as soon as he looked at the Master of Abnormal Magic’s purple-blue eyes, which were staring off vaguely and out of focus.
Seeing the look on his face, Mistress Razelle said, “We don’t think it’s permanent, Hayden. He’s just suffered a huge shock to his system, and the light curtain did quite a bit of damage even with the limited impact it had on him.”
“I’ll be alright,” Laurren seconded, looking annoyed at the others for worrying about him.
“Oh yeah,” Zane recaptured Hayden’s attention. “We found some other people that were being held captive here while we were fighting the monsters. Once we had things mostly under control, we set them free, but this girl—she said her name was Hattie—asked me to tell you that she always believed in you and said you should stop by her house and see her sometime.”
Hayden felt his face turn beet red and knew that his friend had chosen this moment to reveal that information to cause him maximum embarrassment. Tess arched her eyebrows at him in surprise.
“I’m going to kill you later,” Hayden muttered to his friend. “She had a bit of a crush on me, I think,” he added to Tess. “I should visit her at some point, if only to say goodbye and make sure she’s not permanently traumatized from this entire ordeal.”
Zane made a low-voiced comment about how she’d likely express her gratitude, and Tess helpfully punched him in the arm as hard as she could, which was very effective at quelling any further teasing.
“Ouch,” Zane grumbled to Hayden. “Has anyone ever told you that your girlfriend does not hit like a girl?”
Thinking of the steely look in her eyes as she put a bolt through his father’s heart, Hayden said, “Yes, I’ve noticed.”
EPILOGUE
It took the better part of a week to decide how to get rid of the Black Prism so that no one could ever find it and use it for corrupted magic again. In the end, Asher and Hayden boated out into the Yrani Sea, which separated the northern and southern continent at the place where the Forest of Illusions used to border the coast. Asher suspended it as high as he could hold it over their heads with magic while still keeping it in his line of sight, and Hayden had the honor of casting the magic that broke it.
His mentor had been correct when he’d guessed that the Black Prism would not go quietly, and the resulting magical explosion had capsized their boat and created a sort of magical vortex in the middle of the sea. It had taken a combination of magic, luck, and Bonk to save them and haul their freezing, drenched bodies back to shore where it was safe.
“Well,” Asher had said as soon as his teeth stopped chattering. “That giant magical vortex will probably discourage the sorcerers from approaching us from that direction for a few years at least.”
That’s my mentor, Hayden thought, always looking on the bright side of things.
Hayden had once sworn never to return to the Crystal Tower, but it didn’t seem that the Council was going to let him keep his promise. At least he returned as a hero this time around, greeted by the thunderous applause from the crowds of people who had showed up to see him—and everyone else who helped fight—receive their medals. Tess should have been the one getting all the praise instead of him, but she seemed quite content to get her slightly-less-prestigious medal for participating in the battle. Zane was soaking up the attention and enjoying every minute of it, and Hayden knew he had always hated being overshadowed by his famous descendant and being the only boy in a family with five sisters.
After the accolades were awarded and the crowds dispersed, there were a lot of boring Council meetings, which Hayden was expected to attend as the ruling member of a Great House. The first few were mostly formalities, confirming the newly appointed Council members into their permanent posts. Sark looked pleased and a little smug to be in his new position, but Hayden didn’t begrudge the man his joy to be free of teaching, though he suspected that the two of them would never become friends.
It was another week before he had any free time to himself, and he spent it walking around the perimeter of his estate with Zane and Tess, directing the work crews on the repairs and improvements that were to be made on the property.
Someday this place might just be livable again.
If he was honest with himself, the very thought of living in the Frost estate gave him chills—there were too many bad memories right now for anything else. But Hayden was nothing if not stubborn, and had decided that to be driven out of his rightful home by his father’s memory was to accept defeat, and he had no intention of giving the Dark Prism any posthumous power over him.
Eventually I’ll get over my discomfort and this place will feel like home.
“So,” Zane broke his train of thought. “I thought I should tell you that Master Reede fired one of his apprentices and offered me the open position.” He grinned smugly. “All I had to do to get his attention was befriend the most famous kid on the continent, get into all sorts of trouble with him without dying, and then battle about a million monsters for the honor of throwing my life away at the feet of your evil father. Easy as pie.”
Hayden snorted in amusement and Tess rolled her eyes.
“I thought you wanted to be a famous monster-hunter,” she said to him.
“I do,” Zane countered. “But I might as well take the opportunity to learn as much as I can from Reede so that I have a better chance of not being eaten by the monsters I’m hunting in the future.”
Tess conceded the point and turned to Hayden.
“What are you going to do?” she watched him carefully for a reaction. “Are you going to drop out and reestablish your Great House, or rally for a spot on the Council of Mages while everyone is in love with you and they might be willing to actually let you in?”
Ah, so she also heard the rumors about why the tenth Council position is still vacant.
Hayden frowned thoughtfully, though he had given the matter a lot of thought already. It seemed that everyone was pulling him in different directions, supremely confident that they knew what his best interests were better than he did. He’d been quietly offered a place on the Council of Mages—as the youngest member in its history—by Magdalene Trout, who was eager to keep their business interests aligned and the public in her favor. He’d been offered a position in Kargath, working for the High Mayor, who had expended considerable effort explaining why it would be a good thing for him to take a more active role in the local government.
“I should warn you,” Zane interrupted his train of thought, “Oliver says that if you come back to Mizzenwald, you’re never to come into direct contact with any sort of powder ever again or he’ll have you arrested. Apparently he remembers the evacuation from first year quite vividly.”
Hayden rolled his eyes and said, “Fine, but if he thinks I’m going to call him ‘Master Trout’—which sounds ridiculous, by the way—then he’s got another thing coming.”
In truth, Hayden didn’t harbor any ill will towards his former nemesis. After everything they had been through to
gether, it seemed silly to hold onto a childhood grudge that he barely remembered the reason for. They may never be best friends, but Hayden didn’t forget that Oliver had helped him out on numerous occasions—grudgingly, sometimes—and that he had joined the raiding party that stormed the Frost estate to rescue him.
“Hayden, have you noticed that Bonk is fighting a squirrel?” Tess interjected, pointing into the distance.
“Bonk’s always fighting squirrels,” he answered immediately, not seeing why this was something she considered noteworthy.
“Yes, but I think this time he’s losing.”
Hayden and Zane turned to see that Tess was correct. Bonk could be seen in the distance, rolling around the grounds with a fat squirrel, which appeared to be getting the better of him.
“Behold the dragonling,” Hayden sighed. “Noblest and mightiest of creatures…”
The others laughed and Hayden turned his back on his familiar, trusting that Bonk would eventually triumph over his prey.
“You should replace some of these broken statues with new ones of us, looking dashing and heroic,” Zane grinned, pointing to the crumbled bits of plaster and dust that were being hauled away by work crews.
“Sure, because nothing conveys humility like sprinkling enormous sculptures of myself around the lawn of my own house,” Hayden snorted in amusement, before turning to Tess. “I don’t suppose, once the place gets fixed up, that you would consider stopping by more often? I’ll even invite your dad, if you promise that he won’t try to glare me to death over dinner.”
Tess smiled and said, “He’s actually starting to warm up to you, especially now that you’ve defeated the Dark Prism,” she replied smoothly, keeping up the ruse because Zane was with them.
“Oh sure, invite Tess to come and stay with you. Never mind your best friend…” Zane trilled annoyingly.
“Don’t pout, honey dearest, you can stay over as well—Heaven knows I’ve got enough spare bedrooms.”
Zane made a swooning gesture and threw himself at Hayden so that he found himself carrying his friend across the threshold like a new bride, while Tess muttered about boys being idiots as she followed on.
It felt nice to relax and laugh with his friends. After everything they had gone through in the last year, there were times when it felt like Hayden would never be able to enjoy himself again. Days like these gave him hope that everything would turn out okay.
“I think I’m going to go back to school,” he said at last, addressing Tess’s earlier question. “Everyone else is pressuring me to grow up overnight: run a Great House, attend Council meetings, settle on a career…but I’m sixteen, and with the threat of my father safely removed, I’ll probably even live to be seventeen. I want to finish what I started at Mizzenwald, and I’ve got another year before I hit mastery level in my other classes of interest, plus the apprenticeship with Asher to finish up. After that, who knows where I’ll end up?”
His friends accepted his decision without argument, though Zane grumbled about the massive salary he was passing up by skipping out on the Council of Mages’ last open position. Hayden pointed out that with the income of a Great House at his disposal, it wasn’t like he’d be forced to live off the land and fight Bonk for squirrels at each meal. It just meant he would only be able to afford to staff the Frost estate by half, instead of in full, until he got a job.
Not bad for a kid who spent two years in an orphanage without a single piece of clothing to his name.
He hadn’t told anyone at Mizzenwald to expect him back, so Hayden expected Master Asher to be surprised when he returned to school and presented himself for lessons.
What he actually found was that his research notes were waiting for him on the desk in Asher’s tragically-cluttered office, along with a mug of hot chocolate that was miraculously still warm.
“How did you know I’d come back?” Hayden asked, still struck by his mentor’s ability to surprise him, even now.
“Have you forgotten who you’re dealing with? I’m amazingly intelligent,” the Prism Master explained easily.
“I see you haven’t bothered tidying up the place in my absence,” Hayden said flatly, tossing his book bag onto a rare bit of unoccupied floor space.
“If I cleaned up, you’d think you came to the wrong place.”
After taking two more steps into the office, Hayden was struck by something else, something horrible, and wrinkled his nose reflexively.
“Uh, sir? What’s that terrible smell?”
“Ah, yes,” Asher acknowledged cheerfully. “Well, I think I left a bologna sandwich in here a few weeks ago, and it seems to have gotten lost amongst my stacks of paper and gone bad. Your first assignment as my apprentice is to help me locate and remove the odious thing before maggots infest my office.”
Well, Hayden thought in amusement, at least I can’t say I didn’t know what I was getting into…