there.”
Hayden frowned and said, “I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
“Hayden Frost, the boy who topped the arena rankings in his first year of school, despite starting in the third-year rosters; the boy who took down a fully-grown dragon during the summer, who survived a den of wargs at the end of the year; the boy who entered the I.S.C. at thirteen and defeated other natural prism-users who were four years ahead of him in schooling.”
“But that was just because—”
“The son of the Dark Prism, one of the most powerful mages in living history,” Asher cut him off. “A boy with an enormous amount of Source power and ambition to prove himself; someone that few people outside of this school will truly mourn, should he die in combat defending our homeland. Hayden, you’re their ideal candidate for this war.”
“But…” he began, suddenly worried. “It all sounds impressive when you say it like that, but I had help with most of those things, or I just stumbled through them with a combination of allies and dumb luck. Like you said, I’m no good at fighting.”
Master Asher still looked grim when he said, “But that is ho w the Council chooses to hear it. If things take a turn for the worse, they’ll be screaming for you to join the battle, and we aren’t legally allowed to refuse them access to you. If you had a legal guardian they could deny permission, but your parents are both dead and there are no other Frosts to claim custody of you, which officially means that you are alone in the world. It’s an awkward sort of no-man’s land to be left in, legally, and it leaves you vulnerable until you come of age.”
Hayden let that sink in for a moment.
“So you’re going to teach me how to fight this year…”
“In case you find yourself in a position that requires it, yes,” Master Asher finished for him. “As I said, it’d be best if we can avoid it entirely, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
Hayden nodded slowly in agreement, and the Prism Master looked satisfied.
“Alright then, let’s begin.”
4
Lessons Learned
By the end of the day, Hayden was spent. He’d noticed a definite increase in the difficulty of his lessons this year and wondered if he’d be able to keep pace with it. Master Willow had sprung a quiz on them as soon as they entered the room, he got two reading assignments in Healing, and even Prisms was hard to make sense of by the time he finished taking notes on all the formulas Asher showed him.
His roommates complained similarly when they were working on their homework that night.
“Are you sure the Masters aren’t confusing us with sixth-year students?” Conner grimaced, flexing his hand to shake out the writing cramps.
“I don’t know, but you’d think they’d have better things to do than assign us piles of homework with a war going on,” Tamon frowned and reread the essay he’d just completed.
“Guess they want to make sure we didn’t forget how to use magic over the holiday,” Zane suggested. “Maybe they’ll be so busy that they won’t actually have time to grade all of this stuff, and they’ll just pass us anyway.”
“Are you kidding me?” Tamon countered. “I’ve always thought that the Masters greatest joy in life came from making big red X’s all over parts of my essays that are wrong, and scribbling in the footnotes about how they’re not certain I’m actually literate.”
Hayden laughed and stretched out in bed, setting up a pillow for Bonk since the bed was large enough this year to accommodate both of them.
It’ll be nice not having Bonk steal my pillows or roll over on me all night.
His familiar watched him work patiently, but as soon as Hayden was finished setting up Bonk’s new sleeping space, the little dragon dragged it over closer to his own pillow and curled up to go to sleep. Apparently he liked rolling onto Hayden and waking him up at all hours of the night, and
Hayden frowned and said, “I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
“Hayden Frost, the boy who topped the arena rankings in his first year of school, despite starting in the third-year rosters; the boy who took down a fully-grown dragon during the summer, who survived a den of wargs at the end of the year; the boy who entered the I.S.C. at thirteen and defeated other natural prism-users who were four years ahead of him in schooling.”
“But that was just because—”
“The son of the Dark Prism, one of the most powerful mages in living history,” Asher cut him off. “A boy with an enormous amount of Source power and ambition to prove himself; someone that few people outside of this school will truly mourn, should he die in combat defending our homeland. Hayden, you’re their ideal candidate for this war.”
“But…” he began, suddenly worried. “It all sounds impressive when you say it like that, but I had help with most of those things, or I just stumbled through them with a combination of allies and dumb luck. Like you said, I’m no good at fighting.”
Master Asher still looked grim when he said, “But that is ho w the Council chooses to hear it. If things take a turn for the worse, they’ll be screaming for you to join the battle, and we aren’t legally allowed to refuse them access to you. If you had a legal guardian they could deny permission, but your parents are both dead and there are no other Frosts to claim custody of you, which officially means that you are alone in the world. It’s an awkward sort of no-man’s land to be left in, legally, and it leaves you vulnerable until you come of age.”
Hayden let that sink in for a moment.
“So you’re going to teach me how to fight this year…”
“In case you find yourself in a position that requires it, yes,” Master Asher finished for him. “As I said, it’d be best if we can avoid it entirely, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
Hayden nodded slowly in agreement, and the Prism Master looked satisfied.
“Alright then, let’s begin.”
4
Lessons Learned
By the end of the day, Hayden was spent. He’d noticed a definite increase in the difficulty of his lessons this year and wondered if he’d be able to keep pace with it. Master Willow had sprung a quiz on them as soon as they entered the room, he got two reading assignments in Healing, and even Prisms was hard to make sense of by the time he finished taking notes on all the formulas Asher showed him.
His roommates complained similarly when they were working on their homework that night.
“Are you sure the Masters aren’t confusing us with sixth-year students?” Conner grimaced, flexing his hand to shake out the writing cramps.
“I don’t know, but you’d think they’d have better things to do than assign us piles of homework with a war going on,” Tamon frowned and reread the essay he’d just completed.
“Guess they want to make sure we didn’t forget how to use magic over the holiday,” Zane suggested. “Maybe they’ll be so busy that they won’t actually have time to grade all of this stuff, and they’ll just pass us anyway.”
“Are you kidding me?” Tamon countered. “I’ve always thought that the Masters greatest joy in life came from making big red X’s all over parts of my essays that are wrong, and scribbling in the footnotes about how they’re not certain I’m actually literate.”
Hayden laughed and stretched out in bed, setting up a pillow for Bonk since the bed was large enough this year to accommodate both of them.
It’ll be nice not having Bonk steal my pillows or roll over on me all night.
His familiar watched him work patiently, but as soon as Hayden was finished setting up Bonk’s new sleeping space, the little dragon dragged it over closer to his own pillow and curled up to go to sleep. Apparently he liked rolling onto Hayden and waking him up at all hours of the night, and
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