Free The Other Prism (The Broken Prism) by V. St. Clair

now looking pensive.
    “A question I have asked myself numerous times but have not yet found an answer for,” he sighed in defeat. “If your Source was always as big as I suspect it now is, you should have been displaying signs of magic since infancy. It would leak out of you, uncontrolled; even your mother would not have been able to hide you from the attention of mages. To have been dormant for ten years is…very strange.”
    Hayden mulled that over in silence.
    “The only thing that comes to mind,” Master Asher continued, seemingly against his will, “is that for some reason Aleric may have stumbled upon a spell for increasing one’s Source power. Do you remember what you told me last year when you had that confused tangle of memories about the day he attacked you at home?”
    Hayden would never forget the horrible sensations he felt during one of the arena challenges the year before, vague feelings and memories about his father trying to kill him and eventually blowing up the house with Hayden’s mother inside of it. The shadow of those memories had driven him completely nuts and he had to be pulled out of the arena by Kilgore and Asher that night; people spread rumors about him for weeks because of it.
    “Yes…?” he answered hesitantly.
    “You said that your father had his palms pressed against yours, that he was channeling so much power through your Foci that it wa rped and nearly destroyed them…that it gave you a hideous case of light-sickness in the aftermath.”
    Hayden nodded, swallowing a surge of nausea at the very memory of it.
    Master Asher looked both frustrated and confused when he said, “Perhaps he was trying to empower your Source.” The words were barely out of his mouth before he recanted them. “But it makes no sense at all why he would want to make you stronger, unless he thought you would be an ally to him in his campaign. No, even then, I’m certain he would not want to make anyone more powerful than him, even his own son. If he possessed such a spell he would have used it on himself and no one else.”
    The Prism Master actually punched the marble wall in frustration. “The problem is that so much of his wor k was with imperfect prisms that I can’t figure out what he knew and what he didn’t,” he continued wearily. “I spent the better part of the last year trying to discover spells that he doubtless stumbled upon ages ago, ever since you told me that he was forcing magic through your Foci that day, because for the life of me I can’t figure out what would compel him to act like that.”
    Hayden was stunned to hear that Master Asher had been trying to figure out what happened to him for a year without telling him, whether because he wanted to give Hayden closure or because he was ju st interested as a fellow prism-user.
    “Well, um, let me know if you find anything…” Hayden was dying to offer his assistance, but knew better than to ever bring up doing research with Master Asher again, who for some reason was horrified and repulsed by the very idea.
    The Prism Master regained control of himself and glanced around the foyer as though just realizing who he was talking to and where they were. For a moment it had almost felt like he was airing his frustrations to a trusted friend instead of a third-year student.
    “I will,” he assured Hayden, running a hand through his unkempt brown curls. “You’d better get upstairs and get some more rest. You’ve got the second phase of the tryouts tomorrow morning.”
    Hayden walked back up the stairs with Bonk, his mind still turning over everything th at Asher gave him to consider. He normally avoided thinking about his father as much as possible, but had never before considered that maybe the Dark Prism was trying to recruit him to his cause on that day he showed up at his house. Master Asher had declared it impossible, but the thought continued to haunt Hayden as he sat down to begin his Charms homework.
    Even though Aleric