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

his back so far that he nearly toppled over.
    Push! he thought back at Oliver, repelling the spell from himself so that he was able to stand upright again. Oliver frowned in concentration as his feet slid backwards an inch.
    It took Hayden a moment to realize that he wasn’t really exerting much energy at all against Oliver, simply matching his opponent. Oliver was beginning to sweat, muscles tensed from strain, but Hayden could have stood here like this all day. The last thing he wanted was anot her spectacle like what had happened with Cindy, and just as he was deciding to slowly ramp up his power to nudge Oliver over the line, Master Asher said, “Finish it Hayden; stop toying with him.”
    Frowning at being caught metering his strength, Hayden channeled his focus and sent Oliver toppling backwards over the line. Master Asher looked distinctly annoyed with him.
    “I told you not to hedge your power while I’m testing you. The next time you do that I’ll put you in a detention so unpleasant that you’ll have nightmares about it for weeks.”
    Hayden grimaced, because he absolutely believed Master Asher’s sincerity.
    “Sorry,” he mumbled, and the Prism Master gave him a curt nod and immediately brightened to address the crowd.
    “The final test for my P risms will be efficiency, to determine how well they use the resources they are given.”
    He walked over to Master Kilgore, who Hayden just noticed was holding a small pile of nearly-spent prisms, which he now passed to Asher.
    “You will each be given a clear, amber, blue, and rose prism with only enough charge left for on e good spell each. You will then be given four small tasks to complete with only the materials provided, so use them wisely or you may not be able to finish the test at all, and I will dock your score accordingly.”
    The prism fragments were small enough that Hayden could hold all four of them in the palm of one hand. The larger the prism , the more slowly it was consumed. Master Asher had once explained that this was because prisms close to their ideal size were inherently more efficient, and the smaller they became, the more unstable. The prisms he currently held would be hard-pressed to complete even basic spells.
    “May I reiterate that speed is irrelevant in this particular challenge, though there may be some incentive provided to move quickly during these mini-tasks,” Master Asher continued. “And with that, let’s begin.”
    He nodded to Master Willow, who stood up , withdrew a short elder wand from his belt, and gave it a purposeful wave in their general direction. Hayden had no idea what was going to happen until he saw a wave of magic so powerful that it was visible to the naked eye sweeping slowly towards them, rising up to engulf them like a heat wave. He had no idea what the spell would do to him, but knew instinctively that he didn’t want to be hit by it under any circumstance. Panicking, he held up the rose-tinted prism in front of his eye and thought, Repel!
    The prism was entirely consumed by the spell and vanished from his hand, though it worked as desired and pushed part of the magical ripple askew so that it narrowly missed him. His classmates all used some spell that he didn’t know, because they had used their blue prisms and the magic simply passed over them without issue. Now they were smirking at him like he was an idiot.
    Great, I used the wrong prism right at the outset. I’m doomed when I get to the part that requires the rose prism.
    There wasn’t much time for him to stew over it, because Master Asher was already motioning to Master Reede to begin the next test. The Master of Conjury took hold of his Mastery Charm and used it to conjure five identical harpies. The harpies each had the body of a vulture and the face of a woman, their wings flapping idly as they hovered in front of the challengers.
    Hayden belatedly remembered that the most important thing to know about harpies was that they were