Cold Flame

by Susan Copperfield

  “I will? Why?”

  “You will be exposed to young rats, from infants to ones nearing adulthood, and you and they will be monitored. Any rats you bond with, you will keep, as we do try to avoid unnecessarily straining new animal empaths. Once we know how sensitive you are to rats, and how sensitive they are to you, we’ll expand our tests to other species.”

  Ethan’s expression turned thoughtful. “Other species? I thought animal empaths only bonded to one species.”

  “His Royal Majesty of Texas can bond with any equine species, although he tends to favor domesticated horses. He’s had positive results with zebras. There’s some speculation he might have the capacity to bond with any perissodactyla.”

  “Bond with any what?” Ethan asked.

  “Odd-toed ungulates. Ungulate means hooved. The order includes any animal with an odd number of toes on their hooves, essentially,” I explained. “It can be more complex than that, but perissodactyla includes horses, rhinos, tapirs, zebras, and so on. I’m not really familiar with the strength of His Royal Majesty’s talent, however.”

  Dr. Stanton picked the pen back up from the table, heaved a gusty sigh, and set it back down without indulging in a single click. “He typically bonds with two animals at a time, although there has been some speculation he’s quietly bonded with his wife’s horses. In those cases, I count it as muted bond. He’s bonded with them to a lesser degree, and likely as a consequence of his concentrated leeching talent. In short, Queen Jessica is the entirety of his world, and that extends to her horses, so his animal empathy talent responds accordingly. The general strength of his animal empathy is considered to be weak, but nobody cares.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s a good monarch, he makes Queen Jessica happy, and his concentrated leeching talent more than qualifies him for the Texan throne. If his empathy talent is contagious, however, he’s going to be tested. Again. And possibly restricted from contact with children unless their parents consent to the development of potential empathy talents.” Bursting into laughter, Dr. Stanton bowed her head. “Epidemic empathy. Of all of the talents to become contagious, empathy?”

  “It matches His Royal Majesty’s personality,” Terry pointed out. “He abhors social injustice. It’s much harder for empaths to participate in social injustice. A strong talent needs to be used or it builds up, so perhaps his talent is bleeding out by affixing itself to potential hosts?”

  Dr. Stanton perched on the edge of the table, her expression thoughtful. “Or it’s just waking talents that are dormant. Infants and some younger children wouldn’t have the socially-introduced prejudices that would prevent the development of empathy.”

  I stroked Snookums and Flamingo, grabbed their treat bag, and got them a piece of carrot each and returned them to their cage so they could enjoy their snack. “That sounds less like a me problem and more like a Texas causing everyone else problems again situation. We can send him my therapy bill if this is his fault. Or he can visit and feed me. I’ve heard rumors about his cooking.”

  “This sounds like an excellent plan,” Dr. Stanton said. “I’m sure we can make some form of arrangement. We realistically can’t do more on the emotional front right this moment. We’ve essentially identified the major issue, and I see several immediate solutions to the problem. I already have a good idea of what the blood tests will reveal, but I really feel it would be wise to take you to a hospital for proper testing, especially for an evaluation of your heart’s condition. Let’s not tempt fate more than necessary.”

  “Do they allow rats in a hospital?” I asked.

  “They do now,” Dr. Stanton muttered. “You let me worry about that. Bring your babies with you and keep your Snookums and Flamingo close. I see no need to rock any boats, and your rats are a stabilizing influence on you. Right now, more than anything else, you need stability.”

  Admitting the truth sucked, but the sooner I admitted it, the better off I’d be. “And a good diet, a better apartment, and everything else normal people have. I wouldn’t know how to live like a normal person if you hit me with a manual, Dr. Stanton.”

  “You’re doing just fine. Your diet is a concern, but you’re already better off than my last royal mess.”

  “I am?”

  “You’re not suffering from severe depression. You have problems, and you need help, but depression isn’t one of those problems, not like it was—and still is—with His Royal Majesty of North Dakota. His depression, fortunately, is easily managed recently. Her Royal Majesty of North Dakota just needs to shower him with affection and remind him he’s not living in the past anymore. He’s a work in progress, but he’s doing well. The children help with this, too. But—and this is important, Rachel—this is something you will battle for a long time, and anyone who tells you otherwise knows nothing about trauma, abuse, or mental illness. You likely suffer from all three, with your mental illness being a direct consequence of trauma and abuse.”

  “Trauma?” I asked, tilting my head to the side. “I can buy into your belief about abuse. Fine. That’s what it was growing up. But trauma?”

  “Your sister’s death,” Dr. Stanton replied. “This includes everything leading up to it. That sort of thing leaves a mark, and Agent Pattens disclosed some of the grimmer realities of your situation. You buried your sister alone because no one else would. That, to me, is a form of trauma. But that’s something that I’ll leave for a more qualified professional. For now, let’s make sure your physical health problems are addressed.” The woman turned her attention to Ethan. “Just to be clear, Your Royal Highness, you will be scheduled in for a talent evaluation to confirm, for certain, you have an empathy talent and get a feeling for its strength. Unlike with past patients, we will not be testing the upper limits. I will stop testing at the upper elite levels, as that will be sufficient for general purposes. Considering King Adam’s reaction to suppressors, I have no interest in toeing any lines with either one of you.”

  “Would you like me to call in California’s talent evaluators?” Ethan asked.

  “As a matter of fact, yes. I would. Please route them to the best hospital nearby. That should keep you busy while I evaluate Her Royal Highness’s general health.”

  Twelve

  Apparently, the scale lied.

  The next time I was invited to a general health exam, I would run away. Not only would I run away, I would ensure I never made another mistake leading to another exam for the rest of my life. Every aspect of my life went under close scrutiny, with a break every fifty minutes so I could check on my babies, especially the tiny girl with a ravenous appetite and desire for snacks every hour on the hour.

  She didn’t eat much, not like her sisters, which led me to believe something was amiss like Dr. Tomastani thought. It didn’t matter. I’d make accommodations for her as needed. I’d make excuses to delay extra testing, too.

  The first hour had deceived me. Dr. Stanton, with the help of some nurses and doctors wishing to impress her, stole several blood samples, checked my weight, made unhappy noises over my blood pressure and heart rate, and measured me from head to toe. I found the measurement part of the process odd.

  Apparently, the scale lied, and she’d use my measurements to determine if I improved to her standards. In addition, because being measured twice didn’t appeal to her and cost time, she shared the numbers with a tailor.

  Ugh. Clothes. Rather than argue, I went along with it, hoping to limit the stress of having an exam.

  Had I known I’d be run through every damned machine the hospital had, I would’ve wasted as much time as possible arguing over the measurements instead of accepting them. Some of the tests took longer than an hour, and Terry promised he’d take good care of my babies during those segments.

  To keep his promise, Terry went with Ethan, and Californian RPS agents followed me around. Halfway through the nightmare gauntlet of tests, I got Vince, possibly my only ally in the entire damned hospital. I considered begging him to re
scue me from the next round of tests, which involved silvery suppressor bracelets and a lot of exercises to determine what talents I might have that New York’s talent evaluator hadn’t tested for or cared about.

  As Terry had believed, in addition to being a flameweaver of ridiculous strength, I likely packed a moderate bordering on elite level airweaving talent. Then, because life enjoyed playing tricks on me, Dr. Stanton somehow determined my ability to control the heat of any fire to the point of creating a cold flame was a mutated waveweaving talent. As fire and water couldn’t thrive together, my water had found a way to coexist with my flames, allowing me a refined control over fire’s temperature.

  Dr. Stanton doubted my waveweaving would ever amount to anything on its own, but my use of it with fire intrigued her.

  She wanted to do more tests.

  I protested her tests in the only way I knew how. I did my best to run away and hide the instant her attention wandered away from me, requiring Vince to catch me, toss me over his shoulder as though I weighed nothing, and drag me back.

  “Well, you have a healthy flight instinct,” the doctor announced. “Doing additional evaluations will happen later. I don’t have the equipment or the time to do it here. I will do additional evaluations over the next two to three weeks. It involves a few hours of testing a day, depending on several factors. All I’m doing today is looking for base talents rather than giving you a proper rating. Some talents, like your flameweaving, are obviously strong. But your waveweaving and airweaving talents will need to be properly rated, as you generally limit their usage when you’re flameweaving. I expect that is because New York only produces pure flameweavers, and the New York talent evaluators deliberately ignore probable hybrid talents.”

  It wouldn’t surprise me. My parents kept having children as often as possible to maximize the chances of producing someone with a strong flameweaving talent.

  I doubted they’d even noticed when my brother had spontaneously combusted because he hadn’t been disciplined enough to tame the beast lurking within us.

  They valued the wrong kind of strength.

  Vince escorted me to the examination table, sat me on it, and kept a close watch over me, likely anticipating my next attempt to escape.

  “Can we delay any additional testing for a few weeks? How about until next year?”

  Dr. Stanton shook her head. “I wish I could, but you’re going to need a highly sophisticated suppressor for your blend of talents. The generic flameweaver suppressors might make your other talents flare. With the strength of your airweaving talent, that could be dangerous. I also don’t want to use a generic suppressor because your secondary talents vary in strength, especially until I have a better idea of how your empathy talents work.”

  “Do you really think empathy is contagious?” As I tried to learn from my mistakes, I forced myself to relax. I hadn’t made it far before Ethan’s RPS agent had caught me, and if I wanted to stage a successful escape, I’d need to be a lot faster to pull it off.

  That meant dealing with the rest of the testing, getting into shape, and making a viable plan.

  Ethan would be an issue. I’d have to take him with me when I went, which meant having to dodge all of Ethan’s agents and any I might be saddled with.

  And I’d have to take my rats. And Terry.

  I would need an excellent plan to escape with everyone.

  If Dr. Stanton noticed anything about my emotional state, she ignored it and replied, “I think there’s definitely something going on, as I would’ve considered it to be an impossibility to have so many people developing strong empathic talents at the same time. Everyone is within the same general age group, and in the case of you and your brother, from a line with a historic lack of empathy. Genetically, your entire family should have strong empathy talents, but the environment doesn’t allow for its development. From what I’ve gleaned from our conversations, it is possible that you could be the index case, too. You wanted to be able to interact with others from an early age, and this tendency could have resulted in empathy spreading to allow for you to have those interactions you craved. It’s not off the table as a possibility. Frankly, all I have is a lot of unsubstantiated possibilities and three potential index cases.”

  “Is there a reason my brother isn’t a possible index case?”

  “I’ve read your brother’s medical file. According to all reports on his childhood behavior, he was never a good candidate to develop empathy. That changed as he grew older. You would’ve been somewhere between three to five years old when the initial personality changes began in your brother. It’s something I need to do more research on.”

  “My brother tried to drown me in the river for stealing his beef jerky,” I muttered.

  “And he also went out of his way to make certain he was the one to bother you. It was noted in the file he had an unusual habit of keeping close to you a great deal of the time. While I’m not condoning any attempted drowning attempts, I am wondering if his behavior was reflecting the start of him developing an empathy talent.”

  I wanted to protest, but instead of indulging in a knee-jerk reaction, I considered the doctor, scowling at the idea my idiot brother could make so much of a mess trying to help me. “My family needs an entire army of therapists.”

  “While that is probably true, I think it’s good that the two candidates for the throne are actively pursuing treatments. And yes, I consider your willingness to consider therapy along with your general cooperation as an active pursuing of treatment. You’re not the first to bolt out of testing. You won’t be the last. His Royal Majesty of North Dakota has staged several successful escapes during his examinations. He dislikes being separated from his wife for even short periods of time. Frankly, he’s a pest, and Her Royal Majesty sometimes asks me to plan lengthy examinations just so she can get some space. Now that their children are a little older, she gets him to babysit before she stages her escape. Unfortunately, they seem determined to raise the population rate of North Dakota on their own, so she only gets a short window of time she can escape all of the kids. It turns out she’s predisposed to twins and triplets. I was going to start looking into potential therapy options to perhaps limit the number of babies to one, but I was shot down by both of them. In my entire time as a doctor, I’ve never hoped a woman would hit menopause sooner than later before. And yes, she knows of my opinion, and she views it as a badge of pride whenever I complain about it. And yes, she has given me permission to discuss this matter with others, especially young, royal women such as yourself.”

  “Is that what I’m going to have to deal with moving on? A lot of hovering and staging escapes? I don’t want to think about twins or triplets right now. There are several sets in my family line.”

  “I haven’t worked directly with Prince Ethan before, but I’m of the general belief that your relationship will be of a different nature. Theirs was a strained bond for an extended period of time. Yours was unidentified, possibly growing despite separation without stressing either one of you substantially. I believe that’s because Prince Ethan has a rather meticulous reputation and patience to go with it.” Dr. Stanton focused on Vince. “Do you agree with that statement?”

  “I do. He’s been excitable lately, and his venture to the archive, which he’d been planning for a week, is the reason why I agree,” Vince replied. “It seems he’s been meddling, and I’m not sure how he pulled it off, but here we are. He’s been quite pleased with himself, too.”

  Ethan was a sneaky man, and I had no idea how to reward him for his cunning. “Is he really responsible for having me moved to the archive?”

  “That I can’t tell you, but if he wasn’t somehow involved in the background, I would be surprised. He’s much like his father, who is a master manipulator. His father is also quite good at covering his tracks when he wants to be subtle. This has carried from father to son. This is also why the congress has been so interested in him being married. They want those traits in the Califo
rnian monarch.”

  “Everyone’s going to be mad if I take him to New York,” I predicted.

  Dr. Stanton snickered, Vince chuckled, and I wondered what I missed to evoke such a reaction. Rather than ask, I waited.

  And waited. And waited.

  They continued to laugh.

  Fine, then. I could handle asking for more information. “Elaborate, please.”

  “New York and California have had an awful relationship for years, Rachel,” my doctor replied, smiling at me. “You bringing home a Californian as your co-ruler would be a slap in the face to both sets of monarchs, who’d no longer be able to participate in their pettiness out of historic prejudice. It works best if you’re in New York, as the Californians have closer ties with each other. I expect you’ll walk out of this situation with little resistance from California. New York will be another matter.”

  “I’ll light them on fire.”

  “While it would solve a lot of problems, please don’t. Murder is bad.”

  “But satisfying.”

  “However satisfying it would be, please don’t murder the New York monarchs.”

  “It would solve a lot of problems.”

  “You would regret it later,” my doctor warned.

  While she had a valid point, especially considering I couldn’t even kill an invading rat without being stricken with guilt, it annoyed me the brutal and justified murder of my parents wasn’t on the table for discussion. “Fine. I won’t murder them. What’s next in this hell show so I can get scolded for not eating well?”

  “I’m not going to scold you today for your diet. I’ll scold you next week if there isn’t improvement in your blood test results.”

  I could work with that. “I’m okay with being sick for a month to get on track faster.”

  “While admirable, I’d rather gradually introduce new foods to your diet while supplementing with nutrient-rich drinks. Personally, I prefer the chocolate-flavored ones, but there’s also strawberry.”