The Orphan's Secret

by R. J. Francis

  Galen burst from the operating room. Nastasha was encouraged, because she couldn’t imagine the doctor would be coming out this soon if the prince had died. Galen was a stocky man, fifty-five years old, with salt and pepper hair, a white moustache, and silver spectacles that seemed to enjoy sliding down his sweaty nose.

  “What’s going on in there?” Nastasha asked.

  “It’s not good,” said the doctor. “Whatever she did to him is wreaking havoc with his sympathetic nervous system. We can’t get his blood pressure or his respiration to stabilize, and his cardiac rhythm is all over the place. If this continues much longer, his body may just give up.”

  “What can we do?”

  “I gave him something to calm him down, but the real damage is beyond the scope of our knowledge.” Galen pointed to his temple. “From my limited understanding of what took place, I doubt even Raquel would be able to undo what she did. Anyway, what’s your damage? The queen wants you assessed.”

  “Me? I’m fine,” she told him. “Raquel bit me on the hand, but I’ve cleaned it up.” Nastasha did wish she’d shoved her weak hand instead of her writing hand into Raquel’s mouth.

  “You’re lucky that’s all she did to you,” said the doctor, turning to go.

  “Wait,” she called. “When I researched the suggestion power, I found some references to works in the Royal Archives. Do you think something in those books might help cure him?”

  “Can you get in there? I have to stay with the prince.”

  “I can. But the queen forbade me to leave.”

  “I can permit you. But just a moment…” The doctor disappeared back into the operating room.

  Less than a minute went by, and Arin ran out. “I’m to help you,” he told Nastasha.

  “Meet me on sub-two north,” said Nastasha, hopping down out the bed. “In front of the tapestry. Bring a lamp.”

  Nastasha had to get the archives keys from her father’s drawer again. Her mother was just leaving the apartment. The ladies hugged, but there was no time to trade stories. Nastasha grabbed her research notes, pulled some boots onto her aching feet, and left to descend to the second subbasement.

  Arin was a novice guard, only a year older than Nastasha, and he knew nothing about the Royal Archives. He held the lamp for her as she worked the combination behind the tapestry. When she got the latch open, she had him help her push open the door. He waited for her out in the hall.

  She located the two volumes she needed, plopped them down on the reading table, and scanned their contents for anything that could save Jaimin’s life. When she stumbled across the word “resistance,” she stopped and read the whole paragraph, muttering under her breath: “The only known case of resistance to the suggestion attack involved Celmarean females.”

  This is good, she thought, and she kept reading.

  “In 932, a band of mercenaries hired by Cadevrian crime boss Joss Hersher kidnapped five Celmareans who had come to Cadevria to purchase azurite. One of the mercenaries used the suggestion attack during the abduction, but the two Celmarean females in the group resisted the mind attack and got away. The hired men eventually cornered the two ladies in a warehouse and subdued them with an enormous fishing net. When Hersher found out about the females’ resistance to suggestion, he sought out a scientist from the capital to find out how this remarkable defense could be overcome.”

  “The scientist analyzed blood samples from the Celmareans. He found that the females’ blood contained a hormone previously unknown to science, and he theorized that the substance, which he called C-Alpha Tomarin, absorbed and neutralized the invasive energy before it could disrupt neural activity. Before he could test his theory, the Celmareans broke free and slaughtered Hersher and everyone else in his compound, including the scientist, whose notes were found by the Cadevrian authorities several days later…”

  Nastasha knew of only two Celmarean females in Arra: the queen and Princess Tori. She ran back up to the infirmary to show the book to Galen, leaving Arin to pull the door closed. “It says here,” said Nastasha, out of breath, “that the blood of Celmarean females contains a hormone that enables them to resist the suggestion attack.”

  “I see,” said Galen, pushing up his rogue spectacles with his index finger. “Good work. I wonder if the hormone would be effective if it were introduced after an attack.”

  “Well, what would be the risk if we were to do a transfusion?” she asked.

  “Far less than the risk of not doing one,” he said. “We really are about to lose him.”

  “I can help,” Nastasha said.

  “Welcome to the medical staff,” said the doctor. “Go get the kit.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “I’m sick,” Elaina declared, tears pooling at the corners of her eyes. “How am I feeling this?”

  “Let’s figure out what’s going on.” Alessa had Elaina sit beside her against the bed’s headboard, and she took her hand.

  “You’re shaking too!” Elaina said. “You feel it too, don’t you?”

  “Through you. Try to relax. Breathe deeply, like I taught you. Focus on the lamp. I need to know exactly what you’re sensing. Is it Devon?”

  The lamp’s flame danced in Elaina’s eyes. “No, this is someone even more dangerous. More careless.” She flinched and her eyes squeezed shut.

  “Do you see something?” asked Alessa.

  “She’s tearing him apart!” Elaina sobbed. “You don’t understand. I don’t know who she is, but she’s destroying him! She’s… she’s awful! We have to go help him!”

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know where he is. He doesn’t even know where he is. But he’s got to be in the castle. You said yourself they weren’t going to let him out. Let’s go!”

  “They won’t let us in.”

  “We can tell them to check on Jem.”

  “Wait,” said Alessa.

  “What is it?”

  “His mother knows.”

  “The queen?”

  “Yes, the queen. She knows. And she’s looking for him.”

  “He can’t wait. He needs help now.”

  “What can you possibly do, Elaina?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m going to the castle. I can’t just sit here.” Elaina tried to get up off the bed, and Alessa grabbed her arm, but she yanked it free. “Let me go!” Dizzy and distracted, Elaina couldn’t get her feet under her, and she fell; Alessa dove and clutched the back of her shirt to slow her fall before her head hit the floor.

  Elaina clawed at the rug in frustration, balling up its yarny fringes. After a few minutes, the feeling of peril eased.

  Alessa said, “Can you feel it? He’s been rescued. He’s in good hands now.”

  Elaina settled down enough for Alessa to help her back up onto the bed. The two ladies, still engaged with the events unfolding at the castle, fell first into a trance, and then into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  Nastasha lugged a leather-bound trunk into the operating room.

  The cool white light of portable electric lamps made everyone look ill, although Jaimin—ashen, sweaty, and shivering—looked the worst by far. Behind his quivering eyelids his eyes drifted aimlessly, except during occasional lucid spells when he’d suddenly open his eyes, sneer at someone in the room, and tug at his restraints. A wide strap around his chest kept him from sitting up. Tape on his right arm secured an arterial tap.

  Julian and Alethea were engaged in a whispered argument off in the corner.

  While Nastasha and Galen unpacked and assembled the transfusion equipment, Isabel wheeled in a second bed for the donors. Tori arrived in her nightdress, and when Alethea candidly explained what had happened, the little princess burst into sobs. She and her big brother were closer than most people realized.

  Once the equipment was ready, Nastasha took on the task of hooking Jaimin up to it. She pulled up his shirt sleeve.

  He glared at her, his eyes burning with hatred.

  “I believe you�
��re in there, Jaimin,” she said, more to reassure herself, “and we’re going to help you fight off what she’s done to you.”

  “I’ll fight you off,” Jaimin yelled. Shick! Nastasha felt, and heard, her jaw crack in several places.

  “Oh,” she whimpered, clutching her cheeks to keep her bones in place. Everyone stopped what they were doing. They knew Jaimin’s mending could also be used to destroy, but nobody had thought he could use the power without first shutting down his senses.

  Nastasha stumbled over to a stray chair. King Julian ran to her, held her face, and tuned out to assess the damage.

  Meanwhile, Isabel crept up on Jaimin and injected a potent sedative into his shoulder. He turned to see who’d poked him. “Ow! Come here! I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you all!” he bellowed. “I’ll ki… I’ll ki…” His eyes shut halfway and he drifted off. Tori buried her face in her mother’s dress and bawled.

  “No sedatives!” Galen yelled. “I want him conscious when the hormone is introduced! Our goal is to get him thinking normally. He’s not going to be able to heal if he’s off in some wild dream. Just… just don’t touch him.” He fastened an additional strap across Jaimin’s hips.

  Queen Alethea climbed onto the donor’s bed, and Tori squeezed in beside her. Isabel inserted a needle into an artery at the queen’s wrist.

  Meanwhile, Julian was attending to Nastasha’s broken jaw. The clean fractures hadn’t damaged any surrounding tissues; she wasn’t even in much pain. She kept still and let the king work his mending magic on her.

  Galen deftly inserted a suction tap into a vein in Jaimin’s right arm. Blood raced through loops of thin tubing and streamed into a steel bucket on the floor. After thirty seconds, he clamped the tube.

  The heart of the transfusion apparatus was a rack of airtight glass jars, with vacuum pressures precisely set to pump blood from a donor into a recipient. An in-line mechanical meter displayed the volume of blood transferred. Galen opened a valve to let the queen’s blood through the assembly and into her son’s body.

  “He’s in there,” the queen said. “He’s still in there, and he knows we’re trying to help.”

  The new blood had an immediate and unanticipated effect: it counteracted the sedative, and Jaimin awoke, just as angry as before he’d passed out. He turned to his mother and glared, yanking at his restraints, blurting out drunken babble: “You you… try… huk… pppffffff!” Unable to verbalize his twisted thoughts, he screamed…and screamed again…and again. Isabel went for another sedative, but Galen grabbed her arm and gave her a scalding look. The prince kept up his shrieking, tearing away at everyone’s nerves until a brief seizure silenced him. He fell limp.

  A holy quiet settled on the room.

  Galen felt Jaimin’s wrist for a pulse. Then he consulted the blood pressure monitor. “He’s holding on.”

  “His color actually looks better,” Isabel remarked.

  King Julian eased out of his mending trance. “Move your jaw,” he whispered. Nastasha did. It felt fine. He nodded, backed up against the wall, rolled his eyes upward and fell asleep. Arin and Syan ran and caught him before he could topple. They laid him flat, tucking a folded blanket under his head.

  “It’s working,” said the queen. “He’s starting to expel her! Nastasha, dear, please come here.” Nastasha hurried to the queen’s bedside.

  “Yes, Your Majesty?”

  “Ride out at once and find a lady named Alessa. She lives at the end of a dirt road on the southern rise. On the south road, can you picture in your mind the second white stone bridge that you come to?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty, the second one.”

  “Just after that bridge, you’ll see a narrow road to the left. That’s the way to Alessa’s house. I need you to summon her here. She can be trusted; you can tell her what’s happening. Only hurry.”

  “I understand, Your Majesty.”

  The queen glanced at her husband and beckoned Nastasha closer. “One more thing,” she whispered. “The girl Elaina is with her. She must come as well. We need blood from both of them.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.” Nastasha turned to leave.

  “Guards,” shouted Alethea. Arin and Syan stepped forward.

  “Your Majesty,” said Syan.

  “Go with her. Help her.”

  Nastasha ran with the guards to the royal stables, pondering the enigmatic duo she was about to meet. So that’s your secret, farm girl!

  Elaina woke at the frantic knocking and roused Alessa, who, on hearing the noise, whispered, “Put out the lamp.” They fumbled down the stairs into the pitch-black living room. “Who’s there?” Alessa called out.

  “Nastasha, friend of the prince.”

  Alessa unbolted the door and yanked it open. There, on the porch, was Nastasha, in a man’s leather coat she’d grabbed from a hook in the royal stables. She curtseyed, and Alessa saw the horses and royal guards behind her. “Good evening,” she said. “I’m looking for Alessa and Elaina.”

  “You’ve found them,” Alessa said.

  “The prince needs your help. You must come to the castle immediately.”

  Elaina and Alessa scrambled for their boots and cloaks and came outside. Syan helped Alessa up onto his horse. Elaina rode with Arin.

  They rode past Elaina’s former home, where the horses of strangers were tied up outside—a sure sign the cleanup was still underway. From there, they followed the same route Elaina had taken in pursuing Jaimin the night she’d met him. So much had happened since that night, it seemed to Elaina like a month had passed, instead of only a few days.

  Across the white stone bridge, they passed the “STAY OUT” sign and followed the weathered road into the forbidden forest.

  The road devolved into a narrow trail. As the horses approached what appeared to be a dead end, sentries hopped out of the undergrowth and brushed peat and branches off two enormous oaken doors set flush with the ground. Using ropes for leverage, the sentries heaved open the doors, revealing a broad ramp that descended into a lamp-lit tunnel.

  Nastasha didn’t even wait for the doors to fully open. As soon as there was enough space for her horse, she was leading the group down the ramp.

  The tunnel seemed endless. It took them beneath the moat, then finally up into the royal stables in the castle’s east wing. They kept riding until they had crossed the courtyard and reached the doors to the north wing.

  Syan led the horses off, while Arin, Alessa, and Elaina followed Nastasha in a sprint through the corridors. Elaina kept up, but her head injury throbbed. Her feet ached too—they hadn’t yet made peace with her new leather boots.

  Queen Alethea was waiting in the infirmary, outside the operating room, with a fat white dressing taped to her wrist. She greeted Alessa with a hug, which gave the rest of them time to catch their breath.

  “Her Majesty, the queen,” Nastasha explained to Elaina in a faint whisper.

  “Well done, Nastasha,” said Alethea with a slight bow. Nastasha responded with a curtsey.

  The queen turned her attention to Elaina. Elaina’s curtsey was shaky. Her heart was still thumping from the run.

  “Ah, my dear Elaina,” said Alethea. “Look how you’ve grown! Welcome to our home. You have no idea how much joy seeing you gives me. So many times I’ve longed to bring you here, but of course the king would not allow it.”

  Elaina was baffled. Look how I’ve grown? Isn’t this the queen? When has she seen me before? The queen did look oddly familiar, but she couldn’t remember ever having met her. Maybe she’d seen a portrait somewhere. She replied, “It’s an honor, Your Majesty.”

  The queen’s smile faded. “Alessa, Jaimin is dying. He may have a chance if he receives our blood. I’ve donated all I can, and now Tori is doing her part. I fear it won’t be enough to help him overcome what he’s been subject to. My dear, will you help?”

  “Of course, Your Majesty,” said Alessa.

  “And Elaina,” the queen said to Elaina, “will you?”

/>   “I would give my life for him.”

  “Your life is as precious as his. There is no risk to you,” the queen said. “Come. We must prepare.”

  The newcomers hung their cloaks up and filed into the operating room. Someone had hoisted the king onto a folding cot. Princess Tori was asleep on the donor’s bed.

  Elaina’s heart clenched when she saw Jaimin’s fixed, blank stare. The boy she’d been thinking about non-stop all week—the boy she was now sure she loved—lay ravaged. “He needs you to be strong, my dear,” said the queen.

  Elaina nodded. The evening had already proven she had strength, and only by keeping her mind together could she help salvage the prince.

  “Alessa, please go first.” The queen scooped up Tori and carried her out, and Alessa took her place on the donor’s bed. Elaina sat on a low wooden stool on the other side of Jaimin’s bed and lifted his sheet, searching for his hand to hold.

  “Don’t touch him,” Galen told her. “He may strike out at you if you do. Excuse me.” The doctor reached over Elaina to undo the clamp on the tube, allowing more of Jaimin’s blood into the bucket near her feet. She caught a whiff of iron. Half of Jaimin’s original blood volume was now in the bucket.

  “Where’s Isabel?” Galen asked.

  “I haven’t seen her since we returned,” Nastasha said.

  “You set Alessa up, then, please.”

  Nastasha had never actually inserted a needle into an artery before, but she knew how it was done. She found the ulnar artery on Alessa’s wrist and tapped it perfectly on the first try.

  Elaina tuned everyone else out and concentrated on being there for Jaimin. She tried speaking to him—softly, so the others in the room couldn’t hear. “I’m here now, Jem,” she whispered. He remained expressionless. “We’re going to get this terrible girl out of your mind for you. You need to help us. Can you help us?”

  “I’ll try,” Jaimin wanted to say, but all he managed was a twitch of his leg. His mind still ached, and Raquel’s fading influence kept him silent. He could even see Elaina now, which gave him tremendous hope, and there was healing in her words.