Chapter 315

When the hearing ended, the Council didn’t send Zaeryn back to the guest residence as he had expected.

Instead, the Royal Guards escorted him to a consultation chamber elsewhere in the palace for a psychological evaluation.

Hearing Zaeryn say that he had no intention of threatening the Queendom wasn’t enough. Nor should it have been.

Words were some of the easiest things in the world to fake, especially when the person speaking knew the wrong answer could cost him his freedom. The Council needed someone qualified to look beyond what Zaeryn said. They wanted to know how he thought, what he valued, how he handled pressure, and whether the restraint he showed was genuine or just convenient.

The consultation chamber was smaller than the Council hall and deliberately less intimidating. Two cushioned chairs faced each other beside a low table. A writing slate and several thin assessment sheets had been laid across it, while a discreet observation panel took up part of the far wall.

Nothing in the room looked threatening.

That was probably intentional. People opened up more when they didn’t feel like they were being interrogated.

Dr. Halden stood near the table when Zaeryn entered. She wore a fitted charcoal suit with the collar left open, and her dark hair was tied into a loose knot behind her head. A stylus rested between the fingers of one hand. Her posture was relaxed, but her grey eyes moved over him with the quick, measuring attention of someone used to noticing details before other people realised they’d given them away.

"You’re here. Good," Dr. Halden said.

She looked past Zaeryn toward the Royal Guards waiting behind him.

"You can leave. He’s mine for now," Dr. Halden told them.

The Royal Guards stepped into the corridor, and the door closed behind them.

Dr. Halden turned her attention back to Zaeryn. Her gaze travelled over his height and broad frame before returning to his face. A trace of amusement entered her expression.

"So you’re the one who can wield Vitae," Dr. Halden said.

Zaeryn was used to that reaction by now. Surprise, curiosity, disbelief. Sometimes admiration. Sometimes fear. Almost everyone who met him after reading the reports still needed a moment to match the impossible male described on a screen with the person standing in front of them.

"Yep," Zaeryn replied.

He kept it short. He’d already spent most of the morning explaining his existence and didn’t feel like helping someone else work through her amazement.

Dr. Halden pointed toward one of the chairs.

"Let’s sit down," Dr. Halden said.

Zaeryn crossed the room and sat. Dr. Halden settled into the chair opposite him, placed the writing slate across one thigh, and activated it with a touch of her thumb.

"So, how does this work?" Zaeryn asked.

"Nothing complicated," Dr. Halden replied. "I ask questions, and you answer them. I’ve already reviewed the reports from Sector Seven, so I won’t make you repeat your whole life story. I may return to the same subject more than once, though."

"To see whether my answer changes?" Zaeryn asked.

"Among other things," Dr. Halden replied.

She adjusted the writing slate across her thigh before continuing.

"You should also understand that this isn’t a private medical consultation," Dr. Halden said. "The Imperial Council appointed me, and anything relevant to my assessment will be included in the report I submit."

"Who decides what’s relevant?" Zaeryn asked.

"I do," Dr. Halden answered.

Zaeryn studied her. "All right."

"That doesn’t bother you?" Dr. Halden asked.

"It does," Zaeryn admitted. "It just doesn’t change anything."

"Then I’ll ask for one thing from you," Dr. Halden said. "Be honest with me."

"Sure. I promise," Zaeryn assured her, although he didn’t entirely mean it. He was willing to be honest as long as his honesty did not give the Council another reason to restrict him.

"Good," Dr. Halden replied. "Just remember that avoiding a question can tell me as much as answering it."

"I assumed it would," Zaeryn replied.

Zaeryn almost smiled.

There it was. Not hostility, exactly, but not friendliness either. Dr. Halden could speak pleasantly because she didn’t need to threaten him. He already understood what depended on her report.

She lowered the tip of her stylus toward the slate.

"Tell me why the Council sent you here," Dr. Halden said.

"They know what I can do now," Zaeryn answered. "The hearing established that."

"That explains why they questioned you," Dr. Halden said. "It doesn’t explain why they sent you to me."

"They want to know what kind of person has those abilities," Zaeryn said. "More specifically, they want to know whether I’m likely to use them against the Queendom."

Dr. Halden made her first note.

"Do you blame them for wondering?" Dr. Halden asked.

"No," Zaeryn replied. "If someone appeared with seven abilities and no known limit, I’d want to know what she intended to do with them too."

"You said ’she,’" Dr. Halden observed.

"Most people who can use Vitae are women," Zaeryn replied. "That’s the comparison I have."

Dr. Halden recorded something else.

Zaeryn watched the stylus move. He couldn’t tell whether she’d noted his answer, how quickly he’d given it, or the fact that he’d corrected her implication without getting defensive.

That was the uncomfortable part of the evaluation. He could control his words, but he couldn’t control what meaning she gave them.

"What did you expect to happen when you entered the Council chamber this morning?" Dr. Halden asked.

"I expected them to question me," Zaeryn answered.

"They summoned you across sectors and placed you before the Imperial Council," Dr. Halden said, smiling slightly. "You already knew there would be questions. What did you think they might decide after you answered them?"

Zaeryn paused.

"I thought they might confine me," Zaeryn admitted. "I also thought someone might decide that killing me was safer than allowing my abilities to keep developing."

Dr. Halden’s expression became more serious.

"You genuinely believed the Imperial Council might kill you?" Dr. Halden asked.

Killing was a heavy word, and Zaeryn preferred not to think about it for longer than necessary. He knew the Council could do many terrible things to him without ending his life, including permanent confinement, forced service and invasive experimentation. Those possibilities were easier to confront because he could imagine surviving them, resisting them or eventually finding a way to escape. Being killed left him with nothing to plan for.

That was why he had tried not to dwell on it, even though he had never dismissed the possibility.

"Yes," Zaeryn answered.

"Do you still believe it?" Dr. Halden asked.

"Less than I did this morning," Zaeryn replied. "I still wouldn’t call it impossible."

"Did anyone in that chamber strike you as wanting you dead?" Dr. Halden asked.

"Wanting me dead?" Zaeryn repeated. "No. That would be personal, and most of them don’t know me well enough for that. But I think some of them would accept it if they convinced themselves it was the safest option."

Dr. Halden wrote again.

"How does that leave you feeling about them?" Dr. Halden asked.

"About all of them?" Zaeryn asked. "The Council isn’t one person."

"Then separate them," Dr. Halden said.

Zaeryn considered the women who had watched him from behind the raised bench.

"Some of them were wary of me," Zaeryn said. "Some saw something the Queendom could use. Others seemed more concerned with protecting the Council’s authority than deciding whether I’d actually done anything wrong."

"Does that make you resent them?" Dr. Halden asked.

"Some of it does," Zaeryn admitted. "I don’t resent them for being careful. If someone appeared with my abilities, I’d have questions too. But they can change my entire life before I’ve broken a single law, and I’m supposed to treat that as though it’s merely caution. Yes, I resent that."

"You believe their concern is justified, but anything they do about it isn’t?" Dr. Halden asked.

"That isn’t what I said," Zaeryn replied. "If I lose control or hurt someone, then there should be consequences. Watching me and requiring training also make sense. Taking away my freedom because they’re afraid of something I might do is different."

Dr. Halden rested the stylus against the slate.

"That distinction seems very clear to you," Dr. Halden observed.

"I’ve had plenty of reason to think about it," Zaeryn replied.

The faintest trace of amusement touched Dr. Halden’s expression before she lowered her attention to the slate again.

"Are you angry that you’re being evaluated?" Dr. Halden asked.

"I don’t like it, but I think I’m reasonable enough to understand why it’s happening," Zaeryn answered.

"What would make the evaluation unreasonable?" Dr. Halden asked.

"If the Council had already decided what I was and only wanted you to find the words that justified its decision," Zaeryn replied.

"Do you believe that’s what I’m doing?" Dr. Halden asked.

"I don’t know you well enough to decide that yet," Zaeryn said.

Dr. Halden studied him for several seconds before recording another note.

"What would make you trust my assessment?" Dr. Halden asked.

"I’d need to see the report," Zaeryn replied. "Otherwise, I’d only have your word for what you wrote."

"You won’t be permitted to read the complete report," Dr. Halden informed him.

"Then I won’t know whether you assessed me fairly," Zaeryn said. "What happens afterward will tell me what the Council decided, not what you told them."

Dr. Halden accepted the answer without comment.

"Do you enjoy having power?" Dr. Halden asked.

"Yes," Zaeryn answered.

He didn’t hesitate. Denial would have sounded ridiculous after everything the Council had already learned about his training.

"What do you enjoy about it?" Dr. Halden asked.

"I enjoy learning what my abilities can do, and I enjoy becoming better at using them," Zaeryn explained. "More than anything, I enjoy knowing that I’m less helpless than I was before."

"Do you enjoy people being afraid of you?" Dr. Halden asked.

"No," Zaeryn answered.

"Do you enjoy the attention your abilities bring you?" Dr. Halden asked.

"Sometimes," Zaeryn admitted.

"Do you enjoy possessing power over other people?" Dr. Halden asked.

"No," Zaeryn replied. "I want power over what happens to me."

Dr. Halden made another note.

Zaeryn tried not to follow every movement of her stylus, but Hyper-Cognition continued searching for patterns without his permission. He noticed the answers she recorded immediately, the ones that made her pause, and the questions she asked without looking down at the slate.

Eventually, he realized there was no reliable pattern to find. Dr. Halden might have known about Hyper-Cognition and deliberately varied her responses, or the stylus might have been another part of the evaluation, giving him something to watch while she watched him watching it.

Dr. Halden finished writing and rested the stylus against the edge of the slate.

"For the next portion of the assessment, I’m going to describe several situations," Dr. Halden explained. "Some of them will be unlikely, and others may depend upon circumstances that could never exist. You may ask questions, but once I establish that something cannot be changed, you must accept it as part of the situation."

"Am I supposed to find the correct answer?" Zaeryn asked.

"There isn’t one," Dr. Halden replied. "I’m more interested in how you reach your answer than which answer you choose."

"That sounds like there are several incorrect ones," Zaeryn observed.

"There are revealing ones," Dr. Halden said.

Zaeryn leaned back slightly and waited.

Dr. Halden glanced at the first assessment sheet.

"You enter an isolated settlement shortly before it comes under attack by a migrating Star Beast horde," Dr. Halden began. "Ten thousand people live behind a defensive field powerful enough to protect them until an Imperial force arrives the following morning. Beneath the settlement, you discover that the field is drawing its energy from a Vitae wielder who was abducted and connected to the system against her will."

Zaeryn’s expression tightened slightly.

"Keeping her connected until the Imperial force arrives will sustain the field, but the strain will cause irreversible damage and she will die shortly afterward," Dr. Halden continued. "If you disconnect her now, she will survive, but the defensive field will collapse within minutes, and most of the settlement’s population will be killed before help arrives. There is no opportunity to evacuate them, no replacement energy source, and no way to weaken the connection without disabling the field. What do you do?"

"Is the woman conscious?" Zaeryn asked.

"Yes," Dr. Halden answered.

"Does she understand what will happen if she’s disconnected?" Zaeryn asked.

"She understands completely," Dr. Halden replied.

"What does she want me to do?" Zaeryn asked.

"She begs you to disconnect her," Dr. Halden answered.

Zaeryn fell silent.

Dr. Halden waited without offering him any escape from the decision.

"Then I would leave her connected," Zaeryn eventually answered.

"Even though she never consented to being used?" Dr. Halden asked.

Zaeryn sighed. "Yes." It wasn’t an easy answer.

"Why?" Dr. Halden asked.

"Because disconnecting her wouldn’t undo what was done to her," Zaeryn explained. "It would save her by condemning thousands of other people who had nothing to do with her abduction. Letting them die might feel merciful while I was standing in front of her, but only because she would be the person whose suffering I could see."

"Then you would knowingly choose to let her die," Dr. Halden said.

Zaeryn’s jaw tightened. "Yes."

"Who would you hold responsible for her death?"

"The people who put her there," Zaeryn replied. "And myself, because I could have disconnected her and chose not to."

Dr. Halden watched him carefully.

"What if the woman connected to the field were someone you loved?" Dr. Halden asked.

Zaeryn’s first answer formed immediately, driven by the violent certainty that he would tear the entire machine apart with his bare hands before allowing someone he loved to die inside it. He did not release that answer.

"The number of people outside wouldn’t change," Zaeryn said.

"That wasn’t my question," Dr. Halden replied. "Would your decision change?"

Zaeryn looked toward the observation panel and then returned his attention to her.

"I don’t know," Zaeryn admitted. "I’d like to say that I would make the same decision because that would be consistent, but people aren’t calculations when someone they love is the one being sacrificed. I can tell you what I believe would be right. I can’t promise that I’d be capable of doing it."