1618686836 (F) (30 page)

Finally, I will complete the experiment eventually desired by Sammen; the mating of an empath and an apath, and identifying whether this would create a creature capable of both manipulating and being immune to the weakness of emotion
."

"He wants to...to mate with her?"

"Spoken like a true apath." Ross muttered darkly.

"We have to confront Sammah with this! He has to be stopped! Quinn can't know this. He's either going to kill her, or..."

"Don't say it, Maertn. I feel sick just thinking about it."

"How could he use us like this?" Frustrated tears glistened in Maertn's eyes. "He's used me to keep her alive, just so he can complete his filthy experiments. So, what? That she can manipulate emotions? What good will that do?"

"What good? Think about it, Maertn. She can't change people's memories, but she could change their future. She could make the king fall madly in lust with a goat, for all he'd be able to resist. She'd be able to make someone so angry that they'd take sword against someone, and she'd be able to direct who that person is. She'd...she'd be able to make anybody try to assassinate the king."

"No. No that's not right. That's not fair. He can't do that to Quinn."

"He can. And I'd would put a lengthy wager on who that murderer would be. Who could Quinn get close to? And if touch enhances power, who could she really place her hands on that could swing a sword at the king?"

Maertn put his head in his hands and groaned. “Oh, Eden. We're all being used. We have to find her."

"Oh I don't know about that." Ross's door swung open on a quiet hinge. "You can just come and wait with me. She'll be along shortly. I might need your help, Maertn, as you fully well know. Well done, Ross. Not quite the way I'd expected you to help me, but we reach the right conclusion nonetheless. I shall leave you in the safe hands of my men. Maertn, you can come with me."

Before he could object, Ross pulled him out of the chair by the throat of his shirt.

"Do what he says lad. You're the only person that can keep Quinn alive."

44

Quinn felt like she was floating through the halls. She had never known emotions or sensations like them. Her skin was still on fire, and her heart was singing like a firebird in the highest tree. She almost felt carefree enough to take a twirl or two, and completely glided past the dumbfounded looks of Yvonne before Grainne caught her eye; the girl had a cheek that looked like it was turning blue. Yvonne hustled the other girl away before Quinn could speak to them, and she felt her spirits falling back down to the ground as she realised they were avoiding her, and the world was all back to normal after all, no matter how Eden felt about her.

Walking with flat feet and long strides, her head once more down, she made her way through the walkways of Everfell. She didn't look up until she came into her quarters. She almost jumped out of her skin, therefore, when she was met by the malicious grin of Elias. Before she could even call out in shock, he had grabbed her by the throat. His hand crushed effortlessly around her windpipe. She lashed out at him, slapping at his vice-like fingers before scratching her hands down his arm. He didn't even wince as she felt skin come up underneath her fingernails, and saw bloody streaks appear down his forearm. She tried to kick out at him, but her legs were too short, and his reach too long. She felt the pain in her head reappear, and as her vision grew dark with bright stars, she felt the heat of blood gushing from her nose. In a last desperate gasp she lashed out to him, a sense of utter hatred packed behind her will. His smile didn't falter. When he saw her eyes glaze over, he finally released her, letting her fall heavily to the floor as if she were naught but a child's doll. With little effort, he hauled her over his shoulder. That was easier than he had suspected.

45

Eden couldn't keep the grin off his face. His father had noticed, despite the copious amount of wine he'd already consumed that day. Shiver had responded in good cheer, but had been reduced to roars of rage when one of the maids had tripped with his latest tankard, spilling the contents over their rug. Eden had felt sorry for the girl. She rose with a great bruise on her face. He hadn't seen her come in, and didn't know if that had been there already, or was caused by her fall. He hadn't had time to ask, as he'd been immediately dismissed to complain to and fetch the chamberlain. The girl had fled the room before him, so he knew that she was at least clear of his father's wrath. Glad to have an errand to keep him out of the way of the short temper of Shiver, Eden had begun to whistle through the hallways, memories of Quinn’s soft lips springing readily to mind. As he walked up to Ross's door though, it was clear something was amiss. It was slightly ajar; Ross never left his door ajar. Eden opened it to see two mercenaries in there. They were rifling through Ross's belongings. The man himself was crumpled in a heap on the floor, a dark stain spread underneath him unlikely to be anything but blood. With a scowl, Eden patted at his waist. He wasn't wearing his sword. His eyes moved frantically around the room, looking for anything he might use as a weapon. There should have been plenty of candidates in a room that belonged to a former mercenary. Looking behind him, he saw a heavy mace hanging on the wall from a simple leather hoop. Perfect.

Eden lifted it silently, surprised by its heft and almost dropping it. With mental thanks to Under, Eden crept up on them. Judging the first man to be the larger of the two, he raised the mace high over his head in both hands and brought it crushing down onto the back of the skull of the first mercenary. It hit home with a sickening crunch and the man crumpled to the floor instantly. His comrade whirled around, his eyes wide in shock that anyone in this nursery of a city would dare attack them. He pulled a sword from his belt. Eden saw though, that the man was reacting from instinct of the battlefield. The long curved, and quite frankly, blunt sword was going to do him little use in confined quarters. Eden jumped back from the first massive swing, then danced to one side and ducked under the predictable backslash. The mercenary hissed in frustration. Eden crouched in to a fighting stance, looking for any opening he could use to bring the situation over to his advantage. The man had him beaten in most aspects—height, reach, and weight, but he did not have Eden's lightness of foot, and he did not have the quickest of minds. Eden kept ducking the awkward hacks of the mercenary, moving closer and closer to the man who, too late, realised Eden was making for his knife. With a desperate yell, Eden crossed the distance between them, reaching for the blade at the mercenary's belt. He yanked it free of its sheath with a triumphant roar, but lost his balance and fell. The movement on the belt brought the mercenary with him, though, and as Eden twisted to fall, he brought the knife up, held hard in both hands. The mercenary fell on top of him, and his eyes went wide as the knife slid in to his belly. Blood dripped from the mercenary's mouth and onto Eden's cheeks. The young captain twisted his face to one side in disgust, and with a heave, tried to move the body. He couldn't; the mercenary weighed too much. He rocked, trying to build some momentum in the space, and after three small rocks, was able to heave enough of the body off so that he could sit up.

Eden surveyed the mess. A pool of blood continued to spread from the second man, who lay where Eden had pushed him. The first mercenary still lay where he had crumpled, his body curled up almost in prayer, the mace sticking up and completely embedded in his skull. The amount of blood coming from him was grotesque, and Eden covered his mouth at the sweet and sticky scent.

Casting his eyes over to Ross, it seemed to Eden that the massive man had now moved. Eden scuttled over on his hands and knees, pawing at the chamberlain's shoulder to see if he could rouse him. Ross's eyes fluttered, but they didn't open all the way. A scream brought Eden's eyes to the door. The maid who had been in his father's apartments was looking in on the scene with utter horror. Her voice echoed off the corridor walls. Eden tried to calm her. As men ran in to the room, they recoiled in shock at the scene they found. A drunken Shiver followed the last of them. His father may have been a drunk, but there was one thing in his life that he had always been able to respond to. Violence.

"Don't just stand there," he bellowed "someone get a bloody healer!"

As two men rushed off, pulling the hysterical maid with them, he yanked Eden to his feet, tugging at his son’s tunic.

"What have you done, son?"

46

Quinn didn't know why, but she was walking through fog. She was parallel to a river she did not recognise, which ran through sand and onto a beach. She was walking towards the sea, she knew instinctively, despite never having seen the sea before. There was a whistling noise, which might have been from the birds overhead, though it didn't seem entirely natural. There were other shapes moving around her. They seemed human in form, mostly, though there were some other creatures around her, four-legged and loping through the dimness. She called out three times, but no one around her responded. The shapes just kept moving, drifting around. The closer she got to the beach, the more shapes there were. They seemed to be milling around, like an impatient crowd waiting for the call of the executioner.

Stepping on the sand of the beach, Quinn was expecting to see softness underneath her feet. Instead, there was a hard crunch, and pain shot up through her feet. She looked down to see bones, and now looking up, she could see the sand around her had turned to the skeletons of the dead, broken up and discarded along the shore. She opened her mouth to cry in terror, but no sound came out. This landscape did not appear to bother any of the apparitions around her. Quinn started running, trying to get off the beach and back to the sandy riverbank she had been on before, but the beach of bones was now endless, stretching as far as the eye could see. Apparitions seemed to part before her, happy for her to keep running, to keep exhausting herself. As if they had already done this, and found it futile. Content to drift, and to let her learn her own lesson the hard way.

Eventually exhausted, Quinn fell to her knees. She found herself staring in to the empty eyesockets of a skull, bleached and long dead. Its maw was open in a death grin. The top row had all of its teeth missing. Quinn looked up as a shadow fell across her, and found herself looking now at an apparition that was more solid than the others. It had form; arms and legs, and a head of sorts, though this kept changing. It was a man at first, then a woman. Then a child, young and androgynous. It held out a hand to her. The voice that came to her felt like talons being scratched across and along the inside of her ears. "Here is not for you, yet. You have not brought us the right gift. Take this. Return."

A hand reached out to her, and dropped in her hand what looked like a simple lump of black coal. In her hand, it started changing colour, growing to a fierce burning red, before changing to brilliant white. It should have been hot, Quinn thought, it should have been causing her pain, like the voice of the spirit. It wasn't, though. It was simply burning through her. She felt its heat travel through her body; up her arm and across to her heart, through her lungs and down to her belly. It lingered there for a time, before suddenly spreading out across her entire body. The spirit was briefly illuminated, oddly, Quinn thought, from the light that was glowing within her. Then the light began to fade, and so did the apparition. Quinn found, suddenly, that her voice had returned. "Wait! What gift?" she called; but nothing came out of her mouth but light. In that last stream of brilliance, Quinn erupted in to darkness.

47

She woke with a start, wanting to bring her hands up to her neck to feel where Elias had strangled her. Instinctively, she kept still. She had done enough passing out and waking up in her short life to know she had been carried elsewhere. She was not on her familiar bed, nor was she on the floor of her room. She was upright, of all positions, and her legs dangled in mid-air. She was cushioned though, and supported, so she reasoned she had to be in a chair.

She listened for voices. They came rushing into her, as if her hearing had been temporarily taken and was now restored. She heard Sammah, of course. She heard Maertn, too. He was crying. Why was Maertn crying? Was he sad? Did he know what Elias had done to her?

"I can't help her,” Maertn sobbed. Why did she need help? She was awake. She could breathe. She would be okay. Was Sammah hurting Maertn? Was this it? Had he found out all their plotting? Was this the end of them, after all?

"You have to! You did it before, so do it again! Look in her head and move the cloud!"

"There isn't anything there!"

"Do it again!" Quinn flinched as she heard flesh slapping flesh. Maertn cried out. Quinn bit the inside of her cheek to keep from shouting. Whatever was happening, it was not as Sammah expected it. He thought she was as before. He thought she needed healing in her head, but she was fine. Quinn felt light hands resting on the back of her head. They had to be Maertn's. They trembled. What was Sammah going to do to her friend, if he was still unable to heal her?

"I can't do it, Sammah. There is nothing there to heal. She is...she isn't like before."

Quinn felt the hands being yanked away from her. "Then you aren't the healer I thought you were. You're not good enough Maertn. You disappoint me. Elias!"