1618686836 (F) (9 page)

“Sorry, sir. I thought you had finished. I…”

“It’s fine, Neyv. I am finished. You sit, and eat where the others can’t steal your food.” Her cheeks went impossibly red now. Sammah frowned. “How long has this been happening, Neyv?”

She froze, a small white roll halfway to her open mouth. She dropped it. “They’ve always picked on me sir, since I got here. I don’t have real parents, they say. I shouldn’t even be in Everfell, never mind the court. They call me a runt. They never remember me. They say it all the time. As if they’ve never met me before.”

Sammah grunted. Neyv might be small, but she shouldn’t be the brunt of bullying. Such trauma might stunt her development in many ways, and it wasn’t her fault she was an orphan. Sammah had very much played a hand in that.

“I will have a word with Renner. You will breakfast here for the rest of the week, and I will arrange for some lessons for you, for self-defence.”

Neyv dipped her head. “Sir, you’re too kind, with everything you’ve already done for me.”

“Nonsense,” Sammah waved. “You’re my daughter now, nothing is too much. Eat anything you want here. Just make sure you clear it up properly when you’re done.”

Neyv blurted out her thanks between floods of tears. She rushed to hug Sammah, which he endured awkwardly, though the little girl didn’t notice. She rushed back to the table, grabbing at a bunch of grapes and popping them into her mouth without leaving time to chew. The child must have been famished. Sammah shook his head, leaving her to her unexpected feast. If Maertn had shown such vulnerability at that age, Sammah would have beaten the lad to give him the same lesson. He wasn’t sure that Quinn would have been so cowed, either. But Neyv was still an anomaly to him. Sammah wasn’t beyond bestowing the odd kindness on his children, though he didn’t need their physical affections. He looked over his clothes, picking at a sticky patch left behind by Neyv’s dirty hands. Now he’d have to change before heading to the first meeting. Perhaps he would have Neyv beaten, after all.

14

Quinn couldn’t sleep, though she was absolutely desperate for some rest. Perhaps that was the problem. She sat up in her cot, tugging down her nightshift to make sure her body was covered. Sammah had given them rooms indiscriminately when they were younger, so some of the boys now would barrel into rooms without announcing themselves. Quinn was old enough now, that she didn’t want men, unfamiliar or not, seeing her body without her consent. Not even Maertn was an exception to this rule, though Quinn liked the tall apprentice, and they had gone skinny-dipping in the river together many times in their youth. He was calm and easy to talk to. He didn’t fit in the Everfell male mold, which was to say he didn’t terrorise those around him that were weaker, and he didn’t spend his time chasing around women. Quinn was sadly too aware of why Maertn’s affections were limited, though. Whenever he spoke to her, she fought hard to keep a straight face as the gentle warmth stroked at her temples, through her head and over her skin. The hottest place was her heart; she knew without doubt that Maertn loved her, and was sure he rejected the advances of other women because of those feelings.

This had made their conversations awkward more recently, now Maertn was considered an adult, and Quinn herself was approaching her Naming Day in her seventeenth summer. Quinn was painfully shy. Her intimate knowledge of the emotions of others had been the precise reason why she shied away from close relationships with anyone but Sammah. As her friendship with Maertn had blossomed and she had not returned his feelings in kind, she had been pleasantly surprised to find out that, not only did he not begin to resent her, his feelings grew, if that had been at all possible. The longer she had been exposed to these emotions, the easier it was for her to deal with them. So as time wore on, their awkward exchanges were actually solidifying their long and deep friendship. In many ways, Quinn trusted Maertn more than she did her adoptive father. She wasn’t stupid, no matter what many around the castle staff thought of her, and she didn’t look at the work of her father with the naïve and adoring eyes of a child any more. The interviews she conducted for Sammah hadn’t all been in the name of the king, and all of the high-level courtiers had their own agenda to some lesser or greater extent. Quinn knew she played a role in Sammah’s intrigues, but as things stood, there was no negative consequence. There was no war. There was no threat to Everfell. There was no threat to Sammah, or to her livelihood. She knew she had a reputation in the city, and that people had heard of Sammah having a mysterious person in his employ that could read minds.

Quinn smiled at this. One thing Sammah had told her, very early on, was that people will fill in the gaps for themselves when they come across something that they can’t understand. She was unique, he had told her, and that’s why she felt so lonely. No one could know what she was going through, or what she felt like when she was sent reeling by intense emotion. Quinn couldn’t read minds, and no matter how strong her power grew, this would always be the case. But anyone with a sense of intelligence, Sammah had told her, could feel someone’s raw emotions and make a guess at why that emotion was there at that time. Because her guesses were almost always right, folk assumed she could read minds.

The Satori, they called her. The mind-reader, like the animal the stories said plagued the forests between Everfell and Broadwater. She liked the word. It tasted good on the end of her tongue. The Satori had been terrorising Everfell since the Peace, they told each other. Quinn knew this wasn’t true, though she also knew she couldn’t read minds. This was another lesson from Sammah. Ruling with fear is more powerful than ruling with kindness. King Vance was a good man, but if someone were to come along to replace him, and they ruled with an iron hand, no one would turn against that man for fear of reprisal. Whenever she received this lesson from Sammah, and it was one frequently meted, her mind always wandered back to Shiver. What an apt name for a vile man.

Satori or not, she could not read Sammah, therefore the adult Quinn would never be able to fully trust him, regardless of how much she had revered him as a child. Quinn would follow him, and he had her heart to a great extent, but because she had felt so much from mankind, she could never trust a man that she could not read. It was depressingly rare to find a person completely incapable of deceit.

Sighing audibly, Quinn threw herself back on to her stiff pillow. She had sat searching for a way to sleep, and now her mind was sprinting away with nonsense. She wouldn’t get any rest at this rate, even with Sammah gifting her an entire day of leisure—unheard of! Making a decision, she padded out of bed and dressed swiftly but scruffily. Hopefully everyone would mistake her for an urchin, and they would just ignore her.

Her little journey was going to take her into a building off the side of the courtyard. She’d be passing a lot of people in the meantime, and she’d need to brace herself against the buffeting she knew she’d receive. At the end of the journey though was Maertn, and she knew that he’d be able to brew her something that could send her exactly where she needed to go—a deep and heavy sleep.

15

“I have no idea what you’re talking about Sammah.”

Sammah gritted his teeth as Shiver turned his back, choosing instead to pay attention to his men drilling in formation. The lord still stank of ale and wine, despite Sammah’s instructions to send him to the baths, and his bloodshot eyes suggested that he was still feeling more than a few of the effects of his drinking the night before. Sammah tried not to stand too close, though this was difficult when he didn’t want their conversation to be overheard.

“I know you’re lying to me Shiver. There’s no way you’ve got all of your men out of the city this quickly. What are you trying to hide?”

“I’m hiding nothing. I only had the one man here, because of the taxes being levied. I have no interest in breaking our agreement Sammah, and won’t endanger it now for the sake of some extra coins.”

“You’re being strangely affable, and that’s not like you. I had your man last night seen by the Satori, and he wasn’t capable enough to be working on his own.”

Shiver turned around slowly. “Am I seriously meant to believe that tale? There’s a stranger that roams the streets of Everfell abducting folk and reading minds? Push off with you man, I’m trying to do important things here.”

If you weren’t the Lord of Sevenspells I’d have you abducted myself,
Sammah thought. Such aggression wouldn’t help here, however. Instead, he spoke firmly but quietly, so only Shiver could hear. Eden was heading towards them, hot and tousled from the weapons drills. Their conversation needed to be over.

“His name was Bann. He was about your age, and a messy man. Cries too much, from what my men told me.”

Shiver looked over his shoulder at the ambassador from Sha’sek. A slimy man, he’d always thought. Too clean. Too precise. Too untouchable. But by the spirits, his information was right, and if Shiver let him know that then he was in trouble.

“You’re an ambitious man, Shiver. I respect that. I even admire it. There’s not a lot in this world that I admire any more. You’ve heard a lot about me and I daresay most of it is true. I’ve heard enough about you to know we can work well together, otherwise I wouldn’t even be entertaining involving you.

Meet me this evening, in my quarters. Come alone. We need to talk.”

The way Sammah stated this, a command, not a question, made Shiver go cold. No one spoke to him like that. He didn’t consider denying this request. He did gulp though, and ask a question he never believed he’d leave his lips. “Will your Satori be there?”

Sammah seemed to consider this for a moment. “If he needs to be.”

Shiver shook his head steadily. “He won’t be.”

“He won’t what?”

* * *

Eden had arrived within earshot, and was interested in their conversation. Both men returned their tense stances to congenial faces. “Ah, nothing, young Eden. Just stale matters of state, I’m afraid. You’re improving with the drilling, I see.”

“Am I?” Eden swung his wooden training sword around absentmindedly. Sammah’s eyes slid up and down the boy once. Sammah was sure his eyes didn’t betray him. The lad—no,
captain
—had certainly grown significantly since his last visit to Everfell.

“Firm movements in the pincer. Good control, good voice. Showing the essentials of a leader I see, just like your father.”

Eden was about to respond when a burst of catcalling came from the other side of the training ground. In the midst of it was the shrill scream of a women. The noise chilled Eden to the core. Whoever it was, she must be in great pain. He turned to sprint towards it, but Sammah held him fast.

“Stay there lad. This is my business.”

Faster than Eden thought the emissary capable, Sammah set in a dead sprint towards the noise. Eden looked at his father, who seemed ashen. Eden put this down to the hangover of ale and wine, which he was sure would still be repeating on the old man even now. He grasped his arm.

“Come on. Let’s get you some bread and meat to soak up some of that bitterness.”

16

There was never training in the grounds. Why were they there?

Quinn had thought that taking her usual shortcut through the back of the grounds, avoiding the luscious courtyard favoured by the queen and the jabbering hens of the court, would be as quick and easy as it always was. She sometimes came across the stablehands and the occasional messenger, maybe even a soldier or two on errand, but they were not a problem for her.

What she hadn’t expected to come across was a full set of soldiers in drill. The noise and dust they were kicking up was nothing compared to the impact she felt on her head.

It felt like her skull was being crushed. The pressure was unbearable. As each of them watched the other, guarded themselves against a stroke, sought to find a response, ducked, and looked for their next stage of defence or their next point of attack, her temples got closer and closer, the pressure on them unbearable. Quinn collapsed to her knees, her hands clasping over her ears as she desperately tried to block them out. She felt something hot and wet spill over her upper lip, and she curled in to the foetal position to try to stop the pain. As she screamed—as if by the touch of the spirits—she felt the pain easing. Her eyes were blurred so badly she couldn’t see. Tears, she thought at first, before realising in a panic that the blurring had changed to blackness. Had she gone blind? A hand clamped on her shoulder but she thrashed, unable to sense the feelings of confusion and worry beyond the pain that was still rampaging in her skull.

Someone scooped her up. It didn’t take much effort, she thought. Was she that small? Was she dead? Were the spirits taking her away?

They started walking with her. She bobbed away. Other emotions starting coming to her, but they were so many and so varied that they jabbed at her, flaring the pain anew. Quinn writhed in the arms of her saviour, or captor, she didn’t know. They held her tighter. Another pair of arms…another…four? It felt like all the hands in the world were upon her. Some of them slapped at her and others punched. Her body felt torn.
This is it,
a fractured part of her mind told herself,
this is what dying feels like.