Well of Tears (Empath Book 3) (20 page)

“You didn’t listen to me, did you Eden? Even
if she does, I will kill her, too. I will not stop until the blood
of every single Sha’sekian stains the sands.”

Approaching
the forbidding grey stone of Everfell as the sun rose was the most
depressing thing Quinn had done in her life. Tendrils of hot orange
light licked the sky as the first fires of dawn woke the horizon.
It was a backlight to her home; the place Sammah had brought her up
to be what she was today.

She was, she reflected sadly, a lot more
skilled on a horse than the day she’d left with Maertn. It seemed
like so long ago, but had only been a few months at the most. How
much life could change, in such a short space of time. There were
other things she was capable of now, too, which she couldn’t
before. Quinn could kill, for a start. She hadn’t managed it with
Rowan, but if she’d stayed awake for just a few seconds more, she
knew that it would have ended the prince.

For the first time in her life, too, she had
a choice.

When she’d escaped to Kahnel, she could have
stayed, or she could have gone on to Sha’sek. Maskell had been safe
enough, but hiding was not the kind of life she wanted. After
everything she’d done and with the chance of bringing an end to all
of this, there was no way she could have turned tail and run,
spending the rest of her live as a servant or a maid.

As long as Sammah, Pax or Shiver thought that
she was still alive, Quinn would be hunted. She also knew that she
wouldn’t rest, knowing that Sammah was still out there,
manipulating everyone around him. Quinn didn’t know how complicit
Neyv was in this, but the girl was still so young. Quinn was sure
Neyv had no idea what she was doing.

As Quinn approached the wall, she was
suddenly struck by how quiet everything was. No one had passed her
on the road out. Before, she hadn’t paid this any heed. She wasn’t
used to life outside of cities, but when she and Maertn had left
before, she remembered now that there had been a steady stream of
folks on this path, both on their feet and mounted. She was the
only person on the road. There was no noise coming from the city
proper, either. Quinn squinted up at the battlements, and couldn’t
make out any figures up there. There should have been men on guard.
On any day, even during the peace, Vance kept guards on the walls.
Where was everyone?

Her mount, sensing her discomfort, danced in
place. “Steady, girl.” Her tame mare had been reliable throughout
her trip from Yender. It had been a lonely road, and Quinn had
found herself talking to it more and more often. Maertn would have
told her it was a sign that she was going mad. Quinn would have
retorted that it was her only reliable source of intelligent
conversation.

“No choice but forward. Come on, girl.”

Forward or backward. Exile or trial. Life or
death. Even when Quinn had been given a path, there had only been
two choices, one of which had always been obvious. Did everyone
else live like this? Risking the thin side of the blade to avoid
the thrust of the tip? She could go back, she supposed. This time
she was the only person pushing this forwards.

Quinn steeled herself. She had to get this
done. Everything in her life had been leading up to this
moment—this confrontation. If she could sever her ties with Sammah
then she might just give herself enough freedom to evade Pax, and
anyone else from Sha’sek that thought they could still manipulate
an empath for their own benefit.

As she had suspected and feared, there was no
one at the gates to stop her from entering the city. The hoof beats
were silent as they went through the cobbled streets, Quinn hoped
this was because the city had been evacuated; that people had
escaped, rather than be slaughtered. Out of the corner of her eye,
she thought she did see some people scuttling across the shadows.
So, there were still people here. This calmed her, at least in
part. She reached out and felt their fear; that tremulous emotion
was far preferable to the bitter tang of death. It was a lonely
journey through the city, though she was glad that no one
confronted her. It didn’t just mean Everfell had been abandoned—it
also meant that Sammah wasn’t capable of defending it in
strength.

She only came across one soldier. Near the
gates to the castle proper, there was one lonely guard. He neither
hailed nor challenged her. Quinn rode her horse up slowly and
calmly, though she was positive that she didn’t look like a threat
at any rate. Quinn looked down, and the boy—he was just a
boy—looked up at her. His hands shook, and Quinn saw that he could
barely keep hold of his pike.

“Aren’t you going to challenge me?”

“No…no milady. The baron’s been expecting
you.”

Should she be surprised? She wasn’t sure, but
she wasn’t. Especially not given the surroundings here. Her
approach to Everfell through the city, even approaching the city,
would have been visible from Sammah’s rooms. Where have all these
people evacuated to? Everfell was the capital city, and a thriving
community. How could so many people escape so quickly? Unless they
haven’t, hiding. Was the threat of war so severe, the potential of
Shiver’s army besieging Everfell so keen, the people are chosen to
escape rather than be slaughtered in our homes?

“You support Sammah?”

“I…I just want to live.”

“Then I suggest you leave the city.”

The boy dropped his staff immediately and
made a run for it. Given the derelict state of the rest of the
city, Quinn was astonished he was still standing at his post.
Someone must have petrified him, for him to keep his post. Had
Quinn sent him to his death? Would Sammah send anyone after the
boy? He doubted it. Not if he knew that Quinn was walking right now
towards him. Quinn looked up at the gates. If she went through
those, her next stop was the castle. She wasn’t ready to just walk
in there, not right now.

She looked back down the street. There were
inns here, shops, homes, and all of them looked abandoned. Quinn
went up to what looked like a home and knocked the door. There was
no answer. She knocked harder, and the door swung open on a loose
hinge.

“
Hello?
”

There was no answer. Quinn wandered in. It
was a small home; the one-room style which was common to the
workers who usually buzzed around the streets. The room had been
stripped bare. The fire was empty, and cloths lay across the floor
where they’d been dropped in haste. A chair was overturned. There
was no food. It would be too cold to stay here overnight, but it
would give Quinn somewhere to sit and think, before she strode into
the castle and the waiting arms of her enemy. She could stay the
inevitable. Sammah was already sucking the life out of Everfell.
Even on her way here, after being buoyed from her conversation with
Maskell, she hadn’t thought it would be this bad this quickly. What
would happen to the kingdom if Shiver didn’t win?
No
she told herself,
not Shiver. I can still
win this. I must be the one to defeat Sammah. I can’t give Shiver
the excuse to go to war against Sha’sek.

Quinn looked again around the room. What was
she doing? What was the point in waiting? Sammah was expecting her
to be nervous, to be the same little Quinn he’d bossed for a
lifetime. She wasn’t going to give him that little girl. She was
going to give him a fight. She would take his life. Sammah would
know who came for him.

“
I don
’t understand what’
s
happening, Sammah. What
’s happened to Erran and Obrenn?
Where are our men? They’re meant to be supporting us against
Shiver.”

“They’ve abandoned you, sire.”

Vance looked across at Neyv. “Who is she?
What’s she doing here?”

Sammah didn’t have the time to go over this
story again. He had come here to placate the king once more, to try
and send messages to Obrenn and Erran written personally by the
king, to bring them back to his cause. Quinn was on her way. His
preference was to greet her with Neyv, using the little girl to
bring Quinn back to his cause, rather than repeating himself to the
king.

“She’s…” Sammah looked at Neyv. Quinn was
back—she’d come here, insanely, on her own. Sammah could use Neyv
to get Quinn back on his side, then he wouldn’t
need
the loyalty of Erran and Obrenn. It didn’t
matter what other people felt—he could make any man a fighter with
Quinn on his side. With Quinn
and
Neyv anyone could be a
fighter, and every man would be loyal to him, when the girls were
powerful enough.

He didn’t need Vance.

He didn’t need any of the lords.

Sammah looked down at his hands. They were
shaking. Was he nervous, about what he felt like doing right now?
Was he excited? Sammah reached to his belt, to the ornate curved
knife he kept there. He wasn’t a skilled swordsman, but when you
had a man isolated and ensorcelled like Vance was, you didn’t need
any talent. A neck was just a neck, and every blade went through a
naked neck in exactly the same way.

* * *

The halls should have been familiar. If they
had been full, or even if there had at least been some background
noise, then Quinn would have been more at ease. She had gone to the
kitchens first. After seeing the empty streets of Everfell, her
gauge was going to be the domain previously ruled by Renner,
wielding her iron pots of mastery and making every other staff
member quake in her presence. Quinn remembered back to the one and
only time she’d tried to wait on the hall during a meal. Renner had
been fine; the hall had been intimidating, and an absolute
disaster. The kitchens now didn’t resemble anything like the life
she remembered.

Renner was gone. A few boys hung around
looking frightened. There was no one guiding or instructing them.
They weren’t capable of cooking meals for any significant group.
How many people were left here? Quinn would gamble a significant
amount of money that Sammah was surrounded and supported by mutes,
and not many others.

Quinn went to speak to the boys, to tell them
that she was friendly, that they could leave. She would tell them
how to leave the city, even how to get to Kahnel, somewhere where
they might be safe. They cowered back. They wouldn’t listen to her.
There was no point even trying.

She supposed she should go straight to her
rooms, or Sammah’s suites. Even if he wasn’t there, that’s where
he’d be eventually. There was no point dallying around. She should
get this confrontation over and done with. Hopefully the last thing
he’d expect, would be for her to just come straight up to him.
Quinn didn’t have the element of surprise in her arrival, so she’d
need to work with the fact that Sammah had no idea just how far
she’d come since he’d seen her last. Quinn found herself taking a
circuitous route, though. She went past the rooms she used to clean
under Ross’s instruction. Many of these, she’d hated. She had liked
being a maid, and the peace and safety such a job gave her in a
place as boisterous as Everfell. Even with Grainne and Yvette’s
bickering and snide bitchery, it had been familiar, and part of a
life that Quinn did find herself yearning after. Before Sammah had
begun to put his hands down on the table, before he’d exposed the
Satori and triggered a city-wide hunt for her. Before she’d been a
criminal, and an exile. Even before she’
d met
Eden.

The farther she walked, the less light she
had to guide her. Quinn didn’t need torches to know her way safely
around these corridors. What the deepening shadows did instead, was
to make the hallways of her memories
oppressive
. Instead of remembering the times she had
been safe, she was reminded of the times she had been scared. Her
very first time questioning someone for Sammah; the times she had
passed out; the night Elias had tried to murder her.

It was time to go. The dark made her nervous.
She had to be in confident control of every facet of her mind, to
survive this.

Sammah’s rooms were up ahead. These suites,
Quinn realised, were the centre of her world. No matter what she
did, or where she went, she always seemed to end up here. It seemed
apt, that her final confrontation with Sammah would be here. She
knew irrevocably that if she didn’t kill him now, then he would
kill her by return.

The antechamber door was already part-open.
That was odd, and out of place. Quinn’s heartbeat picked up
immediately. He was expecting her, the guard had already said that.
Had he seen her approaching Everfell, and just gone straight to his
room to wait for her?
What else did he have to do
? Quinn
gulped.
You can do this. You did it to Rowan. Sammah is just
another man.

Sammah was just another man. The first figure
Quinn saw when she walked through the door, was Neyv.

* * *

“Hello Quinn.”

“H…
hello.
”

Quinn had been motivating herself for a
bitter conflict with her adoptive father. At the very least, she’d
expected to see Elias or another one of the mercenaries, though she
hadn’t particularly been looking forward to
that
prospect.
What she hadn’t braced herself for, was the little girl sitting on
a chair in the middle of the room. Her legs kicked in the air, and
she looked for all the world like she was waiting to play a game.
Was this what she was, to Sammah? A plaything?

“Father’s been waiting for you.”

Quinn shivered at the way the girl said
father
. Her voice was little, squeaky, and though it sounded
innocent enough, its edge was sinister. It was a simple statement.
Too simple, as if she was repeated things she’d been told by
rote.