Well of Tears (Empath Book 3)

by Dawn Peers

  “They are a threat to everything we stand for, Eden.”

  “Why? Because they can sing well? Can dance? Can speak quickly, or hold their breath for longer underwater?”

  “Or change the way we think, and the things we believe in? Are born to swing a sword better than any of our men can hope to learn?”

  “They’re the minority!”

  “But they still exist!”

  “They don’t want to hurt us, father! They just want to survive.”

  “Enough!” Shiver slammed both of his fists down on the table, sending cups flying. Petrified servants rushed forward to right them, trying to refill them and clean up the mess at the same time. Shiver swatted them away. “I’ve had enough of your words, Eden. Rowan was right. You talk like one of them; you have no understanding of what we’re trying to do here. War is unavoidable. We have to prepare in the best way we can.”

  “For all you hate them, father, you sound a great deal like the Baron Pax. He believes war is inevitable, too, and as long as you are both rulers, then everyone is doomed.”

  “I’ve heard enough. We’re attacking Everfell, Eden, and you will deliver it alongside me, as a present to your new wife. I’ve spoken to Augyr. Your marriage is delayed until this is done.”

  “I’m the only one making sense, your highness. If you think about it without the poisonous words of the men around you—men telling you what you want to hear, just to improve their own position—then you’ll realise that I’m right. Believe in Quinn. She can win this.”

  “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.”

  20

  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 con
versation 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.

  21

  “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.

  “Where is he?”

  Neyv shrugged. “Nearby.”

  “Why isn’t he here?”

  “He wanted you to see me, first.”

  “Why did he want that, Neyv?”

  “So you could see that I am well, because he’s nice to me.”

  “Is he really nice to you?”

  Neyv shrugged again, as if the question was irrelevant. “I am always well. He says he loves me.”

  Quinn smirked at this. “He’s not capable of love, Neyv.”

  The girl’s voice came back firmly, and Quinn’s ears started to ring. “He loves me.”

  “She’s right, Quinn. I do love her—and I love you, too. You’re both special to me.”

  The ringing increased as Sammah walked through from his bathing rooms. He was in a gown, his hair wet. He had just finished cleansing, and looked relaxed, as if Quinn hadn’t just returned to the city. Why should he be tense? He’d known she was coming.

  “We’re not special to you, Sammah. You just want to use us, and I’ve come here to stop you.”

  Sammah laughed. “Stop me? Oh dear, Quinn, how are you going to do that? Shiver hasn’t been able to. Not even Erran and Obrenn could cope with me, and they are lords with experience in politics and combat. What do you think you can do?”

  Tears sprang to Quinn’s eyes as she started trying to concentrate on him. The buzzing increased. Quinn realised she couldn’t muster a single thing against him. What was going wrong? She should be able to feel something. Sammah saw her struggle, and started to laugh.


  “Oh dear girl, you thought you were going to come in and use your ability on me? We remember how well that went the last time! Save your energy. You’ve come back to me because you know you should be here, Quinn. Relax. You are back with your family. You did the right thing.”

  The tears of frustration continued to roll. She had to distract him. She had to deflect his attention from her inability, and her attempts to attack him.

  “Your brother isn’t going to support you, Sammah. You’ve lost the only allies you had. You’re alone here. You think you’re going to win? You can’t win against these people. Shiver isn’t going to rest until he has your head on a spike.”

  “You think I need a couple of spineless lords to achieve what I need? I have all I want in this room, Quinn.”

  Quinn looked at Neyv. The girl didn’t seem afraid of Sammah, or of Quinn. She looked almost bored, regarding their conversation with a detached interest, as if this didn’t have implications on the future of their people, and the fate of two kingdoms.

  “You have a girl and a woman? What are you going to do, Sammah, lock us in a room and breed an army?”

  Sammah sneered. “I don’t need to breed an army when I can use you two to give me all of the men I need. Neyv will tell them that they’re fighting for me; you will put the fire in their belly that will keep them swinging their swords until I win or they die.”

  “I’m never going to help you again, Sammah. You can’t make me do this.”

  Sammah glanced across to Neyv. “Oh, you are. You know what I want to do is right, Quinn. I just need to give you the time to be…brought around to my way of thinking.”

  As Sammah talked, a pressure, like a low whine, rang in Quinn’s head. She pressed one hand over her left hear, thinking she had taken an invisible blow. Her ear stung. “You need to help me, Quinn. I’m your father. I protected you growing up. I’m the only one that understood you. Everyone in Everfell has rejected you. Only the Sha’sekians can understand the way you are, and what you need to be. You have to use your power against these people—express yourself and show them why you should be feared. They’ve spent their lives ignoring you, Quinn. You’ve been rejected again. Make an example of these people. Stand by my side and given them a reminder of why the last conflict was called the Empath Wars.”