by Dawn Peers
So many people in court had thought that the baron was a benevolent soul, searching the kingdom of Everfell for orphans, giving them all trades, homes, and a purpose in life. Quinn and Maertn had been two of those orphans, and were two of only three living in the crown city. Quinn had been a maid for her entire life, and Maertn had been brought up as a healer. What only Sammah had first known, however, was that Maertn had been born to be a healer. He was of Sha’sek descent, and had been born with a natural gift for healing. He could sense the illnesses in people’s bodies, even in their minds, and had on more than one occasion saved Quinn’s life with his talents.
Such abilities were easy to hide, however, and with his position in the castle’s apothecary, many had simply believed Maertn to be talented and studious. The young man hadn’t been devastated when the truth came out, although he had been disturbed to find that what he had thought was ability and enthusiasm, was a gift that he had no fundamental choice in. Maertn did love being a healer, though, so the end result was the same for him. The same wasn’t true for Quinn, though.
Her job as a maid had been Sammahs’ way of keeping Quinn’s power both close to him and a secret. Quinn was an empath, able to sense the emotions of everybody around her, with the exception of her adoptive father. Sammah had sought to take over the throne of Everfell, and he had come agonisingly close to achieving his goals.
During their struggles, Quinn had finally found out the reason why she couldn’t sense her adoptive father’s emotions. Sammah was an apath. He had spent his entire life hunting down gifted orphans like Quinn and Maertn, stealing them away from their homes and herding them together so he could cultivate their gifts. Quinn and Maertn had been brought together on purpose, because the survival of a young empath, was dependent on the skills of talented healer.
What Sammah had ultimately wanted, however, was to mate with Quinn. He had wanted to create the ultimate gifted child, able to sense the emotions of everybody without having the burden of emotions. Sammah had been carrying on the work of one of his ancestors. This book was in Maertn’s room now, and it seemed the young healer was going to bring it with him on their journey. Quinn arched an eyebrow, pointing out the leather bound volume.
“Are you really going to bring that with you?”
Maertn looked down, appearing a bit coy. “I’ll only bring it if you’re happy for me to have it. I know that the contents aren’t exactly what you want to be reading or hearing right now.”
Quinn wilted inside. No, she didn’t want to read how her father had planned to rape her, but she knew that Maertn needed to know more about himself. No one in Everfell, except perhaps Ross, understood the way they were feeling. Ross himself, though, wasn’t gifted. He was simply a mercenary with a keen eye for politics.
“As long as you promise to help find out some more about my abilities, too?” Quinn asked Maertn hopefully
Maertn grinned. “Of course I will Quinn, you know I will. We only have each other, and that’s always been truth. You need to know more than I do, because all I do is heal people. What you have is dangerous, and I think we need to be careful about it, even when we get the islands. Sammah said that there were never many empaths, and I think you’ll either be a sought-after commodity, or even more of a target than you were here.”
“Should we speak to Ross about that?” Quinn asked, suddenly nervous about their journey. She was already leaving one death sentence behind, and she didn’t want to walk straight into another.
“We don’t really have the time Quinn. We need to leave, and soon, if you want to get out of the city without causing a stir. So, the only choice you have left now, is whether or not you’re going to wake up Eden.”
Quinn bit her lower lip, and started to pace around the room. She clenched her fists, scrunching them tight and feeling her fingernails bite into the palms of her hands. The pain felt good; it always managed to centre her thoughts. Within that clarity, she resolved that she wouldn’t wake Eden. He had drawn up a map for them, and he had already given them his seal, so that they could pass through Sevenspells if challenged. She didn’t need him, not as a companion on their journey. She knew that she couldn’t live the rest of her life without seeing again, but now was not the time for romance and fancy tales. Eden had to be here to support his father, and his brothers. The king would not let him leave, and he would not let Quinn live if she stayed.
“Can you go down to the stables get the horses ready please, Maertn? Most of my things are already down there, I just need to get a few more pieces from my room.”
Maertn nodded, instinctively responding without words.
That was what Quinn loved most about him. He always knew when to speak and when to stay silent. He knew when she needed a hug and when she needed her own space. It must be part of this healing talents, she thought, though most of her liked to think it was because Maertn knew her. He was a good friend, and she was the same to him. This was her life. It had always had been, just her and Maertn. Quinn was heartbroken, but she was not sad.
Quinn waited until Maertn had left before going back across the hall to her own room. Eden was still sprawled out on the bed, unconscious. He was snoring, and oblivious of Quinn’s cautious steps back into the room they had so briefly shared. Quinn took a long moment to stare down at him. She felt that she had to take this chance, with it being the last time she would see him for a very long time. Eden had done so much for her, and in more ways than one, had saved her life and her soul. Maertn may have been her best friend, but Eden was her soulmate. The young lord, however, was not used to having someone like Quinn in his life, and he had obligations to his father that Quinn knew he couldn’t put down.
The only thing Quinn had left in her room was a small knapsack with a very few personal belongings. This was by her bedside and she tiptoed round to grab it. Eden didn’t stir. Quinn did feel tears coming to her eyes again at the thought of leaving him like this, but she dashed them away. This wasn’t just the right thing to do; it was the only choice she had.
She closed the door behind her, and pressed her forehead to the cool, knotted wood. Quinn never wanted to see this door—those rooms that defined her childhood under Sammah—ever again. She looked up and down the corridors: well–trodden halls that she had spent her entire life traipsing through. She knew every inch of the back halls of this castle, but despite her familiarity with it, she wouldn’t miss a single stone. She would miss Ross, and the congenial way he had always treated her. She wouldn’t miss Yvette and Grainne, and the bickering and snide bitching they’d always conducted behind her back. They’d made her young life hell, and had made Quinn feel worthless most of the time. No, there was very little for her in Everfell, and if Eden couldn’t make her stay, then no one else could. Resolute in purpose now, Quinn set down the hallway towards the stables, where Maertn would be ready with her things.
3
It felt odd to be sitting on a horse. She hadn’t ridden for so long, that she had almost fallen off twice when getting on. At first Maertn had laughed at her, but when he realised that they really did need Quinn to be stable on her mount before they made any progress, he’d spent ten minutes showing her how to sit properly in the saddle and grasp the horse’s reigns. They were confident that, if they went steadily, Quinn might not fall off her rather timid gelding and break her neck within the next few hours. They didn’t need to make a sprint to get out of the city on time, and they didn’t think that Vance’s bowmen would be shooting for their backs the second they left. Quinn didn’t want to take too many chances however, given that she felt lucky enough to be escaping with her life anyway.
The streets were bustling with the vigour of the morning as they left the gates, and Quinn was glad that she could now keep her abilities to herself. There were many times when she had gone down into the city on errands for Sammah, only to find herself hiding in corners and quiet places, waiting for some tumult or another to die down before she could run back home. When she had been younger, he
r powers had controlled her, rather than the other way round. More than once she had passed out as groups of emotions had overwhelmed her mind. Now, since a visit to the Beach of Bones, she had been in full control of every facet of her power.
If Quinn wanted to sense someone’s emotions, she reached out to them in a way that felt instinctive and natural. No one had ever taught her how to use the power properly, it had always just been an extension of herself. Having full control now felt like part of growing up, and despite the fact that Sammah had sought to harness that power for himself, Quinn couldn’t bring herself to resent him for it. She was rare—unique even—and Sammah was a power-hungry man.
Quinn knew that the answers she needed would be in Sha’sek. She would hopefully meet others like her, and if not, scholars that could tell her more about herself. There would be men and women that would be able to teach her more about what she was and what she could become, without having their own agenda in play.
For his part, Maertn was looking forward to sharing his healing abilities with the others, especially since healers were quite common and well received in the islands.
Their horses’ hooves clattered through the city, though they were lost in the rest of the din. It didn’t take them long to get the gate, and thankfully Quinn didn’t fall off her horse. No one challenged them at the gates. Word had already been sent around no doubt that they were to be allowed free from the city without challenge as long as they left within Vance’s decreed time. Quinn looked up at the ramparts to squint up at the guardsmen there with strung bows, arrows nocked. It didn’t look like they were there for show, and they had doubtless been given orders to shoot and kill if any of Vance’s orders were not followed to the letter. Quinn went cold. Was this it? Was this how the war started? With her murder? Was Sammah going to get his way, after all?
The walls of the city were huge and deep, taking almost a minute for them to walk their horses through the gap and out into the green fields on the other side. Quinn took a huge breath, letting it out with an audible sigh. Within her own living memory, this was the first time she had been outside the city walls of Everfell. Sure, Sammah had come for her when she had been a child, orphaned and alone. She hadn’t lived in Everfell then, though she had no memory of living in any other place. These were just more burdens added to the questions already burning through her mind. The power of the empath was one that only passed by heredity. Whilst that didn’t mean that either of her natural parents had the ability, it was likely. It was also very likely that, if not her parents, at least one of her grandparents was empathically talented. Quinn knew that an empath had started the last war.
She didn’t want to be related by blood to a warmonger; she’d already rid herself of one despot parent. Quinn had to find out about her heredity, though. She had to know where she came from, and whose family she was a part of. She could still have relatives out there that she didn’t know about, and she didn’t want to take the risk of going through her entire life without finding if there was anyone else out there that might understand exactly what she had been going through. With such morose thoughts rampaging around her head, Quinn settled into a depressed silence.
* * *
Maertn let her mull over whatever was going through her mind. He knew that Quinn wasn’t one to be roused into a false good mood, and trying to joke around with her when she was sad or serious would only make her temper worse. Maertn didn’t need to be an empath to know that Quinn was nervous, and rightly so. Maertn therefore was trying to restrain his glee at finally getting to leave Everfell, and to get the chance of using his powers in a wider world, seeing new places and people like him.
He had turned down the chance of being Vance’s master at healing to leave with Quinn. Maertn knew the gravity of turning down that request. Not only was he leaving Everfell without its most skilled healer at a time when the city was likely to go to war, but he was likely also never going to be able to return. Vance had only let him go when he found out that Maertn was not a natural healer, like Torran had been. Natural. If he’d been talking out loud, Maertn was sure that Vance would have spat the word.
Who was anyone else to judge what was natural, and what was not? He didn’t feel unnatural. He’d never hurt anyone. Quite the opposite, actually. He’d lost count of the number of lives he’d saved in his short time as a healer, from the smallest infant, breached from its mother and covered in blood, to the old and the infirm.
Maertn shook his head, trying to dispel his dismal thoughts. It was bad enough that Quinn was already in a malaise; he couldn’t let himself descend into one, as well. One of them had to at least stay, if not cheerful, then with a clear mind. They had a long journey ahead of them, and it was going to be difficult. Maertn was glad that Quinn had chosen to leave Eden behind. He felt no ill will towards the lord, but Maertn didn’t feel that his company was welcome on this trip. Eden would have held Quinn back, tried to make her stay in Everfell, when that would’ve been a death sentence for her. Either that, or Eden would have come across to Sha’sek with them both, and that would have meant the entirety of Sevenspells chasing them down across the Sea of Sighs. Maertn wasn’t sure which one was worse.
Maertn glanced across at Quinn. Her head was down and her shoulders hunched. He wished then that he had the empath’s ability, so he could at least share some of her burden. Instead, he let them continue in silence. They would ride until sundown, when they would be far enough away from the city that they needn’t worry about their backs in the dead of night. Maertn didn’t think Vance would betray them like that, but he wasn’t too sure what to believe any more. It was all too easy, Vance letting them just leave the city, when he knew what threat Quinn could actually pose. Sure, Quinn wasn’t actually a threatening woman, but her ability was. Lesser threats had given less dangerous men than the king more pause in the past. Ross had thought of this, and in his saddlebags Maertn did carry two swords. Whilst he was in no way confident about using a weapon, he would do what it took to keep them both safe; to give them both a chance of life in Sha’sek, where they both belonged.
* * *
“Quinn?”
Quinn was jolted out of her dour reverie by Maertn’s call. She became immediately paranoid that she had not heard most of a conversation, and that she had been accidentally ignoring him through most of the journey. Her face flushed with guilt and shame. He was sacrificing a lot to be with her, and she had spent the first few hours of their new life together being a self-centred dolt.
“What’s wrong Maertn?” She answered softly.
Maertn sidled his horse closer to her, irrationally paranoid at being overhead. “I think we’re being followed.”
Maertn leaned towards her in the saddle, hissing across the small gap between them. “I think I’ve seen someone on the horizon, for almost as long as we left Everfell.”
Quinn furrowed her brow and tilted her head at him. “Followed? What makes you think that? Are you sure it’s not just a trick of the light? A tree on the horizon?”
Maertn shrugged. “I don’t know. But something doesn’t seem right. Think about it? Why would the king just let you leave? Wouldn’t it make sense that he’d send someone after us? Or even Sammah, with his bloody silent bodyguards? What’s happened to them? Elias was caught for what he did, but what about the rest of them? Do we even know if Vance is trying to have them caught? And besides, what’s he going to arrest them all for? They can’t really conspire much what with not being able to talk and everything, and who knows how much they really knew about what Sammah was going to do? They were just there to protect his back. What if Sammah sends them after us? What if he gets out of the gaol?”
“Well studied there. I think you’re getting a bit hysterical Maertn. No one is going to come to kill us. If the bodyguards wanted us dead, we would have been dead long ago. They didn’t mind killing within Vance’s walls. I don’t think Vance would mourn my death, though yours might give him a couple of sleepless nights. No, I don’t thi
nk Vance is sending anyone after us.”
Quinn thought for a moment about the rest of Sammah’s personal guard. She was confident that Elias would still be in prison, though it was feasible that Sammah would send someone to murder her. They didn’t know how far through Sha’sek Sammah’s influence spread, but Quinn wouldn’t be surprised if the council in Sha’sek claimed that Sammah acted on his own in order to avoid all-out war. They were caught in a political crosswind, and neither of the youngsters were sure what the right choices were. It was a case of trial and error, where an error would cost their lives.
Maertn hesitated a little, his eyes turning guilty before asking Quinn, “Can you…use your powers to sense if anyone is there?”
Quinn’s eyebrows rose in surprise. Perhaps she could, though she was surprised that Maertn would ask her to do it. She had been looking forward to a life where only she would dictate how and when she would use her abilities. Maertn was the only person she really knew that she felt comfortable not needing her abilities. That she should already be called to use them so soon was unfortunate, and not a little upsetting. “On the horizon, you say?” Maertn nodded. “I’m not sure how far my senses can go. I know that I can feel things a few rooms away, but not something over at such a distance. I’ll give it a try though.”
“How do you know you won’t be sensing me?”
Quinn grinned genuinely, “I always know when it’s you, Maertn, no matter what you’re feeling. I’ve felt your mind for so long, whether I wanted to or not,” Quinn added hastily, “that I just know it’s you.”