Sea of Sighs (Empath Book 2) (3 page)

“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.

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, her 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 think 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.”