Well of Tears (Empath Book 3) (15 page)

In this place of calm serenity, Quinn wasn’t
aware of things like breathing, or heartbeat. Maertn was standing
in the shallows. Silence be damned. Quinn screamed.

* * *

Maertn didn’t acknowledge Quinn until her
voice ripped through the shallows to his ears. He’d been in his own
world, taking in the beauty of the bones. He was here voluntarily.
That’s what he’d told himself, anyway. It wasn’t the first time
he’d visited the beach without the intention of saving Quinn. His
studies in Farn were brining him back here time and time again.
Maertn knew that he was pushing himself far, though he didn’t
really care. No one around him was interested in testing the far
edges of their abilities, even though they were all surrounded by
people with the ability to heal. Maertn pushed himself all the way
to the beach because he’d brought Quinn back before. Every time,
he’d been on the shoreline. He’d never been in the waters without
the intention of saving someone else, so the feeling for him had
been fascinating. He’d been trying to figure out the best way back
to his own body, when Quinn had torn into his awareness.

“Quinn? What are you doing here?”

Quinn, for once, was on the shoreline.
Apparently, of the two of them, he was in more danger.
That’s
not true though, is it? Because you know how to get out of here,
and Quinn isn’t capable. Something’s happened to her.

“I was hurt.”

“Hurt how?”

If her body was damaged then getting her out
of here would be difficult; she was a huge distance from Farn, and
therefore from Maertn. If she was here because of her ability
again, which seemed unlikely based on her experience in the Sighs,
then he could help her. What was left for Quinn though, after she’d
managed to live through sending another man to his death?

“I was in the gaols at Sevenspells. I tried
to…I tried to kill Prince Rowan.”

Maertn couldn’t hide his smile, despite where
they were. “It’s a shame we haven’t seen him here. How? What did
you do?”

“I’d hoped you were him. He was trying to
make me force emotions on people. I was being swamped. He wouldn’t
let me close myself off.”

“You didn’t have to do what he said.”

“He’d have killed me otherwise.”

“And yet, here you still are.”

“I’m only here because I turned my ability on
him, Maertn. I was trying to kill him with my mind.”

“What were you doing?”

“Everything I could. I have no idea… I was
just so angry. I hate that man so much Maertn, and I was forcing
that into his mind. I passed out. His eyes were bleeding. I hurt
him. I know that. I don’
t feel
…
I don
’t feel like I did the other times I
was here. I’m not panicking. Neither are you. What are you…what are
you doing in there?”

“I’m dying, Quinn.”

“You don’t seem very worried about it.”

Maertn shrugged. “I’ve been on the edge for a
while. You were there in the meeting with Pax. I’ve been pushing
myself hard, Quinn, and this is my reward.”

“You’re killing yourself! You need to stop
this.”

“You don’t understand, Quinn, the amount I’m
learning is immense, and I’m not in any danger. Don’t you remember
the times I saved you? I can leave the beach when I want Quinn, and
even if I have trouble, I’m
surrounded
by other healers.
They won’t take the risks to learn like this, because they don’t
trust in their abilities enough to bring them back. Every healer
should know the way out of the beach. I have the confidence Quinn,
because I’d already been here before. Not even Rall likes to
negotiate the beach, but it’s
easy
.”

Quinn didn’t like the maniacally confident
edge to Maertn’s voice. He reminded her of Pax, ranting at his
evangelical worst. “You’re pushing it too hard, Maertn. If they’re
not confident in coming to the beach, they might not be able to
save you. You’re not on the shore—you’re in the water. If that tide
pulls you, you might not be able to resist.”

“Nothing is pulling me, Quinn. I’
m a
powerful
healer. I
am
good
at this. The
beach won’t take me, because right now, I don’t want it to.”

Right now
. Quinn didn’t like the way
Maertn used the phrase. “
I don
’t want to
be here, Maertn. I don’t want you here, either.”

Without thinking about it, Maertn walked out
of the shallows. His ankles and feet were stained red, but there
was no resistance. The last time Quinn had stood in those waters,
it had been mental agony to leave. It had exhausted her. Maertn
didn’t even look concerned. That kind of power and confidence was
extremely intimidating, but Quinn couldn’t retreat. This was
Maertn. He was her best friend and her brother, and they had grown
up together. He was still the same man, wasn’
t
he?

“I can save you, Quinn.”

Maertn placed his hands on her shoulders,
before placing his hands around her neck. He started to squeeze.
Quinn’s eyes bulged. This wasn’t right. Maertn squeezed tighter.
His face was absent of emotion. Like a true son of Sammah, he
didn’t show the slightest hint of remorse as he squeezed the breath
from Quinn’s throat. She tried to breathe, and couldn’t. Quinn’s
vision started to black, again. Maertn smiled at her.

“This is the only way you can leave this
time. I’m sorry.”

Eden and his
father walked together through the halls. Eden had asked to check
on Quinn, and because his courtship of Isabella was going well,
Shiver had agreed. Eden wasn’t allowed anywhere on his own. He was
a prisoner in his own rooms and Shiver was taking every spare
opportunity to coach his son on the necessity of his loyalty as a
Sevenspells son. Shiver wasn’t telling Eden anything he didn’t
already know. The conversations were almost as tedious as the
visits from Rowan, who continued to lord his position over Eden.
River was on his way to Kahnel to meet his new brother-in-law and
help oversee the port whilst Calvin attended Sevenspells.

Eden had checked in on Tarik and Quinn many
times in the past week. Despite his father’s desire for Quinn to be
out of his mind and a distant memory, Eden couldn’t just leave her
to die alone in a healer’s room. Rowan had been released from the
care of the healers a scant day after being scooped up from the
floors of the gaol, and had been forbidden from visiting since. He
had been intent on killing Quinn, even though the woman lay
unconscious and helpless on a cot.

Eden had pointed out that Rowan had brought
it upon himself, and that he had goaded Quinn into it, getting
precisely the reaction he’d asked for. Rowan had retorted by saying
the woman shouldn’t have been in the castle in the first place, and
their father was insane in letting her stay there. He was going to
eradicate her, and Tarik, and it would be doing Shiver a
favour.

Quinn had been under armed guard since.
Shiver was still very hopeful that he’d be able to use Quinn in his
fight against Sammah.

Shiver picked up his pace, his voice rising
to a yell as he started a sprint down the hall. His father never
sprinted anywhere, so Eden automatically picked up speed to match
him. It didn’t take long to see why. Down the bottom of the
hallway, the guards for Quinn’s rooms were slumped on the floor.
Eden was on the heels of his father, and both men barrelled through
the unlocked door.

Shiver slid in the blood already saturating
the floor. He lost his footing, skidding into the second bed, which
held Quinn. Tarik lay still and pale, a sword jutting out of his
chest. Eden held his breath, not stopping as his eyes swept to
Quinn. Rowan straddled her, both of his hands around her neck.

“Rowan! Stop!”

Rowan’s eyes snapped across to his father,
before settling on Eden with a snarl. “You’re both mad! She can’t
be allowed to live! She tried to kill me!”

“You were killing her! She acted in self
defence!”

“
I don
’t care!
She’s an abomination! She can’t be allowed to live.”

Shiver grabbed at Rowan, trying to rip him
off Quinn. Her body rose as Rowan refused to loosen his grip on her
neck. Both men yelled, and Eden joined his father, trying to prise
loose Rowan’s hands before twisting helplessly at his wrists. Rowan
was stronger than him and fuelled by rage; he had a death grip on
Quinn and he wasn’t letting go.

Quinn gasped, coughing, and all eyes turned
to her. Quinn’s eyes flew open, taking in without panic the scene
in front of her. Eden dropped his grip on Rowan, slipping to the
ground, dumbstruck at the numb fury he saw in Quinn then. She was
back from the cusp of death. That had happened before, and she
always came back stronger.

She didn’t need the Sighs any more to wield
her power.

Eden dropped all the way to the floor and
covered his ears. He saw his father drop, too. Eden covered his
ears as Rowan began to shriek.

* * *

“I didn’t think you were coming back that
time.”

Rall’s voice was edgy and nervous. Maertn sat
up on his elbows, shaking the blurriness from his eyes. “It’s okay.
I always come back, master. You should try it. It’
s beautiful.
”

Rall pandered to his newest student’s
fascination with the afterlife, but Maertn’s offhand attitude
towards the place most people saw when they died was deeply
unsettling. “What did you see this time?”

Every time Maertn’s answer had been the same.
He’d seen shifting shapes, the sea of blood and the Beach of Bones
itself. There were rarely people there, because he’d not travelled
with the purpose of healing. That’s the way Maertn had explained it
to him, and Rall hadn’t questioned it. Maertn was the first healer
he’d ever heard of that travelled voluntarily to the beach
to…well…
explore
. Rall was keeping the knowledge of these
excursions limited to the highest echelons of their order. Not even
Pax had been informed. Rall didn’t know what Pax might order done
to the boy if he found out, and Rall didn’t want to lose such a
talented healer so young just because of his curiosity.

Maertn had confided in Rall that he’d been to
the beach before, retrieving the empath Quinn from there more than
once. Maertn seemed to think that each time she’d come back she’d
been more powerful, too, in control of a more significant portion
of her ability. This wasn’t in opposition to some scholarly texts
Rall had read, but many of them were old. If what Maertn was
telling him was true, both about him and about Quinn, then the
future of their people was either going to be glorious, or
incredibly brief.

“Quinn was there.”

Rall stuttered. He knew that he should be
confident around his students, that he was the master in this room
and was capable of killing this boy in any manner of undetectable
ways.
Quinn
. The empath had returned to the beach. Why?

“What happened?”

“She’s in Sevenspells. Something has gone
wrong. They were sending her back to Everfell, weren’t they? They
were trying to make her use her ability. She did, and it went
wrong. She’d overstretched herself and ended up on the beach.”

“Like before?”

“Just like before.”

“And did you save her?”

Maertn nodded slowly, but knotted his brow in
confusion.

“What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

“I didn’t get her out of there, the same way
as before. The other times it’s just been an effort to help her
help herself. As if she could get out of there by just using me as
a path. This time…this time I was strangling her.”

“
Strangling? Killing
her?
”

“We were already on the beach. I couldn’t
have…killed her more, could I? Her eyes went wide, and I woke up. I
want to go back and see if she’s there…” Maertn looked up at Rall
and could see the immediate denial in his master’s eyes.

“Do you think she’s still there?”

Maertn shook his head. “What I did was
instinctive, like every other time. I think that it was just
different. Her reasons for being there, perhaps, or something
happening to her where she is. I think she left the beach.”

“What were they trying to do to her?”

“They were trying to make her force emotions
on other people.”

“Before, when she’s not been able to do
something, and has gone to the beach...when she comes back from the
beach, she’s been stronger, hasn’t she?”

Rall already knew the answer to this, but
wanted affirmation from Maertn. The boy nodded. “Every time, she’s
been able to do something that was impossible before. She could
block people out the first time. The second time, she was able to
sense our father.”

“And now?”

“Now I think she’ll be able to do what she
did in the Sighs, whenever she wants.”

Rall hadn
’t heard
of any incidents in their crossing over the Sighs. None of their
sailors had been lost. Rall didn’t even want to ask; he was almost
certain he didn’t want to know the answer. “What happened in the
Sighs?”

Maertn looked away. He was ashamed of the
answer. “She convinced one of Sammah’s mercenaries to jump
overboard. He committed suicide because Quinn wanted him dead.”

* * *

“What is she doing?” Shiver yelled above
Rowan’s roar of pain.

“She’s trying to kill him!”

Eden wasn
’t
certain, but what else would she be doing? He struggled to his
knees, his head flopping against Quinn’s cot. Rowan’s shriek was
unbearable. Men poured into the room expecting a bloodbath, and
froze at what they saw. What could they do? Their king didn’t seem
in danger, and one of their princes was straddling a sick woman.
Who was the victim?