Well of Tears (Empath Book 3) (14 page)

“Your highness, I think is the title you are
looking for, but I can forgive you the slip. Look over there.”

Rowan pointed at Quinn. The man’s eyes darted
towards her and his pupils dilated a little. The man’s tongue
darted out and wet his lips, and a shudder of revulsion ran through
Quinn’s body.

“What do you think of her?”

Pins and needles ran over Quinn’s body when
she felt the man’s lust hit her. It was a disgusting sensation, and
one she’d always hated feeling involuntarily. Reacting in
self-defence, she shut off her abilities. Rowan must have seen the
look of relief on her face, because he walked up to her, slapping
her roughly across the cheek.

“I told you to use your abilities. I didn’t
tell you to stop.”

“Please, you don’t know what this feels
like!”

“No, but the sooner you start complying, the
sooner it will end. Don’t shut this out.”

More reluctantly than she’d ever done
anything in her life, over and above everything Sammah had every
ordered her to do, Quinn complied with Rowan’s wishes. The man’s
lust hit again and she dropped to her knees. It was a disgusting
feeling. Quinn started scratching at her arms. She wanted nothing
more than to be out of that corridor right at that moment,
preferably in a bath. Rowan was giving her no choice.

“If you want to get out of here, you need to
stop this man from feeling the way he feels about you. In fact,
you’re going to have to stop a few of them.”

Rowan hammered on more doors, though the
commotion had already brought numerous men to the small window
bars. Dashing back over to Quinn he grabbed her again, pulling her
up and crushing her against the wall. The back of her head slapped
sickeningly against the stone wall. Quinn felt bile rising up into
her throat, and she swallowed it down.

“Please…” she began, but Rowan slapped
her.

“Focus on them, not on me! Do what you’re
told!”

It was hard to concentrate on anything else
when he was right in her face. The pain he caused her, the way he
was attacking her, everything boiled to white heat in Quinn’s mind.
There
was
only one way out of this, Rowan was making it
clear. Quinn couldn’t blame the men that he was forcing to look
upon her, men who had been down here suffering for who knew how
long. When had they even last seen a woman?

No, Rowan wasn’t going to make her hate these
men, but he was making Quinn wish that Rowan himself was dead. She
stared into the prince’s eyes, seeing for the first time the cruel
pitch-black pools of hatred they really were. Shiver had been bad,
but his progeny Rowan was something altogether worse. He was every
concentrated ounce of hatred within Shiver, with no redeeming
features. Shiver thought he was doing some good for the kingdom,
whereas Rowan was just following his father’s orders mindlessly,
causing pain to anyone he encountered. Men like Shiver could be
reasoned with, but men like Prince Rowan needed to be stopped.

Quinn narrowed her eyes, concentrating,
trying to block out the horrible feeling creeping over her skin.
Rowan’s eyes contracted when he realised what she was doing. His
mouth opened to scream, though no sound came. Quinn’s nose started
to bleed, and a ringing filled her ears. She couldn’t block
everything out, and the pressure of what she was doing to Rowan
began to overwhelm her. Her vision narrowed to a grey pinhole,
though she was gratified to see blood running from the prince’s
eyes before she did finally pass out.

“Your brother
is going to be okay, but the empath hasn’t woken up yet. She’s been
put in the same quarters as the man you brought from the ship. It
doesn’t look like he’s ever waking up either. You see what she is
now, Eden? What she is capable of?”

“She shouldn’t have been down there in the
first place, father. I don’t know what Rowan was thinking.”

“At least he’s going to live for me to ask
him, which is more than I can say for that girl when she wakes up.
I am going to have her executed for this.”

“Did you see the state of her? He tried to
kill her father, or did you not see that!”

“I couldn’t care less if he did! You heard
what those guards said, he was doing it for Sevenspells. Whose side
are you on, anyway? I am taking you to meet your betrothed. Start
acting like you care. I know this is hard for you, but now that
she’s properly out of your way, you can start thinking straight
again.”

These were common phrases that his father had
been using to him, and Eden was becoming used to them. Shiver had
decided his son had been under a malaise when he’d fallen in love
with Quinn. Shiver had convinced himself that Eden had been
bewitched, either by Sammah or by Quinn herself, and that now
Sammah was in Everfell and Quinn was unconscious, he could finally
start the healing process for his beleaguered son.

The first stop in that, was arranging a
wedding with the Lady Isabella. No man in his right mind would have
objected to marrying her, and Shiver had told him that repeatedly.
Shiver had also pointed out that he wouldn’t mind taking such a
lady as a mistress, and Eden’
s hackles
had gone up. No matter how much he tried to stay motivated and
loyal for his father, he reminded him time and again that, despite
his noble intentions towards the kingdom as a whole, he was still,
overall, a very despicable man.

“Thank you for your patience with me father,
this has been so difficult for me.”

This was another familiar phrase for Eden,
and one that he’d been trotting out in various permutations in
conversations with Shiver. His father liked the fact that he was
atoning for his mistakes, and Eden did want to try and rectify his
standing in the eyes of his family. Shiver was easily convinced,
though Eden himself was still in so much turmoil. This would be the
first time he’d seen Isabella since the ball in Everfell, and as
she was the daughter of a province loyal to the new regime, it was
no surprise she was here at court.

With Shiver looking to make matches for all
of his sons, the nobles had gathered around Sevenspells like bees
searching for pollen. On the way to his first formal meal with his
betrothed, he felt like a trussed-up turkey in the ridiculous
garments favoured by the seasoned courtiers. He wished he was back
in his captain’s garb, but that had been given to Harn and it
didn’t look like his father would be releasing Eden back into that
kind of position any time soon. Apparently Eden was far more useful
to Shiver right now as a producer of grandchildren.

“We are going to take dinner with Lady
Isabella and her father. You are going to be polite, Eden, because
as I have to remind you, he has
requested
you as his daughter’s husband. As he has
met Rowan and heard of River, I am hardly surprised, but keep in
mind that this is still an honourable match for you. In a time of
peace you would never have been capable of this kind of match, so
start looking grateful for it.”

“I am grateful father, I will be on my best
behaviour.” Eden’s response was wooden, though Shiver didn’t seem
to notice, so long as his son sounded pliable and agreeable.

“You’d better be, otherwise you’ll never make
it to
Prince
Eden.”

“What’s going to happen, father, when you
defeat Sammah? Vance is still the rightful king.”

“
As far as I
—and,
might I add, the rest of the lords—are concerned, Vance forfeited
his right to rule when he let a Sha’sekian take over the court. I
am the rightful king now, Eden. You’d do well to keep that in mind
when you’re talking around my allies and my friends.”

Shiver was hosting the dinner in his own
suites. Eden didn’t need to be repeatedly told how important this
was. His father hated hosting dinners, and private meals were even
worse. Lady Isabella was an unknown quantity for him, but with
enough of a reputation around court of being a viper to make Eden
wary. Lord Augyr was a tiresome bore and Eden, for once, hoped that
his father would be doing all of the talking.

Augyr and Isabella were already waiting. When
Eden saw the ridiculously pompous outfit Augyr was wearing, he
could see why his father had made him truss up. Eden had seen fewer
feathers on farmyard hens, and anyone getting too close to this man
would be liable to spend their entire night sneezing. Was this
fashion? Was this night going to form the basis for the rest of his
court life? Eden sincerely hoped his prospective father in law
would not be making him dress like
that
for the wedding.

Where her father looked like an accident in a
poultry house, Isabella looked positively radiant. A woman hadn’t
turned Eden’s head as much since he had seen Quinn in her finery at
the ball in Farn, though that particular set of circumstances had
been less than ideal. She was standing politely behind her chair,
and when Shiver walked in the room, she performed a delicate
curtsey. “Your highness, thank you for receiving us. My father and
I are honoured to be your guests.”

Shiver was in his element in this kind of
company. “Nonsense my dear, the honour is with myself and my son.
May I present to you Prince Eden.”

I’
m a
prince
now,
am I?
Eden
thought bitterly. He plastered a foolish grin on his face, which he
supposed looked representative of most men at court, and bowed for
Isabella and her father. She put out her hand, and Eden supposed he
had to round the table and kiss it. This was Isabella’s opportunity
to show off her body to the newly-titled prince, and Eden was
ashamed when he couldn’t draw his eyes away. Isabella’s breeding
was obvious. The way she held herself in the dress, from her
straight posture to the arch of her neck, screamed power. Eden felt
blood rushing to his cheeks and quickly ducked his head, laying a
soft kiss on her pale hand.

“Charmed, your highness.”

Eden muttered a response, fleeing around the
table to sit at his father’s side. Isabella gave him a knowing
smile, and Eden cursed himself. He had just unwittingly given her
the upper hand in every single encounter they would now have. She
had attempted, very weakly, to fluster him. Eden had responded.

“
Well isn
’t this a
fine occasion. A toast! To our children.”

Augyr stood, and Shiver gladly raised a
glass. Eden was more reluctant. Isabella’s glass came up last, and
as she took a demure sip, her eyes did not move from Eden’s. He
felt like a mouse, trapped by a cat and caught in its transfixing
gaze.

The scenery of
the Beach of Bones was depressingly familiar.

Quinn had now been on these shores three
times. Each time before, she had left the beach with more strength
and more power, but those times she had been guided to safety by
Maertn’s skilled hand.

Maertn had been kept in Sha’sek by Pax’s
order and the ultimate reason for Quinn’s reluctance had been
realised. Her abilities had been overstretched, and now she had
found herself once more on the beach.

The Beach of Bones was the mythical realm
where the dead went to wait for their crossing. Under her feet
Quinn could feel the sharp snap of the bones of people who had
passed through the beach long before her time. She looked out to
the sea, which ebbed and flowed with the deep red of blood. There
was no smell here, which was a relief, given the coppery stench the
sea would have given off. Quinn tried to recall her previous times
here. The worst time, she had already been knee-deep in the sea.
She knew that if she had found herself submerged in those waters,
she would have been dead. Maertn had not been allowed to traverse
the waters, but he had managed to haul her back all the same.

All around her were the empty shadows of
people passing through the beach at the same time. Quinn wasn’t a
fool to think that, across all of the lands, she was the only
person near death. Some of the forms were tall, and some were tiny,
crawling along the ground and heading straight for the sea. Quinn
didn’t want to think about those little bodies being swept away,
and the pain being left behind back in the waking world.

Quinn was expecting to be pulled closer to
the sea, but she felt no desire to head that way. Did that mean
that she was ill but could recover? Could she find her own way out
of the beach? As she looked up and down the pale coast, it didn’t
seem possible. The bones stretched for as far as the eye could see
in any direction but out to sea. Forms bobbed up and down in the
blood, but Quinn tried to ignore them. She couldn’t help them in
life, and she definitely couldn’t help them here. Farther up,
though, one form seemed more solid than the rest. It was perhaps
only ankle deep in the sea, and its back was to her, so Quinn
didn’t know whether it was male or female, old or young. As the
only other corporeal being around, Quinn felt naturally drawn to
this being.
This is it
she told herself.
This is how they
coax me out into the sea. This is how I finally die
. What had
Rowan done to her? Even worse, what had she done to him? Quinn
hesitated. Was the form out to sea the dying prince?

What a delightful thing that would be to know
before she died—that she’d managed to bring that vile creature
along to the beach with her.

With nothing else to focus on, and nowhere
else to go, Quinn picked her way along the beach to where the
figure stood in the shallows. Unlike everything else around, this
figure was static. Quinn was going to shout out, when she stopped
herself. What if this was an evil being—something there with the
sole intention of dragging her into the sea?
No
, Quinn shook
herself
if it was there for
that
purpose, then she would
be dead already
. Still, with all the silence around, shouting
out seemed like a blasphemous thing to do. Ignoring the feel of the
bones against the soles of her feet—which, oddly, did not pain
her—she made her way farther along the beach so the figure would be
able to see her without Quinn making a racket.