Well of Tears (Empath Book 3) (18 page)

Quinn did not want to go back to Sha’sek,
despite the fact it was the best of her bad options. Pax would find
out about her escape. No one knew what she looked like, bar a few
of the masters and the council. She would have a slim chance at
living her life in peace. Sammah, Everfell, and all of the men
within it, could go rot.

“They’ll find you eventually, you know.”

Quinn yelped out in fright. Her horse reared.
In her panic, she fell. A boy rushed out from the edge of the copse
skillfully grabbing the flapping reins and coaxing the horse down.
Quinn clung desperately to the beast’s mane, her eyes clenched
shut, and whispering prayers to the spirits that she didn’t fall.
She had horrible visions of falling under the dancing hooves.

“You can open your eyes now.”

The movement had stopped. Quinn slid one eye
open. A teenage boy was looking up at her, one hand on his hip and
the other holding the reins in a loose grip.

“Who are you?”

“Those men are looking for you as well,
aren’t they? What did you do?”

“How did you know they…where did you come
from?”

The boy grinned. “I’ve been here for ages.
You just didn’t see me. The men have been looking for me, too.
Don’
t worry, I won
’t tell them about
you.”

“How did you hide?”

“
I don
’t have to
hide like normal people do. If I don’t want people to see me, then
they can’t.”

The boy cast his eyes down, as if he was
ashamed of this fact. And he was being chased? Not by Shiver,
though. “The men that are chasing you—they can’t talk, can
they?”

The boy shook his head. “How did you know
that?”

“Because they’ve chased me before, too.”

The boy gaped at her in wonder. “How did you
escape them?”

“I killed them.”

Quinn had expected him to be impressed. She
pouted when he giggled at her. “
You can
’t
even control your own horse. You didn’t kill anyone.”

“I didn’t want to, but I did. How long have
you known Baron Sammah?”

“How did you know that?”

“We’re the same. I’m an orphan, too. I grew
up in Everfell. Where are you from? What’s your name?”

“I’
m Maskell. I
’m
from Port Kahnel. I lived there with three brothers and two
sisters, but a couple of weeks ago the quiet men came and tried to
kill us all.”

“
Oh Maskell, I
’m
sorry.”

Maskell shrugged. “Why? What could you have
done about it? I hid. My brothers and sisters, they couldn’t hide.
The men killed them.”

So, Sammah was killing his other children,
now—the ones that were no use to him, anyway. Quinn pitied this
boy. How must it have felt, to watch your siblings be slaughtered.
“Sammah wants to kill me, too.”

Maskell nodded, as if this was perfectly
normal. “I guessed that’s why those men were chasing you?”

Quinn shook her head. “No, they’re Shiver’s
men. They want to kill me, too.”

“Wow. You must
really
be dangerous.
Did you actually kill the silent men?”

“I killed one of them. My friends killed the
others.”

“Where are your friends now?”

“They’re both prisoners. One is in
Sevenspells. The other is in Farn.”

“Where is Farn?”

“Sha’sek, where we come from.”

Maskell looked down at the reins. “It’s been
lonely. Will you eat with me? We’ll be safe.”

“I need to get to Kahnel. I have to get on a
boat, and get back to Farn.”

“Those men are everywhere. The silent men,
not the other ones. I don’t think you’ll find it easy, getting to
the boats. Why don’t you rest with me? You look tired. I can guard
you. Then you can make a plan.”

Quinn didn’t sense any malice in the boy.
This was an open gesture from a lonely orphan on the road. Quinn
knew exactly how Maskell was feeling, though she didn’t know if she
had either the time or the patience to rest with him. If he was
right, and Farn was crawling with guardsmen, then she’d have a
difficult time getting safe passage on a boat. She hadn’t planned
this ahead. Much like everything else that had happened to her, it
had been a rush, a situation Quinn had been forced into.

“If I rest with you, could you help me get to
the boats?”

If people couldn’t see this boy, then perhaps
he could find her a vessel. Quinn could give him the money for her
passage and get him to negotiate a place for her. When the time to
board came, Quinn could rush through Kahnel and straight onto a
ship. The guardsmen wouldn’t have the time to stop her. If they
did…well, Quinn
did
have an ability that she could test at
the edges.

“Okay. Thank you. Can you help me off this
horse? I’ll just fall off otherwise.”

* * *

Quinn decided very quickly that she liked
Maskell. He was straightforward, not mincing his words and treated
Quinn like he’d known her forever. Maskell knew about her—this was
a surprise. Sammah had visited the other cities from time to time,
and had made his other children aware of the empath and healer
sitting in Everfell and the hopes he had for their futures. She
wanted to ask him about the killings, but wasn’t brave enough to
broach such a sensitive topic. Maskell wasn’t struggling for
supplies. It was a useful thing, and Quinn had no idea how his
ability worked. That was a subject she was happy enough to ask him
about.

“How do you make yourself invisible?”

Maskell smiled, swallowing his soup.
“
I don
’t disappear. That’
s impossible
—at least I think so. I just make people
forget about me. If they are searching for me they can’t see me; if
they are talking about me they stop. I just concentrate really
hard, and it happens.”

“Wow. That must have been helpful.”

“More than. I wish I could have helped the
others.”

Maskell sounded sad, but did not cry. Had he
spent all of his tears already, in his lonely nights in this
glade?

“What happened?”

“They came for us at night. It was a
slaughter. We had no chance. They killed my little brother first.
He was able to fight well, so I suppose they thought if any of us
would be a threat, it would be him. He woke the rest of us up. As
soon as I saw what was happening, I disappeared. I… didn’t even try
to save them. I ran away.”

Maskell was ashamed. That made sense. He knew
that he could make himself safe, and when the chance came for him
to potentially save his family, he didn’t take it. Quinn felt an
overwhelming wave of pity for this boy. If he’d tried, could he
really
have saved them?

“Are you a fighter, Maskell?”

The boy had massive arms and shoulders—Quinn
wondered what work Sammah had him doing for that. A farrier,
probably, given his way with her horse. With his timid nature
though, Quinn suspected what his answer might be.

“No. I hate fighting.”

“Have you ever hurt someone?”

“No, not intentionally.”

“Do you think that if you’d stayed, you’d
have been able to stop any of those men? Men hired and trained to
kill?”

“I…no.”

“Then I don’t think there was a single thing
you could have done to save their lives.”

“But I didn’
t even
try
, Quinn. I could have done something—at least got one of
them out of there, you know? We might not have been able to fight
back, but we could have run. I just let them die!”

“They couldn’t hide like you, Maskell. How
far could you have run before they’d have just found you? Then the
end result would be the same.”

“
We don
’t know
that, though, do we? And now I’ll never find out, because I was a
coward.” Maskell threw down his empty bowl, disgusted with himself.
“You wouldn’t have run away, I bet. You’ve killed these men. You
could have saved them all.”

Quinn didn’t know if that was true. “I’ve run
from enough people, Maskell. I’m not as brave as you think I
am.”

“But you are fighting them?”

Quinn looked down at her hands. They were
shaking. No, she wasn’t fighting. She was running away to Sha’sek,
just like Eden had told her to. She was going to bolt to an island
far away, get herself a nothing job as a no-one person, and pray to
the spirits that Sammah, Pax and Shiver would forget she existed.
“I thought I could.”

“But not anymore?”

Quinn shook her head. “They’re too strong.
It’s too complicated. You’ve met Sammah, but you haven’
t met Pax. Or Shiver.
”

“Are they going to kill each other?”

“I think they all want to kill Sammah, but I
don’t know what Shiver and Pax are going to do to each other if
they do defeat him.”

“Did you say earlier that they were using
you? Why?”

“Have you learned about the last wars?”
Maskell nodded.
“They were caused by an
empath. Shiver wants to kill me because I attacked his son. Before
that, he wanted to use me to kill Sammah. He thought my ability
could do that.”

“And can it?”

Quinn shrugged. “
I
don
’t know. I never used to be able to use my ability on
him, but that’s changed as I’ve got older. Perhaps I could, though
it might kill me.”

“What about the others? Did they want to use
your ability, too?”

“Yes. Sammah thought I could help him take
the throne, though it seems he’s made a good job of taking it all
by himself. Pax thinks he can just use me—that it’s good to have an
empath on his side.”

“Pax is not supporting Sammah?”

“No. He doesn’t trust his brother. He thinks
Sammah is dangerous and haphazard. Pax is going to see how many men
in Everfell die in whatever war breaks out between Shiver and
Vance, and then try to take the kingdom for himself in the
aftermath.”

“Is he that certain there will be a war?”

“He is convinced of it. I think it has
something to do with his abilities, though he didn’t tell me what
those were. He thinks that he’ll just be able to bring over his
toops when the men of Everfell have done killing each other, and
take Everfell all for himself.”

“That sounds like a simple plan.”

“Pax is convinced it’s going to work. The
rest of the council believe him. There are too many factors, for me
to get involved. I wouldn’t know where to start—who to concentrate
on.”

“I think the answer to that is simple
enough.”

“Why?”

“
Well, it
’s Sammah,
isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you kill Sammah—if you can stop him from
controlling the throne, then Shiver won’t have a reason to attack.
There won’t be a civil war, and Pax’s plan to just steal in and put
together the broken pieces will fail, because Everfell
won
’t
be broken.”

Quinn was stunned. Why hadn’t she seen this?
She had been too obsessed with following Eden’
s
instructions
—getting herself away, and safe, that she hadn’t
considered what part she could still play in this war.

She had been convinced that her abilities
were a terrible thing, after having each side pull her this way and
that, trying to twist her for their own ends. She hadn’t sat down
for two minutes and considered there might be a way where she could
get involved and stop the war. All she had to do was kill Sammah.
She didn’t even need to use her ability for that. He was a cold,
empty husk of a man, but he was human, and he could bleed.

“Maskell, you’re a genius. You might have
saved my life.”

“What did I say?”

“You felt ashamed that you had run away, and
I told you there was nothing you could do about it. You might have
saved one life, but ultimately, you wouldn’t have been able to
protect someone else forever, right? I do have the chance to save
lives, and I’ve been running away anyway. And when I run away, it’s
going to be just like you, now. I’ll be able to hide for a time,
and maybe even carve out some sort of life. But I won’t be happy,
and I’ll never feel safe. The only way we can be safe—any of us,
including you—is for me to act. I have to go back to Everfell. I
need to try to kill Sammah.”

“You’re not going to Kahnel?”

“No. I can’t go that way. I’d be running. I
can’t keep running away, Maskell. I have to face Sammah. It’s my
only chance.”

“I told you that you were brave.”

“I could only see it with your help. Thank
you.”

The boy bobbed his head, scooping up the soup
bowl and refilling it. His shame was gone, replaced with a renewed
appetite and a satisfied smile.

“Your ability to hide—do you think you could
get a message to Sevenspells for me? Would you be safe?”

“I can’t write.”

“I can. Get me some parchment and inks, and I
will draft it for you.”

“Who do I need to deliver it to?”

“The king.”

Maskell
dodged through the crowds whistling to himself, holding his hand
over his chest where the parchment was safely rolled. It had been
an amazing evening, meeting the empath Quinn. She hadn’t been
nearly as scary as Sammah said she was, and she had told
him
he was a genius. Maskell had never been called a genius before. She
had made him feel good. And he had hope. For the first time since
he’d been driven from his home, Maskell really had hope that the
men might one day stop hunting him.

Quinn didn’t know how much of a chance she
had at beating Sammah, but she was going to try. No one could ask
more of her than that. Maskell thought she could win. He had seen
her go from hopeless to determined. The fire he’d seen in her eyes
had sparked the thin flame of hope left in the gutters of
Maskell’
s soul.

When Quinn had asked him to deliver a message
to Sevenspells, the idea that he could finally help, and atone for
running away when his family needed him the most, had overjoyed
Maskell. He had fiercely protected the parchment. He’d unrolled it
a couple of times to look at it, but he only knew what the scratchy
letters meant because Quinn had told him what it said. As he made
his way through to where Quinn said the throne room would be, he
thought about that message and what it could mean to him, and his
future.