Well of Tears (Empath Book 3) (21 page)

“Where is he?”

Neyv shrugged. “Nearby.”

“Why isn’t he here?”

“He wanted you to see me, first.”

“Why did he want that, Neyv?”

“So you could see that I am well, because
he’s nice to me.”

“Is he
really
nice to you?”

Neyv shrugged again, as if the question was
irrelevant. “I am always well. He says he loves me.”

Quinn smirked at this. “He’s not capable of
love, Neyv.”

The girl’s voice came back firmly, and
Quinn’s ears started to ring. “He
loves
me.”

“She’s right, Quinn. I do love her—and I love
you, too. You’re both special to me.”

The ringing increased as Sammah walked
through from his bathing rooms. He was in a gown, his hair wet. He
had just finished cleansing, and looked relaxed, as if Quinn hadn’t
just returned to the city. Why should he be tense? He’d known she
was coming.

“We’re not special to you, Sammah. You just
want to use us, and I’ve come here to stop you.”

Sammah laughed.
“Stop me? Oh dear, Quinn, how are you going to do that? Shiver
hasn’t been able to. Not even Erran and Obrenn could cope with me,
and they are lords with experience in politics
and
combat.
What do you think you can do?”

Tears sprang to Quinn’s eyes as she started
trying to concentrate on him. The buzzing increased. Quinn realised
she couldn’t muster a single thing against him. What was going
wrong? She should be able to feel
something
. Sammah saw her
struggle, and started to laugh.

“Oh dear girl, you thought you were going to
come in and use your
ability
on me? We remember how well
that went the last time! Save your energy. You’ve come back to me
because you know you should be here, Quinn. Relax. You are back
with your family. You did the right thing.”

The tears of frustration continued to roll.
She had to distract him. She had to deflect his attention from her
inability, and her attempts to attack him.

“Your brother isn’t going to support you,
Sammah. You’ve lost the only allies you had. You’re alone here. You
think you’re going to win? You can’t win against these people.
Shiver isn’t going to rest until he has your head on a spike.”

“You think I need a couple of spineless lords
to achieve what I need? I have all I want in this room, Quinn.”

Quinn looked at Neyv. The girl didn’t seem
afraid of Sammah, or of Quinn. She looked almost bored, regarding
their conversation with a detached interest, as if this didn’t have
implications on the future of their people, and the fate of two
kingdoms.

“You have a girl and a woman? What are you
going to do, Sammah, lock us in a room and breed an army?”

Sammah sneered.
“
I don
’t need to breed an army when I can
use you two to give me all of the men I need. Neyv will tell them
that they’re fighting for me; you will put the fire in their belly
that will keep them swinging their swords until I win or they
die.”

“I’m never going to help you again, Sammah.
You can’t make me do this.”

Sammah glanced across to Neyv. “Oh, you are.
You know what I want to do is right, Quinn. I just need to give you
the time to be…brought around to my way of thinking.”

As Sammah talked, a pressure, like a low
whine, rang in Quinn’s head. She pressed one hand over her left
hear, thinking she had taken an invisible blow. Her ear stung. “You
need to help me, Quinn. I’m your father. I protected you growing
up. I’m the only one that understood you. Everyone in Everfell has
rejected you. Only the Sha’sekians can understand the way you are,
and what you need to be. You have to use your power against these
people—express yourself and show them
why
you should be
feared. They’ve spent their lives ignoring you, Quinn. You’ve been
rejected again. Make an example of these people. Stand by my side
and given them a reminder of why the last conflict was called the
Empath Wars.”

The longer Sammah spoke, the heavier the
pressure became. “No! Stop! What are you doing to me?
You…
you don
’t have an ability. You’re an
apath. You’re dead inside. This doesn’t feel right.”

“This isn’t my ability, Quinn.”

Neyv. Neyv was behind all of this. Quinn
dropped to her knees. The pressure was getting too much, and stars
danced in her vision. It felt like every time she had passed out
under the pressure of her ability. Quinn felt like her skull was
being squeezed, and if Sammah carried on talking, Quinn would not
be able to think. Neyv was twisting the way she thought. Were
Sammah’s words starting to make sense? Was that how Sammah had been
folding and bending people around his will?

“I can’t do this, Sammah. I don’t want to be
this. Please. Don’t make me be something I’m not.”

“I’m not making you be something you’re not;
I’m stopping you from turning yourself into a no one. You’re
special,
Quinn. Better than everyone else around you. Even
me. I can’t change the way people feel. You can. You could make a
timid farmer turn into a fearsome soldier. With the force of your
will, you can turn cowardice into courage.”

“Cowardice is there for a reason! These
people don’t want war. Farmers aren’t meant to raise arms. You’re
forcing people into a conflict they haven’t asked for. This is
exactly what Nerren did. I can’t be him. You’re not going to turn
me into my father.”

“You don’t know your real father, Quinn.”

“No, but it would be bad enough becoming
just…like…you.”

Quinn felt hot liquid run down her lips and
chin, and looked down to see blood splashing on the floor. Whatever
Neyv was doing to her, Quinn’s body was putting up a protest. Alarm
danced in Sammah’s eyes, and Quinn could see doubt there. Had this
ever happened before, with Neyv’s manipulations, or was something
within Quinn’s empathic ability stopping Sammah from having
totality over her? Is this what had finally changed? As Quinn had
grown older, and her powers stronger, had she simply been able to
resist Neyv’s ability? Had the growth of her own abilities caused
Sammah and Neyv’s influence over her to wane?

“Neyv, leave us.”

Shadows danced in the corners of Quinn’s
blurred vision. She barely made out Neyv standing and walking
calmly out of the room, as if her adoptive sister wasn’t collapsing
to the floor, bleeding profusely in resistance to the power she was
wielding. Did Neyv even understand what she was?

As Neyv walked away, the pressure in Quinn’s
head eased. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, and
could taste the coppery tang against her tongue. “Don’
t. Let me.
”

A rag wiped across her face. Quinn couldn’t
believe it. Sammah was actually cleaning her. Was he
that
concerned for her? She didn’t recall many times he had shown this
much compassion for her, not that Sammah had any real appreciation
of what that emotion felt like.

Was Sammah that desperate for her help, that
without Neyv’s influence working, he would stoop to
being…
kind?
This was not the Sammah that Quinn knew and
despised. “
You can
’t change my mind
Sammah.”

“I can, Quinn. Not today, maybe. But Neyv
will break you down, whether you want her to or not. She destroys
everyone, eventually.”

“She hasn’t destroyed you.”

“No. She can’t. I’m immune to her power.”

“Like you were immune to mine? That will
change when she gets older. She’ll get stronger, just like I did.
She’ll become aware of what you are, and she’ll stop following your
rules.”

“
I don
’t think she
will. She’s not like you, Quinn, you see. Neyv doesn’
t question my intentions like you always did.
”

“I never used to, not when I was her age.
She’
ll
grow up
, Sammah.”

“Not if I don’t give her the chance.”

Quinn coughed, hacking up blood and spitting
it to the floor. She looked up at her father through unbidden
tears. “You’re going to kill her?”

“When she’s done what I need? Of course. Once
her purpose is served, why would I want to keep alive a girl who
could potentially overthrow me? I’m a manipulator Quinn, not a
fool.”

“That’s the way you thought of me?”

“No. You’re special to me, I’ve always told
you that.”

“Only once you’ve got your child. If I give
you a gifted baby, you’ll kill me without a second thought.”

“Perhaps you’re right, that’s all I want you
for. But you’d be alive far longer than Neyv, or Sirah.”

“And I should be honoured by that?
Comforted?”

“
I don
’t know how
you should react, Quinn. Like I said, Neyv will break you down.
Eventually, I will get my way. In the meantime, it looks like you
need your rest. Elias will see you to your rooms—and make sure that
you stay in there.”

* * *

Neyv stepped away from the door, scuttling
back to her little chair and sitting exactly as Sammah would expect
her to. She had heard every word. Suddenly, her apathetic opinion
of her father seemed dangerous. Without Quinn in her way, would her
father love her more? It seemed that way.

Quinn had always been an obstacle. Neyv saw
this now. Sammah had always ignored Neyv. As soon as Quinn left,
Sammah had cared for her. Now Quinn was back, Sammah was ignoring
her again. The solution was simple. With Quinn there, Sammah
thought he didn’t need Neyv; that she was not an essential part of
his life. Therefore Quinn needed to die.

“I know you’re capable of more, Quinn.

“I can’t trust
Erran and Obrenn. They aren’t going to provide me with the men I
need, and have abandoned our cause, so I need you to do something
for me. I need you to turn farmers into fighters.”

Quinn looked up from her bed. Sammah filled
the doorway. Neyv had left the room hours before, let out by Elias
on a nameless errand. Quinn’s job, until Sammah needed her, was
apparently to sit here and rot. For once, she was in demand.

“I’m not going to do that for you,
Sammah.”

“You’re not doing it for me—think of it as an
attempt to save their lives.”

“What do you mean?”

“Whether you turn them or not, Quinn, they’ll
still end up fighting. If you help them, with your power, then you
might at least give them a chance of surviving.”

“Shiver’s men will slaughter them.”

“Only if you don’t help them, Quinn.”

“
You can
’t put me
in that position.”

“I already have, Quinn. The only question is
are you prepared to try and save their lives? Isn’t that what
you’re concerned about? Innocent people dying?”

“
I don
’
t want
anyone
to
die!
”

“
We all die
, Quinn,
sooner or later. You have a choice now, to save the lives of a
great many people. They don’t stand a chance against Shiver, not if
you don’t help them. So are you going to try?”

“And if I refuse?”

Sammah shrugged. “I’m going to have them
train against some of Elias’s men. We’re long past play-acting.
They’re going to be using real swords. If some of them die… well it
might give the rest of them the impetus they need to train
harder.”

The man was barbaric. This, here, was what
Shiver described when he called the men of Sha’sek barbarians.
Sammah didn’t care what he did to other people, so long as his own
ends were met.

“Come and see some training, Quinn. If you
see how much is really at stake here, perhaps you’ll be less
inclined to sit by and watch people die.”

Quinn protested, but inevitably Sammah waved
in two of his mercenaries. Neither was Elias, but both were large
and threatening enough to make Quinn come quietly. “Why don’t you
just try to get Neyv to convince me? That seems to be your
favourite thing to do at the moment.”

“Having someone like Neyv to work the people
around me is a great boon, but the satisfaction of breaking
someone’s stance—forcing them into an action they would never have
taken before—is gone. With Neyv, it’s everything I want with no
compromise. When it comes to you, Quinn, and the troubles you’ve
caused me, I think I just prefer to see you go through some anguish
before we get to our inevitable conclusion.”

“What did I ever to do deserve this?”

“Deserve? You think that has
anything
to do with what I’m trying to achieve here? No Quinn. If you like
to think of it in those terms, then you’re just spectacularly
unlucky. You were born in the wrong place at the wrong time. I only
want you because you’re an empath. If you were anyone else, you
would have never even come to my attention.”

“After how wrong everything went with Nerren,
you still think I’m the future?”

“I know you are. No one else knew how to cope
with Nerren. I wasn’t allowed anywhere near him. Why not? Who
knows. I think my brother was still jealous that he wasn’t the
apath. Pax was never good at dealing with competition. Why do you
think I ended up here in the first place? No, Quinn, as soon as I
knew I had an empath all to myself, I wasn’t letting you go
anywhere. Even when you had a choice, you still came back to me. I
think secretly you know what I want to do is right—that you believe
that in the end, I will inevitably win.”

“I came back here to kill you.”

Sammah laughed. Quinn flushed with anger.

“Yes, so you said! Kill me how, girl? You’re
not a killer, Quinn, and you never will be. You were born to be a
tool, and that’s all you will ever be. Let’s prove that now, shall
we?”

There were a cluster of men already waiting
in the courtyard. Huddled together in a miserable group, they
looked absolutely petrified. Quinn saw their heads twist to look at
her, as she entered the courtyard with Sammah. She didn’t know if
they had some idea of who she was or if it was Sammah that they
feared, but the look in their eyes reminded Quinn of meat awaiting
the butcher.