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?
“Quinn!”
Eden tried to get through to her. He knew that somewhere in there, Quinn could still be reasoned with. He could understand why she was doing this. If he’d woken up to Rowan throttling him, he’d have tried to defend himself, too.
“Quinn, please, it’s me. Please, stop this!”
Eden glanced at his brother, and wished he hadn’t. Viscous blood ran from his nose, eyes and ears. His hands pawed Quinn, trying to find a way to make her stop. His eyes darted everywhere but down, clouded over. Eden didn’t doubt that at that point, Rowan was blind.
Eden didn’t want to do it, but he didn’t see that he had a choice. He pulled back his fist and hit Quinn square in the side of her jaw. Her head rocked to one side. It was enough to cut into her concentration, and Rowan dropped off the cot, hitting the floor with a limp thud. Shiver scrabbled to his son. Eden collapsed over Quinn, sobbing. All he’d wanted to do was save her. Better to let her kill Rowan and give her death some purpose. There was no way that Shiver would let her live now.