Quill of Thieves

Chapter 6

Astrid bit down on her tongue.

The pain was sharp. 

As the metallic taste of blood awakened her senses, her eyes opened.

Queen Davina stared back at her.

Astrid had visions of what her mother used to be during the Purge. No one knew much about Davina's life before. But from the histories Astrid had studied and the stories she'd heard from those in the fortress who spoke about their queen's daring deeds, Astrid imagined her mother as a striking figure who, with no mystical skills of her own, had defeated the villains and saved the kingdom with nothing but a silver scar across her palm to show of it. And there were still glimpses of that woman within the mother who now stood before her. For one, Astrid doubted her mother had aged at all. But Astrid had long held the belief that either motherhood had never been in Queen Davina's strategically laid plans, or the death of Astrid's father in the Purge had destroyed it.

The sheets tangled around Astrid's ankles as she forced herself to sit up against her headboard. She wondered who had carried her to her bedroom, and then she remembered everything that had brought her here: the stone, the word, the power feeding from her, attacking her own magic...

"Where is Matthias?" Her voice scratched against her throat, dry and hoarse. It sounded more wild than she'd intended it. 

Queen Davina watched her, crystalized eyes moving over her daughter methodically from the chair in which she sat. When she determined that all of Astrid's most important body parts were still intact, she said, "You have grown close to him." Her mother cocked her neck, red lips tilting. "Your care for him caused you to lose control."

Astrid ruffled, indignant.

"Or perhaps it was your carelessness." The queen reached out a pale hand and ran her longest finger along the circumference of Astrid's copper cuff. "This was designed not only for your protection, daughter. Unchecked power leads to chaos."

Astrid remembered the first time Serah and Zev had presented it to her. She'd been no older than four when her mother had explained that the cuff would protect others from the selfish, cursed elements that called out to her, which, if left unchecked, could devour the souls of those she loved. 

Not something she imagined all toddlers were taught.

Astrid scowled at her hands. "Control leads to power. Power without control is chaos. Control must always come first," she recited. "I know this, but it was not my magic. The Scribes—"

"They are without power; thus they have neither control nor chaos. They can influence nothing." 

Queen Davina stood from her perch, smoothing out the creases in the bodice of her gown with the same systematic care that Astrid used when polishing her blades. Her mother's disapproval stood out as starkly as the color of her black hair against her pale skin when she turned her attention back to her daughter. "It was yours, and only your power, that you failed to control, and chaos reigned in that tower today. Chaos cannot build a kingdom."

Arguments crawled up her throat, but Astrid nodded tersely instead, fisting her fingers into the sheets beneath her. "Yes, mother."

"You felt it, did you not?" 

Astrid's spine straightened. "I felt another's elemental thread," she said. Her mother's eyes flashed for she hadn't truly answered the question. "Yes."

"Find it. Find him." 

It wasn't until the Pretentious Ice Queen swept from the room that Astrid allowed her pent-up arguments to explode from her mouth in a muffled, frustrated scream. Whatever had happened up in that tower, she knew it hadn't been because of her own magic. After all, she and her magic were intimately intertwined. She knew the scent of her magic, the taste of it, the way it felt when it dove into her bloodstream and caressed her spine. To claim Astrid's elemental threads had attacked themselves was like insisting she'd strangled herself with her own veins.