Quill of Thieves

Chapter 40

Astrid didn't feel like a loser.

On the contrary, she felt like a winner. She looked like a winner. Red, blistered burns covered the inside of her right wrist. Black soot smeared under her eyes like the Scribal warriors of old. Her blonde hair lay matted and damp with sweat, windswept about her face. It stuck, plastered to the back of her neck. Her clothes sat ripped across her knees and elbows. She wore the signs of battle like any true warrior would. She had fought and survived.

And, yet, she had lost the second task by a margin of seventy-five points.

Sebastian had taken the lead.

She wondered why she didn't feel more bitter about it than she currently felt.

At least there had been a raving debate about it all. According to Matthias, who had ferreted information back and forth to her well into the night, Master Caius had been thrilled that his creations could actually be ridden. There was a rumor that he was planning to salvage the parts of the crushed dragons from the chasm and had already designed a saddle for one. However, in the end, it had been the book her mother had wanted the kingdom's Saviour to choose.

Astrid hadn't; Sebastian had.

It was odd, knowing that she should be angry about the loss, but she couldn't keep the satisfaction from her lips at the memory of it all.

She had ridden a mythically extinct beast, defied her mother in the most stylistically, theatrical way possible, and had saved both Matthias and that blasted book regardless of what the judges thought.

And Sebastian had saved her.

Astrid stuck her hands into the folds of her cloak and strode into the center of the atrium. Above her head, the high mountain ceilings gave way to the open sky. A natural sky-light. Snow drifted through the hole. A flake landed on the tip of Astrid's nose as she stared up at the dancing stars. Sebastian would probably be able to name them all and find her cartographical location based on the pattern of the twinkling dots alone.

She snorted to herself and kicked at a clump of snow that had gathered at the base of a pine tree. Icicles hung from the needles so that the branches looked more like glittering chandeliers or Halorian dancers draped in jewels. She stood amongst them now, not because she liked the sight of them, but because she actually hated them. Within the fortress, they called these trees Damsels' Gowns, which was perhaps why Astrid disliked them so much.

Nevertheless, Sebastian was meant to meet her here shortly unless he had become lost and wound up dead in the maze of tunnels. Hopefully, that wouldn't be the case; Astrid wished to speak with him privately. Since her disdain for the Damsels wasn't a secret, she highly doubted her mother's guards would think of looking for her here.

She hoped Matthias had been able to get to Sebastian and deliver her message, otherwise she would be out here for nought. Though, she had to admit, something about tonight caused the snow to fall a little more joyously, the pines to sparkle that much brighter.

The sound of heavy, unsure boots caused Astrid's heart to jump, and she spun towards the entrance with a grin.

"You just had to suck out the air, didn't you?" she taunted as Sebastian came into view. His hair was as messy as ever, but his cheeks were a bit pale. There were thick bandages wrapped around his hands, peeking out from beneath his sleeves. "You couldn't have used Water's threads like any other normal elementi?"

Sebastian stopped a few steps from her, his injured hands hidden beneath the heavy furs of his cloak. "Speaks the girl who set herself on fire and then escaped on the back of a dragon."