Quill of Thieves

Chapter 41

When this blasted tournament ended, Astrid was seriously going to increase her Icicles' training schedule. Three of them currently tailed her; she had sensed their presence the moment she had left her mother's gallery only moments ago.

And what a befuddling conversation that had turned out to be.

Astrid hadn't quite decided what to make of her and Davina's conversation; nonetheless, it had set her on this current warpath of hers: tracking down Matthias, her so-called friend, who, Astrid had come to learn, withheld some fairly vital secrets.

Her jaw clenched.

One Icicle tracked her from the top of the fortress wall in the western-most guard's post. Two others were slinking through the shadows, following at, what they believed, was an inconspicuous distance behind her.

So, though Astrid may not know what to do with Davina's information she had just received, one thing was, at least, abundantly clear: her Icicles were hopeless without her.

Being constantly watched made her skin crawl. Not that she ever went anywhere particularly interesting besides dodgy pubs and worm-infested tunnels. Honestly, where did her mother think she would go? The arid, sandy deserts of Demue? Although, there could be real dragons there, which would certainly prove to be exciting. She snorted to herself. Then again, Davina was, most likely, only concerned with what secrets Astrid would reveal and not where she would actually go.

It made her feel trapped, these dogged footsteps behind her, the way even the clouds seemed to follow. Not to mention the horrible fact that, even though the Icicles were Astrid's to command, they still belonged to her mother.

Everything belonged to her mother.

She rounded a corner near the barracks, breaths oddly heavy as she braced her spine against the cool mountain wall to force her heart to freeze. It hammered far too quickly. The brisk breeze scattered a crumpled piece of parchment across the toes of her boots: a homemade banner from the second task. Her foot went to kick it away, but she hesitated. She looked at the word written upon it.

Salveretta.

Her lungs squeezed as the air around her felt somehow heavier. Smothering.

A farce. Salvera.

Astrid picked up her pace and slipped around the corner and into a familiar alley. Her feet carried her on rote memory. She ducked behind a personal barrack built a meter farther out than its neighbors and paused. The moon tried to break out from beneath the clouds as she patted the barrack's wall until she found the extended brick that had just enough lip to grab onto. Matthias had chiseled away at it when Astrid had turned twelve. It was the only gift he had ever given to her, but it was perhaps the best: an escape to him whenever she needed it. An escape from the fortress, her mother, the secrets and demands of her birth.

And he had apparently lied to her.

Had lied to her about a portal.

A magical artifact he should not have known about, considering she had just learned from her mother that Davina had never told him anything about it.

But could Davina's word be trusted more than Matthias's?

If she chose not to trust her mother, then all of this would have been for naught.

That caused, perhaps, the most claustrophobic feeling of all.

Astrid grit her teeth and gripped her fingers into the rough, scraping texture of the brick. With a single swing, she heaved her bodyweight up the wall and reached for the next poorly-constructed brick. She wondered what her Icicles would think about witnessing her jailbreak into Matthias's personal quarters. In the darkness of night. The thought made her smirk right before she reached the damp wooden windowsill. She braced her toes into a dip in the wall and stretched to peer inside.