Quill of Thieves

Chapter 34

With a heavy sigh, Abel leapt out of bed and landed on the balls of her feet as lightly as she tracked game through the forest. She longed for the solitude of the woods; she imagined the scattered items she had thrown in frustration throughout the night as obstacles to overcome on her quest to retrieve her pillow. An upturned bottle of ink became a rushing river that she bounded over in one, lithe step; her discarded tunic was a doe's hide that she knelt beside to search for prints from its hunter. She stalked across the floor of her cramped room, her bare feet nimble and sure. When she made it to her fallen pillow, she twirled on her toes in victory, but then froze.

"...strange memories. Others report similar happenings. Silva—she's that young girl who works above the alchemist shop, you know the one?—she swears to have seen a dragon the other night."

The voice seemed so close that Abel spun towards it, one hand reaching behind her for an arrow on instinct. Her fingers came up empty, of course, since she wasn't truly stalking game through a forest. Instead, her bow hung from the bedpost. Abel lowered her arm but quirked her ear toward the door.

"—sounds like a tale from a pretty barmaid hoping to impress you straight into the sheets. If it was night, how could Silva see? Probably an owl."

"They breathe fire, I've heard."

Someone scoffed. "From who?"

"Up here! In my head. I told you. I have some of those forgotten memories!"

The conversation faded as it moved further away through the mountain. Only snippets could be heard:

"—pint of ale—"

"—people are still talkin' about the princess's human ice kabob—

"—rumor's the next task is—"

Abel pressed her ear to the door, but the words disappeared, only to be replaced, once more, by the shriek of the breeze needling its way through the stone's cracks and the undeniable sound of a guard's helmet, snapping back into place.

Dragons?

If fae and elves truly existed, why not dragons? Abel wished she had a window from which she could search the skies. She'd always been a mystic, so the possibility of such creatures existing had never seemed completely implausible, especially now with the resurgence of magic...Wait!

They had mentioned the next task.

She pressed her palms against the door as if she could call back the speakers she had overheard. It must have been a group of guards; one of them had sounded brash enough to be one, at least. Maids and servants would not speak so boldly around the queen's fortress. So, if it had been guards, possibly Astrid's own Icicles, would they truly know a rumor concerning Queen Davina's next dangerous concoction for the tournament?

Perhaps Abel didn't have magic, but she could certainly help with this.

Knowing there was most likely a guard or two outside her room, Abel tested the door handle, rotating it slowly so that it made no noise. As she'd suspected, it was locked. She bent her knees to peer into the keyhole before retrieving one of her slimmer arrows and carefully inserting the pointed tip of it into the lock. For a silent second, she twisted it expertly back and forth, having had plenty of practice doing such things while growing up with a father and three brothers who'd hated her. When she'd been but four years old, Damion—her eldest brother—had locked her beneath the lower meat compartment of a fisher's boat, smashed three or four holes into the hull, and then set it loose out to sea in the hopes it would sink with Abel trapped inside it.

Much to Damion's chagrin, she'd made it back to shore before he had even returned to the house.

So, in retrospect, picking the lock of this room should be rather simple.