#the queens thief
when it’s past bed time of the most powerful king on the peninsula but he doesnt stop talking
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inspired by a meme @mrsjadecurtiss drew, with kamet as that one memri tv pic… attolian people are not intellectual to put it mildly
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Then, at the wedding feast, while the lords and ladies of her court looked on, Attolia poisoned her bridegroom.
“Will you carry a message for me?” the queen asked.
“I can hardly decline, Your Majesty,” answered the prisoner.
…
“Tell your queen that I will not return her Thief a second time.”
The prisoner just looked up at her dully. She couldn’t know how much he understood. How hard had the lieutenant kicked him?
“What remains of his life, he spends with me, do you understand, messenger?”
“I believe so, Your Majesty.”
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“She thought of the hardness and the coldness she had cultivated over those years and wondered if they were the mask she wore or if the mask had become her self. If the longing inside her for kindness, for warmth, for compassion, was the last seed of hope for her, she didn’t know how to nurture it or if it could live.”
…Then he swung the kid out from under his arm and onto the table. It kicked, but he pinned it with his arm while he freed his knife. Deftly he slit its throat, and as the blood spilled across the table with no ceremonial bowl to catch it, he turned the knife and slid it into the body just below the cartilage at the top of the rib cage. Then he dropped to his knees. He rested his forehead against the bloody edge of the table and his forearms on the tabletop and waited.
…“Little Thief,” she said, “what would you give to have your hand back?”
Eugenides almost lifted his head.
“Oh, no,” said the goddess. “It is beyond my power and that of the Great Goddess as well. What’s done is done, even with the gods. But if the hand could be restored, what would you give? Your eyesight?” The voice paused, and Eugenides remembered begging Galen, the physician, to let him die before he was blind.
“Your freedom?” The goddess went on. “Your sanity? Think, Eugenides, before you question the gods. You have much still to lose.”
Softly Eugenides asked, “Why did my gods betray me?”
“Have they?” asked the goddess as softly.
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QUEEN OF ATTOLIA MAJOR SPOILERS
“You have a choice now,” the Thief was saying. “Conscious or unconscious, you can go into the water. I have the boat pole to make certain you don’t come out again.”
He nudged the pole lying at his feet. It rattled against the centerboard case, and hearing it, Attolia glanced down. The boat pole was five or six feet long and had two small hooks at the end. The hooks she could easily imagine catching in the folds of her clothes as Eugenides leaned on the pole to force her farther and farther under the surface.She looked back at Eugenides impassively. She thought he had brought her a long way to drown her, but she knew that in his own field he was meticulous and supposed he wanted to be entirely sure of his results. He made no move but instead spoke again.
“Or you can offer me something I want more than I want to hold your head underwater until the last of your air is gone.”
Attolia had thought her choice was to be conscious or unconscious when she breathed in the black water that would kill her; she couldn’t imagine what Eugenides might want more than that. It was all she would have dreamed of in his place.“I want to be king of Attolia,” he said.
Attolia blinked. She looked around the tiny harbor and had to clear her throat with a cough before she spoke.
“You’ve brought me to a place rather spare of witnesses if you want me to declare you my heir before I die.”“I wasn’t proposing to become your heir,” said the Thief.
“Then what?” asked Attolia.
“There’s an easier way for a man to become king,” said Eugenides, and waited for her to realize what he proposed. Attolia stared at him.
“You think I would marry you?” she asked in disbelief.
“If you object to marrying a man with one hand, you’ve only yourself to blame.”
“And when did you grow into a man?” asked Attolia, lifting her eyebrow, her voice tinged with sarcasm. Eugenides didn’t rise to her bait.“It’s your choice, Your Majesty,” he said quietly.
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Main POVs of the Queen’s Thief
I am completely ready for the feels Return of the Thief will give me
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the thief: gen begins his journey
the queen’s thief is one of my favorite book series of all time! i started a portfolio project on it :)
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a little study of smiles during and after certain ordeals for the Queen of Attolia
Attolia Ireneand her rubies in QoA
Attolia Irene! Thank you for the commission!
