Page 11 of Threaded

The men were in the room for a few minutes, and Mariah settled herself in her hiding place behind the statue. She was in no hurry. She still had plenty of time before her father began to worry, and this was one of the first lessons he’d ever taught her.

“Do not act with brashness when secrecy is your goal. Move quickly, but always with intention, and sometimes that intention will be to wait.”

So, wait is what she did.

It wasn’t long before footsteps creaked just beyond the door, and Mariah tensed as she watched Donnet and his two deputies step from the room. Behind them, she saw the flash of gold,allumelamps still lit on the walls.

Perfect.

Donnet locked the door with half his attention, still speaking to one of his deputies. Then, as quickly as they’d arrived, the three men disappeared back down the hallway, the lamp light and their voices fading along with them.

Mariah moved.

With the same silent steps she’d practiced for over a decade, she slipped out from behind the statue and sidled up to the door. She pulled two metal pins from her hair, dropped to a knee, and immediately set to work picking the simple lock. Within seconds, she heard the bolt slide back with a quietsnick.She reached a hand up to twist the bronze knob, pushing the door open. She smiled to herself before pushing the pins back into her braided hair.

After all, picking a simple lock just like that one was one of the first lessons her father had taught her. By age ten, she’d mastered it.

She rose to her feet and stepped into Donnet’s trove, immediately hit with a wave of raw, unbridledrage.

Every inch of the room was covered with the glint of gold, silver, and bronze, with hammered and forged steel, with alabaster statues and marble decor. Everything that remained of the wealth of the people of Andburgh—at least, those who didn’t have the benefit of being a friend of Donnet—was held in this room, hoarded here like a dragon with his treasure.

That last thought shook Mariah slightly from the haze of her anger. No, the dragons of old, the ancient protectors of the continent, were vicious, but they never would’ve been this cruel.

Pushing her rage to the back of her mind, Mariah moved deeper into the room, her eyes searching desperately for a small, cherry wood chest, its make simple yet beautiful. The seconds ticked, and Mariah’s heart began to beat faster in her chest.

What if it isn’t here?

The thought tickled the back of her mind as she worked her way into the darker corners of the space, fingers reaching under tables and into shelves on the wall. A single bead of sweat trickled down the back of her neck as her hands came up empty, again and again, until—

There. She’d just turned from the wall to face another one of the many tables brought into the room to hold the expansive collection when she saw it. It was partially hidden beneath a fine, velvet cloak, only half of the cherry wood visible to her eye. But she knew it was her quarry. That chest had floated through her thoughts every day for the past eleven years.

Mariah leaped to the table, throwing the cloak off the chest and onto the floor. She flipped the silver latch holding the lid closed and gently opened the small chest. Within it, lying on a piece of soft, worn cotton cloth, was her grandfather’s dagger, sheathed in a cracked leather scabbard. Carefully, Mariah lifted the dagger, the buckles on the scabbard belt tinkling softly in the silent room. Glancing once back at the door, she strapped the dagger to her waist, cinching the straps until it was secure.

Once the dagger was firmly on her person, Mariah paused. She looked around the room, one last time, at all of this stolen wealth that served to trap the people of Andburgh here, forever unable to escape and experience more of this world.

And Mariah made an impulse decision.

Scooping up an empty canvas sack on the ground near her, an obvious remnant of a recent dumping of more “tax” collections, Mariah rushed to the nearest stack of coin, the gold and silver and bronze glinting in the softallumelight from the chandeliers overhead.

And she began to fist as many of those coins into her sack as she could.

The tinkling of the coins as she scooped them in greedy handfuls was loud — far louder than she wanted to be—but she had no more time to waste. Mariah’d been here long enough and knew her father was likely beginning to grow anxious. She wouldn’t put it past him to come storming up to the manor in search of her, blowing her cover but, in his mind, saving her life.

Mariah vowed to be long gone before he got that desperate.

Once the current stack disappeared into the depths of her sack, she moved to the next table, to the stack gathered there, and did the same thing. Soon, after raiding the coin stacked on four of those tables, her canvas bag felt sufficiently heavy. Not enough to impede her ability to scale down the manor, but enough to ensure she could pay to go anywhere she wanted to go.

She hoped, prayed, that if the people of Andburgh ever learned of her heist, they would be glad that at least their hard-earned funds were no longer here, collecting dust, but had helped one of their own forge a new path for herself.

Mariah almost snorted aloud at that thought. One of their own. It was a nice thought, but she knew they saw her as nothing more than a strange, angry girl. Knew they would be glad once they learned of her permanent absence.

Pulling out the small length of rope she’d wrapped into her belt, she secured the canvas sack to her back before slipping back out of the trove room. Closing the door softly behind her, she locked it quickly with the picks she hid in her hair, before pausing just a moment in the hallway, listening intently.

Just as she’d expected. Nothing.

Idiots.

She hurtled silently towards the still-open window—the window Donnet and his men were too obtuse to notice was open to the chill breeze—and threw her body over the ledge, her feet and hands instantly finding their purchase. She scaled expertly down the side of the old manor, the thick stones making her task far easier than the slick walls and trees her father had forced her to climb as part of their training. Eventually, she made it back to the solid ground, dropping to the packed earth below and racing lightly through the shadows to the wrought iron fence surrounding Donnet’s manor. She threw her body over the low barrier easily and disappeared into the night like a ghost, carrying the wealth of a city on her back and the heart of her family across her hip.

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