Many of the moves didn’t involve catching the knife by the handle, or even by the blade. Instead the flat of the blade had to be bounced off the back of the knuckles. Even a slight mistake might cost a finger or all the tendons in one hand. That was why Druic had buried his father with his knives. He thought he would never have the skill to use them.
“Oh,” said the king in dire tones. “Let me show you how it’s done.” He handed Druic the knife case and positioned him just so. “Hold very still,” he whispered in Druic’s ear and plucked the knives out of the velvet. He tucked four under his arm and tossed the remaining one into the air, holding his hand flat underneath it as it fell. The knife blade hit his hand just a moment before his fingers closed on it and a thin red line sprang up, his sacrifice to his god.
- Megan Whalen Turner, Knife Dance
~~~~~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~~~~
Man this has been a crazy month. But we’re here. It’s October 6th in all time zones and The Queen’s Thief is ending.
Thanks for all the support! All the positive feedback helped me keep going. I’ll upload a master post compilation of all the pieces I did for this “Inktober” Queen’s Thief run, including the first ones from 2019. But I’ll put it on a secondary blog. I’ve been wanting to make a dedicated blog just for my art stuff but doing it halfway through the prompts would’ve been weird. I’ll announce it using this blog for sure!
But other than that, happy reading! The excitement and trepidation inside of me as I await my copy of Return of the Thief is off the charts. As Hilarion said:
“Who knows but that you will get up to find that the world has inverted itself yet again.”
(P.S. This is my second post of the day! Uploaded Injured - 10/29 before this)