Disclaimer: The land of Tortall (and the surrounding countries) belongs to Tamora Pierce along with all the characters except for Luana.

Title: Rise of a commoner

Summary: A young female thief must rise out of the levels of thieves and commoners to help save her country. But the questions is will she decide to help her country or will she watch it crumble and those she was taught to distrust? Please RR!

Characters: King Jon, Thayet, George, Alanna, Kel, Neal, Raoul, Daine, Numair, Buri, Luana (own character), and a few others

Time: After TC and TQ.

Genre: Action/Adventure most likely some Romance but with who?

CHAPTER 3

Here is the last little bit of Chapter 2:

"Save your petty talk," Luana said, in a drawl of her own, "I need a safe place to stay that is clean."

The tow men stared at each other, Lua could almost see their brain's turning. Finally one of the whispered, "We have just the place, milady."

And it ends right now...

Lua stood up quickly, slipping two knives into her sweaty palms. The two men stood up just as fast, their large imposing shadows covered most of the room, and the candle flickered and died out.

One of the two men slipped his own two knives into his palms while the other drew a large broadsword.

"Milady, if you come without hassle we won't hurt you," one of them warned.

"Yeah right, you traitors," Luana answered, trying to keep the fury out of her voice. "I never thought that my own men would have dogs for ancestors."

This put a look of shame and fury onto Lua's opponents. "Well," one of them shrugged, "he pays better then you." The other nodded in agreement.

"Who?" Demanded Lua, "Who is corrupting the thieving world?" They just shrugged a non committal shrug and attacked.

Their ferocity made even Luana stumbled, quickly bringing up her knives she slashed out, her knife hit its target, the man with the knives stumbled as it cut through a major tendon. A yell of fury escaped his lips until he sank into the blackness of unconsciousness. Now it was only the girl and the large man with the broadsword. His muscles were twitching and his eyes cold. The two circled each other, as far away from the other as the small hovel would permit. They were almost in each other's range, in a deadly zone.

Luana's arm started to puss and hurt. If this match didn't end soon then she would start to lose blood. Sweat was dripping into each of their eyes; both knew that if they wiped it away it would leave an opening for the other. Lu's arm started to hurt more and more, it was now a studding thumping and blood was dripping to the floor. The swordsman sensed that, he jumped in with surprising speed, Lua tried to hold him off, throwing kicks and punches and slashing wherever she could. A couple of her last attempts hit their target causing him to falter but in the end he overcame her, knocking her on the head with the end off his sword. All the girl remembered seeing was darkness...

The female thief woke with her arms bound by chain. She quickly surveyed her surrounding and immediately placed herself in the palace's dungeons. So, she thought grimly to herself, the lying dogs were in with the law. Well at least they had the decency to pick someone rich that was quite fair, that was more to say the all the thieves that had sided with Claw around twenty years ago (A/N: Did TQ take place around 20 years of Lioness Rampant?).

Lu spent most of the morning in the cell, only once did the door enter to show a servant bringing bread and some water. The girl grabbed at it hungrily, it had been more then a day since she had last eaten. The bread was quite fresh and rich and the water was clear, well if they do plan on keeping me here for a while I won't starve, the thief thought to herself, trying to look on the bright side of things.

The sun had set and night was starting to creep into the cell through the tiny barred window. Figuring she was going to be there for the night Luana lay upon the dirt floor.

She lay there for hours; contemplating on ways to get out of this cell put she knew it was pointless. The palace was infamous amongst thieves for its top notch prisons. It was well past midnight before she slipped away into sleep. She did not notice the door swing open and admit three well dressed men.

A/N: Sorry it is so short, it just seemed like a good spot to stop and still have a sort of cliff hanger. I hoped that you enjoyed Chapter 3 and I would love it if you could review! P.S I am planning on getting some romance in here, I just need to decide with who and I need to actually get Lua to meet some of the original characters.