Chapter 25
Zanna
Zanna rolled the stiffness from her shoulders, but the day’s weight lingered as she descended the spiraling stone steps.
Her shift had ended. Exhaustion clung to her like a wet cloak, yet her mind refused to rest. She’d sworn not to get attached, but every night, she carried these women’s stories with her.
She always did what she could, but it never felt like enough.
She rounded a bend and nearly collided with a man in the shadows. No uniform. No jangling keys. No weapon.
Her pulse jumped. “Who are you?” Her voice came out sharper than intended, echoing along the stone stairwell.
“Bahram Rakkel.” The dim light obscured his features but not his flaxen hair and gleaming blue eyes as he said, “Enayim lema’ala,” in the ancient tongue.
The Marad passcode. Zanna’s breath hitched. A spy? Inside the prison? It didn’t make sense. Who let him in? And why?
“Follow me,” he said.
Rakkel descended with a measured pace that made her skin prickle. She hesitated. Had he no fear of getting caught?
Instinct told her to report this breach, yet something deeper pulled her forward as she followed at a cautious distance, one hand brushing the damp wall as the air grew colder.
They passed the ground floor, the kitchen, the larder, the pantry, went deeper than the supply rooms, the armory, even the interrogation chambers. Lower than she’d ever been.
The staircase gave way to a twisting corridor lit by sputtering torches in iron brackets.
Every step echoed.
The corridor ended at a massive stone door. Rusted iron hinges. A thick wooden beam across its center. Cold air seeped through cracks, carrying the scent of damp earth and freedom.
Rakkel lifted the beam, set it aside, and pulled the door open. It groaned, revealing the mouth of a dark tunnel that swallowed the torchlight.
“What is this place?” Zanna asked.
Rakkel handed her a torch. “You must continue. I have looked ahead. It’s safe. I’ll close the door behind you and stand watch.”
“Stand watch where?”
“On the shore. Go with Arman.”
The shore? Zanna’s gaze snapped to the tunnel’s abyss. This ran beneath the ocean? A shiver crawled up her spine. She stepped over the threshold onto gravel. “How will you—?”
Behind her, the door slammed shut. The bracket slid into place.
She had meant to ask how he would reach the shore before her. Why not come with her?
Because he had to close the door from inside. He’d said as much.
She exhaled. How did Prince Oren pick Marad recruits, anyway? First Kurtz Chazir and the minstrel boy, now this enigma.
Holding the torch high, she moved forward, boots crunching over gravel. The slick stone walls glistened with condensation in the flickering light. The frigid air carried the tang of salt.
“I shouldn’t be here,” she muttered, breath misting.
Yet she couldn’t go back. He had locked her out of the prison.
The only option was forward.
So she walked into the abyss, trusting that something important lay ahead.
Zanna could hardly wait to tell Kurtz about the tunnel off Ice Island.
It was nearly closing time when she stepped inside the Black Boar. The tavern buzzed with the usual mix of clinking mugs and raucous laughter, but she barely noticed. Her gaze swept the room until she spotted Kurtz, leaning against the bar, whispering to a giggling barmaid.
Fiora Lingel.
Unbelievable.
Zanna strode up, boots thudding against the floorboards. “Where’s Mistel?”
Kurtz straightened, his smile fading. “Storage room with Cole.”
“You left them alone? You’re supposed to be their chaperone.”
“They’re fine.” He waved her off. “The place is practically empty.”
“But who’ll guard her from him? I hope you haven’t taught him your ways.”
Kurtz sighed. “Beg pardon, Miss Lingel.” He motioned for Zanna to follow. “Let’s check on them, eh?”
She followed him down the hall to the storage room where he gently cracked the door open. Mistel sat at the table, coins piled before her. Cole held her hand while she spoke, too softly for Zanna to hear.
She reached to push the door wider, but Kurtz shut it with a soft click and leaned against the frame. “Let them talk,” he said. “Tonight’s show went well, but Ice Island’s next, and Cole’s worried.”
“Verdot finally picked a date?”
“Three days from now.”
Zanna couldn’t hold back. “I found a tunnel tonight. Runs underground from Ice Island to a cave near Cliffwatch.”
Kurtz barely blinked. “Not surprising. Moving goods over snow’s no easy task.”
“This isn’t for goods. There’s no way into the fortress from the outside.
Someone has to let you in. And on the other end, it’s just a cave hidden in scrub brush with little more than a game trail for an entrance.
No gate. No guards. It’s been used, but not often.
And there are runes just inside the cave—same as those on Ice Island’s gates. ”
Kurtz’s deep-brown eyes locked on hers. “That’s how they’re moving prisoners. How’d you find it?”
“That’s the weirdest part.” Zanna told him about the mysterious man with the Marad passcode.
“I don’t know a Bahram Rakkel,” Kurtz said. “What’d he look like?”
“Blonder than you, bright blue eyes. Felt like he could see right through me.”
Kurtz frowned, then glanced away as Fiora exited the kitchen, tray in hand. His gaze followed her. Typical, though not surprising. The woman was barely contained in that uniform.
Zanna crossed her arms. “I’ll wait for Mistel. You can go back to your carousing.”
Kurtz smirked, though it lacked humor. “I wasn’t carousing. I haven’t caroused in…” He paused, rolling his eyes upward. “Since we got to town.”
Zanna laughed dryly. “Three whole weeks? You must be miserable.”
“I prefer disciplined.”
“That doesn’t sound like you.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know enough.” But there was warmth behind his glare. Maybe he really was just doing his job. “What did you learn from her? Anything on Sir Fenris?”
Kurtz stroked his beard. “Didn’t ask about Fenris. Asked about a family she worked for in Mahanaim.”
“What family?”
“Garran and Delia Nariel.”
The names meant nothing to Zanna, but Kurtz was clearly working an angle. “What’d she say?”
“Not much. She worked for them after King Axel’s death, then came home when her mother fell ill.”
Ahh. This was about Kurtz unraveling the mystery of the former king’s murder. “Prince Oren put you on this?”
Kurtz stared at her, his lashes so thick and hooded in the dim hallway, she almost couldn’t see his eyes. “Let’s talk about you for a change, eh? What’s your life been like these past few years?”
Zanna crossed her arms. “Why do you care?”
“That bad, is it?” His smirk baited her, but his eyes lingered as if he genuinely wanted to know.
Zanna hesitated, giving him nothing but the rigid set of her jaw. Yet she had nothing to hide—except the way her fingers clenched the seams of her tunic. “I’ve been in the Kingsguard all my adult life.”
Kurtz’s gaze dropped to her hands, igniting a smile. Of course he’d noticed. “Don’t hold back on me,” he said.
Zanna lifted her chin. “I’m not.”
He leaned a fraction closer. “You always react like this,” he said softly, “like the world might crumble if I look at you the wrong way.”
What? “I do not.”
Kurtz’s mouth curved into a dangerous smile. “Do too. And I like it.”
Zanna’s pulse spiked. She swallowed, the heat in her cheeks matching the fire in his eyes. “You’re infuriating,” she whispered, looking over his shoulder.
“And you like that,” he said.
Their eyes met again, and she recognized the dare in them. She rarely backed down from a challenge.
“Four months ago,” she said, “I was reassigned here. Three women had vanished from Ice Island, and no one knew why. Prince Oren sent me, thinking a female guard might get further. But I’ve failed.
Since I got here, six more have disappeared.
” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And I feel responsible.”
Those brown eyes held her gaze. “Oren doesn’t expect you to solve it overnight. He sent you because you wouldn’t quit. Do you honestly think someone else could’ve done better? Because I don’t. You’re exactly who they need in there.”
Zanna looked away, uncomfortable with the praise.
“Can you be on the island when we perform?” Kurtz asked. “Cole won’t take Mistel there without a chaperone, and I agree. The girl doesn’t know how not to smile.”
“I’ll be there,” she said. “I promise.”
“Good. Thank you.”
Zanna studied him, searching for any hint of the rogue she used to know. But Mistel was right. Kurtz Chazir had changed. He wasn’t the same man he used to be.
And that wasn’t a bad thing.