Chapter 1
Kurtz
Control was rarely offered. It was seized.
Kurtz Chazir hadn’t officially been handed the reins of this mission, but he knew what had to be done and didn’t ask permission.
Five lives depended on him to lead them through the sweltering desert to Barth, capital of Barth Duchy.
It was their second mission as spies of the king, masquerading as a minstrel band called the Wandering Songweavers, a name that made them sound perpetually lost.
They weren’t. Kurtz knew exactly where he was as he led their group along a dusty mountain path winding east through the Cela Mountain, a rolling sea of tawny hills dotted with sagebrush and twisted trees that stretched endlessly before them.
Slower than the main road, but safer. And it cut a more direct path, it did, to the ruin where his contact would be waiting.
If Kurtz missed that meeting, the trail to Careeanne might vanish along with any hope of proving who else had conspired with Lord Nathak to kill King Axel.
One might call Kurtz mad for chasing leads on a thirteen-year-old crime, but he had spent thirteen of the last fourteen years in prison, falsely accused of conspiracy in the murder of King Axel Hadar, a man he’d loved and respected.
Now free, Kurtz meant to track down and hold accountable everyone who’d played a part in the king’s assassination.
At the top of that list was Careeanne Nariel, the woman who’d not only betrayed his trust years ago but framed him, then twisted the truth and testified against him.
She’d all but put him and Eagan in prison herself.
While Prince Oren and Achan—Axel’s son and Er’Rets’ current king—did not begrudge Kurtz this side quest, it was not the current mission.
That was twofold. First, to find Inko son of Mopti, the king’s land warden, who’d vanished in Barth while cultivating crops.
Kurtz wanted him found too. Inko was a respected Kingsguard Knight, retired from combat but still wise and capable. A friend, of sorts.
And second, to track down the Ice Island prisoners who’d been trafficked to Barth.
Two missions at once. No problem, eh? Kurtz could juggle both, he could.
What he wasn’t used to was this heat. Raised in the North, he’d been content in Tsaftown’s snowy winter and blissful in their first spring after the curse of Darkness had lifted.
But after sailing south and crossing this blistering expanse, he understood why so many villains came from the southwest. Barth and its deserts were the cracked heel of Er’Rets: calloused, ugly, and dry as bone.
The perfect place to hide if you were breaking the law or hiding from it.
The humid air pressed against Kurtz’s lungs as he held his brisk pace—too brisk judging by the steady burn of Zanna tan Quelle’s glare on his back.
The half-giant female soldier rode behind him with Cole’s father, Crispen West, who prattled on about how to know the time of day from the height of a cactus.
Cracked as desert clay, that one.
“They’re nature’s sundials,” West said, “unless it’s windy. Or they’re shy.”
Kurtz glanced back. Zanna’s expression was flat as a blade. Hard to say what irked her more: West’s nonsense or Kurtz’s relentless pace.
Trailing at the back of the line, Cole Tanniyn and Mistel Wepp rode side by side, paying little attention to their surroundings. Lost in each other’s company. Again.
Kurtz had trained Cole better. And while the cold the lad had caught on the ship explained some of his sluggishness, the greater problem was the ginger-haired songstress riding beside him—her figure could make even a travel-stained dress indecent.
As useful as the girl had been on their last mission, the longer she and Cole spent in each other’s company, the dimmer the lad became.
Still, the pair had helped Zanna rescue him and West from Ice Island. They were capable of heroics, though they hardly looked it. Not that Kurtz was one to talk. He’d made more blunders than the four of them combined.
Achan Cham.
The king’s telepathic bloodvoice brought a smile to Kurtz’s face.
That the lad used his informal name with Kurtz pleased him.
More than that, it soothed the deep-seated guilt he carried over King Axel’s death.
A death Kurtz should have prevented had he not been so smitten with Careeanne, the two-faced viper.
He lowered the shields around his mind and thought, Yes, sir?
How far are you from Barth? the young king bloodvoiced. From the city, I mean?
Day and a half, Kurtz thought.
Cortland does not answer me. I’m concerned.
The hairs on Kurtz’s neck prickled. Cortland Agros had been sent to Barth with Inko to secretly audit Duke Falkson’s books. Could someone have discovered his true purpose? What does Jax say?
There’s some kind of darkness there that Jax doesn’t understand, the king said. I cannot see the city. It’s similar to the runes hiding Ice Island or the smoke that covered the Chartom camp just outside Armonguard.
That statement dumped ice water down Kurtz’s spine. Someone doesn’t want bloodvoicers to see what’s going on in Barth, eh?
That was my first thought, the king voiced. I don’t like Magonian magery, and I like it even less in Barth. Cela and Barth combined…
Would make a powerful force, they would. Did Jax find clues in the safe house? Signs of a struggle?
Sorry to confuse you, the king said. Jax isn’t in Barth. He chased a lead south and is in Armonguard at the moment. Cortland was fine when he left. Jax thinks the darkness is interfering with my magic.
Logical, that is. Perhaps it’s a fog spell like the Chartom mages used.
Yes, well, be on guard, Achan said, but get there as quickly as you can. If Cortland is well, your goal hasn’t changed. Get the band hired at a tavern, start listening, find Inko. And learn why so many Ice Island prisoners were trafficked there.
Yes, sir.
Message me as soon as you can about Cortland, even if you must ride back outside the affected area.
Will do, sir.
The connection ended. Magonian magery in Barth?
Kurtz recalled Yagil Hamartano’s paranoia when they’d met in Ice Island.
The convicted duke had warned him that the mages and black knights were in league.
He’d also been certain someone meant to kill him.
Then a few weeks before Kurtz left Tsaftown, Yagil had died—poisoned the coroner had said.
If the man had been right about his own murder, was he also right about the mages and black knights working together?
Arman, let it not be.
The hot wind rose thick in Kurtz’s ears, pelting him with sand. He pushed Smoke harder up the path. Behind him, Zanna muttered.
“What was that?” Kurtz called over his shoulder.
“I said, what’s your hurry? You’re pushing these animals like we’re outrunning a fire.”
The woman could find fault in a sunrise. “If you want to stroll, find another escort.”
“That’s not an answer,” she sang.
“Wasn’t meant to be,” he muttered.
She exhaled hard, like a bull ready to charge.
A moment later, she rode up beside him, long legs astride her horse in worn canvas trousers: practical, improper, and maddeningly hard not to notice.
She sat tall in the saddle, the afternoon sunlight glinting off her skin and that infernal braid swinging down her back like a whip.
“You do realize you’re not the only one with orders,” she said. “Some of the Ice Island women were taken to Meneton. That’s where I should be headed.”
“Then why aren’t you?” he asked.
Her dark eyes narrowed, but she didn’t answer.
He knew why. The king’s command outweighed Prince Oren’s. Achan wanted her to keep Mistel in check. Mistel wanted to be with Cole. And Cole was working with Kurtz. By logistics alone, Zanna answered to him, even if she loathed it.
Zanna fell back in line, letting Kurtz breathe easier.
At least for the time being.
He didn’t speak again until he pulled them off the path just as twilight began to swallow the dusty hills.
He dismounted and scanned the scrubland until he caught sight of a weathered stone arch—half collapsed and tangled in thorny brush—jutting from the slope overhead.
His contact had been clear: camp within sight of the “broken gate.”
“Let’s make camp.” Kurtz pointed to a patch of uneven ground some twenty paces from the gate. “There.”
Zanna frowned, nodding over Kurtz’s shoulder. “There’s a cactus cluster up ahead. I could knot together—”
“We’ve gone far enough,” Kurtz said.
She folded her arms. “I could knot together Mistel’s scarves, make a sand shield. Less grit in that pretty smile of yours.”
Kurtz sought out the cacti. She wasn’t wrong, but it was too far from the gate. “Don’t need you dressing up our campsite. I need you to make a fire.”
“It’s not decorative. It’s functional. And I can do both.”
“You look like you’re doing nothing to me,” Kurtz muttered, already moving up the slope.
Zanna swung down from her horse and yanked her gear from the saddle.
Before she could question his authority again, Kurtz repeated his orders. “Mistel, West—kindling. Cole—horses. Zanna—fire.”
While they got to work, Kurtz climbed to the arch, scaring a pale desert skink into a cleft between two rocks.
Up close, the leaning stones looked drunk.
Half the stone wall behind the gate had collapsed into a gully.
Long ago, mountain giants had built stone rings to mark sacred grounds where they communed with ancestors.
Now it was but a remnant of a people who had vanished over time.
Most travelers avoided such places, afraid curses clung to the stones.
Kurtz didn’t believe such long tales, but he welcomed the superstition. It kept prying eyes away.