“Charming. I was going to be a gentleman and tell you that I’d catch you if you fell.”
“And I was going to be a lady and tell you that I’d kill you if you spoke.”
They continued their climb, bickering between them, and each pithy retort distracted Ana from the seemingly impossible task of each painful pull upward. The roaring of the river had faded to a hum, and there was only darkness and the quiet drip, drip, drip of water onto the stones all around them.
And suddenly, they came upon the door: a square piece of stone made to resemble part of the dungeon’s wall on the other side. With numb fingers, Ana latched on to the ridge at the edge of it and pulled. The door gave way with a loud grating noise.
Ana heaved herself up and climbed to her feet. She had always thought the dungeons to be freezing, but the dry air felt warm to her skin. Ramson slid the door shut behind them, locking them in.
“The Palace was built with hidden hallways for servants’ to use.” Ana tried to inject confidence into her voice, but she was whispering. “Yuri used to take me through them, so I know them well. We’ll dry off and get a fresh change of clothes at one of the servants’ stations, and then…” She grimaced. “We storm the Coronation.”
Ramson didn’t miss a beat. “After you.”
It was painful to force her half-frozen limbs into movement again. Memories pressed at her in the darkness: Sadov, his shadow looming, his long white fingers clasped in expectation. Little monster…
Ana flared her Affinity and held it before her like a blazing torch that chased away the darkness. She sensed the blood around her. It was in every single inch of the dungeons: smeared on the walls, dried and cracked on the rusting shackles.
Nothing. Besides traces of blood, there was nothing here but her own fear.
Ramson’s ragged breathing followed her. Gradually, the darkness became punctuated with orange flickers of a torch somewhere far off. They drew closer, and Ana’s Affinity sensed blood flowing warm through two bodies.
She and Ramson paused around the corner. The entrance to the main section of the Palace was right in front of them.
The two men guarding the door barely had a moment to react as she fixed her Affinity upon them, holding them in place. Ramson proceeded to calmly take the cuffs on each guard’s belt and chain the men to cell doors, gagging them with their own shirts.
“That was easy,” he whispered, joining her at the door.
“There used to be more prisoners and guards down here,” Ana said. Praying that there was nothing on the other side of the door, she opened it a crack.
A spiral of stairs led up to the ground floor of the Palace, letting out in a hallway next to the servants’ living area. There would be a doorway into their rooms right next to the dungeon entrance. She’d seen Yuri emerge from it dozens of times, peering at her as Sadov led her down. The sight had given her comfort back then.
Ana and Ramson shut the door behind them and stole up the twisting staircase.
They emerged into an empty hallway. The dungeons were at the back of the Palace, and on a night like this, most Palace occupants had no reason to be there. They hurried down the familiar marble floors and silver-lined walls of her childhood until they reached a pedestal with a Kemeiran vase. Next to it, the thinnest of crevices ran up along the wall. A secret door—one of the many around the Palace—that led to the hidden servants’ hallways.
Ana threw her weight against it and pushed. The door gave way, and she slipped inside, just as she’d seen Yuri do so many times.
They were in a narrow hallway lined with shelves that were stacked with white linens and clean tablecloths, ready to be transported to their destinations.
They found a rack of guest gowns and tunics and shivered as they shed their wet clothes. Ana sighed as she dried herself with a soft cotton towel. She slipped on a gown that fit her—crimson, in a neat, simple cut. She dried her hair as best as she could, running her fingers through the snarls to smooth them so she wouldn’t look too out of place. And, as she waited for Ramson to finish changing, Ana finally let herself touch a hand to the cream-colored walls.