“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.”
