Ramson shook his head. “It’ll be locked. Trust me, I’ve studied the Salskoff Palace extensively.”
“Not this one.” Her breath frosted in the air as she waded through the snow. They were at the bottom of the riverbank, the Tiger’s Tail so close that one slip would send them back to the clutches of the terrifying waters. The bank sloped steeply upward to the edge of the Palace wall. Ana thanked the Deities that they were far enough to be hidden from view from the archers who would shoot anyone who approached the walls.
The cold weighed her down, robbed her of breath. Her hair, her gown, her skirts, and her shoes dripped water, and she was shivering so hard that talking felt impossible.
Ramson seemed to realize the danger they were in as well. Too long in the cold, drenched with icy river water, and their body temperatures could plummet below functional levels. His tone was devoid of its usual humor when he spoke next. “How far are we?”
“Almost,” she whispered. And—there.She spotted it, that thin crack along the Palace wall, large enough to be noticeable from this distance, but innocuous-looking. Someone had made it a long time ago.
Which meant…her passageway was…
Right here.
Ana crouched, running her fingers along the edge of the riverbank. And, surely enough, hovering just above the frothing waters was a hole, half-submerged in the Tiger’s Tail.
“Genius,” Ramson said. He was on his knees, peering at the tunnel entrance. “Whoever designed this escape route held the Imperial family’s swimming skills in high esteem.”
“It’s not an escape route. It used to be a dumping place for bodies, hundreds of years ago when executions still took place in our dungeons.”
“I didn’t realize princesses were intimately familiar with the waste disposal plans of their palaces.”
“I’m not.” Markov’s salt-and-pepper hair and lined face came to her. “When I was arrested for Papa’s murder, one of my guards helped me escape. This was the only way out of the dungeons.”
Something flashed in Ramson’s eyes—pity? sympathy?—but it was gone the next moment. He held out his arms. “I’ll help you this time.”
Ana gripped the slope of the riverbank, her fingers digging into frozen mud. “I’ll help myself,” she murmured, and, before she could think twice, swung herself down.
For a single moment she hung suspended over the edge of the riverbank and just above the river. Water roared in her ears, so terrifyingly close. Her skirts and her feet skimmed the surface, and she swung forward by momentum. Her feet touched wet rock; her hands scrabbled for purchase.
And then she was in the tunnel, clinging to the grooves in the wall, her heart beating so fast that she thought she would throw up.
Ramson swung in just seconds later. He swore as he slammed into the wall just below her.
The tunnel slanted up, and Ana thought of the bodies that had been shoved down and discarded into the river below. It was a tunnel built for getting out of the Palace, not for going in.
Ana put one hand above the other, feeling for the grooves in the wall, and began to climb.
The cold clenched her body like a living thing. Her muscles felt like stone. More than once, she lost her grip and slipped, resulting in a single, terrifying second when she thought she would plummet back into the river.
“Will you stop kicking mud in my face?” came the whisper from behind.
Ana gritted her teeth. “Death threat, remember?”
“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 quietdrip, drip, dripof 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…
