The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter (Riyria Chronicles #4)

Mercator appeared, moving through the crowded plaza. She had added a blue shawl to her attire and dropped part of it over her head. Does she own anything that isn’t blue?

She entered from Vintage Avenue, but that didn’t mean anything. Royce had known Mercator for only an hour and already he knew she wasn’t stupid enough to travel in a straight line from where Genny Winter was being held. The best he could determine was that the Duchess of Rochelle was somewhere in the city or on the outskirts—somewhere Mercator could have gotten to and back in less time than it took Grom Galimus to chime twice.

It took her several minutes to cross the plaza. Because this was the night before the big feast, it seemed everyone was out. Royce watched as Mercator threaded her way through the crowd, looking for anyone who might be following. She seemed unobserved, and Royce met her in front of the cathedral.

“That didn’t take long. Are you certain you have ample evidence? You realize we won’t get a second chance at this. If he isn’t persuaded that she’s alive, this whole thing fails.”

Mercator presented Royce with an understanding smile, the sort an adult would offer a child who has just said something stupid. “This will do the trick.” Mercator drew out a folded parchment.

“A letter?” Royce was disappointed.

“Were you expecting a finger?”

Behind Mercator, not far from the fountain, a Calian man was juggling flaming torches that made muffled whump sounds each time they spun.

“To be honest, yes. A fresh-cut finger shows the victim was recently alive. And there is the added bonus of indicating the seriousness of the kidnapper.”

Mercator continued her patient smile. “You’ve done this sort of thing before, haven’t you?”

“Hadrian and I weren’t hired for our looks.”

“Nor for your intelligence.” The insult was presented without malice, making it sound more like constructive criticism.

Royce was never one for criticism, constructive or otherwise, and certainly not when it came to his area of expertise. The presumption of this mir was astounding if she thought she could educate him on blackmail and coercion. She looked to be the type to spend most of her days scrounging garbage for food or begging for handouts in the street.

A ring of people in colorful clothes held hands and danced in a circle as a trio of fiddlers played in the center. All the dancers were red-faced, from either the exertion or drink—likely both. Royce found it hard to believe that he and they were the same species.

“The duchess wants us to succeed,” Mercator said. “Given that her life weighs in the balance, and since she knows her husband better than either of us, it’s sensible to assume she is far more capable of providing us with the means of convincing him to act. Wouldn’t you say?”

Royce didn’t answer. As simple as that concept was, he reran it twice through his head looking for an error. He couldn’t find one beyond the possibility that the duchess might encode a message only Leo would understand, which would convey her whereabouts. This, however, seemed unlikely.

“What?” Mercator asked.

“Nothing.” Royce shook his head.

“You’re shocked. I can see it on your face. You didn’t believe it possible a mir could think.”

Royce shrugged and gave a glance at the revelers laughing and dancing as if they were mad from fever. “Don’t take it as a slight; I’m usually shocked that anyone can think.”

“But how much harder to accept from me, a mir and a female. You assumed I was incompetent, didn’t you?”

She was right, and such an admission wouldn’t have troubled him a year ago, but a year ago he’d thought he was human. Discovering he was also a mir made it difficult to think that those with mixed-blood were inferior. Difficult, but not impossible. The fact that he didn’t exhibit elven features allowed Royce to believe his blood was only slightly tainted. This was a weak, impractical argument, but prejudices were a form of fear, and fear was often senseless. Groundless anxieties permitted ludicrous rationalizations. At least they did in the quiet, controlled spaces of his own mind. Such carefully crafted constructions tended to fall apart when facing the reality of a blue-stained mir who showed no evidence of inferiority.

“Yes,” he admitted.

No offense or anger surfaced on her face. Instead, she nodded while maintaining that understanding smile. “So, what now?”

“We’re waiting on Roland Wyberg. The captain of the city guard is supposed to meet us here. He wasn’t at the guardhouse, but I told one of his men that I’d found the duchess, and he anxiously volunteered to fetch him, immediately. I hope he didn’t lie or exaggerate.”

“You didn’t mention me, did you?”

“No, but would it have been a problem if I did?”

Mercator sighed. “It could. People have a lot of preconceptions about my kind. We’re not what you think, you know. We didn’t cause the destruction of the empire. We aren’t lazy or stupid, nor are we abominations. We don’t carry disease, aren’t cannibals, don’t steal babies or worship Uberlin. We’re the same as everyone else, except more destitute because the rest of society hates us. They keep us dirty and desperate, then condemn us as if we chose our circumstances. The irony is that long ago we were considered superior to humans. I’m guessing you didn’t know that. The term mir comes from the word myr, an Old Speech word that originally meant son of. It was also an honorific, like sir added before the name of a knight. If you put those two things together, you must conclude that we are descended from pretty good stock. It was only after the fall of Merredydd, a province of the old empire that was governed by mir for mir, that the term became derogatory.”

“No offense, but all of that contradicts history as I understand it.”

“That’s because the history you know is wrong. History isn’t truth. You’re not too foolish to recognize that, are you?”

The dancers moved away as acrobats tumbled into the center of the square, encouraged by applause. Men in tight clothes jumped and rolled and climbed onto one another, creating human ladders of various designs.

“And how do you know your history isn’t a lie?” Royce asked.

Mercator grinned. “I’m older than I look, a lot older. That’s one of the things about mir. We live a long time. Not so much as elves, I suspect, but longer than humans. My mother lived to be four hundred and fifty. She could remember Glenmorgan and his Second Empire. Age gave her the wisdom to conclude that our long life was a gift turned into a curse by a world filled with ignorant hate and bad timing. My grandfather Sadarshakar Sikara was born in 2051 and lived for five hundred and sixty-seven years. Can you imagine that? He remembered the birth of Nevrik, the Heir of Novron, and the appointment of Venlin as the Archbishop of Percepliquis, and he witnessed the fall of that grand city. He was in Merredydd at the time, a province established for the myr who chose not to live with humans.”

She leaned in, placed a hand to the side of her face, and whispered, “Rumor has it the myr were a bunch of bigots.” She laughed as if it was a joke, but Royce couldn’t tell if it was ironic or just silly.

“If you’re the descendant of such an esteemed family, why do you look so . . .” Royce hesitated.

“Calian?” Mercator glanced at her hands and nodded as if she’d expected the question. “When Merredydd fell to barbarians, Sadarshakar brought his family here to what was then called Alburnia. Few survived, and Sadarshakar took a Calian woman as his wife. The situation didn’t improve, and my mother married a Calian man.” Mercator drew back the shawl off her head and pulled on her nappy hair. “Which makes me arguably more Calian than mir. A highly respected combination, I must say.” She laughed again, managing to find humor in every tragedy.

Royce could understand that, at least.