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

“Fact is,” she said, “I learned history from someone I trust . . . my grandfather, who witnessed the events firsthand. That’s how I know. Tell me … Royce, is it? How do you know about the history of your people?”

“I actually don’t care,” Royce said. “All of this clearly means a good deal to you, but it doesn’t mean anything to me. Doesn’t matter whether your version is true or not. I’m here to do a job, not debate ancient history. Now, if you want to talk about something, I’d love to hear where the duchess is.”

Mercator shook her head. “Sorry. She’s the only good card I still hold. But she’s safe and unharmed, as this letter attests. I’d like to keep it that way. I’ve grown to like her. She’s . . . different.”

“It was worth asking,” Royce said. He gazed out at the plaza once more, trying to decide if he was pleased or irritated with the number of celebrating people. They complicated everything, which was both good and bad. “We probably—” Royce saw movement where there shouldn’t have been any.

The plaza was still a swirl of activity—dancers spun, acrobats tumbled, jugglers tossed, spectators clapped, and children ran—but overhead, nothing should have moved. Too dark for a bird. Too big for a bat. Royce looked up at the front of Grom Galimus. The great doors were huge but dwarfed by the massive bell towers on either side. Above those doors stood a row of sculpted figures of robed men. Then came the oculus of the great rose window. Next, a colonnade of pillars and arches, and above that, and still only halfway up, was a pediment upon which perched a series of gargoyles.

“What’s wrong?” Mercator asked, craning her neck, trying to see what he saw.

“Thought something mov—”

They both spotted it then. The third gargoyle from the left flexed its wings.

“I’m not from here,” Royce said. “Is that normal?”

“Of course not. It’s—oh no!”

The gargoyle’s head turned. Like so many others, this figure was monkey-like with powerful hunched shoulders, the wings and face of a bat, and saber-like fangs. As it looked down at them, Royce noticed that the eyes had been sculpted to look decidedly evil, but he guessed that was how he’d have seen them, regardless of what the artist had carved—because the gargoyle looked right at him.

Royce expected it to shove off the side of the cathedral, spread its wings and dive. Instead, the beast began to climb down the front of the church, moving awkwardly at first but gaining balance and skill as it descended, until it moved with monkey speed, leaping from pediment to column.

“Run!” Mercator shouted at Royce.





“Why did you kill Nym?” Griswold Dinge asked Hadrian. The dwarf sat across from him in the little room.

With Nym dead, Selie preparing for his funeral, Villar gone, and Mercator off to meet with the duke, the dwarf—the last of the civic leaders—had apparently pulled guard duty. Hadrian was glad Erasmus Nym’s widow wasn’t there, as he was certain Seton’s story didn’t absolve him of that accusation. If anything, it cast more doubt, and he’d preferred to deal with an angry dwarf rather than a grieving widow.

“He didn’t kill Erasmus,” Seton affirmed faithfully.

The three sat cozy and close in the stone cellar, which was littered with rat droppings. Griswold had bound Hadrian’s hands behind his back. As an added precaution, he held a naked dagger. His manner wasn’t overtly threatening, but the menace was there.

“She’s right. I didn’t kill the Calian.” Hadrian smiled, but his charm had no effect on the dwarf.

“Oh yes, even though you were right on his heels during your pursuit, someone else came out of nowhere and took his life. Do you expect me to believe that?”

“I honestly have no idea what killed him,” Hadrian said.

“Don’t you mean who?”

“Seemed more like a what. All I know is he was dead, and his face was gone. It looked like it had been chewed away. I only knew it was him because of the clothing and the box he had been carrying. Didn’t seem like a typical murder to me.”

“He didn’t kill Nym,” Seton asserted again.

“And how in the bloody name of all that is holy do you know that? He spared your life; so what? He also butchered a pile of men; you said so. Your own words show he’s a killer, no innocent little lamb here. And his story about Nym missing his face is beyond belief.”

“No, it’s not,” Seton said, “and it’s not because he spared my life that I believe him.”

This caught the dwarf’s attention and he turned, revealing a little gold earring piercing his left lobe. Decoration? Mark of a sailor? Wedding gift? Hadrian knew so little about the small folk that he felt not only stupid but ill-equipped to help himself, much less his cause.

“So what makes you think he didn’t kill Erasmus?”

“Killings where people are mutilated the way he described have happened before.” Seton said. “That’s the reason the nobles wear blue.”

The dwarf shook his shaggy head. “Bah! The nobles are skittish. The streets are dangerous. Not every person butchered in the alleys is a victim of—”

“I’m not talking about the recent murders.” Seton’s voice lowered and grew several degrees more serious. Her eyes supported the shift in tone, growing solemn. Hadrian found it odd to see so much darkness in a face that looked so young. “I’m talking about Throm Hodinel.”

Griswold squinted his eyes. “Who now?”

“Throm Hodinel. He was the curator of the Imperial Gallery. Some said he was a relation to the Killians, a distant cousin or something. I saw his body the day they found it at the feet of the statue of Glenmorgan. And his face was a mess. They had to identify him by his clothing because . . .” Seton hesitated, her eyes focusing on Hadrian as if he knew the answer.

“Because his face had been chewed off,” he answered.

Seton nodded. “Actually, it wasn’t just his face; a large portion of the man had been eaten. But yes, his face was gone. So were a good number of his bones.”

“Sounds like wolves,” Griswold said.

“Inside the gallery?”

The dwarf stared at her skeptically. “I’ve never heard this story.”

“It happened before your time.”

The dwarf tilted his head and studied her more intently. “How old are you?”

She grinned at him. “Throm Hodinel died fifteen years before you were born.”

This raised the bushy brows of the dwarf. Griswold looked to easily be in his forties, maybe older. Seton wasn’t a teenager, wasn’t human, and if what she said was true, she was decades older than Hadrian. Adding these truths to the embarrassing fact that he hadn’t initially recognized her, Hadrian realized that while he had misjudged women before, this time marked a whole new level of stupidity.

“Throm Hodinel wasn’t the only one,” Seton went on. “Every few years someone dies the same way. It’s almost always a noble, or someone suspected of being an illegitimate child of one of the old-world dukes, usually male, and always within a few miles of Blythin Castle. The murders happen at night or around dusk in a heavy fog, and in every case, the victims are eaten. Some are only eaten a little, others are almost completely devoured, but their face is always gone.”

“You’re speaking about the Morgan. Villar told me that was a myth,” the dwarf said.

“Villar doesn’t know everything.”

“Where is Villar?” Hadrian asked.

“Don’t know.” He spoke the words slowly, not looking at either of them. The statement caused the dwarf to frown, and his considerable brows knitted the equivalent of a full sweater.

“Is something wrong?”

Griswold looked up but didn’t answer.

“Griswold, what aren’t you telling us?” Seton asked.

“Riots are a bloody business. If something went wrong, if our people were in jeopardy, we wanted protection. We needed a backup plan. So we could intercede, if necessary. But only if necessary.”

“Is that what the three of you were meeting about?” Hadrian asked.

“For the most part, yes. But I also needed to give Erasmus his supplies.”

Hadrian nodded. “The box. I found it with Erasmus’s body, but it only contained some rocks, just gravel. The way he carried it, you’d think it was dangerous.”