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

At least someone is awake in here. That’s what separates the duke from the chambermaids—paranoia.

“Not going to get any complaints out of me,” Leo said. “Honestly, you’re doing me a favor.”

“I’m not here to kill you.”

The duke looked over with an expression that could only be described as annoyed. “No?”

“No.”

“That’s disappointing.” He turned. “So, who the blazes are you, then? And why are you here?”

Footfalls rushed up the steps.

Royce pulled the parchment from his belt and held it out. A moment later soldiers burst into the library. They would have to wait.

“To give you this.”

The duke stared at the parchment, puzzled. “What is it?”

“A letter,” Royce said as a guard stepped toward him. “From your wife.”





He waited in what they called the parlor, but Royce saw it as just another overly polished medium-sized room with too much art and too few chairs. He was left to himself. No guards watched, the door was open, and he hadn’t been shackled or tied. No one had even tried. This was a good thing for everyone involved. After reading the letter, the duke had ordered his thugs to let Royce go. Then Leo Hargrave had merely asked him to wait. Royce appreciated that it hadn’t been an order. He’d actually used the word please. Nevertheless, waiting wasn’t something Royce was fond of, especially as the night was short, and there was so much left to do if Hadrian was to be extricated from the pickle barrel he’d jumped into. Roland had been ordered to wait as well, but then he was called up for questioning, leaving Royce alone. That had been some time ago.

The Estate had many paintings. In that room alone, there were eight. Only one caught his eye: the portrait of a man who was unmistakably Leopold. The work was exquisite, and Royce felt uneasy, as if the painting were an actual person in the room with him. The sensation was so pronounced that he went over to inspect it. His eye caught the artist’s signature: SHERWOOD STOW. Should have known.

Royce had no idea what Wyberg was telling the duke, and that made him uneasy. Just being in an expensively appointed room filled with carvings of elephants and deer, not to mention a silver tea set, made him jumpy. He didn’t stay in places of this sort, but he did often visit, and he couldn’t help noticing how easily the carvings would fit under his cloak or avoid calculating what a small fortune they would bring on the black market. The room was chilly despite the fireplace because no one had bothered to light it. This left Royce sitting on the velvet-and-wood chair, feeling the cold seep in and wondering why he was still there.

He thought I was here to kill him. If this job had turned out the way I had expected, I would have been.

Royce pictured two different paths running side by side, so close, yet so different. He’d come to Rochelle to kill Leopold. That’s what Gabriel Winter had wanted. Make that goddamn duke and all those working for him bleed. Turn the Roche River red for me, for me and my Genny. Royce had arrived on that road, but somehow he’d gotten off it. Now he was on another path, but the duke had assumed he was still on the first. Royce felt as if he’d performed sleight of hand, so subtly that the world itself had been duped.

I was duped, too.

Even as he sat in that cold, empty room, he could see himself on the other path. I would have stood behind the duke as he stared at the stars and slit his throat—careful to catch his glass so it didn’t shatter. That reality feels more authentic than this one. That’s what I should have done. That’s what I was supposed to do.

Royce found it surreal that he should be standing beside that path, looking down and seeing a history that didn’t happen. His trajectory had altered course, just a smidge, a tiny tilt, but it was enough to change events from bloodbath to letter delivery.

Were you expecting a finger?

Royce had been expecting a whole lot of fingers and even more heads. Instead, he sat in a luxurious room, waiting on the ruler of the city to . . . he had no idea. That was the problem with this new path. Royce didn’t know where it went. He’d never gone this way before. Just as he was deciding that waiting on a duke was about as smart as listening to Hadrian, the duke showed up.

The man was dressed, but not in the finery Royce would have expected for a ruling noble. Wearing a crisp shirt, waistcoat, and casual trousers, he looked more like a modest merchant. He was followed by half a dozen men, who were better dressed but appeared worse for wear. Whereas they looked as if they had just woken up, Leo Hargrave beamed as if born again. Bright and smiling, he strode up to Royce and nodded.

“So, old man Winter hired you,” Leopold said and studied Royce’s face for his reaction.

Royce didn’t give one.

“He hates me, you know. You’re in the Black Diamond, right?”

Royce remained silent, his sight shifting briefly as Roland entered. For better or worse, Wyberg was his advocate, his lifeline out of this, and it was reassuring to see he was still there. This way when the bastard betrayed him, Royce wouldn’t need to hunt him down to slit his throat.

“Doesn’t matter,” the duke said, and then chuckled. “And you can relax. Right now, you’re my best friend, and I owe you.” Leo shivered. “Why is it so cold in here? Did they leave you so ill attended? Idiots.” The man scowled, then lifted the parchment in his hand, grasping it as gently as if it were a newborn. “My Genny is alive.”

“She won’t be if you don’t—”

“I know,” Leo said. “It was all in the letter. Grant the dwarves the right to work. Give the Calians the right to trade. Bestow on the mir the right to exist. Not something I can simply change overnight. Guilds are powerful things but Genny . . .” He shook the letter again. “Never a dull moment with her around and never a moment’s peace. The woman was already working toward those ends. She was fixing the problem that is Rochelle. She’s a businesswoman, you see. Rochelle is a horrible tangle. This city is choked with regulations and procedures, layers upon layers of protocol, and ages steeped in narrow-minded intolerance. She doesn’t know anything about such things. Had no idea of the impossibility of the task. That’s the way with her, you know. Don’t ever tell that woman she can’t do something. She’ll take it as a challenge. In this case, she came up with a plan where the existing members of the merchant and trade guilds will receive a percentage of the money earned by the Calians and dwarves. She also indicated that if they refused, I should raise taxes on trade goods. Nothing speaks to businessmen like money, or someone threatening theirs. And as it turns out, the daughter of a Colnora merchant baron is fluent in such matters. She was getting close to an agreement, but then she disappeared.”

“I need to get back,” Royce said. “I need to bring proof you’re planning to do something.”

“Yes, I know. Genny mentioned an uprising. Lovely handwriting.” He grinned. “She has these pudgy little hands, but her penmanship is beautiful. Years of keeping books, she told me.”

“What proof can we provide?” Royce pressed.

The duke gestured at his companions. “These gentlemen are leaders of the city’s merchant and trade guilds, the ones Genny met with. They are quite eager to assist, especially after I explained that if my wife dies, I’ll charge them as complicit in the murder and execute every last one of them.” Leo focused on the sleepy men and glared.

“The king will condemn the murder of prominent merchants,” one of the men said.

“What king?”

The man looked uncomfortable.

“Don’t worry,” Leo smiled. “I will definitely hold a trial immediately following your deaths in order to get to the bottom of this conspiracy. And while we are doing that, you can voice your concern to his late majesty King Reinhold when you see him.”

I like this guy, Royce thought. “Guess we’d better get going.”

“Captain Wyberg will go with you. Good luck . . . Royce, is it?”