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

I was stabbed. I was stabbed? How could that have happened?

The wound wasn’t deep. It had cut the skin but was stopped by the sternum. Judging by his shirt, however, the injury had caused more than its fair amount of bleeding.

After the two strangers had broken into the meeting, Villar had left and waited outside. He’d watched as the hooded foreigner and Mercator set off together. The two had a plan to contact the duke. If they succeeded, everything could unravel. If they convinced Leo to intercede, no one would support the revolt. He couldn’t allow that. When the two went separate ways, he considered killing the foreigner but wasn’t certain he could. The prior chase across the rooftops had made him second-guess his chances. Instead, Villar came up with a better plan, an easier and ultimately far more enjoyable one. He would use a golem.

He’d followed Mercator back to the temple and waited for her to leave again. The ancient ruin had been the perfect place to keep the duchess. It existed at the three-way intersection of the remote, the secluded, and the inaccessible. No one ever went up there—too much trouble and too many brambles along the way. This had long been Mercator’s secret craft shop, and all her dyed cloth was worth a small fortune. She’d used this place as a safe haven and wisely never told anyone about it.

The ruins made an excellent place for him to store his supplies as well. Over the previous months, Griswold had provided him several boxes of gravel, keys to various statues stationed around the city. He had plenty to choose from. And of course, he had his hearts, a reagent he had to provide for himself. They were not nearly as plentiful as the gravel. He had been down to his last two, but that problem could be easily rectified. He’d have the golem collect several more before breaking the connection. It was worth risking a heart to stop the foreigner and Mercator from reaching the Estate.

Once Mercator left, he entered. In his haste, he didn’t bother with his usual safeguards. This wasn’t the main event, merely a brief interlude. He’d be safe enough; only he and Mercator knew about the ruin, and she wouldn’t be coming back. He made the bed and began the ritual.

Originally, he had only planned to stop Mercator. Yes, he would kill the foreigner, but Sikara need not die. Keeping them from reaching the duke was the important thing. But then she figured out he’d been working against peaceful solutions since the beginning. If she told the others, they would turn on him—all his hard work ruined. And of course, the mir didn’t need two leaders; he could be both the duke and the representative for the mir people. Besides, her Calian blood made her an abomination.

He’d borrowed the term from the bishop, but it fit. The mixing of elven and human blood was bad enough. Somewhere in his own distant past, one of Villar’s ancestors had made that mistake, but the Sikara family hadn’t merely succumbed to a necessity—they wallowed in the deep end. Villar’s great-grandfather Hanis Orphe traveled to Alburnia with Sadarshakar Sikara after the fall of Merredydd. The two had a falling-out when Sadarshakar chose to marry a dark-skinned Calian. The tribes diverged at that point, the Orphe being more steadfast and the Sikara more accommodating. Further relations with the Calians led to the dilution of the Sikara bloodline, and Mercator was the obvious result of this weakening. She was more Calian than anything else. She lacked dignity, and commitment, and barely looked like a mir.

Villar rolled to his feet and moved to one of the pots of clean water. He sniffed it to be sure. Grabbing the corner of a large blanket, he soaked it and gingerly scrubbed at the wound while he gritted his teeth. Most of the blood wiped off easily enough, but around the cut, it had hardened, and he didn’t feel like messing with it.

Turning, Villar looked at the door to the little cell.

He had forgotten all about the duchess. The woman had been quiet. She hadn’t even greeted him with one of her usual insipid quips. Usually, the duchess just couldn’t keep her mouth shut, and it was such a large, loud mouth. She was their prisoner, their captive, but she failed to act her part. A helpless, captive woman was supposed to be quiet, tearfully sobbing in the corner, or begging for life, praying to her god. But not this one.

He had wanted to kill her the night before. The ritual required concentration, and he couldn’t afford any interference from her; nor could he risk her giving away his secret should anyone come looking.

Villar had planned on killing her for months. Now with Mercator’s death and the feast imminent, he’d finally get his chance. He couldn’t rely on her staying quiet again. Villar looked for a knife, turning over crates of wool and throwing aside mounds of linen. He went through barrels that stank of vinegar and shook out rags. Nothing.

Seriously, Mercator? How did you work without a knife?

Then Villar remembered she’d had it with her at the gallery when the golem . . .

No, not the golem, it was me, and I do regret what happened.

Her death was a loss; the mir needed to rise to the greatness the past proclaimed them to be, and after the feast, there would be so many seats left unfilled. As duke, he would have campaigned for her to be appointed Duchess of Rise. She might be a mongrel, but she was still the descendant of the famed Sikar. Villar liked the idea of making Alburn a mir kingdom just as Merredydd had been. She could have had a part to play in the restoration of their heritage; her death was a waste.

Villar took one last look around. Seeing no sign of a knife, he clapped his arms against his sides in resignation.

I’ll just have to strangle the bitch.

As a golem, he’d killed dozens. That’s how he got the hearts, those hard-to-obtain ingredients. At first, he’d tried without success to use animal hearts.

Then Ferrol smiled on him and intervened, reversing his fortune.

It had happened on the last hot day of autumn. Villar had watched six children playing at the storm drain where the Rookery and Little Gur Em butted up to the city harbor. Villar had gone there to watch the ships load—or so he’d told himself. What he was really doing was searching for a victim, some new immigrant without family or friends. Someone small, weak, and bewildered by the big city. A youth whom he could easily overpower.

The sky was cloudy as the evening heat invited late-day thunderheads to form. The kids had pulled back the heavy metal lid of the cistern and were taking turns jumping into the stone reservoir, using a rope to climb out. They obviously had done this all summer. The rope was bleached, and its edges frayed where it rubbed against the sharp side of the cistern wall. The children didn’t notice, nor did they appear to care, about the rain clouds blanketing the sky. Villar considered chasing them away for their own good, but one thing stopped him. The group of kids was a mixed lot: two Calians, one dwarf, one mir, and two humans. If it had been simply a group of mir, he would have ordered them out. Even if dwarves and Calians had been with them, he might have said something. But the presence of the humans enraged him. Villar couldn’t bring himself to warn them off.

As the sky darkened, one of the humans left, as did the dwarf and the two Calians. The other human and, much to his dismay, the mir lingered. The two continued to play as if there was nothing wrong with their twisted friendship. Revolted, Villar was driven to leave. He was walking away when the rope snapped. Screams followed by cries for help echoed up.

No one else heard.