The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter (Riyria Chronicles #4)(60)
Royce’s adversary raced down the length of the open walkway, which ran along one side of the churchlike battlements on a castle. At the balcony’s end, the hood-and-cloak had only two choices: up or down. Stakes were literally higher now. The wind at that height was brutal, and unlike all the previous roofs, Grom Galimus’s pitch was sharp as a miserly wedge of cheese. Royce trotted up, waiting to see which way his prey would choose. When his opponent went up, Royce found himself oddly pleased. This game of cat and mouse wouldn’t end with a whimper.
Far too steep to walk up, the roof offered vertical ribbing that divided the sets of shale shingles. Royce’s opponent used them to pull himself along the slick surface. What the roof didn’t offer was a usable ridgeline. A tall fin of decorative metalwork crowned its peak. Royce’s enemy shimmied higher, kicking the slates and creating an avalanche with his heels. Displaced shingles cracked, and the broken bits fell down toward Royce. Shifting left and then right between the ribs, he dodged the cascade. With each shift, he climbed higher until he, too, reached the ridgeline.
“You’ve run out of places to climb,” Royce shouted above the rush of wind that snapped both their cloaks. “What now?”
His adversary’s hood tilted up, assessing the bell tower. As far up as the two of them were, the tower of Grom Galimus went up half again as high. While not the height of the Crown Tower, it was nothing to scoff at.
“You’ll never reach it before I get you,” Royce told him as he continued to inch closer. “And what good would it do?”
His quarry turned to face him, and as he did, the wind caught the hood and blew it back. A pale face adorned with arched eyebrows accentuated a pair of angry, angled eyes. Swept-back hair displayed a broad forehead and ears that came to sharp points.
That explains a lot. In at least one sense, we are related.
The two faced off with cloaks snapping back and forth like cat’s tails—two male tabbies having a deadly dispute over territory.
“Who are you?” the mir demanded with a harsh eastern accent, the words kicked out from behind clenched teeth.
“You don’t know?” Royce was puzzled. “I’m the guy you tried to crush with a rock. Is that something you do to random strangers?”
“You shouldn’t be in Rochelle. Our business is our own. Leave now and you can go in peace. If you continue to interfere, you and your friend will be added to the list.”
The mir looked off to his right, searching for an escape and finding none.
“There’s a list?”
Royce lunged forward, hoping to catch his prey’s wrist. Just as quickly, the mir jerked away. He tried to switch his grip but missed with the other hand, his balance off, his footing lost. Down he went on the far side of the roof, sliding across the surface of the slates on his back like a kid riding a sled. He pushed out with his feet against the ribbing, trying to stop, but the momentum was too great.
Royce held his breath as he watched. Hanging onto the wrought-iron crown of the peak, it was all too easy to imagine taking that trip, the conclusion of which Royce already knew.
Coming to the end of the roof, the mir made a desperate grab for the railing of the balcony but missed it by more than a foot. His speed skipped him well away from the walls of the cathedral. There wasn’t a scream. Royce appreciated that. He had no idea who had just died, but under different circumstances he might have made a valuable addition to Riyria.
Just as well, he thought. We’d have had to change the name.
Taking a more deliberate and far slower route, Royce descended to the balcony and peered over the railing. Below, lay buttresses. The dead man had most likely missed hitting them. Below that lay the river.
Royce climbed the rest of the way down, taking his time, not only because he’d seen the repercussions of a tiny mistake, but because he felt no urgency. He expected to spot the mir’s body impaled on one of the gargoyle snouts or at the very least on the bank of the Roche River, but Royce had found neither. He walked the length of the riverbank, first south then back north, and saw no evidence of a body.
Could he have hit the river? Royce looked up at the slope of Grom Galimus’s roof. Theoretically, it was possible. Still, the fall would have been painful and likely fatal.
Royce scanned the surface of the moonlit water for any floating, body-sized object. Nothing.
It was as if his bird had flown away.
Royce spent more than an hour searching the base of the cathedral and the banks of the river just to be thorough. Satisfied, he returned to Hemsworth House and walked up a deserted Mill Street just as Hadrian was walking down. Only those up to no good, or people with no place to go, would be outdoors at that hour. Royce had to remind himself that he didn’t fall into either group, at least not that night. It felt strange, and yet it was an altogether too common reality as of late. Over the last few years, Royce had found himself acting within the limits of the law. They were making more money with less risk, yet it felt wrong, like writing with his left hand or walking backward.
The two met in front of the boardinghouse in a bank of fog. “Any luck?” Hadrian asked.
Royce shook his head. “Had a fun run. Got a squirrel’s tour of the city.”
Hadrian looked shocked. “He got away from you?”
“He took a tumble. Pretty sure he’s dead.”
They spoke just above a whisper. The fog demanded it. Royce always enjoyed a good fog. It reduced visibility while increasing the distance sound traveled. And since it usually occurred during the shifting temperatures of night or early morning, it proved a thief’s friend and an assassin’s weapon. Spring and autumn were the seasons for lowland mist, and rivers were its breeding ground. That night the river was working overtime, and the oil lamp in front of Evelyn Hemsworth’s home served to do nothing but illuminate the white haze.