“Why are you here?” Lady Deorwynn demanded. “Where is Marciana? Did you bring her back, or do the Naestors want to keep her?”
“I do not know where she is,” he said with a shrug. “But she is the one who burned Cruix Abbey. She razed it to ashes. She has become.” He scratched the edge of his mouth with a finger. Then he looked at the scrolls and papers scattered about the desk. He took one of them up and then tossed it aside. “Another will arrive in the morning,” he said. “Your enemy is finally dead. She gasped her last yesterday after struggling with a terrible fever. A few drops of poison on her lips.”
Lady Deorwynn’s eyes widened with shock. “Who ordered you to kill her?”
“No one,” the kishion replied. Again, that half smile that mocked her. “She needed to be . . . removed. You must persuade your husband to give the lands and manor houses and castles to his firstborn. Maia is to inherit.”
Lady Deorwynn’s trembling increased. A pit of fear stabbed inside of her. “Her estates were already confiscated and given to the new Earl of Forshee and three other men. They will revolt if stripped of those incomes. You are mad.”
“Quite possibly,” the kishion replied, chuckling. Then his eyes turned deadly earnest. “See it done, Lady Deorwynn. You never know when your next drink will be your last.” He picked up her husband’s goblet, saluted her with it, and drained it in a single swallow.