“Use your thoughts to tame your feelings,” Sabine whispered back. “Remember, Maia, it begins with a thought.” She lifted her hand to the river, waving to someone whom none of them could see.
Maia swallowed and began to focus her attention, crushing the evil brooding inside her soul. “How did Lia die?” she asked, staring at the river waters.
“No one knows,” Sabine said, wiping away her tears. She turned to face her granddaughter. “She disappeared after my mother’s name-day ceremony, leaving behind her tome and the Cruciger orb. She was never seen again. I think the Medium took her to Idumea to see her father and her mother at last.” She sniffled. “Ah, there—you can just see the abbey through the mist! There is Muirwood!”
Maia gripped the edge of the rail as the mist began to part and dissolve. She saw the abbey grounds, the tall but humble spires. Sunlight momentarily blinded her. A feeling of warmth and safety settled across her shoulders like a blanket. The anger inside her heart was quenched, and the heaviness she had lived with all her life faded away. Her heart thrilled at the sight.
Welcome, it whispered.
EPILOGUE
Lady Deorwynn stared at her husband’s sleeping face. She saw the lines and grooves, the wrinkles that marred his countenance. He was aging before her eyes, the strength of his body beginning to fail. She stared down at him, feeling a familiar sense of loathing and disgust. It was exactly how she had come to feel about her first husband before she had arranged to become a widow. She smoothed the front of her nightclothes, feeling the bulge in her middle and the quickening butterflies dancing in her womb. She blinked, wondering abstractedly whether the child was even his. His arm was sprawled across the pillow and he murmured something unimportant—gibberish.
She stepped away from the bedstead and strode over the plush fur rugs toward the anteroom. There, at his desk, was a stack of scrolls and missives, the most important of the day, left by Chancellor Crabwell. She broke the seals and quickly began reading the messages. She did not fear being discovered by her husband. He did not know she could read. She perused each one, scanning the contents quickly, memorizing the important details. Rumors were spreading across the other kingdoms. Rumors of an abbey burning in Mon. Rumors of Dahomey preparing to invade. Rumors of the hetaera returning. She frowned, her beautiful lips straining into a snarl. Where was that girl? Why had she not returned to Comoros?
Lady Deorwynn set the last of the missives down, and her thoughts turned dark and anxious. What if Marciana failed to become one? Would that cause the Victus to change their plans? Would they seek another to take her place? Her thoughts went to her own daughter, Murer. She could become the empress. She was in the succession, a Princess of Comoros now. Could that be arranged? Her stomach was giddy with both excitement and fear. So many things could go wrong.
She reached for the cup of wine on her husband’s table, her thirst suddenly fiery in her throat as she lifted it to her lips.
“You may not want to drink that,” said a voice from the shadows.
Lady Deorwynn’s hand shook with a spasm of fear, sloshing the wine on her wrist and the table, staining some of the letters.
“By the Rood!” she hissed angrily. She knew the voice.
Her eyes distinguished him in the shadows of the antechamber, sitting in one of her husband’s chairs, lounging like a cat. The kishion. It was so dark she could not see his face. Not that she wanted to. He was riven with scars and had a contemptible manner.
“Is it poisoned?” she whispered harshly, setting down the wine cup with a trembling hand.
“Not this time,” the kishion murmured. There was something in his voice. Something dangerous.
“What do you mean by that?” she asked, annoyed. This time the fear started in her stomach and shot down to her ankles. “Have you been there this whole time?” She tried to sound outraged, but she was trembling violently.
“I did not wish to disturb you, madame,” the kishion said, rising languidly from the chair. “So I waited.”
“How dare you!” Lady Deorwynn spat at him.
“I dare much,” the kishion said, walking toward her. His boots made no sound. Her heart spasmed with dread. She never should have arranged for such a man to enter the kingdom. She had held second thoughts from the start, especially when his poison failed to kill Maia in her mother’s manor house. Careless. He was recklessly careless.
She saw his face as he reached the rim of the candle’s light. He was smiling in a crooked way. He looked . . . drunk.