"Alaric's widow, is that it?" Etienne Ravenshade's lips curled in a smile that's anything but kind, her voice carrying the cruelty of a woman who had long since learned to wield words like finely honed blades. "She remarried a powerful sorceress, you say? And now she's carrying the sorceress' child."
Etienne, a member of the Ravenshade outer family, is not merely a swordswoman by title; she's one of the most skilled swordmasters their bloodline has produced in generations, a woman whose reputation for ruthless skills extends far beyond the dueling grounds.
It was she who had personally seen to Olivia's expulsion after Alaric's death, a maneuver carried out not in blind cruelty but with cold calculation, ensuring that the inheritance remained firmly within her grasp and that Tristan Ravenshade, her chosen piece on the chessboard, would take the seat of Count.
