Keritanima quickly separated the stack into things she signed immediately, things she read carefully before considering, and four documents she set aside to discuss with Rallix. Miranda and Azakar watched silently as Keritanima and Rallix haggled over the possible benefits of this or that business proposal, the buying of four more ships, and enlarging the trade compound they owned in Dayisè. When they got to the last issue, a proposed business alliance with House Zalan, Keritanima snorted and slapped the document down irritably. "I'll not enter business with that lot of parasites," she declared adamantly. "I have it on high authority from a business contact in Dayisè that Sheba was personally bailed out of capture by her father. I will not consort with those who condone piracy."
"But House Zalan is powerful and influential, my Lady," Rallix countered. "They seek business alliance with us."
"You mean they seek to overwhelm us," she replied. "Look at this proposal, Rallix! First rights to all our trading docks over our own vessels! Payment for House guards to protect our property, a yearly stipend paid to them for the right to fly their flag while carrying their cargo, even a fee to allow us to place the Zalan crest on our signs! And their price quotes on common trade items are ridiculous! I can get lower prices from an Arakite! They only seek to rape us for whatever they can take," she seethed. "This is an independent trading company, Rallix. We have built ourselves up without noble titles or exemptions, and we will continue to prove that a commoner can compete with the nobility."
"But what of their threat to bury us in legal troubles?"
"I can buy House Zalan," Keritanima fumed. "If they don't think I can't buy off the magistrates, they have another thing coming." She slammed her pen down. "What is it about these damned noble houses that force them to continually try to buy us out or subjugate us under a smothering agreement?"
"I think they're jealous, my Lady, or they fear you," he replied. "We are larger than the trading companies of all but House Eram, House Zalan, and House Tarn. If it weren't for the ridiculous taxes we have to pay to stay in business, we would be larger than all of them. I think they fear that a commoner owns such a large and influential trading company."
"Probably," she snorted. "But I'm not going to sit by and let Arthas Zalan threaten to jeopardize our company."
"Very good then. I take it that our reply to this proposal will be no."
"The reply will be 'go to hell.'"
Rallix raised an eyebrow and stared at his employer curiously. "You'll only anger them," he warned.
"So?"
"Ah. Yes, well, I'll see to it that your reply is sent off with the afternoon mail."
"Very good. Our business is concluded, Rallix. You have done well. Keep up the good work."
"Of course, my Lady," Rallix said smoothly. "Would you like guards for your carriage?"
"My man here can defend it well enough. Thank you for offering."
"It's my money too," he said with a slight smile. "Good day to you."
Keritanima nodded to him as he left, and she tidied up her desk absently. "His money too?" Azakar asked.
"Rallix owns ten percent of the company, and he doesn't receive a salary," Keritanima replied immediately. "It's his personal stake in making it profitable. He gets ten percent of all net profits earned as payment for his services."
"He accepted that deal?"
"Of course. Rallix is brilliant, and I give him free reign on everything but the most important decisions. So in a very real sense, this is his company as well as mine. Believe me, Zak, his ten percent is more than enough to make him very wealthy."
"How do you keep all this separate?" he asked in wonder. "I mean, you must live four lives all at once."
"Practice," she replied with a smile. "Lizelle is unique person, and to the city, she's just as real as the Brat is, or I am. She has a birth record, a tax record, even some arrests for minor lawbreaking when she was a younger woman. Her family is well documented, going back some two hundred years in the records. That they're all me is just a technicality, and it means that they can't be in the same room together," she smiled. "Personality wise, Lizelle is easy to play. She's a sober, quiet, no-nonsense woman that speaks her mind and doesn't talk about anything other than business. She's known as an economic raptor, keen and sharp-dealing, but that reputation actually belongs to Rallix. She's also reclusive, only occasionally leaving her country estate to check up on her business operations. She doesn't socialize, she doesn't play politics, and she doesn't flaunt herself or her wealth. That makes it easy for me to keep up her appearance."
"Wow," Azakar mused. "You're really good at this."
"It's why I'm still alive, Zak," she smiled. "Now let's get the payment delivered and get back before my stand-in gets herself in trouble."
The second attempt on Miranda was much more serious. Azakar carried her into the apartments just after dawn the next day, as Kalina brushed Keritanima's hair in the bedroom. Binter called the Princess in immediately, and Keritanima was nearly horrified into retching.
Someone had shot her.
The lead ball entered through her belly, but it blew a foot wide hole out of her side and back. She was literally shot from point blank range. Someone had put the muzzle of the gun against her gown and pulled the trigger. The entry wound was seared, her fur burned off, and the skin beneath tattooed black from the gunpowder driven beneath it.
"Zak, what happened?" Keritanima asked in a strangled tone, touching the Weave quickly and putting her hands to her friend's stomach. Healing energy flowed from her hands and into Miranda, causing the woman's back to arch as the icy cold of Sorcerer's Healing began to do its work.
"We were in the kitchens," he said in a worried voice. "She asked me to pick up a tray. There was this loud noise, and then the next thing I knew, she was laying on the floor while a tall Wikuni with gray fur ran away. I didn't even bother chasing him, Kerri, because I knew I had to get her here fast."
"You did the right thing, now keep quiet and keep your eyes on the door!" she snapped in reply, her entire concentration focused on rebuilding the savaged insides of her best friend's belly.
It was the hardest thing she had ever done. Miranda's life literally hung by a thread, and she had to carefully balance healing her against how much stress from the healing her body could withstand. The result was an agonizingly slow process that spilled so much of Miranda's blood on the carpet that it spread nearly three feet in every direction. She had to urge Miranda's body into producing blood to replace what she bled out as well as knitting together her shredded insides, and it drained Keritanima to nearly her limit. But she refused to give up, refused to yield. Miranda would not die like this! Not by an assassin's pistol in a kitchen! She gnashed her teeth and ignored her fatigue, putting everything she had into keeping Miranda alive long enough to complete the healing. But there was progress. Slowly, nearly imperceptibly, the holes in Miranda's belly and side began to shrink, internal organs began to mend themselves, tissues rejoined and fused, bones regrew lost mass. Keritanima was so immersed in the healing that she lost all track of time, so when she leaned back on her heels and blew out her breath, sagging so much that Binter caught her, she saw the horrid stain on the carpet and realized she was kneeling in Miranda's blood. Her dress had soaked it up, leaving it red to nearly the waist, and it was caked all over her forearms and hands. Azakar and Binter had been watching the door, Zak still there, and Kalina stood nervously as far into the room she dared come in. If someone threw open the door, they would see both Keritanima and Kalina, and their secret would be compromised.
But Miranda would make it. It had been incredibly difficult, the hardest thing she had ever done, but she would live. "She's going to be alright," Keritanima panted. "Zak, carry her into my room. Kalina, clean her up and put a nightgown on her and put her in my bed. She needs sleep, and alot of it. Don't let her get out of that bed for any reason," she said sternly.
"Right now, Kerri," Zak assured her, rushing over and collecting the unconsc
ious mink Wikuni up into his armored arms, the greaves splotched with Miranda's dried blood.
"I'll take good care of her, Keritanima," Kalina assured her in an uncharacteristically gentle and compassionate voice. Feelings for others wasn't like Kalina.
Keritanima shrugged out of Binter's gentle grip and dragged herself to her feet, her face screwed up in a snarl of anger. This would not happen again! That they would dare attack Miranda in the Palace! Her anger began to fuel her power, boosting her reserves and making her feel strong enough to deal with the situation right now.
"Binter, come with me," she said furiously, shoving up the sleeves of her dress aggressively. "We're going to go kill someone."
"Yes, Princess," Binter replied calmly, picking his hammer up from the corner.
Keritanima threw open the door and stepped out. She knew she had to be a sight, with her bloodstained dress and her furious look, but she didn't care. She had not a whit of concern for what anyone thought or said about how she looked or what she did. This time, they went way over the line, and it was time to step on someone. She had a good idea how Tarrin felt sometimes when he rushed headlong to protect the others, taking all the risks to keep his sisters and friends safe. Miranda was her oldest friend, her best friend outside her brother and sister, and she wasn't just going to let this go. Not this time.
To say that she was angry was an understatement. She was utterly infuriated. She was so angry that she was nearly frightened of it, but her rage made her blind to her own self-fear. There would be blood to pay, and that blood would come right now. She was so mad that a red haze had filmed over her eyes, and her pulse pounded inside them in time with the angry pounding of her heart. Yet her mind was clear, calm, icily calm. She knew exactly what she had to do, and she was ready, eager, nearly frenzied to carry it out. She found herself staring at her own towering fury, and she accepted it completely.
"Princess, you're not allowed--" one guard began, but it was cut short when Keritanima made a slashing motion at the cat Wikuni, and he went flying down the hallway to impact against the hallway's end some twenty feet away. He crashed to the floor and laid there, unmoving.
"Do you want to make an objection?" she asked the other guard in a nearly hysterical voice.
The dog Wikuni gaped at her and shook his head vigorously.
"Good. If anyone enters my apartment while I'm gone, I'll crush you into a liquid and use you to paint my bedchamber. Do you understand me?"
The guard nodded emphatically, holding his halberd in a deathgrip as he moved to block the door after Binter exited the apartment.
She made no attempts to hide or sneak. Keritanima marched through the hallways of the Palace with Binter following closely behind, pushing anyone out of her way that interrupted her, sometimes resorting to displays of Sorcery to move the more dumbfounded. Keritanima marched straight to the kitchen, where servants busily worked to clean the bloodstain off the stone floor so they could get back to the chore of cooking. Keritanima ignored them as she raised her hands and touched the Weave, weaving together he spell that made scents visible. She didn't know who attacked Miranda, but she did know that the Wikuni used a gun. Gunpowder had a very disctinct odor, and it would leave a very visible trail. So long as the assassin kept that gun on him, she could use it to track him down.
The trail became visible, a bright orange series of glowing dots and splotches spattered on the floor. Keritanima and Binter followed that trail at a brisk pace, along the servant's hallways and down into the basement, then back up again in a residential area for noble guests of the Crown. It ended at an elaborate double door, one of the more prestigious residences. Keritanima simply pointed at the door, and Binter used his hammer to break it down with one blow.
Inside were a rather unusual combination of five people. The two she noticed immediately were Arthas Zalan, the raccoon Wikuni head of the noble house Zalan, and none other than Jenawalani. Two others she identified as Praki Mation, a female bear Wikuni that led the minor noble house of Mathon, and Carlis Eward, the male meerkat Wikuni who led another minor noble house of the same name. The fifth Wikuni was dressed in servant's garb, a gray-furred wolf Wikuni, who now had orange spots on his waistcoat since he was within Keritanima's line of sight.
"What is the meaning--" Arthas Zalan began, but he went silent and gaped when he saw Keritanima.
She never said a word. A blinding blast of lightning issued forth from just in front of the still Princess and lanced across the room, striking the gray-furred wolf Wikuni squarely in the face. He didn't even have a chance to scream before the intense heat caused his head to explode, showering Jenawalani and Praki Mation with grisly spoor. Praki began to scream incoherently, holding up her arms and nearly jumping up and down in place, but Jenawalani simply wiped a smatter of brains from her muzzle and fixed her sister with an icy stare.
"How dare you murder my servant!" Arthas Zalan screamed.
Keritanima turned her merciless gaze on him, and Arthas Zalan stared in horror, realizing that he had just sentenced himself to death. Keritanima carried out that sentence instantly, raising a hand and pointing at him, as a pale blue beam of pure energy blasted forth from her single finger. It struck him squarely in the chest, enveloping him before he could writhe, and leaving him standing motionless, his face locked in a look of agonized horror that made Jenawalani scream in terror at the sight of it.
His body had been turned into ice.
Keritanima issued forth a single scream of rage, amplified by her own magical power. It hit them like a giant's hand, slamming them all back and away from her, but to Arthas Zalan it was the final blow. It struck like Binter's hammer, shattering his ice body and scattering it all over the back of the room.
The three survivors gaped at Keritanima from where they were laying against the back of the destroyed room. Keritanima's blast had shattered more than Arthas Zalan. The table and the furniture that had been just in front of the Crown Princess had been shattered by the power of the blast, and that which wasn't close enough to break laid scattered all against the back wall of the room, sometimes on top of a surviving noble.
Keritanima glared viciously at them, and when she spoke, it was like the cold hand of Death Herself issuing forth from her maw.
"If you ever, ever, try to kill me or anyone with me again, I'll make sure people shudder when they hear your name for a thousand years," she promised in a voice so cold that the three nobles shrank back from her. "This is not your game anymore, and I play for keeps," she added with a hiss. "If you want to stay alive, then leave me alone!"
They just stared at her in awe and horror.
"Binter, bring that body," she said, pointing at the headless corpse of the wolf Wikuni. "It's carrying the pistol that will give me all the evidence I need to shrug off any punishment."
Binter nodded calmly, stalking across the room and picking up the body by the tail. The Vendari dragged it callously behind him, leaving a smeared trail of blood from the mangled neck. Keritanima gave the three survivors one more ominous glare, then turned and left in front of her hulking protector.
That was one name to cross off her list.
Chapter 14
No spy would come within a mile of Keritanima now.
When she got back to her apartments after eliminating Arthas Zalan, she killed all the spies around her apartment. No subtle games, no making them vanish and leaving her opposition curious. She killed them. She left their bodies there for others to discover, and when men came to find out why the spies weren't reporting, she killed them. Then she killed those who came to see why the checkers didn't report back. After the third wave, they seemed to realize that going to find out what was going on was suicide, so no more came to find out what was going on.
By then, she simply had nothing left. She had pushed herself beyond her limits, and the last killing Mind weaves nearly knocked her out. Binter had to put her to bed after that, sleeping beside the recovering Miranda, with Kalina and Azakar in the room a
s physical protection while Binter covered the middle chamber.
The sleep had broken her fury. When she awoke, she felt weary and drained, but she wasn't walking the edge of control any longer. In those initial moments of lucidity, after checking on Miranda, she analyzed what she did, and considered how it would change things.
Her attack on Arthas Zalan was no doubt common knowledge by now, and it would tell those seeking to plot against her that she did not play. That she was more than willing to come after anyone she caught planning against her and kill them would most certainly be riding high in the minds of anyone who wanted to do it. The fact that she was a Sorceress in a kingdom where only priests were technically allowed to practice magic worked in her favor. Her magic was strange, powerful, terrifying to people used to seeing only the gentle magic of the priests, who wouldn't use their magic to harm other living beings except in self-defense. She was certain that those who had seen her or followed her knew that she used her magic to track down Miranda's attacker. Her status as the Crown Princess made her generally inviolate from retribution, even as it protected her from the law against magic. That law didn't apply to the Royal Family, who were only constrained by the laws that specifically dealt with them. And that she had found them so quickly, before they could even scatter after meeting with their assassin, would also be high in their minds. It would make even the daring think twice about attempting anything like that again, knowing that the Princess could use her mysterious powers to track them down with shocking speed, and possibly be only two steps behind them with murder in her eyes.
Her attack on her rivals had established two simple rules for the others. Proceed at your own risk, and if you do proceed, do not fail. This was no longer the cloak and dagger world of noble politics, where the nobles could get away with murder if they were clever enough to cover their tracks. Keritanima had raised it to a new level, a level where the lives of those who dared dabble in intrigue was in very real and very immediate danger. Because she was intelligent enough to unravel even compex plans, she had magical powers that would make it very easy for her to find her enemies, and she had already demonstrated a willingness to immediately kill anyone she knew was conspiring against her, she felt that the noble houses, her father, and other powerful organizations in Wikuna would think twice about doing that again.
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