"You," she snorted rudely.

"That's 'you, your Highness,'" Keritanima corrected smoothly. "And did you forget where your knees are?"

Sheba glared viciously at her as she stiffly curtsied.

"That's much better," Keritanima smiled. "Almost ladylike."

"Bah," Sheba grunted. "I have you to thank for this, Kerri. Do you have any idea what they did to me?"

"They made you matriarch," Keritanima replied. "And if you want to keep your money, you have to be a good one."

"It's hell!" Sheba said in a loud voice. "How do you girls put up with these damned dresses? I want my ship back, dammit! I want my ship and my crew and the wind in my face, but now the only wind I get in my face comes out of some fat nobleman's mouth!"

"It's time to be respectable," Keritanima told her.

"Respectable stinks!" Sheba said in a furious tone. "If I wanted respectable, I'd have been a more dutiful daughter!"

Keritanima chuckled. Seeing Sheba squirm a bit was entertaining. "It's your father's fault, Sheba. He should never have plotted against me. I don't play games anymore."

"My father was such a jackass," she fumed. "Not that I really care that you killed him, Kerri, but I really hate you for sticking me on his throne."

"That's an unusual response, considering how far he went to get you back."

"He wasn't saving me, he was saving the house's reputation," Sheba growled. "You didn't see what happened after I got home. He had me chained to a wall for a week and whipped me once a day!"

"That's not very fun."

"Not at all," she grunted, leaning against a table. "Now I have to stand around and talk nice to a bunch of idiots, and sit in endless trade meetings and meet merchants. I hate it! It was alot easier when I just stole the goods instead of bought them!"

"At least until the law caught up with you."

"The law didn't catch up with me. You did. If it weren't for you, my ship wouldn't have been blown out of the water. And I think you're enjoying seeing me suffer now, aren't you?"

"A little," Keritanima admitted. "You have alot to answer for, Sheba. You stained the reputation of our entire kingdom. It's time to start cleaning the slate."

"I was happy being bad."

"Bad girls don't get very far, Sheba," Keritanima said sagely. "I think you'll find that if you apply yourself, you can find just as much satisfaction in trade as you did on your ship. Instead of trying to capture a ship, now you're trying to haggle just one more copper farthing out of some greedy trader's purse. Instead of the victory in battle, you get a victory in the trade agreement."

"It's not the same," she huffed.

"Of course not, but try to at least pretend," she replied. "It may take a while to adjust to it, and remember that it doesn't trap you on land. Arthas Zalan took a business trip here and there himself. You'll be on a ship again, you just won't be chasing innocent traders."

"Why are you helping me?" she asked suddenly.

Keritanima was brought up short. Why was she? Sheba had killed two men on the Star of Jerod and had really made a mess of their journey. But a part of her empathized a bit for the overwhelmed woman, and wanted to make things a bit easier for her. And there was absolutely no political motivations in it. It was a sincere desire to help. "I really don't know," Keritanima answered honestly. "I guess I just want to see you repent for your actions without having to suffer for them for the rest of your life."

"You're weird, Kerri."

"You're not the first person to tell me that," she replied with a slight smile.

"Bah. Anyway, let me get what I came here for, before I decide to take this dagger out and stick you with it in payment for the wonderful life you've stuck me with."

"At least that would be refreshingly direct," Keritanima chuckled as the panther Wikuni grabbed a loaf of bread, some cheese, a bottle of wine, and stalked out.

Keritanima crossed her arms and watched her walk out, then chuckled to herself. There went someone even more annoyed than she was.

Things were strangely tense when she returned to the apartment. Miranda was pacing, and Azakar was putting on his armor quickly as Binter sharpened the Knight's sword for him. The ten Royal Guards outside the apartment had made no facial or body language indications that anything untowards had happened, so the agitation of her friends was just a bit disconcerting. "What's your problem?" she asked as she pushed the tray with their breakfast into the sitting room. To keep her friends safe, she wouldn't even allow a servant to touch the tray.

"We just got visited," Miranda said immediately. "By your father himself. I'm surprised you didn't pass him in the hallway."

Keritanima raised an brow. "What did he say?"

"He didn't say anything," she replied. "He just asked for you. When I told him you weren't here, he left. I heard him tell the Chamberlain to find you and have you brought to his study."

"Who was with him?"

"About ten guards, the Chamberlain, about four men wearing the badges of advisors, and two or three men wearing priest's cassocks," she replied.

"Strange. His spies should have told him I wasn't here, unless he came on purpose," she said frettingly. This was an unexpected development, something that she didn't think would happen. Her father was terrified of her, and he knew that she would kill him if she had half the chance. Wiping out a room of dignitaries would be little obstruction to getting at her father, and having a good chance of getting away with it. He had to be aware of that. So why risk getting within her hand's reach, unless maybe he was getting desperate? "Finish getting dressed, Zak. I need you two to be ready for anything."

"What's your plan?"

"Saving the Chamberlain the trouble of tracking me down," she replied. "Azakar, you're staying here with Miranda. I want you to barricade yourself behind the doors in Binter's bedroom before me and Binter leave."

"Barricade? You mean stack furniture in front of them?"

"I mean just that," she said bluntly. "I'm going to Ward and trap the door into my bedroom, the door into yours and Binter's room, and Ward Binter's room so nobody can break through the walls, floor, or ceiling. That way, anyone who finds a way into the apartment has to go through at least two magical traps to reach you."

"Why the safeguards?"

"Because my father has no reason to want to see me out of court," she stated analytically. "He knows that if I catch him alone or with a small group, I can kill all of them just to get rid of the witnesses when I kill him. He had no earthly reason to want to get within a hundred yards of me without a few hundred people to see it. The fact that he wants me out of my apartment only means that there's a reason he wants me out of my apartment."

"I guess that makes sense," Azakar agreed.

As Binter and Azakar pulled the apartment's furniture into the room they shared, Keritanima wove her Wards on the doors. They were lethal Wards, designed to kill anyone who touched them except for her, Binter, Miranda, or Azakar, and she wove it so tightly that the Ward would last all day. She also Warded the bars on her window, which would cause them to kill any living beings that came into contact with them. After she was done, she carried everything she wanted kept secret and safe into Binter's room, such as the satchel of papers, the crest and other secret items she owned, and a few other odds and ends she preferred not to be handled by someone else. While she waited for Binter and Azakar to stack heavy furniture up against the door leading into her bedroom, she wove together the powerful Ward onto the walls, floor, and ceiling of the room. It was a Ward mainly designed to harden the stone and prevent anything less than a Giant from breaking through them. She also wove into it certain safeguards that would only permit fresh air to pass into the room, stopping any smoke, poisonous or drugged gasses, or fire from penetrating into the chamber.