"Veranika," Keritanima began, and just saying her name made the fourteen year old fall to her knees. "Of all my treacherous sisters, you were probably the least treacherous. Your games and plots were more to annoy me than anything else, and because of that, I'm going to be a little bit more lenient on you. You will therefore be taken from here and be made to strip naked, then you will be paddled. You will be paddled once a day for ten days, receiving fifty strikes at each paddling. One spanking for each of your little plots that annoyed me. After that, you will be shipped off to the Cabottshire School, where you will learn what it takes to be a good merchant. And you will be the best in your class, Veranika," Keritanima warned dangerously. "You will make me proud, or I'll strip you of your title and name so fast you won't know what happened. After you finish school, you'll return to the house and take up your rightful place in it.
" But," she said sharply, "in order to get such lenient treatment, you have to do the same thing Jenawalani did. You have to renounce any claim on the throne, and any possibility that you will ever be queen. You must give up your title as Princess."
"Anything! I swear by Kikkali that I renounce my title of Princess! I swear that I'll never sit on the throne of Wikuna! I give up the title of Princess!"
"Good enough. Now get out of here, and remember that keeping your position depends entirely on how well you do."
"I'll make you proud, your Majesty!" she blubbered through teary sniffles.
"Now get out of my sight. Shan, pick someone suitable to spank my sister. Hard enough to make her regret crossing me, but don't do her any permanent harm."
"I will tend to it personally, your Majesty," Shan replied with a bow. He walked over and grabbed Veranika by the wrist, and then after making her curtsy to Keritanima, he dragged her out of the Hall.
Her going easy on her sisters had been more or less necessary. Stripping Jenawalani and Veranika of their titles didn't make them any less in line for the throne. Even without their titles, they would still be princesses, and that made them dangerous, because all it would take would be Keritanima's death to put them right back in the Palace. This way, by giving a little bit, she wrested formal oaths out of them that ensured they could never hold the throne. And since they would both be too busy-and too frightened-to try anything to get back at her, she was content that their threat to her life and position were effectively neutralized.
Keritanima sighed slightly and returned to the throne. "My first act as Queen is to decree that I hereby repeal all decrees of law made by my father concerning me and himself over the last three months. The Queen is again subject to common law, and as most of you realize, the law I used to get here is again repealed. I'm not leaving that out there for any of you to try," she snorted. "The technical jargon of the decree will be written and inscribed into law by tomorrow, for any who wish to read it. My first act is to dismiss the entirety of my father's staff except for the Lord Chamberlain, the Clerk of Law, and Master Jervis, chief of intelligence. I appoint Miranda Longtail to the position of Prime Advisor, who will now have the power to hire the remainder of my staff as she sees fit. Binter and Sisska of Vendaka and Azakar Kanash are hereby appointed as the personal Royal Bodyguards, who answer only to me.
"I think that's enough excitement for one day. I call this audience to be concluded. Everyone go home and keep calm. Lord Chamberlain, have the announcement posted that Damon Eram has abdicated the throne, and that I have taken his place as Queen."
"It will be done, your Majesty," he said in a calm voice and a slight smile.
The process hadn't been without wrinkles, and her father had managed to provide them.
Things had been quiet and they had been tense that first night, because her father, her good old conniving, cunning father, had set up an escape route for himself before coming into the Hall. It explained why it took him so long to act on the information that the Vendari had marched into the city. The two Vendari guards that were taking him to a hospital were attacked by a full company of army regulars just outside the Palace. Both Vendari survived the assault, but not before being seriously wounded and killing about thirty of the soldiers that attacked them. Riding on the heels of his retreating men, Damon Eram had escaped.
He wasted no time organizing an armed attempt to recover his crown. Most of the army was still loyal to Damon Eram, so he had little trouble rallying the entirety of the army presence in Wikuna on the wide plain north of the city, preparing to march in and attack those forces loyal to Keritanima. But the Vendari formed up and marched to meet them, outraged over the assault on their own, before Keritanima could so much as issue a single command.
The day after her coronation was marked with severe violence, and not a little bit of chaos and strife. The day after her coronation, fifty thousand Wikuni army soldiers were challenged by ten thousand Vendari warriors on the Plain of Wikuna. They issued their challenge at sunrise, and before most Wikuni woke up for breakfast, nearly ten thousand dead bodies littered the field. The Vendari met the vastly larger force head on, in classic Vendari style, and had utterly crushed them. There had only been four hundred casualties among sashka 's forces, causing more than thirty casualties to the rebel forces for every casualty they suffered. Damon Eram had to be truly insane to attempt to fight a Vendari army without artillery or cavalry support. He had literally formed them up with nothing but muskets and sent them to their doom! Most of the casualties suffered by the Vendari had been in the initial volley, and the Vendari had closed the distance and engaged the Wikuni hand to hand before they had the chance to reload. The reserves were ordered to fire into the throng holding their own soldiers by Damon Eram, and by that time the generals had realized that Damon Eram was going to get them all killed. They took him prisoner and tried to parlay for surrender, but by then it was too late. The Vendari were incensed at the attack, and they were there to crush the rebellion. The generals, wise Wikuni they were, ordered a full retreat, then ran with their tails between their legs.
The battle pained Keritanima. She had been personally responsible for a great many deaths, and it gave her a small idea of how Tarrin felt when he struggled with his own demons. It wouldn't have been as many if the Vendari wouldn't have been so adamant about punishing Damon Eram for the wounding of Vendari, if she had been there to reign them in once an attempt to surrender had been offered. But sashka hadn't even told her of his intent to challenge the rebel forces alone. She had been rallying the soldiers loyal to her and the armies of the noble houses to face Damon Eram's men with a vastly superior force to try to intimidate them into surrender. And that sneaky Vendari had simply walked out after insisting she go to bed and marched his Vendari to face her father! That made her nearly as angry as the idea that her subjects had shed each other's blood over her pained her.
But in the end, she had to admit that it could have been worse. Sashka 's charge had prevented Damon Eram from escaping and gathering even more men, making her succession a real civil war. She still absolutely could not fathom what insanity her father had been under to think that his soldiers could stand a chance against Vendari without artillery or cavalry. Maybe he really did go crazy. Or maybe he had been willing to throw away all their lives to attempt to break up the alliance that Keritanima had forged among the noble houses. Such brutal disregard for life was something for which Damon Eram was notorious.
In the end, she didn't know, and she doubted she ever would, because if she ever faced her father again, she would kill him. They had locked him up in the sanitarium, and as far as she was concerned, he could sit there and rot until time withered him to nothing, raging with the memories of what he had once been, and knowing that he had brought it all upon himself.
The battle had sent Wikuna into a panic. Keritanima had been forced to bring out the army loyal to her to restore order, to ensure the people that someone was still in charge, that the threat was over. It forced her to wait for nearly three days before making her first public appearance, to let the people calm down over the frightening war that had taken place only miles from the edge of the city. She had to give the people time to let the shock of the War of the Morning dissipate.